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Daily Hunt May 31, 2019 Three members of the Mumbai attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed-led Jamaat-ud-Dawa have been arrested on the charges of terror financing in Pakistan's Punjab province, amid pressure from the global community on Islamabad to rein in the militant groups. In a statement issued, late Thursday, the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) of Punjab police said it arrested the three members during a raid on their hideout in Faisalabad, some 150 kilometres from Lahore. "Millions of rupees have been recovered from their possession which they had collected for terror financing," it said. The CTD also said a report had been submitted to the Anti-Terrorism Court in Faisalabad against them. Last week, the Pakistani authorities arrested over 10 members of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terror group in Punjab on similar charges. A nation-wide crackdown against terror financing has been underway, police said. The Pakistan government has launched a cra...

Financial Express May 31, 2019 Lenders to Jet Airways have just a few days to appeal the May 21 bankruptcy ruling given by a district court in North Holland. The troubled airline was declared bankrupt in response a complaint filed by two European creditors. In April, H Esser Finance Company and Wallenborn Transport filed a petition citing unpaid claims worth around `280 crore from the ailing carrier. Even though no representative from the airline appeared for the hearing, prima facie evidence was found to declare the airline bankrupt, according to the court order seen by FE. Jet Airways has been given two weeks, ending June 4, to file an appeal. Following the court order, the trustee in charge appointed by the Dutch court, the equivalent of a resolution professional in India, wrote to Jet Airways as well as State Bank of India (SBI) seeking that the Netherlands government be given access to the financials and assets of the airline. Bankers to the airline are als...

Financial Express May 31, 2019 Tata Steel’s Rs 805 crore bid for Bhushan Energy gets nod The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on Thursday approved Tata Steel’s Rs 805-crore bid for Bhushan Energy, a unit that belonged to the Delhi-based Singal family. On a petition moved by State Bank of India, insolvency proceedings against Bhushan Energy under Section 7 of the Code was admitted by the NCLT?s principal Bench on January 8, 2018 The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on Thursday approved Tata Steel’s Rs 805-crore bid for Bhushan Energy, a unit that belonged to the Delhi-based Singal family. Bhushan Energy would be Tata Steel’s second acquisition of an insolvent firm from the Singal family. In May last year, Tata Steel had acquired Bhushan Steel for Rs 35,200 crore through the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) route. Bhushan Energy has around Rs 4,000-crore debt. Its liquidation value was seen at Rs 755 crore. On a petition moved by State Bank of...

Hindustan Times May 31, 2019 US says India’s exit from duty-free import scheme is ‘done deal’ President Donald Trump’s administration said in March it was removing India from the Generalized System of Preferences, which gives favorable access to goods from developing countries. United States,India trade preference,President Donald Trump A US decision to evict India from a key trade pact is a “done deal,” an official said Thursday, despite Washington’s desire for close relations with re-elected Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The United States on Thursday said India’s suspension from the list of countries benefiting from a duty-free import scheme that was announced in March is a “done deal”, but left the door open for restoring the benefits when India yielded, conceding more access to its markets to American firms. Previewing Trump administration’s vision for US-India ties under Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s new government, a senior administration official al...

Financial Express May 31, 2019 Indian Bank to raise up to Rs 7,000 crore through QIP Indian Bank’s capital adequacy ratio was 13.21% at the end of March 2019, up from 12.55% in March 2018. Chennai-based Indian Bank has sought bids from merchant bankers to run the process for its equity fund-raise worth up to Rs 7,000 crore through a follow-on public offer (FPO) or a qualified institutional placement (QIP) of shares. “Indian Bank intends to tap capital markets via a FPO / QIP route for raising of capital up to Rs 7,000 crore (including premium) in one or more tranches of face value of Rs 10 each. We invite proposals from interested merchant bankers, registered as such with the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) independently and not in consortium, having a valid certificate with experience and expertise in handling capital market issues, including initial public offer (IPO), FPO and QIP and investment banking in the Indian banking sector and fulfilling el...

