The market regulator on Friday allowed exchanges to extend the trading hours for the commodity derivatives segment to increase participation.

According to a Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) circular,Athe commodity markets can open at 9 a.m. local time from the current time of 10 a.m.

Trading of agriculture products would go on till 9 p.m. while that of non-agri products would be till 11.55 p.m., said the circular.

“The extension of the trade timing is subject Ato the AStock AExchange Aand Aits Clearing Corporation(s) putting Ainplace adequaterisk Amanagement system, surveillance Asystemand Ainfrastructure Acommensurate Awith the increased trading hours,” the circular said.

“The Aprovisions Aof Athis Acircular Ashall Acome Ainto Aeffect Afrom 30 Adays Afrom Athe date of this circular.”

IANS

 Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy has requested his Goa counterpart Manohar Parrikar to lift the blanket ban on fish import, claiming that the crackdown has caused “huge losses” to the fishermen from the southern state.

In a letter, Kumaraswamy said: “I request you to kindly permit transportation and trading activities of fish between the two states and the ban order issued by the state of Goa may be kept on hold till we comply with FDA regulation.

“It is requested that this blanket ban may be withdrawn… Karnataka will ensure that the fish traders comply with the FDA regulations and obtain a certificate after meeting the required standards.”

The letter, which was received by Parrikar’s office on Thursday, also said fisherfolk from three coastal districts in Karnataka — Uttara Kannada, Dakshina Kannada, Udupi — who harvest a catch of nearly 4.10 lakh tonne every year, were now facing huge losses on account of the ban.

“The fishermen have been taken by surprise by the sudden ban on fish trade to the state of Goa. This has resulted in huge losses by the coastal fishermen and lot of unrest among the fishermen community.”

The controversy involving use of formalin in fish erupted in July after a Food and Drugs Administration team found traces of the carcinogenic cadaver preservative in fish sold in Goa.

The BJP-led coalition government has been on the back-foot ever since, after several of its ministers were accused of allegedly protecting fish traders who were reportedly importing formalin-laced fish consignments into Goa from Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

Under public pressure to crackdown on the “fish mafia”, Goa on November 12 banned the import of fish from traders who were unregistered with the state’s FDA.

The ban has also hiked prices of fish in Goa.

IANS

The Karnataka government has decided to take up an elevated corridor project to decongest city roads from January 2019 at an estimated cost of about Rs 25,495 crore, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy said Thursday.

The project is also aimed at providing effective modes of transportation, minimizing maintenance cost of vehicles and ensuring road safety along with limiting carbon emission, he said.

“Due to traffic congestion on city roads, we have decided to go ahead with construction of corridors to ease traffic in North-South, East-West and central parts of the city,” Kumaraswamy told reporters here.

The project would be taken up under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode, he said.

Officials have been instructed to ensure there were no legal hurdles and that complete transparency was maintained, Kumaraswamy said.

The government has decided to kickstart the project in January 2019 and complete it by 2021.

Kumaraswamy had announced in his budget speech about undertaking of construction of elevated corridor and also allocated Rs 1,000 Crore for present year.

The chief minister held a meeting of officials of various departments Thursday, where he also examined the presentation of Detailed Project Report (DPR) regarding elevated corridors project.

He said with a view to ensuring that public property was not affected, it had been decided to go in for four lane roads at places where it may affect people and six lane in the remaining places.

Kumaraswamy said, according to estimates, 3,700 trees might have to be felled for the project and steps would be taken towards translocating trees wherever possible and also planting of new trees in about 100 acres at various places in the city.

“There will be interlink between corridor and metro line, and at places double decker model is likely to be adopted for this purpose,” he added.

In another move to decongest city roads, the state cabinet had recently decided to bear the land acquisition cost of about Rs 4,500 crore for the 65-km peripheral ring road, estimated to come up at a cost of about Rs 17,000 crore.

“Despite efforts by various governments through various programmes, we have not been successful in providing all the basic necessities to the citizens of Bengaluru,” Kumaraswamy said.

Pointing out that there was a section among citizens who are opposed to such infrastructure projects, Kumaraswamy asked them to take note of situations such as vehicles moving bumper to bumper on city roads and speed limited to 15-20 km per hour leading to wasting of time in traffic.

“If there are any doubts, Vidhana Soudha’s doors are always open. You can clear your doubts either by meeting me or the Chief Secretary.

