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Business Standard Andy Mukherjee  The digital yuan can disrupt both traditional banking and the post-Bretton Woods system of floating exchange rates. So is China readying its own  Bitcoin?  Banish the thought.  It’s far bigger than that. Yes, just like any other cryptocurrency—or for that matter, cigarettes in prisoners-of-war camps—the upcoming digital  yuan  will be “tokenized” money. But the similarity ends there. The crypto yuan, which may be on offer as soon as 2020, will be fully backed by the central bank of the world’s second-largest economy, drawing its value from the Chinese state’s ability to impose taxes in perpetuity. Other national authorities are bound to embrace this powerful idea. Little is known about the digital  y uan  except that it’s been in the works for five years and Beijing is nearly ready to roll. The consensus is that the token will be a private blockchain, a peer-to-peer network for sharing informati...

Business Standard Subrata Panda   Reliance Capital believes that the order by Irdai will protect the interest of all lenders and debenture holders of the company. The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) has cancelled the invocation of pledge and transfer of shares of  Reliance General Insurance  by the trustee as “null and void”,  Reliance Capital  (RCap) informed the stock exchanges. Earlier, on November 19, RCap announced that the company’s shareholding in its wholly owned subsidiary,  Reliance General Insurance  Company has been transferred to IDBI Trustee Services, upon invocation of pledge by the trustee.  RCap had alleged that the trustee acted on behalf of two parties —  Credit Suisse  and Nippon MF — claiming against the company under certain guarantees, while another lender filed a suit in the Bombay High Court, claiming that the shareholding in Reliance General of RCap comprises...

Business Today India, Germany and Japan would continue to battle for the position of third-largest economy over the next 15 years, the CEBR report stated. India is expected to become the fourth largest economy by 2026 and the third largest by 2034, according to a report by UK-based Centre for Economics and Business Research (CEBR). The CEBR report states that India would surpass Germany to take on the mantle in 2026 and further topple Japan in 2034 to become the third largest economy.  The report stated that India would achieve its dream of reaching a gross domestic product (GDP) of $5 trillion by 2026. It has pegged the achievement a couple of years after the government's target. "India has decisively overtaken both France and the UK to become the world's fifth-largest economy in 2019. It is expected to overtake Germany to become fourth largest in 2026 and Japan to become the third largest in 2034," said CEBR in the report, titled 'World Economic...

The Telegraph Pranatharthi Commercials will buy close to 8,94,382 shares of Reliance Industries from the open market on the basis of the share swap ratio. Reliance Retail has been valued at Rs 2.7 lakh crore on the basis of a proposed share swap scheme for some of its shareholders.  Reliance Retail is a subsidiary of Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL), which holds a 99.95 per cent stake, making Reliance Retail an indirect subsidiary of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL). The rest of the holding in Reliance Retail — 0.05 per cent — is with certain specified shareholders According to the proposed scheme of arrangement, some shareholders of Reliance Retail will receive one share of Reliance Industries for every four shares held. Reliance Retail said it had given employee stock options in 2006 and 2007, and some of the employees received equity shares in Reliance Retail when they exercised their restricted stock units.  “The company has been receiving requests from the...

The Telegraph Data released by Prime Database showed the overall response from the public to IPOs during the year was good It was a disappointing year in terms of funds raised via initial public offerings (IPOs). Only 16 companies raised Rs 12,362 crore in 2019, a fall of 60 per cent from 2018 when the Street mopped up Rs 30,959 crore. While seven IPOs received a mega response of being subscribed more than 10 times (IRCTC at 109 times followed by Ujjivan Small Finance Bank 100 times and CSB Bank at 48 times), one issue was subscribed over three times. The balance seven were oversubscribed between one and three times. The decline in fund raising comes amid a slowdown in the economy with real GDP coming in at 4.5 per cent in the second quarter of this fiscal. Despite the good response received by some of the offerings, 47 firms looking to raise over Rs 51,000 crore allowed their SEBI approval to lapse. Data for the past five years show that in 2017, there were 36 IPOs...

