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Dushyant Dave, 16/AUG/2019 The following is the text of a letter senior advocate Dushyant Dave has written to Chief Justice of India, Ranjan Gogoi, and all judges of the Supreme Court, on August 16, 2019. The Adani Group’s response to the letter has also been published below. Respected Lordships, 1. On January 12, 2018, addressing a press conference, four honourable judges of the Supreme Court declared, “…administration of the Supreme Court is not in order and many things which are less than desirable have happened in the last few months…”. In a seven-page letter addressed to the then Chief Justice of India, the justices had stated, “…It is too well settled in the jurisprudence of this country that the chief justice is only first amongst the equals – nothing more or nothing less”. The letter reads, “It is with great anguish and concern that we have thought it proper to address this letter to you so as to highlight certain judicial orders passed by this court which...

Yuthika Bhargava,  AUGUST 18, 2019 00:02 The story so far: In July, the sale of vehicles across categories in the country slumped 18.71% to about 18.25 lakh units, down from about 22.45 lakh units, a year ago in the same month. This has been the steepest fall in nearly 19 years. This data, by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), gives out wholesale figures — i.e. the number of vehicles despatched to dealers by vehicle manufacturers. The pasenger vehicle segment, which comprises cars, utility vehicles and vans, has been one of the worst performing segments, registering its highest drop in sales since December 2000: almost 31%, to a little over two lakh units from nearly 2.91 lakh units in July 2018. This was also the ninth straight drop in monthly passenger vehicle sales. In fact, barring a low single digit uptick in October 2018, segment sales have been falling for the past year. With the industry failing to arrest the downturn that started almost a year a...

DAWN August 15, 2019 The BBC said on Thursday it will expand shortwave radio news coverage in Kashmir to ease the impact of a communications blackout imposed by the Indian government. The British broadcaster's announcement came after New Delhi scrapped an article of the Indian constitution granting special status to Indian-occupied Kashmir. Occupied Kashmir has been under lockdown since the day before Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced the change on August 5. The BBC said the number and length of programmes will grow in a variety of languages spoken in the densely populated region of the Indian-occupied Kashmir. “Given the shutdown of digital services and phone lines in the region, it's right for us to try and increase the provision of news on our short wave radio services,” BBC World Service Director Jamie Angus said in a statement. “The provision of independent and trusted news in places of conflict and tension is one of the core purpose...

Live Mint August 16, 2019 The UN Security Council is expected to discuss the situation in Jammu and Kashmir on Friday after China asked for "closed consultations" on the matter. This is the first time in decades that the UNSC will discuss Kashmir as a subject, two Indian diplomats said. The last time the matter came up at the UNSC was in 1965, while the last time India and Pakistan came up as a topic for discussion was in 1971, one of the diplomats said. The move follows India revoking special status to Jammu and Kashmir last week. Pakistan had condemned the decision and rallied countries like China which had raised objections on the issue. Earlier this week, Pakistan wrote to Poland, the Council President for the month of August, requesting a UNSC meeting, PTI quoting a UN diplomat said. "China asked for closed consultations on the Security Council agenda item 'India Pakistan Question'. The request was in reference to the Pakistani le...

NewsBeezer August 15, 2019 In the last 50 years since its founding, the Indian Space Research Organization (Isro) has come a long way in overcoming technological hurdles and achieving several milestones. In the early 1960s, Isro launched rockets with a payload of only 30-70 kg up to a height of 150 km from a Launchpad in Thumba in Kerala's Trivandrum (now Thiruvananthapuram) and now launched 4,000 kg of payload in the geostationary orbit at 36,000 km altitude. The agency's gigantic leap in space technology was phenomenal, whether it was the development of a low-temperature engine to power the heavy-duty launcher or India's heaviest Gsat-1 When Isro was founded on August 15, 1969, the country had neither space infrastructure nor know-how to fire large rockets. But now the agency has a number of missiles in the arsenal. The PSLV can not only lift over a hundred satellites at once, but also place satellites in different orbits in a single mission. Likewise, its GSL...