My priority is providing facilities to people of Bengaluru,” he said, adding that environment-related concerns are being kept in mind while taking decisions.

PTI

Syria’s air defences intercept suspected Israeli missiles

 Syrian air defences responded on Thursday evening to a suspected Israeli missile attack on military targets in southern Syria, media reported.

State TV reported that Syrian air force fired anti-air missiles in response to the strike, adding that all enemy targets were destroyed and that the foreign attack failed to achieve its intended goals, reports Xinhua news agency.

It said the attack took place over the town of Kisweh in the southern countryside of the Syrian capital Damascus.

While the official Syrian media outlets hinted that Israel is behind the attack, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitoring group based in Britain, explicitly stated that Israel carried out the attack in the southern and southwestern countryside of Damascus near the administrative border with the southern province of Quneitra.

The watchdog said the Syrian air defences were firing a number of missiles to intercept the Israeli missiles.

Meanwhile, the pro-government Sham FM radio said two explosions were heard in the vicinity of the town of Al-Dimass in the western countryside of Damascus in tandem with the missile attack in southern Damascus.

Israel has repeatedly targeted military positions in Syria, including Kisweh.

If Israel is proved to be behind the attack, it would be the its first attack on Syrian targets since September, when it attacked military sites in Syria and led to the downing of a Russian surveillance aircraft by missiles mistakenly fired by Syrian air force in response to the Israeli attack.

After the September attack, during which 15 Russian servicemen were killed, Russia and the Syrian government blamed Israel for the crash, and Moscow was quick to equip Damascus with the advanced S-300 air defence system.

Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad told Xinhua in September that the arrival of Russia’s S-300 to Syria would push Israel to reconsider before striking Syria again.

Israeli usually claims that its strikes target Iranian positions or weapons in Syria that could end up in the hands of the Hezbollah group in Lebanon.

IANS

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) employees union would go on an indefinite strike from December 3 over non-issuance of the third pay revision.

In a letter to Union Communications Minister Manoj Sinha on November 28 (Wednesday), the union sought a level-playing field for the company in comparison to other players in the telecom sector.

“Thousands of workers (Non-Executives and Executives of BSNL) are retiring every month. Naturally, issues of their third pay revision are still pending despite clear commitment given to them in that regard and that has created serious resentment among them,” said the letter.

It further said: “They are expecting at least 15 per cent enhancement/fitment in pay and payment of pension contribution by BSNL and revision of pension to BSNL retirees with effect from 01.01.2017, as made available to a number of public sector employees and officers.”

The employee’s union also sought the allotment of 4G spectrum to BSNL.

Further, the Centre of Indian Trade Union in a statement released in support of the demands said that the allotment of 4G spectrum to BSNL “is being deliberately delayed by the government to allow advantage to private telecom operators at the cost of BSNL.”

IANS

 In the midst of a government-Reserve Bank of India (RBI) tussle over utilisation of capital reserves of the central bank, former Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian strongly supports the government’s view, saying the RBI is holding excess capital between Rs 4.5 and Rs 7 lakh crore which should be used to recapitalise the banks.

However, he adds that deploying capital is a decision for the RBI to take which it must do “voluntarily and proactively without even the whiff of interference from outside”.

Subramanian says he realises that in making this suggestion he is up against all the eminent current and former RBI officials, who argue that the RBI actually needs all the capital it has, but they are wrong.

“These officials command the respect of the public, and for good reasons. I think they are wrong. As Margaret Thatcher used to say, ‘One man and the Truth is a majority’,” the noted economist says in his upcoming book “Of Counsel: The Challenges of the Modi-Jaitley Economy”, published by Penguin.

“It is almost certainly the case that more money will be needed to make banks healthy… It is possible that the government will need to provide anywhere between Rs 3-5 lakh crore — in addition to the amounts already spent — to restore the fundamentally viable public sector banks to health,” Subramanian says.

He adds that there is only one public-sector entity — RBI — that has a strong enough balance sheet to deploy this magnitude of resources.

“Conservative estimates (as well as cross-country comparisons) based on our internal analysis suggest that if the RBI were to adopt the practices of most major central banks around the world in deciding how much capital is necessary, it would find that it has about Rs 3-4 lakh crore of excess government capital, some of which it could deploy for the clean-up,” he says.

