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Archives for July 2018

Jio subscribers doubled to 215 mn in 22 months, to launch JioGigaFiber: Ambani

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Jio subscribers doubled to 215 mn in 22 months, to launch JioGigaFiber: Ambani
Reliance Jio has doubled its subscriber base to 215 million in 22 months, Reliance Industries (RIL) Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh D. Ambani said here on Thurday.

“We have more than 25 million JioPhone users in India,” Ambani told shareholders at the 41st Annual General Meeting of RIL.
He announced that the company was launching JioGigaFiber, Jio’s fixed-line broadband.

“We will now extend fiber connectivity to homes, merchants, small and medium enterprises and large enterprises simultaneously across 1,100 cities to offer the most advanced fiber-based broadband connectivity solutions,” Ambani told shareholders.

He said for homes this means ultra high-definition entertainment on large screen TVs, multi-party video conferencing from living room, voice-activated virtual assistants, virtual reality gaming, digital shopping and immersive experiences.

“For merchants and small businesses, fixed-line broadband means… When you combine fixed-line connectivity with the agility and customer obsession of a small owner-driven business, you empower them to compete on level terms with larger businesses.

“For large enterprises, fixed-line broadband will mean… Having the ability to compete in the global marketplace, using digital tools and techniques that are powering the Fourth Industrial Revolution,” he added.

The company also said it would launch JioPhone2 on August 15. It will have added features like WhatsApp, YouTube and Facebook. It would have a horizontal screen.

“Today, we are launching a brand new JioPhone scheme, JioPhone ‘Monsoon Hungama’. Under this offer, by exchanging your old feature phone, you can get a brand new JioPhone for an effective entry price of just Rs 501,” Ambani said.

Starting on August 15, we have another exciting offer for common Indians. “They can purchase our Jiophone2 at an introductory price of only Rs 2,999.

“With the added functionalities and strong retail presence across India, the goal that I have now set for our Jio team is to enable 100 million users on this JioPhone platform in the shortest possible time and create another world record,” he added.

AAP urges LG, Centre to cooperate

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The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) on Thursday requested Delhi’s Lt Governor and Centre to comply with the apex court ruling and work in cooperation with the Delhi government to avoid any obstruction to work.

“It is our request to the Lt Governor and Centre to cooperate and work according to the (court) order. Because of a technical formality, work should not be hindered,” Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said.

After the Supreme Court ruling on Wednesday in favour of the Delhi government, the ruling AAP had quickly taken action to restore the powers of transfer of officers in Delhi.

However, when it sent a file to the Secretary (Services), the Deputy Chief Minister was told about the inability to carry out the orders.

“Chief Secretary (Services) sent us a written document expressing why the Services department would not be able to carry out the orders. We are consulting our lawyers regarding the issue,” Sisodia told reporters here.

Sisodia said the apex court had clearly stated that the Lt Governor, appointed by the Centre, was bound by the aid and advice of the Ministers of the city government in all areas except land, police and public order.

“It is clear that the Centre does not have any role now after the apex court order. The Services department is not under the Centre. But if they refuse to cooperate, then how will the country’s system work, how will the city function?” he said.

RIL to create hybrid online-to-offline retail platform: Ambani

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Reliance Industries’ (RIL) Chairman & Managing Director Mukesh D. Ambani on Thursday said the company saw its biggest growth opportunity “in creating a hybrid, online-to-offline new commerce platform”.

According to Ambani, who was addressing the shareholders at the company’s 41st Annual General Meeting (AGM) here, the new commerce platform will be created through the integration of its offline retail arm and online technology platform.

He further said Reliance Retail’s revenue grew by 100 percent on a year-on-year (YoY) basis Rs 69,000 crore last year.

Bad weather prevents Rajnath’s Amarnath visit

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 Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh could not visit the Amarnath Cave Shrine due to inclement weather on Thursday.

The Home Minister will take a review of various developmental projects, security and law and order in Jammu and Kashmir before concluding his two-day visit, official sources said.

He had met Governor N.N. Vohra on Wednesday at the Raj Bhawan after arriving here along with Ajit Doval, national security advisor and Rajiv Gauba, union home secretary.

This is Singh’s first visit to the state after Governor’s rule was imposed here on June 20.

Singh will return to New Delhi on Thursday later.

Karnataka waives Rs 34,000 crore farm loans

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 The Karnataka government on Thursday waived farm loans up to Rs 34,000 crore, giving relief to lakhs of farmers across the state.

“I propose to waive farm loans up to Rs 34,000 crore, with Rs 2 lakh per farmer family,” Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy said in the Assembly while presenting his maiden state budget for fiscal 2018-19.

The budget proposes to tax the people heavily by increasing the petrol fare by Rs 1.14 per liter and diesel by Rs 1.12 per liter.

“I also propose to increase excise duty on Indian made foreign liquor by 4 percent to raise additional revenue for meeting the budget expenditure,” said Kumaraswamy, who heads a coalition government of his Janata Dal-Secular and the Congress.

