The Karnataka Budget for fiscal 2018-19 on Thursday estimated a Rs 579.05-crore widening deficit on capital account from its Revised Estimates of Rs 105.30 crore and Budget Estimates of Rs 370.04 crore for fiscal 2017-18.

“Fiscal deficit is expected to be Rs 40,753 crore, which is 2.89 per cent of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP),” said Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy in the Assembly here.

Fiscal deficit is the difference between the total revenue and expenditure of the state government in a financial year.

Similarly, the state’s total liabilities at Rs 2,92,220 crore at the end of 2018-19, estimated to be 20.75 per cent of the GSDP, though within the 25 per cent limit mandated in the Karnataka Fiscal Responsibility Act for FY 2019.

“All three fiscal parameters are within the mandate of the Act, reflecting the state’s fiscal prudence,” claimed Kumaraswamy in his Budget speech.

The Budget has proposed to waive crop loans up to a whopping Rs 34,000 crore, borrowed by 17 lakh farmers at the rate of Rs 2 lakh per family across the state till December 31, 2017.

On revenue account, however, the Budget estimated for this fiscal (FY 2019) a modest surplus of Rs 106.06 crore from Revised Estimates of Rs 383.84 crore and Budget Estimates of Rs 136.54 crore for fiscal 2017-18.

“The total receipts for 2018-19 are estimated to Rs 2,13,734 crore, including Rs 1,66,396 crore from revenue, Rs 47,338 crore from capital and Rs 47,134 crore from borrowings,” Kumaraswamy said.

He said that the total expenditure is estimated to be Rs 2,18,488 crore, comprising Rs 1,66,290 crore from revenue, Rs 41,063 crore from capital and Rs 11,136 crore from debt repayment.

The southern state’s tax revenue for FY 2019 is estimated to be Rs 1,06,621 crore, including Goods and Services Tax compensation, which is an increase of 16.25 per cent over the revised estimate of 2017-18.

As much as Rs 8,181 crore is expected to be collected from non-tax revenues. The state government expects to receive Rs 36,215 crore as its share of the central taxes and Rs 15,379 crore as grants from the central government.

The revenue receipts are estimated to be supplemented by gross borrowings of Rs 47,134 crore, non-debt capital receipts of Rs 75 crore and recovery of loans up to Rs 129 crore.

“The state-run boards, corporations and local bodies are expected to mobilise Rs 16,760 crore through internal resource generation and borrowings,” added Kumaraswamy, who holds the finance portfolio.

The GSDP in last fiscal 2017-18 grew 8.5 per cent from of 7.5 per cent in 2016-17.

“The agriculture sector is expected to grow 4.9 per cent, manufacturing 4.9 per cent and service sector 10.4 per cent in this fiscal,” added Kumaraswamy.

Moments after Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy presented his maiden budget here on Thursday, July 5, BJP MLAs from Dakshina Kannada and Udupi submitted a hand-written letter of protest over not making any announcements for coastal Karnataka.

“Is Kumaraswamy the CM of only Old Mysuru region?” they asked. BJP MLAs alleged that all new projects have been announced only for places where JD(S) leaders are MLAs.

MLC Kota Srinivas Poojary too criticized the budget, stating that the farm loan waiver is not as much as expected. “This is not a complete waiver of farm loans.”

Mangaluru South MLA Vedavyas Kamath slammed HDK for ignoring the coastal region. “We had urged for special funds for the rain-damaged coastal region, but we got nothing. There is no allocation for coastal development, not even for roads. This is an injustice to the people of the coastal region and we strongly condemn this.”

Meanwhile, BJP MLAs from the coastal region said that the state government ignored the fishermen and Endosulfan victims. “We were expecting new announcements for fisheries and Endosulfan victims in the coastal region. But the JD(S)-Congress coalition has completely neglected the people of coastal Karnataka and betrayed them.”

Opposition MLAs from coastal Karnataka protested in front of Vidhana Soudha alleging that Dakshina Kannada and Udupi were not even mentioned in the budget.

Sources said soon after the budget presentation, ministers U T Khader and Zameer Ahmed Khan approached HDK to express displeasure over not announcing any allocation for minorities. HDK is learned to have told them that it would be taken care of in the next budget.

Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy is presenting the Congress-JDS coalition government’s maiden budget at Vidhana Soudha here today.

The budget preparations were made based on the Common Minimum Programme of the coalition partners.

Budget Highlights:

Size of the 2018 Budget: Rs 2,13,734 crore

Rs 150 crore will be allotted for adopting Israel method of farming.

Israel model of irrigation to be adopted across 5000 hectares each in Karwar, Tumakuru, Yadgir and Haveri.

Congress government ‘bhagya’ schemes will continue.

Annabhagya scheme: Quantity of rice cut from 7 kg to 5 kg

4% rise in liquor tax

Fuel price rise; Petrol-Rs 1.14, diesel – Rs 1.12

Power tariff rise by 20 paise per unit

Rs 34,000 crore will be allotted towards farm loan waiver

Bellandur Lake rejuvenation project – Rs 50 crore alloted

‘I have decided to limit the loan amount to Rs 2 lakhs’- HDK

Film University to be set up at a cost of Rs.30 cr at Ramanagara

Rs 25 cr towards Mutts (selected)

Rs 15825 cr for six elevated corridors across Bengaluru

Education: Rs 26581 cr; Water resources: Rs 18142 cr; Urban development: Rs 17727 cr; Energy: Rs 14499 cr; Social Welfare: Rs 14123 cr; PWD: Rs 10200 cr

Rs 190 crore for a scheme to safeguard interests of coconut growers

Kayaka scheme: Loan of up to Rs 10 lakh to enhance skill development and entrepreneurship skills in SHGs on cluster model or individually

Rs 150 cr allotted to repair govt primary, high-school and PU college buildings

Rs 25Cr set aside for Karnataka Brahmin Development Board

Pregnant women from BPL families to get Rs 1,000 aid per month

Anganwadi centers under women and child welfare department will be strengthened as ‘Balasnehi’ centres.

In its aim towards human spaceflight, Indian space agency ISRO on Thursday carried out the first in a series of tests to qualify a crew escape system.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) in a statement said the crew escape system is a critical technology for human spaceflight.

“The crew escape system is an emergency escape measure designed to quickly pull the crew module along with the astronauts to a safe distance from the launch vehicle in the event of a launch abort.

“The first test (Pad Abort Test) demonstrated the safe recovery of the crew module in case of any exigency at the launch pad,” ISRO said.

According to the ISRO, the five-hour countdown was smooth. The crew escape system along with the simulated crew module with a mass of 12.6 tonne, lifted off at 7 a.m. at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh.

The test was over in 259 seconds, during which the crew escape system along with crew module soared skyward, then arced out over the Bay of Bengal and floated back to Earth under its parachutes about 2.9 km from Sriharikota.

The crew module reached an altitude of nearly 2.7 km under the power of its seven specifically designed quick acting solid motors to take away the crew module to a safe distance without exceeding the safe g-levels.

Nearly 300 sensors recorded various mission performance parameters during the test flight.

Three recovery boats are being exercised to retrieve the module as part of the recovery protocol.

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.

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.

Oil prices edged up on Tuesday on rising concerns about an oil shortage amid supply disruptions in Libya.

The West Texas Intermediate for August delivery increased $0.20 to settle at $74.14 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent crude for September delivery was up $0.46 dollar to close at $77.76 a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange, Xinhua reported.

Libya declared force majeure on exports from its two critical ports which together handle about 850,000 bpd of oil shipments, according to Reuters. Oil producers declare force majeure when forces beyond their control disrupt oil supplies.

A weaker US dollar also made the dollar-priced commodity more attractive for holders of other currencies.
The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major peers, decreased 0.25 per cent to 94.636 in late trading.

The longest total lunar eclipse of the 21st century would occur on July 27, with the celestial spectacle visible in its entirety from all parts of India.

The eclipse will last for 1 hour and 43 mi

nutes, giving viewers a wonderful opportunity to experience the happening, according to Debiprosad Duari, Director, Research & Academic, M.P. Birla Planetarium, Kolkata.

It will be preceded and followed by partial eclipses lasting more than one hour.

The eclipse will be visible in parts of South America, much of Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. For viewers in India, the eclipse, both partial and the total, will be visible in its entirety from all parts of the country.