Hindustan Times May 31, 2019 Bangladesh terror group setting up bases near border, ties up with Pak’s LeT According to senior home ministry officials, the JMB had plans to make permanent bases within 10 km of the India-Bangladesh border (on the Indian side) in the districts of West Bengal, Assam and Tripura. The terror group, which espouses the ultra-hardline ideologies of the Islamic State, has also been spreading its network in South India with the overarching motive of establishing a Caliphate in the Indian sub-continent.  The Narendra Modi government designated Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) as a terrorist group this month after intelligence inputs suggested that its leaders in Dhaka have joined hands with the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Tayebba (LeT) to expand the group’s activities in India. JMB’s chief Salaudin Salehin, through its official media “Al-Ehsar” has already announced the terror group’s India chapter JMH for expansion of its jihadist activ...

Business Line May 29, 2019 Foreign policy in an uncertain world Prime Minister Modi’s first-term was marked by his placing his own distinctive stamp on the conduct of Indian foreign policy. Just a few weeks preceding commencement of the general election campaign, he received a message of greetings from President Putin, who conferred the “highest decoration” of the Russian Federation on him. This was accompanied by his being conferred with the highest award of the UAE by its ruler, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed. The personal rapport that characterised Modi’s relations with other leaders like Presidents Obama and Trump, French President Macron and Bangladesh Prime Minister Begum Khaleda Zia, is also widely acknowledged. Days before election results were officially announced, China’s Global Times, praised Modi’s policies in an article entitled: Modi’s Reelection Further Reinforces China-India Trust. The Global Times lauded his meeting with President Xi Jinping in Wuhan and his r...

Business Standard May 30, 2019 India slams UNSC's sluggish reform process and opaque methodologies The G-4 grouping has been seeking expansion of the permanent and non-permanent seats of the Security Council to make the powerful UN body more representative. India slams Security Council for progressively undermining UNGA's authority. India has criticised the slow pace of UN Security Council reform process, saying the adoption of "opaque" methodologies, non-attribution of assertions and "obfuscation" of references by the member states is blocking the early reform of the world body. India's Permanent Representative Syed Akbaruddin said on Wednesday that the document co-chairs produced on the meetings of the Intern-Governmental Negotiations (IGN) for reforms during the current General Assembly session had serious gaps and did not properly reflect the proceedings. He was addressing an informal plenary meeting of the IGN on 'Ques...

Business Line May 29, 2019 RBI tweaks KYC norms for regulated entities The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has carried out important changes in its master direction on Know-Your-Customer (KYC) for regulated entities (REs), including allowing banks to carry out Aadhaar authentication/offline verification of an individual who voluntarily uses his Aadhaar number for identification purpose, and adding ‘proof of possession of Aadhaar number’ to the list of Officially Valid Documents (OVD). Further, REs other than banks can identify a customer through offline verification under the Aadhaar Act with his/her consent. Temporary ceasing “For existing bank account holders, PAN or Form No 60 is to be submitted within such timelines as may be notified by the government, failing which the account shall be subject to temporary ceasing till PAN or Form No 60 is submitted. “However, before temporarily ceasing operations for an account, the RE shall give the customer an accessible n...

Business Line May 30, 2019 China accuses US of ‘economic terrorism’ Press Trust of India   Beijing | Updated on May 30, 2019   Published on May 30, 2019 Both the US and China have imposed tariffs worth billions of dollars on export of products sparking fears that the conflict could damage the global economy. In a major escalation of the US-China trade war, Beijing on Thursday accused the US of following “naked economic terrorism” and threatened to the stop export of rare-earth metals, a key resource for Apple’s iPhones and hi-tech missile guidance systems, to America. The world’s two largest economies are engaged in a trade war after talks to resolve the issue between them apparently failed, with US President Donald Trump putting a ban on Huawei, the China’s biggest telecom equipment manufacturer, and threatening to slap additional tariffs on the remaining $300 billion worth of Chinese exports. In the sharpest attack yet on the US since the beginning...