CORPORATE AFFAIRS, TECHNOLOGY, E-COMMERCE & CARS
1. Keki Dadiseth and Nasser Munjee are no longer trustees of the Tata Trusts that together hold a 66% stake in Tata Sons, the group's holding company . As independent directors at Tata-run companies, both had at times supported Cyrus Mistry in his conflict with Tata Sons following his ouster as its chairman. Dadiseth used to be on the board of Tata-run Indian Hotels Co Ltd. The Tata Trusts, chaired by Ratan Tata, are a group of 14 public trusts managed by about 20 trustees. The trusts disburse more than Rs 750 crore annually for various causes including healthcare, livelihood, sanitation and education. The Tata Trusts are governed by the Maharashtra Public Trust Act and Income-Tax Act. They enjoy a unique position in India because they are allowed to hold shares in a commercial entity despite being exempt from income tax, exempt because of their philanthropy.
2. After almost a year, Indian authorities have turned their glare on Jatin Mehta, a man who has proved to be far more elusive and low profile than Vijay Mallya. The Enforcement Directorate is learnt to have asked Dubai to expedite its response to India's letters rogatory (LR) relating to Mehta's Winsome Group -the country's secondlargest wilful defaulter after Mallya's Kingfisher Airlines. Winsome Diamonds and Jewellery, a listed company , and group firm Forever owe Rs 6,800 crore to 15 banks in India. India had sent LR to the United Arab Emira tes around the middle of last year. The UAE, which is yet to respond to the request, had a few months ago shared some information with India's Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), which handles inputs on suspect financial transactions. Agencies such as ED and CBI need help from the UAE to verify Winsome's explanation for its inability to repay Indian banks. Winsome, which first defaulted in the summer of 2013, said it was unable to repay following $1billion derivative losses suffered by its UAE clients. Here's the sequence of transactions: Winsome had imported gold on the back of standby letters of credit (SBLC) given by Indian banks in favour of international bullion banks which supplied the gold. Winsome and Forever used the gold to make jewellery that was exported to 13 clients in Dubai. The arrangement was that Winsome and Forever would pay back the banks once they received payments from Dubai buyers -who, according to Winsome, could never pay up due to losses suffered in over-the-counter derivative bets. The global bullion banks invoked the SBLCs -just as any bank would encash guarantees in the event of a default -when Winsome was unable to pay them back. Banks extended the facility as per an RBI-approved scheme that was introduced to promote jewellery export. The facility which gave 270 days' credit to borrowers was discontinued after the Winsome fiasco. Indian banks took the hit because the terms of SBLC said that if Winsome failed to pay the bullion banks, the lenders would step in to pay for the gold import. Winsome informed stock exchanges in India that courts in the UAE have been moved to recover funds from the 13 Dubai companies led by one Haytham Ali Salman Abu Obidah, a Jordanian national. But lenders led by Standard Chartered Bank and Punjab National Bank never bought the Winsome story. PNB has the highest exposure and had filed the first FIR with Central Bureau of Investigation in early 2014.
3. The wheels now appear to be turning for scooters to reclaim their leadership status in India's personaltransport industry. The latest data from the world's biggest two-wheeler market show that one in three such vehicles sold now is a scooter, reflecting a turnaround for the narrowwheel mode of transport that began trailing motorcycles -with wider and bigger tyres -about 25 years ago. At the vanguard of the latest switch in favour of the trendy , gender-neutral machine is the urban consumer: The country's biggest metropolitan centres now show a distinct preference for scooters. In the past couple of years, one in every two two-wheelers sold in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai is a scooter. The statistics are similar for other aspiring metros, such as Pune, Ahmedabad and Lucknow.
Today, the introduction of automatic transmission in scooters, increasing urbanisation, better roads and a growing number of women consumers are helping turn the wheels in favour of scooters. In the past five years alone, the share of scooters in the overall twowheeler market in the country has risen from 20% to 33%. Had the demand for scooters not increased, the overall two-wheeler market would have witnessed negative growth. Scooter sales have reported a compounded annual growth rate of 20% in the past five years, whereas motorcycle sales have expanded in low single digits.
Analysts tracking the two-wheeler market in India say a prospective buyer would choose a motorcycle over the scooter because of its high fuel efficiency, longer wheel-base to ride over poor roads, and reliability. But with improving road infrastructure and an increase in the number of women buyers, scooters have staged a major comeback.
States and UTs with higher literacy rates and affluence have seen increasing acceptance for scooters. In Kerala, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Manipur and Mizoram, the scooter outsells the motorcycle. In Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Jammu & Kashmir, scooters have a share of 40% in total sales -higher than 33% national average.
There exists a strong correlation between urbanisation and scooter purchase. This has been previously seen in highly urbanised Southeast Asian economies.In the past five years, size of the overall scooter market more than doubled from 2.5 million to 5.6 million at the end of FY17, whereas the motorcycle market has merely grown from 10 million units to 11 million units since FY12. More than half of those scooter volumes came from Japan's largest twowheeler maker, HMSI. Led by Activa, HMSI has more than doubled volumes to 5 million units. Chennai-based TVS Motor Co too has gained on account of Jupiter brand, helping the company overtake Hero MotoCorp as the second-largest scooter maker.
4. ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar tells that the recent ordinance on bad loans gives the much-needed comfort to bankers in resolving the NPA mess. She also says that RBI should create more oversight committees and widen their scope so that all types of restructuring are covered.
5. Amazon India will pay its sellers a fixed percentage of the selling price of every unit shipped as damage allowance to cover for potential damage during transit. The move comes weeks after it drew sellers' flak for raising commission.
6. US private-equity giant KKR would invest Rs 300 crore in Walchand Nagar Industries, one of India's oldest business groups, in a structuredfinancing deal that would help the Mumbaibased conglomerate realign its businesses and repay some of its term loans.
7. Myntra.com, the country's largest online fashion retailer, is close to signing up two sub-franchisees to manage Mango stores in India, according to three people familiar with the matter. Myntra, which took over the offline and online franchisee rights for the Spanish fashion and lifestyle brand in India earlier this year, is likely to appoint Samarth Lifestyle and G&B Fashion as the subfranchisees. Jaipur-based Samarth operates more than 100 outlets of Benetton, Tommy Hilfiger, US Polo, Puma, Lee, Wrangler and Calvin Klein, while New Delhi-based G&B operates 25 outlets of Benetton in the National Capital Region. Samarth Lifestyle and G&B declined to comment on the possible deals with Mango. Myntra has decided not to run the Mango stores itself, at least in the initial stages, due to high capital expenditure, operational costs and the need to maintain a separate team for offline stores, the people said.Mango's former franchisee Major Brands has already given notice to vacate a prominent mall in New Delhi. The mall operator hasn't decided whether to lease the premises to Mango. One person said Myntra's decision to let franchisees operate the Mango stores stems from the fact that its own entry into brick-andmortar retail a month ago with a Roadster-branded store has so far received a lukewarm response in Bengaluru, which the company said wasn't correct.