The Chief Minister has also proposed to increase power tariff by 20 paise per unit.

Promising to continue the flagship programmes of the previous Congress government, Kumaraswamy told the legislators that the overall size of the budget would be Rs 2,13,734 crore.

“I propose to allocate Rs 150 crore for agriculture development based on the Israeli model. We will focus on agriculture as well as the services sector,” he said.

Murder of husband’s second wife; Court has sentenced life imprisonment

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The district additional sessions court has sentenced the first wife of a man for killing his second wife who was seven months pregnant to life imprisonment and fined 50,000 rupees on Tuesday, July 3rd.

Misriya (27) is the accused who has been sentenced to life. She is the first wife of Abdul Rehman, a resident of Kannambatti of Hidayat Nagar in Uppala. She was sentenced for killing Nafisat Misriya (21), second wife of Abdul Rehman.

Incident Synopsis

On August 7, 2011 at 6 am, Misriya had poured petrol through the window of the room on Nafisat Misriya and her husband Abdul Rehman who were sleeping and set them on fire. Both the victims suffered severe burns. Nafisat succumbed to her injuries at a hospital in Mangaluru and she was 6 months pregnant during her death. Abdul Rehman received treatment for quite a long period.

The convict Misriya is the first wife of Abdul Rehman and she has two children from him. Abdul Rehman had deserted his first wife Misriya and had married Nafisat.Misriya planned to eliminate both her husband Abdul Rehman and his second wife Nafisat, enraged by her husband’s act to desert here.

Oil price biggest risk for Indian economy: Moody’s survey

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A majority of Indian and foreign investors consider that high oil prices have emerged as a significant risk to the country’s economy, Moody’s Investors Service said on Wednesday.

The US rating agency’s report is based on a survey of 175 respondents, including from over 100 financial institutions at the annual India Credit Conference in Mumbai and Singapore held in June.

Investors were asked questions on issues like top risks facing the Indian economy, fiscal deficit, the recapitalizsation package for public sector banks and credit conditions for Indian corporates among others.

“Most of the respondents highlighted high oil prices as the top risk while 30.3 per cent of those in Singapore picked rising interest rates as the next top risk and 23.1 per cent of those in Mumbai picked domestic political risks as the second top risk,” Moody’s Vice President Joy Rankothge said in the report.

Most respondents said they believed India would not meet the central government’s fiscal deficit target of 3.3 per cent of GDP for the current fiscal.

While only 23.3 per cent of the investors in Singapore and 13.6 per cent in Mumbai felt that the fiscal targets would be achieved, 84.7 per cent in Mumbai and 76.7 per cent in Singapore expected some fiscal slippage.

On the government’s bank recapitalisation plan, 85.7 per cent in Singapore and 93.6 per cent in Mumbai thought that it was insufficient to resolve the non-performing assets (NPA), or banks’ bad loans, challenges.

In this connection, while 59.6 per cent of the attendees in Mumbai thought that banks will be unable to raise capital from the markets, 32.1 per cent in Singapore felt the same way.

Respondents in both locations said funding conditions will be one of the top factors driving the outlook for non-financial corporates – 38 per cent in Mumbai and 34.6 per cent in Singapore.

According to the report, 28 per cent of respondents in Mumbai selected the resumption of capital investment as the second key factor affecting credit outlook while only 11.5 per cent felt this way in Singapore.

In contrast, 26.9 per cent of the Singapore attendees selected government policy and reforms as the second most important factor affecting the credit outlook, compared with 22 per cent in Mumbai.

‘Big 500’ corporates account for 90% CSR spend: Survey

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The ‘big 500’ companies in India contribute the lion’s share of more than 90 percent of the total Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) spends in India, and just 20 top corporations account for over 45 percent, a new survey revealed on Wednesday.

In terms of the geographical beneficiaries, Maharashtra received the biggest chunk of the total CSR fund spent in the country, followed by Rajasthan, Karnataka and Gujarat and together they account for around one-third of the total funds.

However, the northeastern states of Nagaland, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura, and the Union Territories have received the lowest CSR funding so far.

The survey on the CSR activities was conducted by CSRBOX and NGOBOX, which revealed that by March 2019, CSR spending will cross Rs 50,000 crore mark.

Similarly, the CSR compliance is also expected to improve and fall in the range of 97-98 percent by net year 2019-2020, according to the survey, said CSRBOX-NGOBOX CEO Bhomik Shah.

“The research examined the CSR spending trend since the applicability of mandatory CSR with the Companies Act, 2103, for companies falling under certain criteria of annual profits or turnover or net worth. According to Ministry of Corporate Affairs, India has between 13,000-15,000 such companies,” Shah said.

The survey looked into the prescribed CSR and actual CSR trends in the past four years and projected the number for the current fiscal’s CSR spend by the ‘Big 500’ companies.

