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The Indian Express April 05, 2019 Lalmani Verma Rajnath Singh said the Congress wants to weaken the armed forces by diluting the AFSPA. He said the government has already withdrawn ASFPA in Tripura, parts of Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya. Rajnath Singh interview: ‘(Valley) turmoil will end… How long can a handful of leaders betray people’ If Indira Gandhi was credited for dividing Pakistan, why not credit Modi for Balakot airstrikes: Rajnath Singh Even as he slammed the Congress for promising a review of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh Thursday said the AFSPA can be withdrawn from the Valley once normalcy is restored there. Addressing a public meeting in support of Cabinet colleague Mahesh Sharma, who is the BJP candidate in Gautam Buddha Nagar, Singh said the Congress wants to weaken the armed forces by diluting the AFSPA. He said the government has already withdrawn ASFPA in Tripura, parts of Arunachal Pradesh and M...

The Indian Express April 05, 2019 ENS Economic Bureau RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said, “the fiscal situation at the general government level requires careful monitoring”. The Reserve Bank of India Thursday cut its benchmark policy rate, the repo rate (the rate at which it lends to banks), by 0.25 per cent or 25 basis points to 6 per cent — the second such back-to-back cut this year, in the face of low headline inflation and moderation in economic growth, both in India and globally. The central bank, however, kept the monetary policy stance unchanged at ‘Neutral’ due to uncertainty over the monsoon after reports of El Nino effects and global economic outlook. The lowering of rates by the RBI should logically lead to banks following suit but even after last month’s interest rate cut, many lenders were reluctant with some reducing rates by just ten basis points, citing the higher cost of deposits. The rate cut comes on the back of a slowdown in consumption dema...

The Indian Express April 05, 2019 Khusboo Narayan India has sought Modi’s extradition for alleged “high value and sophisticated” fraud and money laundering. Fugitive diamond jeweler Nirav Modi allegedly moved around Rs 89 crore from Singapore to Switzerland a few months after India registered a criminal case against him in connection with the Rs 13,500-crore fraud at the Punjab National Bank (PNB), said officials familiar with the case. Apart from this, Modi, through his associates, also removed diamonds worth about Rs 66 crore, cash of Rs 6.5 crore, 150 boxes of pearl and 50 kilograms of gold from his firms in Dubai and Hong Kong, while he was being probed by government agencies in India, said sources. Modi, 48, who is currently in jail in UK, transferred money in two tranches from the Singapore bank account of Belvedere Holdings Group Ltd, a firm controlled by him through his sister Purvi Modi to EFG Bank AG, Zurich, allegedly to avoid attachment of assets b...

FP April 05, 2019 Lara Seligman India’s claim that one of its fighter pilots shot down a Pakistani F-16 fighter jet in an aerial battle between the two nuclear powers in February appears to be wrong. Two senior U.S. defense officials with direct knowledge of the situation told Foreign Policy that U.S. personnel recently counted Islamabad’s F-16s and found none missing. The findings directly contradict the account of Indian Air Force officials, who said that Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman managed to shoot down a Pakistani F-16 before his own plane was downed by a Pakistani missile. It is possible that in the heat of combat, Varthaman, flying a vintage MiG-21 Bison, got a lock on the Pakistani F-16, fired, and genuinely believed he scored a hit. But the count, conducted by U.S. authorities on the ground in Pakistan, sheds doubt on New Delhi’s version of events, suggesting that Indian authorities may have misled the international community about what happened that d...

Business Line  April 03, 2019 Rahul Wadke Mumbai has once again emerged as the top contributor to the exchequer and accounted for 32 per cent of the overall tax collection in the financial year ended March. Shrugging aside concern over slower economic growth, the cumulative tax remittance under various heads, including corporate tax, income tax, fringe benefit tax and securities transaction tax, was up 17 per cent in FY19 at ₹10.95 lakh crore against ₹9.36 lakh crore logged in FY18. But this is lower than the targeted amount. Incidentally, Mumbai chipped in close to one-third of the overall tax collection and its remittance was up 17 per cent in FY19 at ₹3.52 lakh crore (₹3 lakh crore). Delhi ranked a poor second with overall tax collection of ₹1.60 lakh crore (₹1.29 lakh crore), though it registered a growth of 25 per cent while Bengaluru’s contribution was up 18 per cent at ₹1.19 lakh crore (₹1.02 lakh crore). Chennai paid tax of ₹74,000 crore (₹66,000 crore...