On the other hand, Myntra, which was acquired by Flipkart in 2014, said sales of Mango products have surged 25% on its platform since it signed on the Spanish fashion and lifestyle brand in February.
8. Another attempt at mobilising support to champion the cause of IT employees perceived to be facing the axe from large service providers such as Cognizant Technology Solutions is gathering momentum. A bunch from the workforce in Chennai is preparing for conciliation proceedings with the state labour department in what they claim is a fight against retrenchment. Cognizant president Rajeev Mehta told ET categorically there is no retrenchment. The company recently introduced a voluntary separation programme for top-rung staff to accelerate its shift to delivering more digital services and align the workforce to meet growth targets.Reportedly , Cognizant may also increase involuntary exits from its workforce during the current appraisal cycle. As the first step, employees who believe the company is adopting unfair methods to let go of some of its workforce have rallied behind a go-to front for IT grievances to petition the state government. The Forum for IT Employees (FITE), which helped an employee litigate against retrenchment in the Madras High Court, has now sent representations to assistant labour commissioners in certain districts and the state labour commissioner urging the state government to urgently intervene in what it terms “illegal termination“. “We have submitted a representation with the state government as of now. The plan is to formally file for conciliation, which is the first step before the issue can be taken to labour courts,“ Vinodh AJ, general secretary of FITE.
9. The venture capital arms of Singapore's sovereign fund Temasek and Southeast Asia's largest real estate developer CapitaLand have teamed up to invest more than $5 million (Rs 32.2 crore) in Bengaluru-based ecommerce consultancy Ace Turtle. Temasek's Vertex Venture led the Series-A funding and CapitaLand's C31Ventures is the co-investor in Ace Turtle, an omni-channel specialist.
10. In April, Google Drive quietly passed another major milestone. Two million files are now stored on the file-hosting service. Prabhakar Raghavan, Google's vice-president responsible for G Suite in Google Cloud, said the stat at the Google Cloud Next event in London on Tuesday. Google Drive passed the 800-m user mark in Jan 2016. Meanwhile, the number of files or “objects“ passed 2 trillion in April. That's 2,000,000,000,000.
11. Delhi-based cold pressed juice maker, MyGreens has raised `3-5 crore in an angel round led by early-stage investment platform, LetsVenture. The one-year-old firm, which claims an annual revenue of `1-2 crore in its Delhi market, recently acquired JusDivine in an all-stock deal to enter the Mumbai market in March. MyGreens will use the capital raised to launch a new range of beverages in keeping with its vision to be a `clean label', fast-moving consumer goods brand by early 2018. The new line of products will open up a larger market for the company , which is targeting an increase in sales volume to 5,000 bottles a day , from the current 500-1,000 a day, in the next 12 months. MyGreens, which competes with the Sequoia Capital-backed RAW Pressery , offers beverages in the range of `100-250 a bo ttle in different sizes.The firm is targeting a 30% monthly growth and is looking to reach profitability by the end of 2017.
12. Facebook is looking to premiere its first slate of TV programming in mid-June, according to reports. FB plans to have two-dozen shows for this initial push. According to reports, Facebook is looking for shows in two distinct tiers: a marque tier for big-budget shows that would feel at home on TV, and a lower tier for shorter, less expensive shows of 5-10 minutes that refreshes every 24 hours.
13. GENEVA Researchers at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland have developed a touchscreen tablet to help visually impaired people find their way around unfamiliar places using their fingers. The device quickly forms shapes and relief maps that users can then explore with their fingers. It could also be used to help them learn subjects such as geometry and mathematics. Users can “read“ the graphic data on the screen with their fingers.
14. Online home rental platform NestAway Technologies has acquired Bengaluru-based home aggregator and rental management company Zenify for an allstock deal, according to industry sources. Zenify will continue to operate as an individual brand under the NestAway umbrella and will add to the family rentals business started by NestAway in April 2016. The deal values Zenify at $10 million, said sources close to the transaction though NestAway refused to comment on the size or the nature of the deal. “The current acquisition will add 4,000 homes to NestAway's family rentals business. Zenify will continue to operate as a separate brand under the NestAway umbrella and we will do some cross-linkages in terms of inventory on the family rentals business. Zenify will not list any shared properties. Going forward we will figure out what is working on each of the platforms and think about merging or not,“ said Amarendra Sahu, CEO of NestAway. He added that the 100-member team of Zenify will continue to work with the brand. The platform had close to 1,000 family properties listed on it out of the 10,000-plus homes under management across eight cities in India. The company, backed by Tiger Global, Yuri Milner, and others, has raised $43 million so far and is in the market to raise a $30 million round. The company, started in 2015, provides fully-furnished homes as part of its shared-home package, working with rental managers and house owners. The shared accommodation has a lock-in period of six months while the family accommodations are unfurnished.Quikr has also built out its real estate vertical QuikrHomes with acquisitions, including Sequoia-backed GrabHouse in November 2016 in an all-stock deal of $10 million and realestate portal CommonFloor in January 2016 for $200 million in an allstock deal. Family home rentals market, independent of brokers, also includes NoBrokers which is backed by KTB Ventures, Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma, and others.
15. Restaurant automation solution provider Devourin has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from Relfor Labs' Deepak Nathani. Nathani, also co-founder of Cybage, has acquired a 20% stake in the company following his investment. Devourin provides a cloud-based platform adaptable for different kinds of food businesses across PoS, websites, tabletops and mobile apps, and has an operation central command that allows owners to control multiple operations from a single location.
16. With no regulatory approval for the HDFC Life-Max Life merger even nine months after the plan was unveiled, the mortgage lender is open to revisiting the structure of the deal, which may revive hopes of an initial public offering (IPO) of the merged entity to overcome regulatory obstacles. The proposed merger, announced in August, is a two-leg transaction where Max Life will first merge with its listed holding company Max Financial Services, which owns 68% in Max Life. Subsequently , HDFC Life will merge with Max Life, the companies said. Max Life will be folded into parent Max Financial Services (MFS), which will then be split into two parts.“We will have to go for an IPO in the second structure, because then we don't merge with the listed company ,“ Mistry said. Post Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India, both the companies will need approvals from the Securities and Exchange Board of India, the Competition Commission of India and the courts.
