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Scroll.in By:- Miguel Medina/AFP Amnesty International on Thursday  announced  that Kumi Naidoo, a person of Indian origin and a South African human rights activist, will be its next secretary general. He will take over from Salil Shetty, who has been holding the post since 2010. Naidoo, who will take over the position from August 2018, will succeed Secretary General Salil Shetty, who has been in the position since 2010. “His [Naidoo] vision and passion for a just and peaceful world make him an outstanding leader for our global movement, as we strengthen our resolve for a world where human rights are enjoyed by all,” said Mwikali Muthiani, chair of the Board of Amnesty International. Shetty said it was the first time in Amnesty’s history that both secretary general and board chair were from Africa. Naidoo has headed the Greenpeace International, Global Call for Climate Action and Global Call to Action against Poverty, among others. His job as the secretary gene...

The Hindu By PTI  December  22, 2017 Indian Army chief General Bipin Rawat on Friday said peace talks with Pakistan can take place only when it stops supporting terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir. Given its actions, it doesn’t appear that Pakistan really wants peace, the Army chief added. He was in the western sector, close to the  India-Pakistan  border, to witness the ‘Hamesha Vijayee’ exercise conducted by the Southern Command in Thar desert. Gen. Rawat said Pakistan should stop supporting terrorists. “Only then can we say that peace talks should take place,” he told reporters in the exercise area near Barmer. “We also want relations should be better but given what kind of actions there are (from their side) and terrorism is spreading in Jammu and Kashmir, it doesn’t appear that they really want peace,” Mr. Rawat said. 'Anti-militancy operations will continue' The Army, paramilitary forces and Jammu and Kashmir police have been taking actions ag...

Business Line Una Galani, Reuters  December 20, 2017 Flipkart to file for a US initial public offering (IPO) as soon as 2018. A local war against Amazon will take on a global flavour when Flipkart, the arch-enemy to Jeff Bezos' American behemoth, files for a US initial public offering (IPO) as soon as 2018. The online retailer, which sells everything from mobile phones to books, has good reason to snub Mumbai's markets, even though they are trading near record highs. For one, its biggest global peers are all listed stateside, where tech valuations are robust. But a New York debut for the $12 billion Flipkart would also take the battle to Amazon's Wall Street home turf. The firm founded by former Amazon employees Sachin Bansal and Binny Bansal counts SoftBanks Vision Fund and US fund Tiger Global amongst its largest investors. Smaller stakes are in the hands of US marketplace eBay as well as two Chinese giants, Tencent and Alibaba, which itself is part-owned by S...

Business Line G Naga Sridhar HYDERABAD, DECEMBER 19,   Even as the debate on the pros and cons of mandatory Aadhaar applicability for many services goes on, a study conducted by an arm of the Reserve Bank of India sees need for caution. A research paper published by the Institute for Development and Research in Banking Technology (IDRBT) concludes that while Aadhaar has brought in biometric authentication on a large scale, “the benefits to the consumers have been mixed, with not much benefit to those in the last mile.” While analysing biometric authentication data from Andhra Pradesh as a case study, the research done by S Ananth, an adjunct faculty at IDRBT, the study says the data pertaining to a few months in the fist half of the present calender year indicates that statistics may be masking larger problems related to access of rations as far as delivery of government benefits to the last mile is concerned. “Though the numbers indicate a halving of failures ...

Rediff.com December 20, 2017 16:33  BJP’s reversals in rural Gujarat has prompted many policy watchers to predict that the Budget would have incentives for the agriculture sector and the rural economy. The government would have to walk a fiscal tightrope if it offers, as is widely believed, more sops for the rural and agriculture sector in the 2018-19 Budget. Irrespective of what happens with the fiscal deficit target this year, top government officials are not in favour of a fiscal relaxation in 2018-19,  Business Standard  has learnt. As such, the government has little room for enhanced spending. The fiscal deficit target for next year, according to the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act, and the report by the FRBM committee, should be 3 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP). For 2017-18, the fiscal deficit target has been budgeted at 3.2 per cent of GDP. On Monday, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party retained Prime Minister Nare...