The research said that the ‘Big 500’ will spend over Rs 11,000 crore on social initiatives this year to comply with the CSR rules, Shah added.

The survey predicts that education will be the most favoured area of CSR activity in coming years, followed by skills development, which could be pumped in with Rs 15,000 crore CSR funds between 2014-2019.

Besides, healthcare, water and sanitation initiatives also received substantial CSR attention due to the ‘Swachh Bharat Mission’ and would receive Rs 14,000 crore by March 2019.

After analyzing CSR portfolios of companies in past four years, Shah said that an upward trend has been noticed for CSR compliance though the funding size for various initiatives is falling, suggesting that companies want to diversify their CSR activities.

“If the new recommendations by Sub-Legal Committee on CSR, constituted by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs in April 2018 are accepted by the government, then companies will not be allowed to carry forward the unspent CSR fund. This will boost the CSR compliance substantially,” Shah pointed out.

He explained that in the past, corporates used to write out cheques for government-instituted funds when they lacked expertise on development issues, but the scenario is reversing now with the government taking their support to show impact on ground through CSR interventions and boost official programmes — the real intention of making CSR mandatory.

“Mandatory CSR has made a lot of change in India’s development landscape. It has gradually formalised the corporate philanthropy with emphasis on impacts on the ground. With an average Rs 12,000 crore funding annually, there is a lot that can be done in education, healthcare and rural development areas,” said Shah.

Syria’s war: UN ‘deeply alarmed’ by violence in southern Deraa

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The United Nations is “deeply alarmed” about the government offensive in southern Syria, which is forcing thousands of families to flee their homes and has caused civilian deaths.

About 270,000 have fled, the UN said, with tens of thousands currently stuck by the border with Jordan after the Russian-backed government offensive began to recapture rebel-held southwestern Deraa province.

According to the UN, nearly half of the displaced are children.

“This is the largest population displacement in southern Syria since the onset of the crisis,” Anders Pedersen, UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Jordan, wrote in a statement on Wednesday.

Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi said on Wednesday that dozens of trucks were waiting for Syrian permission to supply humanitarian aid from Jordan to Syria.

Safadi was speaking at a news conference following talks with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov in Moscow.

After artillery strikes hit Jordanian territory from Syria, he said Jordan’s armed forces were ready to defend country’s interests.

Amman has kept its borders shut for the new wave of refugees from Deraa, as the country says it is unable to host additional Syrians.

Jordan currently hosts more than 650,000 of the 5.2 million Syrian refugees spread across the region, according to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR).

However, the Jordanian government puts the number at 1.3 million, as the UNHCR only counts registered refugees, whereas Amman includes Syrians who have not received UN asylum.

The UN has dispatched humanitarian assistance over the past two months and has been helping to provide essential supplies such as food, water, soap and medical equipment with extra supplies prepared in case for further escalation in conflict.

Children are at particular risk of dehydration and diarrhoea, Pederson noted.

UN urges Jordan to admit some of refugees from Syria’s Deraa
“The United Nations reiterates its readiness to assist as much as needed but, at the same time, it also reminds all responsible parties that our effectiveness depends on facilitation of the provision of humanitarian aid and protection to people in need, in line with the parties’ obligations under international humanitarian law,” Pederson wrote.

“The United Nations reminds all states and parties involved in the conflict that a delay in responding to the worsening humanitarian crisis could only lead to catastrophic results.”

Since the war in Syria began in 2011, Jordan, Turkey and Lebanon have shouldered much of the responsibility in hosting Syrian refugees.

The UN’s concern comes as Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi and his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov met in Moscow on Wednesday to discuss the situation in Deraa, located near the Jordanian border.

Safadi said the situation in southern Syria was a cause for serious concern and needed to be resolved as soon as possible.

He said on Wednesday dozens of trucks are waiting for Syrian permission to supply humanitarian aid from Jordan to Syria.

After artillery strikes hit Jordanian territory from Syria, Safadi said Jordan’s armed forces were ready to defend country’s interests.

Delhi government takes back power to post officers

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Within hours of the apex court ruling in its favour, the Delhi government said on Wednesday it was taking back from the Lt Governor the power to transfer and post IAS and other officers.

“Two years back as per a High Court decision, the power to transfer and post officers was taken away from the elected government of Delhi and was reposed with the LG and other officials,” Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said.

“Being the Minister of Services, I have now ordered that this system be changed with immediate effect and be given back to the Chief Minister and Deputy Chief Minister,” he told reporters here.

According to the system which prevailed hitherto, the power to transfer and post IAS officers, DANICS officers and officers equivalent to all India services was vested with the Lt. Governor.

The power to transfer and post Grade I and II DASS employees, private secretaries and senior personal assistants was vested with the Chief Secretary.

A Supreme Court Constitution Bench on Wednesday ruled in favour of the Arvind Kejriwal government saying the real powers of governance in Delhi rest with the elected representatives.

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