17. Warren Buffett kicked off the proceedings at the Berkshire H at h aw ay 2 0 1 7 A n nu a l Shareholders Meeting with some high praise for a fellow stock market icon. He told attendees that Jack Bogle has “probably done more for the average investor than probably any man in the country,“ citing lower fees combined with solid returns through investing in index funds. Bogle has put “10s and 10s and 10s of billions into their pockets, and those numbers are going to be 100s and 100s of billions over time,“ Buffett continued to rave. It isn't the first time Buffett has lauded Bogle's efforts to shape the modern investment landscape. In a shareholder letter published earlier this year, he called Bogle a “hero,“ and touted the merits of low-cost S&P 500 index funds.
18. Bengaluru-based microfinance company Grameen Koota may write off 3-5% of its Rs 3,075 crore loans owing to non repayment, a sign of demonetisation hitting the financials of lenders to the unbanked borrowers. All micro lenders are facing asset quality stress in varying degree, estimated to be between 1% and 10% of loans, despite significant improvement of their collection efficiency compared with what it was during the first few months to demonetisation. Grameen Koota managing director Udaya Kumar told that the company is looking to make a provision of Rs 100 crore, which is two-third of the expected writeoffs. He is expecting a dip in profit to Rs 75 crore for FY17, compared with `84 crore in the preceding one. Its board is slated to meet on May 17 to consider the financials.
19. Warren Buffett assured shareholders that they'll be fine after he's gone. “If I die tonight, I think the stock would go up tomorrow,“ Buffett said. “And there'd be speculation about breakups and all that sort of thing, so it would be a good Wall Street story.“ Buffett was answering an investor's inquiry on whether Berkshire would repurchase stock if the shares fell after the 93-year-old vice chairman, Charles Munger, were to move on. The idea underpinned a larger question of succession planning at Berkshire. Buffett over five decades has expanded the conglomerate into industries including insurance, energy and transportation, while assembling a $135 billion stock portfolio. He said the board would consider a buyback if it were in the best interest of shareholders, and that the next CEO would have to be a capital allocator. The next leader of Berkshire is “going to have to allocate maybe $400 billion or something like that, maybe more“.
20. City-based digital marketing startup MintM, which builds an interactive `Engagement Bot', a cloud-based smart digital signage solution, has partnered with Treebo Hotels, a budget hotel chain startup. The technology will allow Treebo guests to interact with the bot, which will display relevant content, respond and track expressions, and generate useful statistics around customer engagement.
21. General Insurance Corporation of India, the state-owned reinsurance company , has moved a step closer to an initial public offering. It has selected HSBC, Citibank, Deutsche Bank, Kotak and Axis as merchant bankers for the planned issue and Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas as its legal consultant.
22. It's arguably the most iconic brand among high-performance motorcycles. And it could soon be owned by an Indian company . Royal Enfield is understood to have been approached to acquire Italian superbike maker Ducati, owned by Germany's embattled automaker Volkswagen group.
23. Digital payments and commerce platform Paytm is in talks with curated events platform Insider.in to pick up a majority stake in the Mumbaibased company , said people aware of the development. This would be one of the largest external investments made by Paytm if the deal materialises. The Noida-based company is expected to pump up to $30 million into Insider.in, told sources. Typically , Paytm invests $5-7 million in other startups.
24. As CureFit, a healthcare startup founded by former Myntra co-founder Mukesh Bansal and ex-Flipkart senior executive Ankit Nagori, goes live, it has raised another $3 million in fresh funding from Tata Sons chairman emeritus Ratan Tata's UC RNT Fund and angel investors from Silicon Valley .The fresh investment comes at a time when the company , which is using a mix of offline and online channels, has just rolled out its services. All told, the one-year-old company has picked up $18 million already , making it one of the most wellfunded early-stage startups in the country .The Bengaluru-based startup raised $15 million from Accel Partners, IDG Ventures and Kalaari Capital in July last year.
25. At a time when PSU banks in India need about Rs 2 lakh crore for recapitalisation to tackle rising nonperforming assets (NPAs), Kotak Bank alone may sell shares worth a similar amount. This is because the RBI has asked promoters Uday Kotak and family to cut their stake from the current level of 32% in the country's third largest private sector lender to 15% by March 2020. The Rs 2-lakh-crore amount is more than the current market cap of ICICI Bank, which is the third largest bank in the country after HDFC Bank and SBI respectively . It is also more than the market cap of eight top PSU banks (except SBI) put together.
POLITICS, ECONOMY, SPORTS, ENTERTAINMENT,CRIMES AND NEWS AROUND THE WORLD
1. The defence ministry seems to have unlocked the strategic partnership (SP) logjam with a firm push from the Prime Minister's Office and sustained focus by defence minister Arun Jaitley, setting up the private sector to play a major role in the production of weapons systems for the armed forces. A tussle within the bureaucracy over what rules the SP model would follow had resulted in a stalemate within the ministry since February 2016, frustrating leading private sector companies that were expecting to get mega production orders for aircraft, submarines and land systems, a traditional stronghold of the public sector.
2. The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) is developing a dedicated portal for the investigation of those identified to have made deposits or large purchases not in line with declared income as a follow-up to Operation Clean Money, which was launched in the wake of demonetisation to crack down on black money. The second phase of Operation Clean Money will focus on highrisk individuals who made highvalue transactions and will be subject to detailed investigations.The department has already identified more than 60,000 such persons, based on data analytics. The cases that are being taken up for deeper investigation deal with deposits as well as high-value purchases or sales. Black money continues to be a priority for the Modi government. A dedicated portal will ensure focussed and non-intrusive interaction between tax authorities and suspected evaders, said the official. The Prime Minister was given a detailed presentation on Operation Clean Money and various actions taken by the apex direct taxes body. Operation Clean Money was launched soon after demonetisation to ensure that those with undeclared incomes were brought into the tax fold. The department identified about 1.8 million persons who were contacted through SMSes and ema ils and asked to explain their deposits, pay tax or declare past undisclosed income through the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana. Of these, 1 million responded in the e-verification process.The department managed to get about 9.5 million new taxpayers into the tax net in FY17. Total returns filed in the year earlier had amounted to 52.8 million, an increase of 22% from FY15. The trend was not just restricted to returns. The number of applications for permanent account numbers (PAN) jumped after the demonetisation announcement on November 8 as the department issued a diktat to banks that all accounts had to be linked to PAN. The department received about 173,000 daily applications for PAN against an average 83,000 before that. On some days, this rose to as much as 300,000. The department allotted 46.5 million PANs between November 8, 2016, and March 31, 2017.
