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 The Telegraph  September 29, 2020 One possible reason is that the MPC lacked quorum after the Centre failed to name the replacements for the three independent members whose ended in August The Reserve Bank of India on Monday postponed the three-day meeting of the monetary policy committee that was scheduled to begin on Tuesday but gave no reason for the unprecedented decision. One possible reason is that the committee lacked the quorum to meet after the government failed to name the replacements for the three independent members whose four-year term ended in August. The three independent members of the MPC — Chetan Ghate, Pami Dua and Ravindra Dholakia — had been appointed in 2016. Under the RBI Act, the independent members of the committee cannot be reappointed after their terms end. At the same time, the six-member MPC has to have a quorum of four with at least one of them being the RBI governor or the deputy governor. The three independent members of the MPC are appointed by the ce

 The Indian Express September 29, 2020 Director General (Acquisitions) Apurva Chandra said changes to the defence procurement policy will not be retrospective and ongoing deals will not be impacted The government has decided not to have an offset clause in procurement of defence equipment if the deal is done through inter-government agreement (IGA), government-to-government or an ab initio single vendor. The offset clause requires a foreign vendor to invest a part of the contract value in India. The decision, part of the government’s new policy for defence acquisitions, was approved by the Defence Acquisition Council Monday. Unveiling the new policy, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, in a Twitter post, said it has been “aligned” with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat and empowering the Indian domestic industry through Make in India initiative with the ultimate aim of turning India into a global manufacturing hub”. He said with the “new Foreign Direct Investment

 Hindustan Times September 28, 2020 A Delhi court on Monday declared Sandesara brothers, promoters of Gujarat based Sterling group, fugitive economic offenders. The action has been taken on a petition by the Enforcement Directorate (ED). The Sandesara brothers - Nitin and Chetan - along with latter’s wife wife Dipti have been declared fugitives under the Fugitive Economic Offenders (FEO) Act. They left India in 2017 after allegedly swindling several banks of Rs 14,500 crore through bank loans. Their last known location, according to investigating agencies, is Nigeria. Only Vijay Mallya and Nirav Modi have been declared fugitive economic offenders before them. The FEO act gives powers to the ED to attach assets of accused anywhere in the world. The ED had registered a criminal case in the alleged bank fraud scam based on a Central Bureau of Investigation FIR and charge sheet. The Sandesaras are being probed by multiple agencies, including the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and th

The Centre for Internet and Society Open Magazine In 1976, at the height of the Emergency imposed by Indira Gandhi, India’s Parliament enacted a piece of legislation called the Foreign Regulation Contribution Act. It prohibited political parties and ‘organisations of a political nature’, civil servants and judges, as also correspondents, columnists and editors/owners of registered newspapers and news broadcasting organisations— and even cartoonists—from receiving foreign contributions. The very fact that the Act makes a specific reference to cartoonists should be hint enough of the establishment’s paranoia vis-à-vis the ‘invisible hand’ of foreign powers back then. During a Rajya Sabha debate on the proposed bill on 9 March 1976, the term ‘CIA’ (Central Intelligence Agency) was mentioned at least 30 times by different legislators, while ‘Lockheed Martin’ (a military aerospace corporation) came up at least six times in the context of alleged instances of Americans pumping dollars into g

The Eurasian Times September 29, 2020 Even though China might be the first one to recover from the ongoing pandemic, but COVID-19 has drowned many economies, got businesses bust and hampered some of the most ambitious and well-financed projects including the Chinese-funded Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Started in 2013, the Belt and Road (previously known as the One Belt One Road or New Silk Route) has never faced such setbacks as it has in 2020, especially with its flagship project of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). According to reports, Andrew Small of the German Marshall Fund has been questioning the credibility of the CPEC. “Even before the pandemic, CPEC had stalled. Not only the figures commonly cited for the total package of projects under this framework since its launch in 2015- which runs as high as $62 billion – no longer accurate, investments of that magnitude are not under consideration either,” he says. He further quotes a Chinese official claiming the project ha