Rediff.com December 19, 2017 11:38 IST 'This year's Budget didn't give into populist measures everyone was expecting after demonetisation, so I think that was a positive step.' 'Hopefully the Budget will continue in the way it has been.' India's economy will soon make a jaunty recovery, says Dr Soumya Kanti Ghosh, group chief economic advisor, State Bank of India. "You will see a lot of development happening in real estate over the next one year or so," Dr Ghosh tells Rediff.com's Vaihayasi Pande Daniel in the third part of the multi-part interview, "because the real estate sector and the construction sector, at the end of the day, are the most employment intensive sectors." Part 1 of the Interview: 'Recovery could be a couple of quarters away' Part 2: 'You have to give very good credit to Modi' A dynamic real estate market is a sign of a dynamic economy. At the moment that market is very sl...

Business Line Nayanima Basu, December 20, 2017 India is planning to hold the ‘2+2 Ministerial’ meet with the US at the “earliest possible date” even as the US came down heavily on China and Pakistan while it wheedled India into taking a prominent role in the South Asian region as far as security and strategic interests are concerned. India is believed to have urged US to hold the new ‘2+2 Ministerial’ meeting by February-March in an effort to understand what is expected of it in terms of playing a greater role in the security affairs of the region, during the first-ever India-US Designations Dialogue that got concluded on Tuesday, sources told BusinessLine. The 2+2 Ministerial will help in understanding what exactly the US is seeking from India. Not just that, it will also enable laying down the roadmap, as elaborated by US President Donald Trump in the newly released National Security Strategy (NSS),” an official said requesting anonymity. The ‘2+2 Ministerial’ meet ...

The Telegraph Thursday, December 21, 2017 In a significant U-turn in the drive against black money, the government on Tuesday said there was no proposal to make Aadhaar mandatory in property deals. "The rural development ministry had advised the states and Union territories to explore the possibilities of using consent-based Aadhaar authentication for registration of properties under the provisions of the Registration Act, 1908," Hardeep Singh Puri, minister of state in the housing ministry, informed the Lok Sabha in a written reply. Only last month Puri had reportedly stated that seeding Aadhaar to property transactions was a great idea. As the government was linking Aadhaar with bank accounts, it might take some additional steps for the property market also, he added. To a query on linking the unique ID, the minister said, "At present, there is no proposal to make Aadhaar linkage mandatory in property transactions." To questions, including one on...

Dawn Zahid Hussain, December 20, 2017 IT is not just about the hostility of the government in Kabul; more troubling is the fact that the adverse sentiments in Afghanistan towards Pakis­tan are deeply entrenched in the public. The indignation has heightened over the past years, with most people in Kabul blaming Pakistan for their suffering. Those feelings are especially evident in urban and educated sections of Afghan society. There are very few who see Pakistan in a positive light. This was very clear during my interaction last week with young students at a private university in Kabul. Education is one area that has seen massive progress over the last one decade in this country, despite worsening political instability and the spreading insurgency. Hundreds of thousands of students are enrolled in more than one dozen universities in the city — a marked transformation from the days of the retrogressive Afghan Taliban rule. Most students I interacted with in a seminar sh...

Economic Times By  Atmadip Ray ,  ET Bureau    Dec 20, 2017   Reserve Bank of India  has directed  United Bank of India   to raise capital, diversify credit portfolio and take cost control measures as the state-run lender is under severe stress with high sticky loans. The  central bank  has also told the lender to retain whatever profit it earns without distributing it among shareholders. "The action points focus on profit retention, capital augmentation, provision coverage, diversification of credit portfolio, rationalisation of expansion and cost control," UBI said Wednesday in its disclosure to stock exchanges. RBI told the bank to follow these steps Tuesday under its  Prompt Corrective Action  (PCA) initiative as the bank was suffering from high net non-performing assets, low leverage ratio and requirement to raise capital, based on the assessment of the bank's position as on March 31. The bank had net non...