3. Companies that had announced dividend or restructured debt in the previous financial year will have to pay minimum alternate tax in the current financial year after IndAS, the new Indian accounting standard, came into effect.
4. Finance minister Arun Jaitley has asked the Asian Development Bank to speed up loan processing. He also said the lender should fund projects other than those in the infrastructure space, especially in health and education.
5. Pro-European Union Emma nuel Macron was elected president of France on Sunday, emphatically defeating far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen.The former economy minister bagged an estimated 65% votes to Le Pen's 35%, early projections from five polling organisations showed.
6. Sacked Delhi minister Kapil Mishra on Sunday accused chief minister Arvind Kejriwal of taking Rs 2 crore from his Cabinet colleague Satyendar Jain. The charge has been refuted by deputy CM Manish Sisodia. Even senior AAP leader Kumar Vishwas came out in support of Kejriwal.
7. The Centre is bracing for its biggest anti-Naxal operation under this government -it's a call that involves launching a large-scale assault into the heart of Naxal stronghold in Konta block of Sukma, Chhattisgarh, where the heavily armed Battalion number 1, comprising 700-1,000 hardcore battle-hardy Maoist cadre, is entrenched.
8. The distribution of licences for sale of country liquor in UP by the Mayawati and Akhilesh government(s) has come under the scanner of the Lucknow high court, which has summoned the record of such licences granted in the past nine years. The high court has also taken cognizance of the accusation that “shell companies were set up by the beneficiaries to evade relevant rules of the state liquor policy“. It has also sought details of the list of directors of companies owned by the late Ponty Chadha. The petitioner represented by senior lawyer Mohan Jain has alleged that, as per rules framed by the government, such licence(s) cannot be granted to a company which is also a manufacturer. Referring to four companies which were granted licences for country liquor, Jain contended that the said companies were controlled by Chadhaowned group and that the companies represented a shell company . Representing a company which was also a manufacturer and producer, Jain argued that the grant of licence was a clear case of “discrimination“. And if licences were to be granted in violation of rules, then other manufacturers and producers should also be considered to participate in a “transparent“ manner, he added.
9. Uttar Pradesh's two month-old Yogi Adityanath government has sent an ambitious proposal to the Centre -hold camps to distribute assistive devices to differently-abled in all 403 assembly constituencies of the state. This is the first such request from any state government for a camp under the Assistance to Disabled Persons for PurchaseFitting of AidsAppliances (ADIP) scheme of the department of empowerment of persons with disabilities (DEPwD).The scheme has become a massive outreach programme for the Narendra Modi-led government since 2014. The government distributes aids and assistive devices to below poverty line (BPL) families. Sources said the Uttar Pradesh government has requested the Centre to hold a camp in each assembly constituency irrespective of the party represented by its MLA. Each camp involves large-scale preparations by DEPwD and the state administration. First, the state government conducts survey to determine how many BPL households exist and have a differently-abled person eligible for assistive devices. After the survey, a list is sent to DEPwD, which holds a camp. On the day of the camp, the beneficiaries are brought from their villages to the camp site and given assistive devices. As a rule social justice and empowerment minister Thaawar Chand Gehlot and all government officials have food with the beneficiaries.
Over the last three years, the government has held 4,718 camps bene fitting 6.40 lakh beneficiaries under this scheme. In 2012-13 and 2013-14 a mere 37 camps were organised The scheme has become a game changer for the Modi government as it has generated a lot of goodwill.However, so far, the camps have been held district-wise.
10. Rattled by t wo incidents of rioting within 15 days in the sensitive district of Saharanpur just ahead of the Uttar Pradesh municipal polls, the Yogi Adityanath government rushed its top officers to Saharanpur on Sunday promising an impartial probe. State DGP Sulkhan Singh and pr i ncip a l s e c r et a r y ( home ) Debasish Panda assured locals in Saharanpur that no innocent would be arrested in both the matters. The Yogi government is concerned that in both the cases of rioting in village Dhudli and Shabbirpur separated by 15 days, trouble was triggered after processions were carried out despite local authorities denying permission to the same. The state DGP has said in clear terms that locals should desist from taking out any unauthorised processions and not resort to “any new traditions“ or “carry any weapons“. The BJP had taken out the unauthorised procession in the name of Bhim Rao Ambedkar in Dhudli village last month. The DGP and home secretary met representatives of all political parties in Saharanpur as SP, BSP and Congress have stationed teams here to probe the matter.
11. Apart from training personnel and sharing knowhow on holding elections, India has recently supplied vehicles to the Election Commission of Nepal. It would come in handy in hilly terrain and far flung areas. Nepal is preparing to conduct local polls that would empower Madhesis.
12. Amit Shah seems to have started a novel fan club -the `Selfie Morcha Jingbang'. The members of the club were so obsessed with selfies with the BJP president that they blocked him from addressing a meeting when he was in Kolkata recently. Finally, Shah had to intervene. Calling them `Selfie Morcha', he requested them to be seated for the speech.
13. With the Centre taking its ambitious plan to set up world-class institutes to the Cabinet soon, institutes have already started lining up to bag the status. Vedanta University chairman BK Patnaik, former Odisha chief secretary, was recently in HRD ministry to discuss the intricacies involved in the process to win the special status.
14. What were rumblings before the Punjab assembly elections have now translated into an open protest against comedianturned-politician Bhagwant Mann. AAP supporters from Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the US have written to Kejriwal opposing Mann's likely appointment as party's Punjab convener. The authors of the joint letter, who claim to have made huge donations to the party, have claimed that if Mann is made convener, it will be a `regressive' move and the decision will have `irrevocable' consequences.
15. Samajwadi patron Mulayam Singh Yadav on Sunday blamed the alli ance with the Congress for the “poor“ state of the party and said efforts should be made to strengthen the SP. He said though the Congress left no stone unturned to “ruin“ his life, his son Akhilesh Yadav forged an alliance with the party in the polls.
16. Mango lovers will get to relish a “slender“ and “beautiful“ mango this sum mer “Yogi mango“ named after chief minister Yogi Adityanath.The mango variety has been developed by the city's famous mango grower Padamshri Haji Kalimullah. Kalimullaha, 74, who had earlier named mangoes after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and actresses, has developed the “Yogi mango“ in his orchard in the Dussehri mango belt in Malihabad area.