The Telegraph American Petroleum Institute said US crude stocks fell 7.9 million barrels last week, much more than the decline forecast by analysts Oil rose further above $67 a barrel to its highest in over three months on Thursday, buoyed by a report showing lower US crude inventories, hopes of an end to the China-US trade dispute and Opec-led efforts to constrain supply.  The American Petroleum Institute, an oil industry group, said late on Tuesday that US crude stocks fell 7.9 million barrels last week, much more than the decline forecast by analysts. Brent crude, the global benchmark, reached $67.52 a barrel, the highest since September 17. West Texas Intermediate crude gained 11 cents to $61.22.  Trading volume remains low because of the Christmas holidays, which have delayed the release of the US government’s official oil inventory report by two days until Friday. Also supporting prices, US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that he and Chinese Presiden...

Business Standard China's People's Liberation Army (PLA) said on Thursday that its ties with the Indian military are "improving" with the strategic dialogue, practical cooperation and exchanges, "thanks" to the efforts of Prime Minister  Narendra Modi  and President  Xi Jinping . Providing an upbeat picture of the relations between the two militaries, which shared arduous and at times testing ties guarding the 3,488-km long Line of Actual Control (LAC), Defence spokesman Col Wu Qian said the just concluded joint counter terrorism drills in India "showed the determination" of the two sides to protect the regional stability besides fighting terrorism. "For the China-India relations, military relationship is the important component of the overall relationship," Col Wu told a media briefing here responding to questions on how the PLA views the relations with its Indian counterpart this year. "Thanks to the efforts of the two...

Moneylife Sucheta Dalal As a rule, Moneylife advises readers to steer clear of highly volatile penny stocks that thrive on our bourses and dupe the gullible. They fluctuate between a few rupees to a few hundred rupees in a matter of months and there is little sympathy for retail speculators who lose their hoping to turn millionaires by finding a hidden diamond in online tip-sheets. Why does this go on unchecked? Because the regulator doesn't care.  We know that the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) spends crores of rupees on its market surveillance software. It also claims to use artificial intelligence to track social media for insider trading. This is quite laughable when SEBI seems reluctant to use simple native intelligence. As a result, fake news websites, complete with cooked up research reports, operate openly through message boards of large media companies or with names that sound similar to well-regarded value investment forums....

Hindustan Times Zia Haq In a dispute, India has been accused of pursuing a policy to guarantee a high minimum price, known as fair and minimum price or FRP, for Indian cane-growers that has led production to spike. Along with this, Brazil flagged subsidies for sugar export. India has a “strong case” to fend off an attack on its price policy for some 55 million sugarcane farmers of the country at the World Trade Organisation by Brazil’s far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, a senior government official said on Thursday. “We will protect sugarcane subsidies at all costs because the sector needs government support. We are confident,” the official with knowledge of the matter said, after the government recently finished reviewing the matter. A panel of top WTO consultants aided the government in reviewing the sugarcane trade regime to avoid violating any WTO clause, he said. Brazil is the world’s largest sugarcane producer, while India occupies the second spot...

The Telegraph Recommendations sought on coveted 5G bands of 24.75-27.25GHz. The department of telecom (DoT) will soon seek sector regulator Trai’s recommendations on pricing and other modalities for coveted 5G bands of 24.75-27.25GHz, and wants to put this new spectrum up for auction sometime next year, sources said. This new 5G chunk is separate from the Rs 5.22 lakh crore spectrum sale plan approved by the Digital Communications Commission on December 20, under which 8,300MHz of airwaves across 22 circles are set to be put on the block in March-April 2020. The department of telecom (DoT) sources said the government will soon approach the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) for its recommendations on “millimetre wave bands” of 24.75-27.25GHz, the coveted bands for 5G. DoT plans to approach the regulator in January for views on these additional 5G bands, sources stated.  Although DoT ideally wants these bands to be put for sale earlier in the y...