Subramanian adds that RBI is an outlier among major central banks, holding about 28 per cent in capital, which is the fifth-largest amongst all major central banks, with two of the four above India in this ranking being oil exporters, which are special cases being highly vulnerable to the swings in the price of petroleum.

He says the RBI calculates risk based on a sample that almost no other central bank does and has set for itself a risk tolerance that is “ultra, ultra conservative, almost bordering on paranoia”.

“Whereas other central banks want to cushion against events with one per cent probability of occurring, the RBI wants to cushion against events that can occur with .001 per cent probability.”

“…Prima facie, then, it seems that the RBI is holding too much capital… Our estimate is that the RBI is holding excess capital between Rs 4.5-7 lakh crore… This excess capital should be redeployed, shifted from where it is not needed and put instead where it is needed urgently, namely, in public-sector banks,” he says.

However, he warns that any redeployment of RBI capital must be seen not as a government demand but as a voluntary commitment of the RBI for the greater good, and should be done only after extensive consultation.

“If there is one strong balance sheet and one weak, there is no good reason the former should not come to the rescue of the latter. We build up strength in balance sheets not for strength’s sake but to use that strength. Savings are meant for rainy days and when rainy days come, savings should be run down.

“During and after the global financial crisis, major central banks across the world have lent the heft of their balance sheets to pull economies out of dire economic circumstances,” the former CEA says.

He adds the legitimacy of central banks is enhanced when they take actions to address serious problems. “When reputations and strong balance sheets are put on the frontline in service of the economy, these assets, far from getting depleted, are actually replenished.”

IANS

Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy on Thursday inaugurated the 21st edition of Karnataka State’s flagship Information Technology and Biotechnology event, ‘Bengaluru Tech Summit’.

Addressing the press persons after inaugurating the three-day event Kumaraswamy said that this tech summit is a unique platform provided by the Karnataka government for deliberating on innovation and its impact on the industry.

When it comes to Foreign Direct Investment and employability Karnataka stands first. The IT, BT and related sectors in Bengaluru alone have provided employment to over 3 million,  he informed.

PTI

 The Modi government’s refusal to have talks with Pakistan betrays its “contradictory and self-defeating stand” vis-a-vis Islamabad and is dictated “by its communal agenda within the country”, the CPI-M has said.

“What is required is resumption of the comprehensive dialogue while maintaining a firm stance on tackling terrorism,” said an editorial in the CPI-M journal “People’s Democracy”.

“With its blinkered approach to relations with Pakistan which are dictated by its communal agenda within the country, the Modi government is constricting its scope for strategic autonomy,” the Communist Party of India-Marxist said.

“Whether it is Afghanistan or South Asia regional cooperation, India cannot play a positive role given its confrontationist stance towards Pakistan.

“Such a position does not only affect our external policy but also will have harmful repercussions internally – the worsening situation in Kashmir and the revival of extremism in Punjab are the two obvious pointers,” the editorial said.

The CPI-M hailed the decision to open a corridor from India to the Gurudwara Darbar Sahib in Kartarpur in Pakistan as “one of the rare instances when the governments of India and Pakistan have agreed to cooperate after a long period of stalemate and tensions”.

The corridor links the Dera Baba Nanak Gurudwara in Gurdaspur district in Indian Punjab to the Darbar Sahib Gurudwara where Guru Nanak Dev spent the last 18 years of his life.

“The joint effort in preparing the Kartarpur corridor has once again underlined the necessity for improving relations and cooperation between the two countries. It also highlighted the importance of developing people to people relations as a vital component of restoring normalcy and good neighbourly relations,” the editorial said.

But on the very day the corridor was being formally launched, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj announced India’s rejection of Pakistan’s invitation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend the SAARC summit in Islamabad saying talks cannot be held along with terrorist actions.

“This falling back on a hardline stance underscores the contradictory and self-defeating stand of the Modi government in its relations with Pakistan,” it said.

It said that the “surgical strikes” of September 2016 only led to more firings and shelling across the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir, where rising militancy has been met with “brutal State repression”.

The CPI-M said that there was no consistency in India’s approach to Pakistan.

IANS

 The Congress on Wednesday accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley of resorting to “malicious and fraudulent jugglery” of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figures to hide the “enormous body blow” caused by them to India’s economy.

