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PTI | Published: February 16, 2019 The Reserve Bank has warned Yes Bank of regulatory action for disclosure of nil divergence report in violation of the confidentiality clause, the private sector lender said Friday. Yes Bank in a press release earlier this week had said the RBI has not found any divergence in the asset classification and provisioning done by the lender during 2017-18. In a regulatory filing Friday, Yes Bank said it has received a letter from the RBI which noted that the Risk Assessment Report (RAR) was marked ‘confidential’ and it was expected that no part of the report be divulged except for the information in the form and manner of disclosure prescribed by regulations. “Therefore, the press release breaches confidentiality and violates regulatory guidelines. Moreover, NIL divergence is not an achievement to be published and is only compliance with the extant Income Recognition and Asset Classification norms,” the RBI said in its letter. “The iss...

Written by Nirupama Subramanian  Updated: February 16, 2019 In 2008, candidate Barack Obama angered India by suggesting that the road to peace in Afghanistan ran through Kashmir. He made the case in several interviews before his election as US President that if India and Pakistan would only resolve their differences, the Pakistan army would be more inclined to heed the American call to go after its assets in Afghanistan. Some months later, when President Obama appointed Richard Holbrooke as the Special Envoy for India, Pakistan and Afghanistan, India lobbied with determination to keep itself from being hyphenated with Af-Pak, and succeeded in keeping itself out of Holbrooke’s mandate. Almost exactly a decade later, as security experts piece together Thursday’s devastating suicide attack on a CRPF convoy at Awantipora on the Jammu-Srinagar highway, it appears as if that hyphenation may have returned to haunt India, albeit in a different way. In a pre-recorded video r...

Saud Al-Sati, FEBRUARY 16, 2019 India and Saudi Arabia are poised to dramatically deepen the bilateral relationship In April 2016, under the leadership of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia gave itself a goal and a promise in the form of Vision 2030. The Saudi citizen has become the focal point for sustainable development with massive projects directed towards building a vibrant society, a thriving economy and an ambitious nation. The entire foundation of our Kingdom’s economy is being transformed towards a post-oil age with the aim of attracting $427 billion in private investments over the next decade to diversify the economy and create 1.6 million new jobs through the National Industrial Development and Logistics Programme. Powered by reforms According to World Bank’s ‘Doing Business 2018’ report, Saudi Arabia has instituted the largest number of business reforms amo...

ET CONTRIBUTORS, Updated: Feb 16, 2019, In counter-insurgency operations (CI ops), the determinant of success is actionable human intelligence — something from which security forces can base their future operations and course of action. Actionable, because it has to be definite, pointed, and where the dots once joined lead to an operation that can neutralise potential threats.  It may also be some input that leads to the prevention of a major strike, a precaution that is always the most welcome in the successful conduct of CI ops. A number of such successes come the way of India’s security forces. But once in a while, something doesn’t.  The tragic suicide attack in Pulwama district in Jammu and Kashmir on February 14 is one such that slipped under the radar of the Indian security forces, resulting in a colossal loss of life. The Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) was the target, and has paid a very heavy price. Condemnation of the highest order is warranted, an...

K M GOPAKUMAR, Feb 16, 2019 The amendment to the Drugs Price Control Order will undermine safeguards When product patent protection was introduced in India for pharmaceutical inventions, one of the anticipated consequences was that it would undermine the local manufacturing of patented medicines — either through importation or prevention of local manufacturers from producing the patented medicines in the normal course. This apprehension has come true. Transnational companies who enjoy patent monopoly on new medicines seem to be more comfortable with importing their patented medicines rather than producing it in India. The situation just got worse with a recent amendment in the Drugs Price Control Order (2013), where patented products under the Indian Patents Act are exempted from price control for five years from the date of commercial marketing by the company. This is an anomaly the Government needs to address. Indian lawmakers had incorporated a few safeguards in ...