 Hindustan Times September 28, 2020 The Mistry family’s stake, held through two investment firms, is estimated to be Rs 1.5 lakh crore, according to the valuations submitted to the Supreme Court. On September 22, the Shapoorji Pallonji group said in a statement that it wants to end its seven-decades-long relationship with the Tata group. The Tata group has reached out to several investors, including sovereign wealth funds, to raise funds to buy out the Mistry family’s stake in Tata Sons Ltd, two people directly aware of the ongoing negotiations said. N Chandrasekaran, chairman of Tata Sons, is leading the talks with potential investors, the success of which will determine whether the bitter feud between the Tata group and its biggest minority shareholder, the Mistry family, ends, the people said, requesting anonymity. “Chandrasekaran has spoken to several potential investors, including a large European sovereign wealth fund,” said one of the two people cited above. “The discussions are

 The Telegraph  September 28, 2020 Sales of compact SUVs have bucked the auto industry trend during the pandemic. The segment is the most populated in the market following back-to-back launches of the Kia Sonet and Toyota Urban Cruiser last week. With the SUV body style proving to be the most preferred among consumers, the entry-level segment is witnessing phenomenal growth even in a depressed market. “The compact SUV segment has grown from 3.5 per cent of the total automobile sales three years ago to 13 per cent now,” said an industry source. The segment that was made popular by Ford EcoSport has now several contenders starting with the Maruti Vitara Brezza, Tata Nexon, Hyundai Venue and now the Sonet and the Urban Cruiser. “With so many players in the segment, there is a good traction of demand,” said Shashank Srivastava, executive director, Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL). While the Brezza was initially launched in 2016 with just a diesel powertrain, the company changed strategy

 The Telegraph September 28, 2020 Health insurance premium is set to increase from October as companies factor in the changes mandated by regulator IRDAI on standardisation and a clutch of related regulations. The regulator in a bid to cut down on the complexities of health insurance policy documents and make certain aspects of coverage more easier for the policyholder to understand has come out with a set of guidelines, and products not in conformity with the rules cannot be offered and promoted from October 1, 2020. As a part of the changes, insurers can introduce EMI payment options in their health insurance products on a certification basis. Additionally, in a bid to standardise exclusions across all health insurance products, the regulator has come up with codes for each exclusion and the definition or wordings for these exclusions. Earlier the exclusions and their wordings were different across insurers. From October, there will be parity in terms of exclusions under health insur

 Firstpost September 28, 2020 A state-wide bandh is being observed in Karnataka on Monday by various farmers' organisations, protesting the amendments to the APMC and land reforms acts made by the BS Yediyurappa government. The dawn-to-dusk bandh call has been supported by several pro-Kannada and other outfits besides the Opposition parties Congress and the JD(S), who had opposed the amendment bills in the Assembly. It is also backed by several labour organisations who are protesting against amendments to certain labour laws during the brief Assembly session that concluded on Saturday. Warning of stern action against any forcible enforcement of the bandh, the state government has said it would take all necessary steps to ensure that there was no disruption to the normal functioning of its offices, hospitals, shops and establishments and maintaining services of taxis and buses. It has defended the bills, saying the measures had been brought with an intention to give freedom to the f

 Firstpost September 27, 2020 Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Danish counterpart Mette Frederiksen will hold a virtual summit on Monday that will provide a broad political direction to strengthen the collaborative bilateral partnership, the Ministry of External Affairs said on Sunday. "​An MoU in the field of intellectual property cooperation between India and Denmark is being signed on the occasion. Another major outcome will be the joining of the International Solar Alliance (ISA) by Denmark," the MEA said in a statement. The ​summit is being hosted by India. Denmark is a key country in Northern Europe with whom India's bilateral trade ties witnessed a significant expansion in the last few years. "The virtual bilateral summit will give an opportunity to the two leaders to comprehensively review the broad framework of the bilateral relationship in the context of the time-tested friendly ties between the two countries and give broad political direction for a str