The partial eclipse of the moon will start around 11.54 p.m. Indian Standard Time, with the total eclipse begining at 1 a.m. on July 28.

“The greatest eclipse, when moon will look the darkest, will be at around 01:52 a.m. and the totality will continue at 02:43 a.m. after this period the moon will remain partially eclipsed till 03:49 a.m. of July 28,” Duari said in a media release.

Earlier this year, there was a total lunar eclipse on January 31.

For a total lunar eclipse of a long duration to occur, the moon has to pass through the central part of the Earth’s shadow.

The previous total lunar eclipse on January 31, lasted 1 hour and 16 minutes when the moon passed to the south of shadow’s centre; and the next total lunar eclipse on January 21, 2019 will be only for 1 hour and 2 minutes because it’ll pass to the north of the shadow’s centre.

Late at night on July 27, the full moon will be near its apogee, the farthest point from Earth in its orbit around Earth, and it will be the smallest full moon of the year.

“This smaller and slower-moving full moon takes more time to cross the Earth’s shadow than does a full moon that’s closer to Earth and moving faster in orbit. That’s why a full moon at or near lunar apogee adds to the duration of a total lunar eclipse,” Duari said

The full moon will plunge deeply into the Earth’s shadow on the night of July 27-28. The distance of the Moon from Earth just before the eclipse will be around 406,223 km.

Depending on atmospheric conditions, this could be an especially dark total lunar Eclipse. The longest possible total lunar eclipse is 1 hour and 47 minutes. In this case, the centre of the lunar disk aligned almost perfectly with the centre of the Earth’s shadow.

During a total lunar eclipse, the moon’s disk can take on a dramatically colourful appearance from bright orange to blood red and more rarely dark brown to very dark gray depending upon the part of the Eartha¿s shadow it will be passing through.

Lunar eclipses are completely safe to view with the naked eye.

“No special filters are required to protect your eyes like those used for solar eclipses. One does not need a telescope to watch the eclipse, although a good pair of binoculars will enhance the experience,” Duarisaid.

An eclipse of the moon takes place only at full moon. Whenever the sun, earth and moon come in a perfect straight line, as the sun’s rays falls on the earth, its shadow falls onto a patch of space, and only when, moon enters that patch of shadow can we see a lunar eclipse.

The shadow is actually composed of two cone-shaped parts, one nested inside the other. The outer shadow or penumbra is a zone where the earth’s shadow is partial and blocks some, but not all of the sun’s rays.

In contrast, the inner shadow or umbra is a region where the earth blocks all direct sunlight from reaching the moon. When only part of the moon passes through the umbra, a partial lunar eclipse is seen. If the entire Moon passes through the umbral shadow, then a total eclipse of the moon occurs.

Claiming a default of Re 1 in repayment of a loan, a co-operative bank here has allegedly refused to return 138 grams of gold jewels pledged for the loan, prompting the customer to move the Madras High Court for relief.
In a petition, C Kumar, a member of the Pallavaram branch of Kancheepuram Central Cooperative Bank, submitted that he had been running from pillar to post for the past five years to get back the jewels worth around Rs 3.50 lakh and sought a direction to the bank to return them.

When the plea came up for hearing on Friday, Justice T Raja recorded the petitioner’s counsel submissions Sathyan and directed the government advocate to get instructions from the authorities within two weeks.

The petitioner said he had taken a loan of Rs 1.23 lakh from the bank by pledging 131 grams of gold jewellery on April 6, 2010.

In between, he took two fresh loans totalling Rs 1.65 lakh by pledging a total of 138 grams of gold.

On March 28,2011, he closed the first loan by settling the amount along with interest and redeemed the 131 grams of jewels.

He repaid the two other loans also shortly thereafter, but the bank refused to return the jewels saying there was a balance of Re 1 in each of the loans.

Petitioners counsel M Sathyan said even after repeated requests by the petitioner, the bank refused to release the jewellery or accept payment of pending Re 1 for each account.

The petitioner submitted that he nurtured a doubt with regard to the safety of his jewels.

Skoda Auto India on Monday said that its parent Volkswagen Group will invest 1 billion euros in the company’s expansion plan for the Indian market.

The programme — India 2.0 — will be executed between 2019 and 2021.

It includes creation of an engineering and design centre, new products, increase in production and further localization of components.