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Hindustan Times August 27,2020 While addressing an event on making India self-reliant in defence sector through video conference, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday that government aims to increase defence manufacturing in India “For many years, India has been one of the biggest defence importers. When India got independence, it had great capability in defence manufacturing and an ecosystem of defence manufacturing established over 100 years. Unfortunately, this subject couldn’t get requisite attention,” the prime minister said at Atmanirbhar Bharat Defence Industry Outreach Webinar. The prime minister further said that a decision has been taken to permit up to 74% FDI (foreign direct investment) in the defence manufacturing through automatic route. “Efforts being made to boost defence production, develop new technology and give big role to private players in defence sector,” PM Modi said. Import embargo on certain defence equipment aimed at giving boost to I

The Print August 27, 2020   There’s hardly anyone buying new ships, with orders plunging to a 20-year low due to a potent combination of uncertainty over environmental regulations, the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic and a lack of financing. “The IMO has brought in significant, ambitious and important targets around emissions,” said Clarksons Research’s managing director Stephen Gordon. It remains unclear the exact policies and regulations that might be introduced and what technology will be adopted, he said. Ships are long-term investments, and buyers run the risk that their vessels will become obsolete. The global shipping industry is in the midst of one of its biggest changes in a generation after stricter environmental rules kicked in at the start of the year. Ship owners face paying more for cleaner fuel, retrofitting ships with pollution-reducing scrubbers or even ordering new vessels. Compounding the uncertainty has been Covid-19, which has upended sup

The Print August 28, 2020 In its annual report released this week, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) stressed the criticality of recapitalisation of banks amid the pandemic and economic downturn. But in the last few months, public sector banks (PSBs) haven’t been able to raise funds even as leading private sector banks have done so in anticipation of higher provision needs. Analysts estimate that PSBs require around Rs 60,000 crore in the current financial year, but these banks are currently struggling to raise capital despite facing asset quality challenges amid the Covid-19 pandemic. To make matters worse, the government hasn’t allocated any capital for PSBs in this year’s Union Budget, after infusing Rs 2.65 lakh crore in the previous three fiscals. On their part, the private banks have done better. Earlier this month, ICICI Bank raised Rs 15,000 crore while Axis Bank picked up Rs 10,000 crore from the markets to strengthen their capital ratios. Even the struggling len

Live Mint August 27, 2020 A five-judge constitution bench of Supreme Court on Thursday observed that there can be sub classifications within scheduled castes (SCs) and scheduled tribes (STs) for granting them reservation; it disagreed with another Supreme Court verdict on the subject delivered in 2005. The court held that since the 2005 decision was also of five –judge bench, “We cannot revisit E.V. Chinnaiah being Bench of coordinate strength. We request the Hon’ble Chief Justice to place the matters before a Bench comprising of 7 Judges or more as considered appropriate." The bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra opined that since state governments have powers to make reservations, they also have the powers to make further sub-classifications in the reservation list. Justice Mishra, while reading the operative part of the judgment, said, “In a federal structure, the state government cannot be denied the power to make laws to give preferential treatment to sub-cate