17. Four terrorists joined the crowd at the funeral of their slain associate and fired from their rifles as a form of gun salute in Kulgam on Sunday . The terrorist, Fayaz Ahmad Ashwar, was killed in retaliatory fire after a police convoy was attacked in Anantnag on Saturday . The `gun salute' is also a reflection of the open display of defiance by terrorists of late to assert their presence, especially in south Kashmir. J&K is witnessing a new age militancy that is challenging the state after a gap of almost 15 years, since the massive militant attacks of 2002-03. With its `changing tactics and social acceptance', the militancy , police observers say , is not only able to survive but also attract attention. The new form of terrorism with the highest percentage of locals in last two decades has become a `monolith' operationally , say police officials, and the lines between different organisations have almost blurred on ground.
18. The much-hyped C h i n a Pa k i s t a n E c o n o m i c Corridor or CPEC not only challenges India's sovereignty as it passes through PoK but has all the potential to trigger socio-economic collapse of Pakistan giving rise to instability impacting India and other neighbours. CPEC that is being touted as the flagship project under Beijing's One Belt One Road (OBOR) or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) could make Pakistan politically and economically subservient to China, warn scholars within Pakistan.“The result of CPEC would be Pakistan turning into a country like Greece and taking unprecedented loans in the name of CPEC.Our voice will not be heard until and unless we rebel,“ claimed Dr Qaiser Bengali, a Pakistani economist, while addressing a meet in Karachi on Fridayahead of PM Nawaz Sharif 's trip to Beijing for the BRI meet. Indirectly referring to CPEC Dr. Bengali further claimed that all the statistics given by the government are presented in a way that people believe the economy is going in the right direction.
19. The Congress leadership seems to have changed its stance towards one of its Maharashtra Congress leaders Narayan Rane. Only days after promising him the Maharashtra Congress chief 's post if he stays back in the party the party leadership has now changed its stance. According to several Congress leaders the deal is `off' as the party leadership has adopted a tougher posture against him. Rane had been making noises about Maharashtra Congress Chief Ashok Chavan's leadership, he had also reportedly met BJP chief Amit Shah in Gujarat (which Rane vehemently denied) which spooked the Congress leadership which then dangled the carrot of him being appointed the Maharashtra Congress Chief post in another three months if he stays back in the party. Party leaders said that there have been `developments' after the assurance. Several party leaders from the state told the Congress top brass that making Rane the Maha Congress Chief would not go down well with the other party functionaries. Importantly they pointed out that Rane's entry in to the BJP has been scuttled and hence the Congress should not `encourage' him by offering him any post. State level Congress leaders have told the party top brass that Rane's attempts to get in to the BJP have been rebuffed as senior BJP Leaders are not keen on his induction.
20. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Sunday confirmed India's participation in the upcoming Champions Trophy, ending month-long speculation, at a special general meeting (SGM) in Delhi. The board was deliberating its next plan of action after it got outvoted in the International Cricket Council (ICC) over a revised financial model. It has decided to keep legal options open, while continuing with the ICC in the best interests of the country.
21. An inter-ministerial committee being set up by the government to look into the financial woes of the telecom sector would have about three months to hand over its views and solutions to the government. According to people in the know, the panel is likely to have six to eight members, including two from the telecom department and one each from the departments of revenue and economic affairs. The panel would look into issues related to the sector's financial related to the sector's financial health, which has taken a beating due to cut throat competition triggered by the entry of Reliance Jio. “The suggestions will be given to the telecom ministry, which will then go to finance ministry, and then, if needed, to the Cabinet for action,“ a senior government official said, asking not to be named as details are yet to be finalised.
22. Tech-focused venture capital firm, Iron Pillar, has made the first close of its maiden India fund at `129 crore, bringing on board two major anchor investors, Small Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi) and diversified financial services player IIFL. Iron Pillar India Fund-I, which is a Sebi-registered Category-II alternative investment fund, and has a target corpus of `200 crore, has already made two investments till date -Hyderabad-based small and medium enterprise-focused SaaS startup NowFloats Technologies, and Bluestone Jewellery and Lifestyle, which owns and operates online jewellery platform Bluestone.com.
23. China will further tighten its internet regulations with a pledge on Sunday to strengthen controls over search engines and online news portals, the latest step in President Xi Jinping's push to maintain strict Communist Party control over content. Xi has made China's “cyber sovereignty“ a top priority in his sweeping campaign to bolster security.He has also reasserted the ruling Communist Party's role in limiting and guiding online discussion.
24. The Agriwatch Agri Commodities Index dipped 0.53% to 108.66 during the week ended May 6, 2017 from 109.25 during the previous week, led by lower prices of chilli and cotton. The base for the Index and all sub-Indices is 2014 (= 100). The Chilli Index fell 16.1% to 58.12 while the Cotton Index fell 5.9% to 103.44. Six of the nine commodity group sub-Indices and 21 of the 29 individual commodity sub-Indices declined during the week. The commodity group sub-Index values and their weekly changes are as follows: Cereals: 114.08 (+0.19%), Pulses: 141.38 (-1.10%), Vegetables: 39.27 (-4.37%), Edible Oils: 101.51 (-0.41%), Oilseeds: 89.87 (-0.20%), Spices: 84.42 (-8.05%), Sweeteners: 124.73 (+1.48%), Fibres: 103.44 (-5.86%) and Other Non-Food Articles: 92.27 (+0.47%).
25. Federal Bank, whose origins predate India's Independence, would raise up to `. 2,500 crore through a stock sale to institutional buyers, boosting the private lender's capital adequacy and building a warchest ahead of a likely revival in credit demand. The move marks the entry of the Keralabased lender into an expanding league of banks that are harnessing a liquidity-driven market rally in Indian stocks to fund their capital requirements. Its proposed fund-raising coincides with the government's empowerment of the RBI for tackling bad loans, which continue to weigh on the financial sector.
26. The government is planning a comprehensive National Vocational Education and Training System in the country along the lines of programmes in European countries to facilitate job-readiness and entrepreneurship among the youth. The skill development ministry is examining the recommendations of a high-level panel on rationalisation of skills training and sector skills council in India, a senior government official told
27. In wake of lowest rise in daily wages of MNREGA workers in some states, the Centre is looking to rework the baseline on basis of which the remuneration is paid to beneficiaries under the employment guarantee scheme. According to the rural development ministry data, the daily wage under the MNREGA has risen by just Re 1 in Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, by `2 in Odisha and by `4 in Bengal. MNREGA wages have been increased by 2.7% this year compared to 5.7% last year.
28. India's FDI inflow momentum may slow down this year and exports too may not revive with “full gusto“ as domestic bottlenecks remain, says a report. Although higher world growth is likely to buoy exports, a strengthening rupee and worsening domestic bottlenecks could limit the increase, it said.“Stronger exports and higher FDI inflows have ikely contributed to the strong performance of the INR is recent times. While both are likely to remain buoyant, we believe it is important to note that incremental gains over the short term may not be limitless,“ HSBC said.