NDTV  August 15, 2019 British national Christian Michel, the alleged middleman in the Rs. 3,600-crore AgustaWestland VVIP chopper deal case, has been interrogated for more than 600 hours to date by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), according to bail pleas filed by him. "The applicant has undergone almost 600 hours of custodial interrogation by both the agencies. As of today, the applicant has spent 375 days in custody including the period which he spent in Dubai jail," as per the plea filed through Advocate Aljo K. Joseph. Special CBI Judge Arvind Kumar on Wednesday issued notices to both the agencies and sought their response on the plea. The matter will come up for hearing on August 19. The plea also claimed that Michel has made no attempt to suborn the witnesses, tamper with the documentary evidence, or in any other manner pollute or obstruct the judicial process. Michel undertakes to supply any such sol...

Micky  August 15, 2019 The proposed new Financial Action Task Force regulations for cryptocurrency exchanges tying individuals to transactions may not be legally binding as yet, but they’ve made more than a few Bitcoin investors nervous. Some are now turning to ‘virgin Bitcoin’, paying a 10% to 30% premium for ‘clean’, often freshly mined, Bitcoin. What is ‘virgin Bitcoin’? ‘Virgin Bitcoin’ is essentially Bitcoin with a clean transaction history – or no transaction history at all. There’s no way of verifying where it came from and it cannot be linked to a wallet or cold storage entity. Investors don’t want to own Bitcoin that has been used on the black markets, stolen in hacks, or used for other illegal or nefarious purposes. With every transaction recorded for all time on the blockchain, the concern is that any Bitcoin that has ever been used in a criminal enterprise could be forfeited or held indeterminately by authorities, whether it is seized or ...

The Economic Times  August 15, 2019 The World Trade Organization (WTO) set up panels on Thursday to rule on complaints by Australia, Brazil and Guatemala against India's export subsidies for sugar NSE 0.31 % and sugarcane producers which they assert are illegal, a Geneva trade official said.  The decision was automatic upon the complainants' second request at a closed-door meeting of the WTO's Dispute Settlement Body.  India will keep its sugar export subsidies despite complaints to the WTO from rival producers, though it will tweak how it provides them, four sources directly involved in the matter said told Reuters in Mumbai last month.  Reference:  https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/foreign-trade/wto-to-rule-on-india-sugar-export-subsidies/articleshow/70690206.cms

The Print August 14, 2019 The risk of overseas investors in rupee bonds getting caught wrong-footed and weakening India’s currency further is surging as losses this month outpace Asian peers amid mounting geopolitical tensions in the region. A sharp drop in the rupee may wipe out most of the profits for offshore investors as they don’t usually hedge currency risk for short-term debt investments into the country, according to Samir Lodha, chief executive officer at QuantArt Market Solutions, a Mumbai-based currency risk advisory. Any sell-off in foreign holdings of Indian corporate and government bonds may set off a spin which weakens the currency further. The surge in inbound investments into rupee bonds was largely driven by carry trades, adding to fears of a quick reversal in flows if the drop in rupee is not checked. The currency slumped more than 3.6% against the greenback this month, setting it up for its second-worst monthly loss since September 2013, as India esc...

Money Life August 14, 2019 The fifth status report, filed by the government-appointed board of Infrastructure Leasing& Financial Services (IL&FS) today, includes a rather disappointing report from Grant Thornton (GT) which completely misses the core issues with regard to what happened between Allied Financial Services Ltd (Allied), the brokerage firm which had a clearing account with IL&FS Securities Services Ltd (ISSL), and its relationship with the three complainants. In this case, three entities headed by Puneet Dalmia–OCL India Ltd (OCL), Dalmia Cement East Ltd and Novjoy Emporium—have alleged that their broker, Allied Financial, has stolen Rs344 crore of securities from their demat accounts. The complaint has snowballed into a much bigger, systemic issue when Allied’s accounts were frozen and, consequently, ISSL, as the clearing member, defaulted on payments to National Clearing Corporation Ltd (NCCL).  NCCL, in turn, disabled IL&FS Securities, ...