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 Business Standerd December 16, 2020 T E Narsimhan In October, Punjab and Sind Bank had also reported the account of IFIN as fraud with outstanding dues of over Rs 561 crore to the RBI. Indian Bank  said on Tuesday said that it has reported to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) the account of IL&FS Financial Services (IFIN) as fraud with outstanding dues of over Rs 408 crore. In October, Punjab and Sind Bank had also reported to the RBI the account of IFIN as fraud with outstanding dues of over Rs 561 crore. In September 2018, the government ordered an SFIO probe into the affairs of IL&FS and its subsidiaries. In October, the same year, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) suspended the erstwhile board of IL&FS amid the financial turmoil. On the resolution process proposed by the new board of directors of IL&FS, the company said it has submitted several progress reports and updates to the NCLT. The scam at the IL&FS group came to light in September 20...

 Business Standerd December 15, 2020 PTI This proposal will be considered as part of the govt efforts to help clear outstanding dues to sugarcane farmers, according to sources. The   Union Cabinet   may on Wednesday consider a proposal to provide export subsidy worth Rs 3,600 crore to sugar mills for the marketing year 2020-21, as part of its efforts to help them clear outstanding dues to sugarcane farmers, according to sources. The food ministry has proposed Rs 3,600 crore subsidy for exports of 60 lakh tonnes of sugar in the marketing year 2020-21 (October-September), they added. The sources said the proposal is likely to be taken up by the Cabinet in its meeting on Wednesday (December 16). In the previous marketing year 2019-20, the government provided a lump sum export subsidy of Rs 10,448 per tonne, costing the exchequer Rs 6,268 crore. The ministry has proposed lower export subsidy for the current marketing year 2020-21. Mills exported 5.7 million tonnes of sugar ag...

 The Telegraph Online December 16, 2020 Special Correspondence At a virtual chat Mark Zuckerberg, he said it was Facebook's investment of $ 5.7 billion in Jio Platforms that set the ball rolling for FDI into India  Reliance Industries Ltd  chairman Mukesh Ambani on Tuesday forecast that India will grow to be among the top three economies in the world in the next two decades and that it would become a premier digital society. At a virtual chat with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Ambani said  it was the social media giant’s investment of $ 5.7 billion in Jio Platforms in April that set the ball rolling for FDI into India during the pandemic. The result has been that India has received the largest ever FDI during April-August 2020 over any comparable period. “And during the pandemic, India has attracted the largest foreign direct investment in its history. Mark, we have our own example of how Jio and Facebook concluded our partnership right in the middle of lockdown.”“I ...

 Business Standerd December 16, 2020 Sohini Das Cold chain of agriculture research body may come in handy Global pharma major Pfizer may price its vaccine lower in India than in the UK and the US, sources in the know said. The government in the recent past had indicated that India wouldn’t be keen to procure the Pfizer-Biotech vaccine because of its high cost and the extreme cold chain requirement at minus 70 degree Celsius. Responding to the concern over the temperature requirement, a senior government official pointed out that India had cold chain infrastructure, owned by the Department of Agricultural Research and Education, that would be sufficient for a vaccine like the one ... https://www.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/pfizer-may-price-covid-19-vaccine-lower-in-india-than-in-uk-and-us-120121501347_1.html

 The Print December 15, 2020 Ameya Pratap Singh and Urvi Tembe With measures like MSP, India has been carefully treading the thin line between food and livelihood security and practices classified as 'trade distorting' under the WTO law. can India legally guarantee minimum support price, or MSP, to its farmers without contravening its obligations under the World Trade Organization law? What are these laws surrounding domestic price support measures and agricultural subsidies and what are India’s commitments? Until now, with domestic support measures like MSP, India has been carefully treading the thin line between food and livelihood security and practices classified as “trade distorting” under the WTO law. India has been a founding member of the WTO and is a signatory to the multilateral Agreement on Agriculture (AoA), which, among other things, regulates domestic subsidies granted by governments in the agricultural sector. The ‘disciplines’ on agricultural subsidies aim to cu...