29. Chartered account ants' apex body ICAI has asked its members to ensure that companies have made adequate disclosures about transactions involving cancelled notes post demonetisation till December 30, 2016.Companies are required to disclose details about transactions involving scrapped notes from November 8 till December 30 in the annual financial statements and auditors are required to mention in their reports about suc details. In this regard, the Corporate Affairs Ministry has made amendments to certain provisions under the Companies Act, 2013.
30. The government is looking to “refine“ the present norms for regional air connectivity scheme as it prepares for the second round of bidding in three months, according to a senior official. While the UDAN scheme became operational after the first flight from Shimla to the national capital, the authorities have started the groundwork to comprehensively review its framework, including those on number of seats and exclusivity period for an airline.
31. The Hinduja brothers have topped the 2017 list of the richest 1,000 people in the UK with an estimated fortune of £16.2 billion, a massive £3.2 billion hike in their fortunes over the previous year as Britain's wealthy “kept calm and carried on making billions“ amidst the uncertainty over Brexit. Besides brothers Srichand and Gopichand Hinduja, who invest in property , healthcare and oil and gas, there are over 40 Indian-origin super-rich in this year's list which also includes a record number of British billionaires -134 -with 14 new ones emerging over the last year. `The Sunday Times Rich List' says that uncertainties triggered by Britain's vote to leave the European Union (EU) last June have not impacted the country's billionaires' ability to make money , as they grew in numbers with a 14% rise in their fortunes since last year to earn a record £658 billion collectively .
32. Thousands of women dressed in white marched in Venezuela's capital on Saturday to keep pressure on President Nicolas Maduro, whose authority is being increasingly challenged by protests and deadly unrest. The death toll since April -when the protests intensified after Maduro's administration and the courts stepped up efforts to undermine the opposition -is at least 36, according to prosecutors, with hundreds more injured. Led by opposition leaders, lawmakers and Lilian Tintori -the wife of jailed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez -the crowd carried flowers and placards denouncing “repression“. Police and soldiers initially prevent ed it from reaching the interior ministry. But the women -led by several lawmakers -eventually made it to the Interior and Justice ministries.
33. Organisers barred journalists on Sunday from a publicly advertised event in Shanghai that offered Chinese investors the chance to get US immigrant visas if they put money in a real estate project linked to the family of President Donald Trump's son-in-law. The two-tower luxury apartment complex in New Jersey, One Journal Square, is being developed by KABR Group and the Kushner Companies, which until recently was headed by senior White House advisor Jared Kushner, the husband of Trump's daughter Ivanka. The developers are seeking to raise $150 million, or 15.4% of funding for the project, from investors through the EB-5 visa programme, according to marketing materials posted by the event's organiser, immigration agency Qiaowai. The controversial EB-5 programme allows wealthy foreigners to, in effect, buy US immigration visas for themselves and families by investing at least $500,000 in certain development projects.
34. German police on Sunday evacuated some 50,000 people from the northern city of Hanover in one of the largest post-war operations to defuse World War II era bombs. Residents in a densely populated part of the city were ordered to leave their homes for the operation, planned since mid-April, to extract five recently discovered unexploded bombs.Seven retirement and nursing homes were affected and some rail traffic through the city was disrupted for the operation, which was expected to last all day. Local authorities arranged sports, cultural and lei-sure activities, including museum visits and film screenings, to occupy residents affected by the evacuation. More than 70 years after the end of the war, unexploded bombs are regularly found buried on German land, legacies of the intense bombing campaigns by the Allied forces against Nazi Germany.
35. A French mineworker who was kidnapped in Chad and taken to neighbouring Sudan has been freed after more than six weeks in captivity, French and Sudanese officials said on Sunday. Thierry Frezier, 60, was freed after collaboration between Sudanese, Chadian and French intelligence services, a member of the National Intelli-gence and Security Service (NISS) told reporters in Khartoum. Frezier was taken to Sudan's capital after being freed on Saturday. French President Francois Hollande's office put out a statement saying he felt “great pleasure“ at the release. Sudanese security agents launched a search for Frezier in late March after a Chadian minister said he was being held there after being abducted near Goz Beida in southeastern Chad on March 23.
36. Suicide attackers from the Islamic State group killed two Kurdish peshmerga forces on Sunday in an opera-tion against a base in northern Iraq.
37. US Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt has recused himself from several court cases that he pursued against the agency when he was Oklahoma attorney general, according to a recusal statement. Pruitt, who had sued the environmental agency more than a dozen times when he was the oiland gas-producing state's top legal officer, had pledged during his Senate confirmation that he would step aside from ongoing cases if the agency's ethics panel required it.
38. North Korea said on Sunday it has detained another American citizen on suspicion of acts against the state, which if confirmed would make him the fourth US citizen to be held by the isolated country amid diplomatic tensions. Kim Hak Song, who was detained on Saturday, worked for the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, the North's KCNA news agency said.
39. In Vivo IPL 2017 Kolkata Knight Riders won against Royal Challengers Bangalore by 6 wickets.
40. Disaster was averted at the IGI Airport here on Sunday when the tail wing of Jet Airways flight 9W603, bound for Srinagar, hit the tail wing of a Patnabound Jet flight (9W730) while the planes were preparing for take-off. At about 2.48 pm, sources said, when the two aircraft were taxiing to runway 29, the Srinagar-bound plane began to turn and its tail wing struck the wing of the static Patna-bound plane. The tip of 9W603's right tail wing broke off and got stuck in the rear of the Patnabound plane's wing, sources said. The crews have been derostered pending probe. All flyers were safe. A Jet Airways spokesperson confirmed the “ground incident“ and said that the airline has reported the incident to the regulatory authorities.
41. Judicial activism shown by the Bombay high court has come to the rescue of mangroves on a three-acre plot in Thane district. The mangroves had been destroyed by illegal constructions three years ago.
42. Physics proved to be a challenging paper for many of the 11.35 lakh aspirants who appeared for the National Eligibility-cumEntrance Test (NEET) in 104 cities on Sunday . Students aspiring to gain admission to medical and dental colleges--whose figure has grown 40% this year--found the paper tough and lengthy; some also claimed that a few questions in the biology section were out of syllabus. Parents at some centres complained that their wards lost time as the papers were not handed out 15 minutes before 10am. At several centres in the city, students were disappointed as they were not allowed to enter minutes after the 9.30am deadline.