 The Telegraph  September 28, 2020 In investing, every little quirk can be explained with an analogy drawn from cricket. It would be perfectly normal, therefore, to brand passive investing as a leisurely test match spread over several days, and active investing as a high-energy T-20 match complete with sudden bursts of excitement every now and then. The former, typically discharged by mirroring an index, attempts not to beat the market, while the latter is all about outperforming it by as wide a margin as possible. That said, passive investing seems to be set for an exponential growth in India. Indexing has already drawn the attention of new investors and various market intermediaries are working out smarter ways to introduce index-based investing.  Asset management companies, for instance, are really in a position to steer the trend — so much so that every fourth draft offer document for mutual funds, as released by Sebi these days, draws its core strength from one index or another. T

 The Telegraph September 28, 2020 Sri Lankan Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa sought an additional currency swap facility and deferment of debt payments from India during an online bilateral summit with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday, Indian officials said. Sri Lanka owes about $960 million to India and earlier this year India agreed to a $400-million currency swap facility for Sri Lanka until November 2022. “An additional request for a bilateral currency swap arrangement worth around $1 billion by the Sri Lankan side remains under discussion,” said the Indian foreign ministry in a statement. Modi told his Sri Lankan counterpart that under the country’s “Neighbourhood First” policy, India will continue to “give special priority to relations between the two countries”, said the officials. Sri Lanka, located off the southern tip of India, has become an arena of competing influence between India and China, which has built ports, power stations and highways as part of President X

 The Indian Express September 28, 2020 Currency with public hit a new high of Rs 26 lakh crore for the first time as resident Indians continued to increase their cash holding amidst the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, though the pace of increase has declined over the last couple of months. According to data released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), in the fortnight ended September 11, the currency with public increased by Rs 17,891 crore to hit a new high of Rs 26 lakh crore. Since the fortnight ended February 28, 2020, when the currency in circulation was Rs 22.55 lakh crore, it has risen by Rs 3.45 lakh crore to hit Rs 26 lakh crore on September 11, 2020, as per the RBI data. During demonetisation in 2016, the government said that it wanted to make India a ‘less cash economy’. The cash with public has risen nearly 45 per cent from what it was before demonetisation. While currency with public stood at Rs 17.97 lakh crore as on November 4, 2016, soon after demonetisation, it had declined

 The Indian Express September 28, 2020 SIX MONTHS INTO the Covid-19 pandemic, and a sharp 23.9 per cent GDP contraction in April-June following a strict national lockdown, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said Saturday the economy continues to face challenges of a different nature with no clear-cut end date for the pandemic, especially in the absence of a sure-shot vaccine. In an interview to The Indian Express (detailed transcript to be published tomorrow), Sitharaman said, “Six months haven’t really reduced the challenges but the nature of challenges has changed… and the ministry is now quicker than what it was in terms of responding.” She said that although the numbers per million and the mortality ratio were both low for a variety of reasons — including heightened public awareness and caution — the Covid-19 was still very much a worry. From social distancing to face masks and frequent hand-washing, “you are doing all this with no material change in terms of handling the pa

 The Indian Express September 28, 2020 IT’S NOT just a wide range of central educational institutions, at least seven public sector banks, seven other leading financial institutions and insurers, and the RBI, have together contributed Rs 204.75 crore from their staff salaries to the Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations (PM CARES) fund, RTI records accessed by The Indian Express show. Of these, records show, Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), General Insurance Corporation of India (GIC) and National Housing Bank also contributed over Rs 144.5 crore separately from their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) allocation and other provisions. This takes the total contribution from the 15 government banks and institutions that responded to RTI queries from The Indian Express to Rs 349.25 crore. The Prime Minister’s Office, which manages the fund, has declined to furnish details of contributions received, saying that PM CARES is “not a public authori

 The Indian Express September 28, 2020 The passing of the farm bills in both the Houses of Parliament has sparked a major controversy in the country. The government claims that it is a historic step taken in the interest of farmers, giving them the freedom to sell their produce anywhere in the country and to any one they want. But the opposition parties described the passing of the bills as a “black day” because these pieces of legislation could destroy the existing system of minimum support price (MSP) and the APMC markets, leaving farmers at the mercy of big corporations. Where does the truth lie? Let us dig a little deeper into the economics and politics of it. The bills — The Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Bill, 2020 (FPTC); The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill, 2020 (FAPAFS); and The Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill, 2020 (ECA) — have to be seen in totality. Essentially, the FPTC breaks