“Failed ‘Modinomics’ plus a ‘pakoda economic vision’ has sunk India’s economy in complete turmoil. A despotic Prime Minister and ‘pseudo economist’ Finance Minister have repeatedly caused economic mayhem by the ill-conceived decisions of demonetisation, a flawed GST coupled with tax terrorism,” Congress Spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala said.

“Faced with utter and complete rejection of the ‘voodoo economics’ of Modi and Jaitley duo, they are resorting to malicious and fraudulent jugglery of GDP figures to hide the enormous body blow caused by them to India’s economy,” he said.

His remarks came after the government on Wednesday released the much awaited back-series estimates for India’s GDP which showed a lower rate of growth during the UPA years between 2005-06 and 2011-12 than what was estimated using the earlier methodology.

Surjewala alleged that the entire GDP back series data released by the Centre reflects the desperate attempt of a “defeatist Modi government” to undermine India’s growth story over last 15 years.

“Congress party had repeatedly pointed out that, when the base year was changed, the government should follow the healthy international practice and revise the numbers for the previous years. We had demanded that the back series data of GVA and GDP should be calculated and released so that meaningful comparisons can be made.

“The back series data as released by National Statistical Commission (NSC) in August 2018 is available in public domain. The numbers prove the dictum that truth cannot be suppressed,” Surjewala said.

The Congress Spokesperson said that UPA 1 and UPA 2 delivered the highest decadal growth (8.13 per cent at factor cost) since Independence.

It is also a matter of record that during this period 140 million people were lifted out of poverty, he said, adding the three best years were 2005-06, 2006-07 and 2007-08.

“Arvind Subramanian called them the “boom years”. That golden run would have continued but for the international financial crisis that hit the world in September 2008.”

He said when the UPA demitted office, economic growth had recovered to 6.39 per cent (at market prices) in 2013-14. “Besides, the fiscal deficit had been reduced to 4.48 per cent and the current account deficit had been contained at 1.7per cent.”

Surjewala accused that the revised ‘new series’ computed on Wednesday by the Ministry of Statistics and Niti Aayog has completely undermined the National Statistical Commission, the autonomous body for deciding data transparently and in accordance with global standards of calculating GDP as per market price linked methodology.

“Today, Modi government deceived the country by surreptitiously changing the methodology in order to manipulate GDP data. This is called ‘excel sheet management’ for example deciding the result first and filling the marks later. The new methodology is GVA based, which does not take into account tax, subsidies and consequently is extremely flawed to sub serve the myopic interests of the ruling government,” he said.

IANS

The ruling AIADMK government came under opposition flak on Wednesday over the manner in which it closed down the Sterlite Copper smelter plant in Tuticorin as a three-member committee appointed by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) said the closure is unjustified.

In a tweet, DMK President M.K. Stalin said it is a shame for the Tamil Nadu government that the Tarun Aggarwal committee has recommended reopening of the Sterlite Copper smelter plant with certain conditions.

“Knowing that such a thing would happen, I had insisted that the decision to close down the plant should be taken in the cabinet meeting,” Stalin said.

He said the AIADMK government should at least fight the case legally in a proper manner.

PMK founder S. Ramadoss said the committee’s decision was an expected one.

Ramadoss said the smelter plant reopening on New Year 2019 is a certainty and the rulers have cheated the people.

The Tamil Nadu State Secretary of the Communist Party of India (CPI) R. Mutharasan said the state government should shed its supportive stand to the copper smelter plant and take action for permanent closure of the plant.

The NGT had appointed a committee headed by former Chief Justice of the Meghalaya High Court Tarun Aggarwal to probe the closure of the copper smelter plant.

Tamil Nadu had ordered the closure of the Tuticorin plant, around 650 km from Chennai, following protests and the death of 13 persons in police firing on May 22.

The locals alleged the plant caused pollution and affected their health.

In October, the Tamil Nadu government rejected a Central government-sponsored report on the groundwater contamination in Tuticorin, saying it “prejudices” the state government cases in various courts against the Sterlite copper smelter plant of Vedanta Ltd.

The study said Sterlite Copper can’t be said to be the only cause of pollution.

Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary Girija Vaidyanathan, in a letter to the Central government in October, had said the groundwater report appears to support Sterlite and “is absolutely vague and without any support of empirical data”.

“It does not appear to be made on any scientific basis and it is not known how the two scientists who have submitted the report have made such a vague and an unsubstantiated statement in the report,” Vaidyanathan said.