43. Five Virar residents were killed and three others injured when a Honda City they were travelling in rammed into a stationary luxury bus in the Kamshet tunnel after skidding on an oil spill on the Pune Expressway on Sunday . The bus driver had pulled over after spotting an oil leak from the vehicle.
44. Legendary sitar player Ustad Raees Khan passed away in Karachi on Saturday. He was 77. Khan had been bedridden for quite some time. The maestro, who was born in Indore in 1939 to a family of renowned musicians, belonged to the Mewati gharana of Indian classical music.
44. Petrol pump owners will begin their indefinite agitation from this week. They will observe a `no purchase' day on Wednesday (May 10), and will shut all operations, including CNG sale, on Sunday and take a `day off '. And from May 15 onwards, the pumps will work in single shifts (9amt o 6pm) only .
45. An elephant trampled two CRPF men to death at a training camp in Karnataka's Taralu village on Sunday . The deceased, H Dakshina Murthy (55) and Puttappa Lamani (35), were part of a platoon undergoing training at a facility near Kaggalipura, south of Bengaluru.
46. The high court has taken over four floors under the occupation of the builder of a Nagpada 32-storey highrise, hitting out at the developer for doing little to obtain occupation certificate. The May 5 direction came on a PIL which alleged FSI and fire safety violations.
47. Bitcoin surged to an all time high last week as investors bet the digital currency will gain greater acceptance globally as an investment vehicle. The cryptocurrency crossed the $1,500 mark on Thursday . Gold price has not touched the $1,500 range in the last four years.
48. Small investors are finally warming up to stock markets through SIPs (systematic investment plans). Last August saw SIP accounts hit the 1 crore mark and the fiscal year ended with 1.35 crore accounts. This fiscal, SIPs contributed Rs 43,921crore to equity mutual funds.
49. In a major breakthrough, 19 Naxals, including nine allegedly involved in the deadly Maoist attack on CRPF personnel on April 24 at Burkapal in Sukma, were arrested from separate places in Chhattisgarh's insurgency-hit Sukma district on Saturday evening.
50. Bowing to pressure from parents' groups, the state government is considering amendments to its fee regulation Act. The state education department has set up a 11member committee to suggest changes to the Maharashtra Educational Institutions (Regulation of Fee) Act, 2011. For the past month, parents from various schools in the city have staged protests and organised meetings with school education minister Vinod Tawde, demanding the state's intervention in fee-related disputes.They have also been demanding changes in the Act to enable them to file complaints with regulatory committees. A government resolution issued by the department on Saturday stated that the committee led by V J Palshikar, chairman of the fee revision committee, will study complaints and suggestions and propose a format for amendments in 15 days. “Parents have several complaints about fee hikes. In relation to these complaints, the divisional fee regulatory committees (DFRC) has noticed that there are a few things lacking in the provisions of the Act which need to be improved,“ said the GR . The committee will have to study the fee-hike related complaints, educational policies, provisions of the act and make suggestions for necessary improvements. The committee will also have to draft a format to issue an ordinance for the suggested changes.
50. Late actor Nutan's hill-top bungalow in Mumbra continues to court controversies. Police on Saturday arrested a gang of burglars for breaking into the bungalow and making off with silverware and idols, among other things, collectively worth Rs 1lakh. The crime took place on Friday .Most of the accused are teenagers. About three years ago, a newborn's body had been found in a swimming pool attached to the sprawling home of the late film doyen. In Friday's case, police said that the six teenage robbers armed with sharp weapons broke into the vacant bungalow atop the Parsik hills around 3.45am and attacked the three security guards deputed there by the actor's family.
51. In a move that will bring the far suburbs closer to the heart of Mumbai, the MMRDA plans to start construction work on five Metro corridors by December 2017.The corridors are: DN Nagar-Mankhurd; WadalaGhatkopar-Mulund-Kasarvadavli; Thane-BhiwandiKalyan; Swami Samarthnagar-Jogeshwari-Kanjurmarg-Vikhroli; and Dahisar East-Mira Road-Bhayander. The new alignments are expected to improve connectivity across fast-growing suburbs, which are heavily reliant on road and rail networks. Areas such as Bhayander, Mankhurd, Kalyan and Bhiwandi have recorded a surge in residential populations, which necessitate urgent expansion in transport and allied urban infrastructure. For instance, the Kalyan-Dombivli belt had a population of 12.46 lakh in 2011, according to the last census. But in the five years since, the number is estimated to have swelled by nearly five lakh, a roughly 40% increase. Within Greater Mumbai limits too, suburban rail network and arterial roads like the Western and Eastern Express Highways, and SV Road and LBS Marg bear a disproportionate share of the commuter burden. The Metro lines would help to declog these routes and cater to areas a bit further removed from the immediate vicinity of these trunk lines. The five routes are likely to be commissioned for passenger traffic by 2022. The MMRDA has allotted almost half of this year's Rs 6,976 crore budget for Metro projects. At present, the city has a 12km Metro line (VersovaAndheri-Ghatkopar), which opened in June 2014, and work is in progress on three routes: Colaba-BandraSeepz (Metro 3); AndheriDahisar (Metro 7); and Dahisar-DN Nagar (Metro 2A).The government has set a deadline of 2019 for Metro 2A and Metro 7. The first phase of Metro 3 is likely to be commissioned by 2021. The commissioning of just Metro 3 will help in the reduction of 6.6 lakh vehicle trips a day. Experts say it would help decrease 6,00010,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year, besides bringing about an equal amount of reduction of particulate matter, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide. An expert said this will be the equivalent of planting 2.54.5 lakh full-grown trees across Mumbai every year. The biggest benefit of Metro rail will be on subur ban railway commuters.Both Central Railway and Western Railway carry around 75 lakh passengers per day. The introduction of a Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) will decongest local trains, which witness at least a couple of deaths per day due to people falling off overcrowded coaches. According to the MMRDA, congestion in each suburban rail compartment will be reduced by 35-40%, which will ensure that seven people will together get one square meter of space to stand on as compared to 12 people in the same space today. Vehicular traffic on roads will be reduced by 3540% and travel time will be reduced by 30-50 minutes.More significantly, about 10 litres of fuel per vehicle will be saved every day, thus reducing pollution.
52. A 32-year-old jobless man from Gothivali village in Rabale allegedly murdered his wife by slitting her throat with a kitchen knife around 1 am on Sunday when she was asleep. The suspect, Jayesh Mahalim, is absconding. “The murder came to light after 12 hours when Mahalim called up his friend and said he had killed his wife. His friend informed the police, who went to the spot and found Vaishali (30) in a pool of blood,“ said senior inspector Pradeep Tidar.The couple has two sons.