  Hindustan Times September 28, 2020 Nobel laureate Douglass North wrote that institutions are made up of formal rules and informal norms of behaviour, and their enforcement characterise and shape human conduct and create incentives and disincentives for people to behave in a particular manner. The government of the day is supposed to create required institutions , incentives and structures for economic growth. Hence the need for laws, constitution and regulations. The evolution of laws over a period of time are not only essential but mandatory for growth in all spheres of human life. Any law made by the government needs to be implemented in letter and spirit by the system created for that purpose. One may call them inspectors or officials as per one’s own way of looking at the environment around themselves. Success or failure of the law in achieving its objectives depends on the integrity, efficiency and level of commitment of the implementing agency towards performance of duty. No la

Hindustan Times September 28, 2020 Indian companies with strong balance sheets have shaken off the shock from the coronavirus pandemic to chase overseas acquisitions, hoping to pick up attractive assets whose valuations have been hammered by the virus. While the pandemic has dragged India’s outbound deal volume down 23% this year, there have been signs of a recovery in recent weeks. Renewable energy company Greenko Inc., for instance, is in the race to acquire NEC Energy Solutions, a struggling US-based battery maker, Mint reported on Thursday. A day before, the UK’s SKY News reported that Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd is eyeing bankrupt retailer Debenhams. To be sure, Reliance has denied that it is looking at Debenhams. The ramifications of the crisis on businesses have not been uniform. Software services, drugs and packaged-food industry have either remained unscathed or caught the tailwind. Software services companies, for example, have seen demand for cloud computing

 Press Trust of India September 26, 2020 Finance ministry sources have countered CAG audit finding of central government wrongly retaining Rs 47,272 crore of GST compensation cess meant for states, saying temporary retention cannot be termed as diversion. Days after the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) flagged that the Centre in first two years of the GST implementation wrongly retained GST compensation cess that was meant to be used specifically to compensate states for loss of revenue, ministry sources said compensation due for the year 2017-18 and 2018-19 was fully paid to states. Time taken in reconciliation of compensation receipts can’t be termed as diversion of GST cess fund when the dues to states were fully released by the central government, they said. Sources said that in 2017-18, Rs 62,611 crore was collected, out of which the government released full compensation dues of Rs 41,146 crore to the states and union territories (UTs). In 2018-19, an amount of Rs 95,081 cror

 Hindustan Times  September 28, 2020 US President Donald Trump on Sunday (local time) said that Washington is looking into what can be done to stop the flare-up of tensions in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. Military hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan erupted along the region’s contact line on Sunday morning, with each side blaming the other for putting civilian lives in danger. “We are looking at it very strongly. We have a lot of good relationships in that area, we will see if we can stop it,” Trump told reporters at the White House. The US State Department said in a statement addressing the Nagorno-Karabakh escalation that the involvement of any external party would be “deeply unhelpful and only exacerbate regional tensions.” Washington urged the conflicting parties to cooperate with the Minsk Group co-chairs, which, aside from the US, include France and Russia, with the aim to “return to substantive negotiations as soon as possible.” (ANI/Sputnik) Reference:  https

 The Times of India September 27, 2020 British Prime Minister  Boris Johnson  made a special reference to India's role in the manufacture and access to one of the most promising  coronavirus  vaccine candidates currently undergoing trials during his address to the United Nations (UN) General Assembly. In reference to the vaccine being worked on by the University of Oxford, Johnson stressed the importance of equitable access of any successful vaccine because the health of every country depends on the whole world having access to a safe and effective vaccine, wherever a breakthrough might occur. "As I speak there are 100 potential vaccines that are trying to clear the hurdles of safety and efficacy, as if in a giant global steeplechase,” Johnson said in a prerecorded speech to the  United Nations General Assembly  on Saturday. "The Oxford vaccine is now in Stage 3 of clinical trials, and in case of success AstraZeneca has already begun to manufacture millions of doses, in r