Tech Economic Times April 04, 2019 Pratik Bhakta Creating a level playing field for the entry of retail payment networks and encouraging the formation of national bulk payment networks like RTGS (real time gross settlement) are among the handful of suggestions that global digital payment companies have made to the Reserve Bank of India. The RBI had invited suggestions on the authorization of new retail payment networks on January 21, seeking to minimize the concentration risk in retail payment systems from a financial stability perspective and foster innovation and competition. Visa and MasterCard, two of the largest card companies, applauded the RBI’s move to open up the retail payment sector to more entities. “Consider encouraging new players to participate in and promote pan-India payment platforms, such as real time payments (RTPs) and bulk and repetitive payments, to foster innovation and competition,” Visa said in a note shared with the RBI. “The cr...

DNA  April 04, 2019 Manju AB Bank-led resolution for the full-service  domestic airline Jet Airways will be the first casualty of the Supreme Court’s sweeping order quashing the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) circular of February 12.  The signing of the agreement to convert debt into 11.4 crore shares at Re 1 was scheduled on Wednesday (April 3, 2019). But now with the court cancelling the circular, bankers are unable to convert the debt into equity or take over the shares of Naresh Goyal at Re 1.  Bankers are waiting for some clarity on the plan from both the government and RBI. Lenders were getting statutory and regulatory permissions when the SC order came on Tuesday and overturned their plans. Now the airline may head to NCLT, where it will be auctioned off or Etihad would need to come up with an offer. “The situation is very fluid now. Now the only hope seems to be Etihad buying out Goyal’s shares. Heading for NCLT will only delay the pro...

Times Of India  April 04, 2019 Preparing creditors for bad news, the government-appointed board of IL&FS said that 90% of the Rs 18,800- crore assets of I-Fin, the financial service subsidiary, are non-performing. The board said that it was impossible to give a timeline to the creditors of group companies on when they could expect a court-imposed moratorium to be lifted and also indicated that the sale of road assets was facing a delay. Addressing a press conference to provide a six-month update, chairman Uday Kotak said that the board has strengthened the management by appointing C S Rajan as managing director and bringing in chief executives for various verticals. Vineet Nayyar has been repositioned as executive vice-chairman. “We have a solid management team to manage the resolution process,” said Kotak. Highlighting the need to continue with the freeze on any payout by IL&FS, which has Rs 94,000 crore of fund-based debt, Kotak said that a period of calm ...

Hindustan Times April 03, 2019 India and the US are planning to revive the Defence Policy Group (DPG) between the two countries after a four-year gap, with a discussion on the text of the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA) one of the key items on the agenda, according to senior officials familiar with the matter. BECA will allow India to use US geospatial maps to get pinpoint military accuracy of automated hardware systems and weapons such as cruise and ballistic missiles. Along with Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA), and Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA), BECA is one of the foundational military communication agreements between the two countries. LEMOA, which allows the Indian and American defence forces to use each other's facilities and establishes procedures of easier access of supplies and services required by them, was signed in 2016. COMCASA, which allows the US to transfer communication equipment to...

The Financial Express April 04, 2019 Manisha Singhal and Arun Nayal The airline is left with only 15 aircraft on domestic routes; its eligibility to fly international will be examined. Jet, which had informed the civil aviation ministry on March 26 that there will be no further grounding and that it will bring 40 of its grounded aircraft back into service by April end, in fact on April 2 grounded 15 more aircraft. With the interim bank funding of `1,500 crore still not flowing to Jet Airways, the crisis at the beleaguered airline has deepened to the extent that it is left with operating only 15 aircraft on the domestic routes as on Wednesday. This is the lowest number of aircraft being operated by any carrier on the domestic routes. Even newer airlines like AirAsia India and Vistara operate 20 and 22 aircraft, respectively, on domestic routes. As per rules, an airline can only fly on international routes if it has 20 aircraft on domestic routes, but Jet may get a ...