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Sunny Verma, November 24, 2017 Tightening its insolvency rules, the Government Thursday notified an Ordinance raising the bar for loan defaulters from bidding to buy back their assets when they are auctioned as part of bankruptcy proceedings. President Ram Nath Kovind gave his assent to the Ordinance approved by the Union Cabinet to amend the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) which is aimed at strengthening the stressed-asset resolution process. The Ordinance spells out norms on who cannot be a resolution applicant for companies undergoing corporate insolvency resolution process (CIRP) under the IBC. Those who have been banned from bidding for stressed assets include willful defaulters, un-discharged insolvent, persons convicted of an offence or disqualified as a director under the Company law, loan guarantor, persons banned from trading in securities market, and an account classified as NPA for more than one year and failing to pay overdue amount before submission of bids...

Sitakanta Panda & Santosh Kumar Dash ,  November 24, 2017 The media and public discourses in advanced countries have been all agog about the idea of universal basic income (UBI) due in parts to rising unemployment, automation and income inequalities. UBI talks about giving unconditional cash transfers to all the citizens of a country to ensure a minimum standard of living. In India, however, it is being debated for quite some time for a different reason—it is lapped up as an antidote to poverty. For decades, India’s poverty alleviation programmes were based on targeting the beneficiaries, which resulted in both inclusion and exclusion errors, due to ubiquity of corruption and political clientelism. Some people say a good approach to overcome this drawback is about finding out who deserves welfare entitlements in lieu of who does not. The 2017 Economic Survey parrots similar lines when it argues that India, instead of having de jure universality, should have de facto UBI, ...

November 23, 2017 India on Thursday expressed displeasure at the  imminent release of Jamaatud Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Mohammad Saeed , who it accuses of organising the 2008 Mumbai attacks. A day earlier, the Lahore High Court had refused to extend detention orders against Saeed, whose current house arrest is going to expire on Nov 24 (Friday). The review board under the chair of Justice Abdul Sami Khan passed these orders after a senior finance ministry official failed to convince the board that the release of Saeed would bring diplomatic and financial problems to the country. The JuD chief had been placed under house arrest on January 31 for 90 days. Subsequently, his house arrest had been extended several times. “India is outraged that a self-confessed and a UN proscribed terrorist is allowed to walk free and continue with his agenda,” Raveesh Kumar, India's foreign ministry spokesman, told reporters at a weekly briefing in New Delhi. Kumar said Saeed's releas...

                                                                   Krishnadas Rajgopal, November 23, 2017     The Supreme Court on Thursday struck down a provision which can deny a person bail even if there is reasonable ground to believe that he or she did not commit the offence of money laundering. Noting that the history of bail practices traces back to the Magna Carta, the apex court declared Section 45(1) of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) of 2002 violative of the fundamental rights to equality, life and personal liberty guaranteed under the Constitution. A Bench of Justices Rohinton Nariman and S.K. Kaul, in their judgment, passed a general direction to courts in the land to take up thousands of cases of undertrials who have been languishing in prisons, unable to get bail, be...

                                                                 Josy Joseph, November 24,2017          A company floated by Union Minister Nitin Gadkari’s private secretary has been raising funds and organising events with support from the government, raising questions about a possible violation of rules governing the conduct of civil servants. Vaibhav Dange was appointed private secretary to the Minister for Road Transport, Highways and Shipping for five years on a contract basis. His appointment was notified on August 8, 2014, with the approval of the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet. Mr. Dange, an old loyalist of Mr. Gadkari, floated the ‘Indian Federation of Green Energy’ (IFGE) on October 9, 2014, along with Motiram Kisanrao Patil, a resident of Chalisgaon, Maharashtra. Both he...

November 23, 2017 November 23, 2017 The Islamic State’s online propaganda channels went mysteriously quiet for more than a full day between Wednesday and Thursday, in what analysts said was an “unprecedented” silence. IS, which uses messaging application Telegram to broadcast daily updates on military operations and claims of attacks, published nothing between 0900 GMT on Wednesday and 1001 GMT on Thursday. Charlie Winter, senior research fellow at the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence, called the silence “unprecedented.” “The deceleration in the production of IS  media  has been particularly profound over the last couple of weeks,” said Mr. Winter. “But there were no 24-hour periods when it was completely silent,” he said. IS’s Telegram channels usually post more than a dozen messages each day, ranging from multilingual radio broadcasts on battlefield achievements to pictures of civilian life in the group’s self-styled...

Girish Chandra Prasad, November 24,2017 The finance ministry is considering introducing more incentives for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) that comply with the requirements of the new goods and services tax (GST) regime, including access to loans at discounted rates, in an attempt to reward early adopters and encourage others to comply. A senior government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said this is one of the ideas being considered in the ministry. MSMEs have been at the forefront of the protests against GST. Many of these enterprises operated in the informal economy and several got away by paying a fraction of the taxes they should have. The new tax regime has hit them hard. For instance, MSMEs that were suppliers to large companies were clearly told by the latter to comply with the regime. If they didn’t, the larger companies couldn’t claim input tax credit. The proposed incentives are meant to complement the drive to integrate the cash-drive...

Vijay Sardana, November 24,2017 Thousands of farmers marched in Delhi on Monday, demanding a one-time full loan waiver, fair crop prices and the fulfilment of the Centre’s promises to them. PM Narendra Modi had promised a minimum of 50% profits over the cost of production during the 2014 election, based on the recommendation of the National Commission of Farmers chaired by Prof. M S Swaminathan. In 2015, the Centre dropped the proposal stating it may lead to market distortion. ThePrint asks: Is the Swaminathan committee recommendation on MSP a practical solution to farmers grievances in India? The report has suggested a whole range of solutions to improve the foundations of sustainable agriculture, facilitate rural credit and boost farm economy. Unfortunately, from the whole report, the political class and the farmer’s leaders picked up the most convenient dimension of the increases in MSP because this does not need any serious planning and thinking. This was the e...

TIMESOFINDIA.COM | Updated: Nov 22, 2017, 19:33 IST Days before the anniversary of the 26/11 attack, a judicial body in Pakistan on Wednesday ordered the release of Mumbai terror attack mastermind and Jamaat-ud-Dawah chief Hafiz Saeed from house arrest, PTI has reported. A judicial review board, comprising judges of the Lahore High Court, rejected a request from the government of Pakistan's Punjab, to extend Saeed's detention by three months. "The government is ordered to release JuD chief Hafiz Saeed if he is not wanted in any other case," PTI quoted the board as saying. The board rejected the plea to extend his detention on the grounds of insufficient evidence, reported Pakistani newspaper Dawn. Saeed may walk free in a couple of days if the government does not detain him in any other case. According to a source in the Punjab government, the government is considering detaining him in another case. "The government cannot afford to set Saeed fre...

BY MANOJ GAIROLA ON 22/11/2017 In what appears to be a gross violation of the Supreme Court judgement on the 2G spectrum case, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) is considering allotting 7000 MHz of V-band spectrum without conducting auctions. If the department succeeds in allotting spectrum on first-come-first-served basis (FCFS) without auction, it would be running against the logic laid down by the 2G judgement, as V-band airwaves have very high potential for commercial applications. The Supreme Court had clearly laid down that the government shall allocate spectrum to private players only through an auction process. It is difficult to quantify the size of potential revenue loss for the government if V-band spectrum is given away for free. This is because the market value of spectrum, in most cases, can be realised only through an auction process. However, if we go by the methodology adopted by the former CAG Vinod Rai under whom the national auditor had ca...