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Archives for 2018

Myanmar joins International Solar Alliance

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Myanmar on Thursday joined the India-initiated International Solar Alliance (ISA), becoming the 68th member of the grouping that is aiming at the optimum utilization of solar energy.

Myanmar Minister for International Cooperation Kyaw Tin handed over the ISA Framework Agreement to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj during a bilateral meeting here on the margins of this year’s Delhi Dialogue, the premier annual track 1.5 event to discuss politico-security, economic and socio-cultural engagement between India and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) bloc.

“Myanmar became the 68th signatory to the Framework Agreement of the International Solar Alliance,” External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted following the meeting.

Launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and then French President Francois Hollande at the Paris climate summit in 2015, the ISA was conceived as a coalition of solar resource-rich countries to address their special energy needs and provide a platform to collaborate on dealing with the identified gaps through a common, agreed approach.

It is open to all 121 prospective member countries falling between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.

Kumar also said that the two sides also exchanged views on cementing bilateral cooperation.

India is a key development aid partner for Myanmar and is implementing a number of infrastructure projects in that country.

These include the Kaladan Multimodal Transit Transport Project connecting Mizoram with Sittwe port in Myanmar, the Trilateral Highway Project connecting India with Myanmar and Thailand and the Rhi-Tiddim road.

India is also offering economic and humanitarian aid to its eastern neighbor’s Rakhine State in the wake of the Rohingya refugee crisis.

India, Singapore discuss strengthening bilateral ties

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India and Singapore on Thursday discussed ways to strengthen bilateral ties during a meeting between External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Singaporean counterpartVivian Balakrishnan here.

“Strengthening bilateral cooperation was the focus of discussion,” External Affairs Ministry spokesperson Raveesh Kumar tweeted following the meeting that was held on the sidelines of this year’s Delhi Dialogue, the premier annual track 1.5 event to discuss politico-security, economic and socio-cultural engagement between India and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) bloc.

Singapore is currently the chair of Asean, which comprises Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

India-Singapore ties were elevated to that of a Strategic Partnership during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to that Southeast Asian city state in 2015.

There are five areas of cooperation to enhance bilateral relations – referred to as the 5S Plank – which direct the relationship: scaling up trade and investment; speeding up connectivity; smart cities and urban rejuvenation; skill development; and state focus.

Singapore is India’s second largest trading partner in Southeast Asia.

After the two sides signed the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement in 2005, bilateral trade touched $16.7 billion in 2016-17.

Chidambaram victim of Modi government’s vendetta: Congress

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As the CBI on Thursday filed a charge-sheet against former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and his son Karti in the Aircel-Maxis case, the Congress said the senior party leader is “a victim of vendetta” of the Narendra Modi government.

“The kind of vendetta that Modi government unleashes every day is extremely unfortunate and one of the victims of that vendetta has been former Finance Minister P. Chidambaram,” said Congress spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala.

“Modiji is blind in his rage against Congress leadership,” he added.

Senior Congress leader Anand Sharma said the government is misusing its power and authority as well as the agencies.

“This is the first time that we are seeing this thing happening in the country. There are multiple agencies registering the case for the same alleged offense.

“The CBI (Central Bureau of Investigation) registers one case, then there is constant harassment, interrogation, bail, then the ED (Enforcement Directorate) comes with the PMLA (Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002) method and then the Revenue Intelligence moves in,” said Sharma.

EC dismisses Congress allegation of irregularities in MP electoral roll

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The Election Commission has dismissed the allegations made by Congress about large-scale entries of “invalid and false” voters in the electoral roll of Madhya Pradesh as “unsubstantiated”.

In a communication to the party to Monday, the EC said: “In view of the reports of the extensive door-to-door field verifications and facts.. your allegations of large-scale duplicate, repeat, invalid, and false electors in the electoral roll are not substantiated.”

The Congress had alleged large-scale irregularities in the state electoral roll in a complaint on June 3.

“The Commission immediately sent teams of officials to four assembly constituencies namely, Narela, Bhojpur, Hoshangabad and Seoni-Malwa ACs to enquire into the allegations made in your complaint,” said the EC in its letter.

“With regard to the allegation of abnormal increase of electors against population, there is an increase in electors from 3,68,48,021 in 2008 to 4,60,29,289 in 2013 and from 4,60,29,289 in 2013 to 4,97,97,657 as on July 2, 2018 i.e. an increase of 37,68,368 (8.1 per cent).