 The Telegraph 17.12.20 The report published by United Nations Development Programme has placed India in the 131st position among 189 countries.   India has slipped two notches, to 131st place, in the latest Human Development Index (HDI) rankings published by the United Nations Development Programme although most of its neighbours have improved their scores. The Human Development Report 2020 has placed India in the 131st position among 189 countries, down from the 129th last year. Bhutan, ranked 134th last year, has leapfrogged India to the 129th spot. The HDI measures achievements in life expectancy, education and per capita income. The report found that India’s gross national income per capita had fallen to $6,681 (Rs 4.9 lakh) in 2019 from $6,829 (Rs 5.03 lakh) in 2018 on the basis of purchasing power parity (PPP). The PPP is a measurement for prices in different countries in terms of the purchasing power of the currency for specific goods. Nepal has risen from 147th last y...

 The Telegraph 16.12.20 Authorities in the EU and Britain built momentum on Tuesday for tougher oversight of the technology industry, as they introduced new regulations to pressure the world’s biggest tech companies to take down harmful content and open themselves up to more competition. In Brussels, EU leaders unveiled proposals to crimp the power of “gatekeeper” platforms like Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google and Microsoft, which policymakers argue deserve more oversight given their outsize influence.  The proposed EU laws would require the companies to do more to prevent the spread of hate speech and sale of counterfeit merchandise, and disclose more information about how services like targeted advertising work. In Britain, the government proposed banning some harmful Internet content like terrorism material, suicide videos and childhood bullying, which could result in billions of dollars in fines. Separately, Irish regulators announced a fine of 450,000 euros (about $547,00...

 The Telegraph 17.12.20 The Supreme Court on Wednesday decided to form a committee to resolve the farmers’ agitation, saying the government’s negotiations would “again fail” and the dispute would “soon become a national issue” if allowed to fester. After taking on itself the responsibility to broker a possible settlement, a bench headed by Chief Justice of India S.A. Bobde listed the matter for urgent hearing on Thursday. It issued notices to the Centre and eight farmers’ organisations. Earlier, when solicitor-general Tushar Mehta suggested that senior ministers were holding talks “regularly” and insinuated that the farmers’ stand was opaque, Justice Bobde cut him short. “Your talks will again fail…. It seems the government may not be able to work out a solution. The issue will soon become a national issue,” he said.  Tens of thousands of farmers have besieged Delhi’s borders in protest against three new farm laws that they say would deprive them of the minimum support price a...

 Hindustan Times Dec 16, 2020 Posted by Kanishka Sarkar Piyush Goyal said, “India is looking forward for working with friends and neighbours, and having a global footprint. India is working to turn the COVID crisis into an opportunity, and is confident of reaching the target of $5 trillion economy by 2025, and $10 trillion in another 7-10 years.” The government is making efforts to deregulate the economy with an aim to attract greater investments from across the world, commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal said on Wednesday. He said the government has opened up defence, manufacturing, mining, finance and capital market sectors. The government has further liberalised agricultural laws to encourage more investments in agri-processing and open up markets so as to increase the income of farmers, he said at CII’s Partnership Summit. “India is making efforts to deregulate its economy for greater investments from other parts of the world,” he said. Goyal further said India provides ...

 Hindustan Times Dec 17, 2020 Posted by Ayshee Bhaduri Vietnam’s central bank, refuting the US Treasury’s move to designate the Southeast Asian nation a currency manipulator, said it does not use its exchange rates “to create an unfair competitive advantage in international trade,” the regulator said in a statement on its website. Vietnam’s “exchange rate management in recent years is within its general framework of monetary policy and aims to achieve the consistent goal of controlling inflation, stabilizing macro-economy” and does not create an unfair competitive advantage for the nation, the State Bank of Vietnam said. The Vietnamese dong traded at 23,127 per dollar, little changed from yesterday. The benchmark VN Index of Vietnamese stocks lost 1% as of 9:22 a.m. local time and is poised for its biggest decline in a month. Vietnam’s trade surplus with the US and its current account surplus are the result of a range of factors related to the peculiarities of the Vietnamese econom...