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  Written by  P Vaidyanathan Iyer  | New Delhi  November 18, 2020 The new stimulus package reinforces the ‘fiscal conservatism’ ideology of the government — rather than large cash transfers, the growth philosophy centres around creating an ecosystem that aids domestic demand, incentivises companies to generate jobs and boost production. Atmanirbhar Bharat 3.0  may well be Finance Minister  Nirmala Sitharaman ’s last  Covid-19   relief package ahead of  Budget  2021-22, but there is a discernible pattern to the four major announcements made over the last seven months. It reinforces the ‘fiscal conservatism’ ideology of the government under Prime Minister  Narendra Modi  — rather than large cash transfers, the growth philosophy centres around creating an ecosystem that aids domestic demand, incentivises companies to generate jobs and boost production, and simultaneously extends benefits to those in severe distress, be it firms or individuals. The headline numbers — stimulus of Rs 29,87,6

The Indian Express Written by  Shubhajit Roy   New Delhi |  November 14, 2020   The meeting will discuss ways and means to strengthen the EAS platform and to make it more responsive to emerging challenges on its 15th anniversary, an official statement from the Ministry of External Affairs said on Friday. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar will Saturday represent India at the 15th East Asia Summit (EAS), which provides a platform for discussion on important strategic issues in the Indo-Pacific region. Last year, PM  Narendra Modi  had represented India at the EAS in Bangkok, Thailand. The virtual summit meeting will be chaired by the Prime Minister of Vietnam, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, and see participation from all the 18 EAS countries —10  ASEAN  countries (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam), Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Russia and the United States. The meeting will discuss ways and means to str

The Indian Express   Written by  Khushboo Narayan  Mumbai |  Updated: November 14, 2020 In a relief to the former ICICI Bank chief executive officer  Chanda Kochhar  and her husband  Deepak Kochhar , the adjudicating authority under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) on Friday said their assets attached by the Enforcement Directorate do not qualify as proceeds of crime. The PMLA has not confirmed the attachment of assets, worth Rs 78.15 crore, by the ED. The acting chairperson of the authority, Tushar V Shah, in a 798 page order said that the assets of Deepak Kochhar do not qualify as proceeds of crime under PMLA. Read|  Special court rejects bail plea by Deepak Kochhar The ED had provisionally attached movable and immovable assets of Kochhar including the flat at CCI Chambers, land, cash, plant and machinery at Windfarm Projects located in Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra. The agency is likely to challenge the order before the appellate authority. However, Vikram Hegde, advocate

 The Economic Times HDFC AMC gets index help This just happened.  Navneet Munot, the chief investment officer at SBI Mutual Fund is now appointed as the new managing director and CEO of HDFC AMC. He replaces Milind Barve, the present managing director of the AMC. Hidden in plain sight.  SBI MF was still a mid-sized mutual fund when Munot took over as CIO in 2008.  He got corporate governance on the front foot at SBI MF and delivered returns in its equity funds.  Later, he successfully put up the biggest ETF in the country with a present size of INR74,000 crore of assets under management with the EPFO as its top investor. Those who know him say that he is the best person for the top job at HDFC AMC, the biggest private-sector mutual fund with assets worth INR1.38 lakh crore in equities. Many of HDFC AMC’s funds are underperforming the benchmark indices. One last thing.  HDFC AMC has so far not taken much interest in ETFs. The size of its Nifty ETF is INR468 crore, small by industry benc

Hindustan Times   Updated: Nov 20, 2020, 09:52 IST Zia Haq Hindustan Times, New Delhi India’s decision to stay out of the China-backed Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, or RCEP, Asia’s mega free-trade agreement (FTA), has been met both with a sense of approval and disappointment and divided economists on the issue. The RCEP is an FTA between the 10 members of the ASEAN as well as China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand. Will India lose out on opportunities of trade and investment an FTA expectedly offers, or are we better off without it? Free trade should drive prosperity for all. After all, humanity has ventured far and wide since ancient times to trade, guided by the principle of comparative advantage i.e. countries export stuff they can make cheaply at home and import goods costlier to produce domestically. That’s the theory. Also Read:  China perceives rising India as ‘rival’; wants to constraint its partnership with US, allies: report In reality, trade imb

Hindustan Times  Updated: Nov 20, 2020, 07:32 IST Shishir Gupta Hindustan Times, New Delhi While Hindustan Times has already reported the PLA’s force accretion in East Ladakh, something that reduces the chances of the status quo ante being restored at friction points, Indian military commanders are concerned about the build-up across the LAC, from Kaurik Pass in Himachal Pradesh to Fish Tail I and II in Arunachal Pradesh. China has surreptitiously undertaken a large military infrastructure upgrade in the central, Sikkim and eastern sectors with simultaneous strengthening of surface-to-air missile sites, an increase in unmanned aerial vehicle numbers, and an expansion of airbases in Tibet while the world’s attention has been focused on Beijing’s hostile moves on the line of actual control (LAC) in Eastern Ladakh and its tense stand-off with India, according to people familiar with the matter. While Hindustan Times has already reported the PLA’s force accretion in East Ladakh, something

The Indian Express By:  ENS Economic Bureau  | New Delhi  November 20, 2020 7:36:15 am   Arguing that India’s weak fiscal response plays a role in magnifying the structural drags, it noted the “GDP per capita to be 12 per cent below our pre-virus baseline even in 2025, implying the largest amount of scarring among major economies globally.” The long-term scars caused by  Covid-19   pandemic , amid a weak fiscal stimulus by the government, would push India’s trend growth substantially lower from pre-Covid levels, causing a large medium term output loss, according to Oxford Economics. It forecast the potential growth to average just 4.5 per cent over 2020-2025, as opposed to its pre-virus forecast of 6.5 per cent. Arguing that India’s weak fiscal response plays a role in magnifying the structural drags, it noted the “GDP per capita to be 12 per cent below our pre-virus baseline even in 2025, implying the largest amount of scarring among major economies globally.” India’s gross domestic p

The Indian Express  By:  Express News Service  | New Delhi  Updated: November 20, 2020     India on Thursday said it will continue dialogue and communication through military and diplomatic channels with China on the border standoff in eastern Ladakh and that both sides have agreed to hold another round of talks soon. External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava, while referring to the ongoing military talks between the two countries, also rejected as “baseless” a report in a British daily The Times, which quoted a Chinese professor to claim that the Chinese PLA had used “microwave weapons” to force Indian soldiers to leave positions in eastern Ladakh. He said the objective of the military talks is to ensure complete disengagement and full restoration of peace and tranquillity along the LAC in the western sector. At an online media briefing, he recalled the eighth round of talks between senior military commanders of India and China in Chushul on November 6. These discussion

 Reuters By  Neha Arora ,  Sudarshan Varadhan NOVEMBER 19, 2020 NEW DELHI/CHENNAI (Reuters) - Adani Green Energy's  ADNA.NS  record $6 billion solar power project announced in June has no guaranteed customer, its deal with India's main solar-adoption agency shows, and may expose the company to higher financial risk. Shares in the firm, controlled by billionaire Gautam Adani, have soared three-fold since the signing of the 8 gigawatt (GW) multi-plant deal, which Adani hailed as the “largest of its type, ever” and a landmark for India. However, previously unreported details of the agreement between Adani Green and Solar Energy Corp of India Ltd (SECI) reveal the agency has no “legal or financial obligation” to support the project if SECI fails to find buyers. This would be the first major SECI project without a state-guaranteed Power Purchase Agreement (PPA), which analysts say has been key to building up India’s renewable energy sector. When SECI floated the tender for the proje