“This increase has been progressive on annual basis and is reasonable in view of the awareness among the electorates as well as various SVEEP measures adopted by the commission. This resulted in enrolment of a large number of first-time electors as well as left out electors,” it added.

The EC stated that the officials physically verified 26,76,231 electors in the 91 assembly constituencies in the state.

It said 22,918,10 voters were found to be present, while 3,307,11 voters were either deleted already or not found enrolled in the respective constituencies.

In 31,059 cases, the electors were found absent and 12,987 electors were found dead, EC stated.

“Only names of 9,644 electors were found in the repeated entry category against which appropriate action has already been initiated.”

Goa bans sale of alcohol in border village

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The Goa government on Thursday banned the sale of liquor in North Goa’s Surla village for 30 days to curb the nuisance caused by tourists.

Issued by North Goa Collector Levinson Martins, the order shuts down about a dozen liquor bars and restaurants serving liquor, liquor shops, pubs, provision stores, etc in Surla, located on the Goa-Karnataka border, around 60 km from here.

The prohibitive order is aimed at curbing the “menace, annoyance and nuisance created by tourists who primarily visit the place for drinking alcoholic beverages”.

“Particularly to ensure total protection to the vulnerable inhabitants of the village, i.e. children and women who are presently living under the possible threat of being targetted by the unruly behavior of drunken youth tourists visiting the village,” the order said.

Surla has a tiny population of around 500 residents, but its location along the border of Karnataka attracts a large number of tourists who want to enjoy the splendour of the Western Ghats in the rains when numerous waterfalls sprout, and also to buy alcohol, which is available at cheaper rates, thanks to Goa’s low tax regime on alcohol.

Over the years several drownings, as well as law and order-related incidents, have occurred in the forested areas near Surla, where tourists have either drowned or engaged in drunken brawls.

In a signed resolution addressed to Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar earlier this month, dozens of local residents, as well as students, listed the fallouts of alcohol abuse by tourists in their village.

Bangladeshi currency seized in Bengal

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The Border Security Force on Thursday seized Bangladeshi currency totaling 8.02 lakh Taka, or Rs 6.55 lakh in Indian currency, in West Bengal’s Nadia district, a senior BSF official said.

The suspect, however, fled the spot, he said.

Acting on a tip-off, BSF troopers kept a vigil near the India-Bangladesh border in Mankhola and seized the packet containing the Bangladeshi currency thrown by the fleeing smuggler.

As many as 377 artificial earrings were also seized, a BSF release said.

The seized currency was handed over to the Customs Department at Nadia district’s Tehatta.

BSF’s south Bengal frontier has seized foreign currency totaling Rs 53.21 lakh and arrested four Indian smugglers in 2018 so far.

Possibility of losing to US on exports subsidies issue: Official

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India faces the possibility of losing in the trade disputes with the US on its challenge to export subsidies, but the government is working on schemes to make them WTO compliant, an official said here on Thursday.

“We have a whole lot of challenges in World Trade Organization (WTO)… we respond strongly (but) there is a real possibility that we will lose this dispute because India has crossed the income threshold to be able to give direct export linked subsidies,” Union Commerce and Industry Secretary Rita Teaotia said while responding to a query on the US challenging India’s export subsidies in the WTO.

“What we are now trying to do is WTO compliant,” she said at an event organized by the Indian Chamber of Commerce.

Teaotia said that anything which entails a refund of the statutory levy is legitimate for the purpose of exports in trade rules while incentive given only for exports is not legitimate.

“Right now, we have an expert group studying to see what the WTO compliant supports are and what the global practices are in a transparent way. This exercise is almost complete. In fact, we are having the first round of presentation next week.

“Hopefully, we would have a draft set of schemes for the discussion in a month or so,” she said.

The Centre is looking to support for regulatory compliance, Teaotia said.

Incentives on service exports, duty free import of inputs, refund on statutory levies are legitimate for the purpose of exports, she said, adding that refund of uncovered taxes under GST regime are some of the supports that will likely to continue under the revised schemes.

She also said that the government was looking to at an integrated multimodal logistics legislation which covers all stakeholders.