C. CHRISTINE FAIR Updated: 15 February, 2019 On 14 February, Adil Ahmad Dar—a 20-year-old from Gundibagh village in Pulwama and former sawmill worker—mounted a vehicle-borne suicide attack on a CRPF convoy killing at least 38 jawans. Broadly speaking, Pakistan perpetrates these attacks in Kashmir and elsewhere in India because they help demonstrate that Islamabad has not been coerced into accepting the status quo. However, this general expectation of Pakistani behaviour does not explain the particularly unique features of this attack. What are Pakistan’s strategic aims with this attack? Calibrate the violence The Pulwama attack reflects an interesting calibration of violence. There are three ways that Pakistan can escalate violence and the salience thereof. The first is the choice of geography. The least provocative venue is within Kashmir while the most provocative locations are the high-value urban targets like Delhi and Mumbai. In between are middle-tier cities beyon...

The Nation February 15, 2019 Senator Rehman Malik A regional situation is developing in which India is doing its best to push Pakistan towards diplomatic isolation. We have now no doubt that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are on one page against Pakistan and President Ghani has publicised his self-confession through his own recent tweet by replaying the anti-Pak mindset. India has also successfully used USA against Pakistan in FATF. It is strange that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is propagating against Pakistan, alleging the charges of money laundering, terror financing and other false allegations whereas he himself is face of an internationally notorious terrorist organisation namely RSS operating in whole of India under the patronage of PM Modi. It is universally known fact that RSS is being funded by State of India under PM Modi. The entire opposition of India is openly demanding to limit the role of RSS, which has bec...

Firstpost February 15, 2019 Washington : The involvement of Jaish-e-Mohammad in Thursday's terrorist attack in Jammu and Kashmir has raised serious questions about the role of the Pakistani spy agency, ISI, in it, American experts on South Asia have said. The Pakistan-based JeM has claimed responsibility for the attack that left at least 37 personnel dead and many critically wounded. The experts said the terror strike shows the United States has failed to persuade Pakistan to act against Jaish-e-Mohammad and other terrorist groups. "The self-proclaimed involvement of JeM in the attack raises serious questions about the role of the ISI in supporting the masterminds of this operation," Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst, told PTI. Around 40 CRPF personnel were killed in the Pulwama terror attack. ANI The terrorist attack, which has direct footprints inside Pakistan, poses the first major challenges to Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan, said Riedel, who ...

Samaa TV February 14, 2019   Shakeel Ahmed The International Financial Action Task Force is going to review measures taken by Pakistan to curb money laundering and terror financing next week.  The European Commission has proposed to put the country’s name on the black list. Pakistan government has finalised a strategy for meeting with FATF. The meeting will be held from February 17 to 22 in Paris, France. The federal government has prepared a functional strategy for FATF meeting, a high-level delegation led by finance secretary will represent Pakistan in the said talks. National Counter Terrorism Authority director general and other top officials from the Financial Monitoring Unit of the State Bank will be part of the delegation too.  Pakistan team will brief the FATF authorities on measures it has taken to curb money laundering and terror financing. The delegation will put forward a list of measures Pakistan wants to adopt. ...

The Wire February 14, 2019 Ruhi Khan London:   Political rhetoric and ambiguous interpretations of the Freedom of Religion Acts (or “anti-conversion” laws) are responsible for the high rate of Christian persecution in India, according to the UK-US-based monitoring group Open Doors that publishes an annual World Watch List of 50 countries where it is most dangerous to live as a Christian. In 2019, India ranked tenth – a first in the history of the list in over two decades. Dr Matthew Rees who authored the report told  The Wire  that “India has been going up the list rather steadily for the past five years” and can now be classified as a country with extreme persecution. Approximately 64 million Christians live in India but constitute less than 5% of the total population of 1.3 billion. This report is based on the data Open Doors collects annually through an extensive survey in 75 countries. Church leaders and other community volunteers administer question...