Flagging off the issues related to tea blending, she said some factories or aggregators mix teas in such a way that purity of crop tends to fail and due to this, market share falls in the international markets.

Teaotia also pointed out the auction platforms of tea in India “has not had kind of acceptability that it should have had” and it is the reason for which, 100 per cent tea does not come to auction.

She said Tea Board’s new Vice Chairman has one of the first responsibilities to look at the acceptability of auctions platforms and how these platforms can be revamped in such that everybody buys into it.

She requested the industry to find out ways to make platforms better because the platforms are for the industry to serve its purpose.

“This was the discussion that we had this morning. There will be interactions next week with the groups of the industry to find out what people want to see on the platforms,” Teaotia added.

CBI charge sheet in Mallya case will name ex-Minister: BJP lawmaker

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BJP’s Nishikant Dubey on Thursday said in the Lok Sabha that the CBI will file a charge sheet against Vijay Mallya and name a former Finance Minister, leading to loud protests from the Congress.

Participating in a debate on The Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill, the lawmaker asked if two Finance Ministers during the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance rule were involved in sanction of loans to Mallya.

“You get the loan sanctioned without collateral and if he has run away, you say he has run away. Who gave the loans? Who created the situation? Which Congress leaders he had relations with? The CBI is going to file a charge sheet and it will have the name of a former Finance Minister,” he said.

The leader of the Congress in the house Mallikarjun Kharge immediately asked how was Dubey aware of the impending CBI action and said it showed “all this is pre-planned.”

“You people are doing this to fix (opponents),” he said.

Dubey said that he had not taken any names and there had been several Finance Ministers in the past.

TDP MP Jayadev names Mahesh Babu’s film in LS

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TDP MP Galla Jayadev, who initiated the debate on the no-trust motion in the Lok Sabha on Friday, mentioned Telugu blockbuster “Bharat Ane Nenu” of his brother-in-law and popular actor Mahesh Babu.

The industrialist-politician kicked off the debate with the mention of the movie to stress the point before Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government that “promises should be kept”.

“The latest Telugu blockbuster ‘Bharat Ane Nenu’ which means ‘I Bharat’ is a story about a young NRI who returns to India after his father, who is a Chief Minister, dies suddenly.

“Bharat enters politics reluctantly and becomes a young, dynamic and beloved Chief Minister,” said the Guntur MP.

“The recurring theme in this movie is about trust and his mother’s advice Bharat keeps recalling. A promise is a promise. If a man makes a promise and does not keep it, he does not have the right to call himself a man.

“It was a blockbuster because the general mood of people reflects well in this film. People are tired of empty assurances and unfulfilled commitments,” he said.

Jayadev, whose family owns Amara Raja Group, is the son-in-law of veteran Telugu actor Krishna, father of Mahesh Babu.

One of the wealthiest MPs, Jayadev had declared assets of Rs 683 crore during 2014 elections.

His mention of Mahesh Babu’s movie triggered varied reaction on social media. Some remarked that he is trying to promote his brother-in-law’s movie while others commented that this goes on to show how politics and films are deeply intertwined, especially in Andhra Pradesh.

2 dead in Uttarakhand cloud burst

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Two persons have died and three others have been buried in rubble on a hillside after a cloudburst triggered heavy rains in Chamoli district of Uttarakhand, an official said on Friday.

The downpour late on Thursday followed the cloudburst at Malari that led to a major chunk of a hill to collapse. Five labourers involved in some civil project, sleeping by the hillside were trapped in it.

Two of the bodies have been extracted while the search continues for three more.

A team of experts belonging to the State Disaster Management Department has been rushed to the site.

The heavy rains and inclement weather have also disrupted the Char Dham pilgrimage, the official told IANS. The Badrinath-Lambagad highway has been blocked, and also the Gangotri National Highway between Therang and Gangnani, near Nagdevta due to debris coming down on the road.

“Owing to some landslides and the subsequent debris falling on the highway traffic has been halted at Gangotri, Gangnani, Bhatwadi and Uttarkashi,” he added.

Labourers of the Border Road Organization (BRO) are working to clear the road as there is a long queue of vehicles that are part of the annual ‘Char Dham’ (Yamunotri, Gangotri, Badrinath and Kedarnath) pilgrimage.

The Hemkund pilgrimage continues uninterrupted.

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