53. For a city that is already witnessing depletion of green cover, here's some notso-good news. Those living along Linking Road in Bandra were shocked last week to find branches of more than a dozen trees hacked. A police complaint has been lodged. Trees that stood as high as signboards of shops lining the popular shopping hub stand out like sore thumbs, propped up against the backdrop of a grey sky . Branches, which seemed to have been freshly hacked in a random manner, were stacked at the base of the trees.
54.Monday May 8 marks six months since demonetisation, and many Mumbaikars are back to using cash in their daily transactions. Rs 500 notes have reentered circulation so the problem of getting change for Rs 2,000 has ebbed. “India has and will always be a cash economy . Even the upper class cannot always use credit cards or make cashless payments,“ said Shivaji Pawar, who owns a cellphone repair shop near Andheri market and only accepts cash. The government's attempt to encourage more cashless transactions faces two obstacles: security concerns relat ed to fraud and theft, and the fact that card users pay a premium on e-transactions. “Every other day we read of phishing frauds in the newspapers. Why take needless risk by giving personal details to unknown salespersons when you can safely hand out cash? And why pay more at all?“ says Sarita Sadarangani, a 65-year-old resident of Khar. Senior citizens are particularly reluctant to use online technology for shopping.
55. Eleven customs officers have been transferred after a surprise inspection at the Sahar air cargo complex found that a group of importers has been smuggling mobile phones and accessories. During a surprise check in April-end, officials of the Central Intelligence Unit of the customs found the consignments were cleared without examination. The consignments were ready to leave the import shed when the officials intervened, a source said. In the past few months, 600 consignments were imported from Hong Kong and cleared through air cargo complex by importers, sources said. The imports were handled by two customs house agents. Around Rs4 crore duty was evaded. Customs investigation found that the addresses of the importers in the records were fake. “ All the importers were first timers and such huge imports in a short span should ha ve caught the attention of the officials. Moreover, the Hong Kong based traders have not supplied to anyone except these importers,“ a source said.These traders could be shell companies and not the real masterminds, the source added. Chief commissioner of customs Devender Singh did not respond to a text message. The importers mis-declared the product and value thus evading duty , an official said.Imports of mobile phones attract a duty of around 28%. In some instances, branded pho nes were declared as cheap ones as it involves violation of intellectual property rights.Some of the accessories such as chargers did not meet the Indian certifying standards, the official added. A 100% examination of consignment is carried out if traders, instead of manufacturers, supply goods. In the present case, most of the the suppliers were traders, not manufacturers. “ All imports were physically assessed and examined and not cleared automatically through the electronic facilitation mode. This shows that officers were aware of the imports,'' an official said.
56. There's no such thing as a free lunch, leave alone a free car. A 32year-old woman working for a hospital in south Mumbai learnt this the hard way recently. The woman, who had received a courier about being the lucky winner of a car for shopping on an online portal, ended up losing Rs60,500. The police said this is the latest trick in the fraudster's book. A day after she received the courier, the woman got a call from a person who identified himself as Rajesh Gupta and claimed to be from the shopping portal.He asked for personal details to get the car registered in her name and asked her to deposit cash in one bank account for insurance and transportation fees, said a police officer. “To her, it seemed so genuine that she deposited the cash,“ he said. She was left disillusioned after she failed to get delivery of the car. She contac ted the portal's office only to learn that they had not come up with any such scheme nor was any Rajesh Gupta working with them, said the officer. A case of cheating has been registered at the cyber crime police station.
57.A 20-year-old BCom student stole jewellery and valuables worth Rs 8 lakh from her home and gave the booty to her Pune-based boyfriend to help him set up a dental clinic. But he blew it up on betting at horse races, police said. Police say the girl had met Vinay Dhoble, a 34-year-old dentist by training, at a wedding in Dombivli a few months ago, after which they became friends on Facebook. Dhoble allegedly told the girl he wanted money to set up a dental clinic so that he could be financially independent and marry her. Taken in by his assurances, she started stealing valuables from her home. Dhoble, who comes from a well-off family, had met the girl at least10 times at Kalyan railway station, where he would ask her to come with valuables. He would sell the valuables to jewellers in Ka lyan and spend the money on betting at horse races in Pune, police said.
58. A newborn girl was found abandoned in Vasai (west) early on Sunday. Swaddled in a piece of red cloth, the infant's feeble cries alerted a local, Daisy Dabre, who lives closeby . Police said the baby, barely a week old, was found around 5 am. Daisy said she woke her husband, Marcus, after which the couple alerted the police. The baby has been admitted to the civil hospital in Vasai. A case has been filed against the parents of the newborn. Police said they are going through footage of closed-circuit television cameras installed in the locality to get a clue about the person who left the baby there.
59. Two people have been arrested for extorting money by masquerading as policemen and posing as informer, the police said. In the first case, two men who allegedly robbed a Chandivli resident of Rs 4,000 by posing as policemen, were arrested on Sunday . The accused, Prashant Mahadeshwar (29) and his friend Tejas Kamble (30), who were on a motorcycle accosted Kabir Nizamuddin on Friday and insisted on frisking him. Nizamuddin said that they took away Rs 4,000 from his trouser pocket and sped away . Nizamuddin who noted down the bike number lodged a complaint.The two were nabbed on the basis of the registration number. In the other case, Pawankumar Dhuru (35), who posed as a police informer and extorted money from beer bar owners was arrested from Andheri on Saturday.
60. The captain of a fine dining restaurant-cum-hotel at Nalasopara, who was manning the reception counter, was shot at on Sunday afternoon. The shooter left behind a handwritten note with `Gangster Suresh Pujari' scribbled on it. Dilip Varma (26), who works at Galaxy , was hit on the chest. The suspect has been captured on the hotel's closed circuit television (CCTV). The footage shows a man in a white shirt and cap entering a little after 1 pm.Varma, a resident of Kargil Nagar in Virar (E) is at the counter, when the suspect puts his hand in his right trouser pocket and waits. A few men walk in and out of the hotel.Varma's attention is drawn towards the suspect and he offers to help him. Just when he says in Marathi `Bola (tell me)', the suspect pulls the trigger and throws a white paper with his left hand. The note has Pujari's name scribbled in English in blue ink. The suspect then runs out of the hotel. The 40-second footage has been retrieved by police, who suspect that dropping the fugitive gangster's name may be to mislead them. Pujari, who is believed to be operating from the Middle East, has allegedly been threa tening and extorting money from builders in Kalyan-Dombivli and Ulhasnagar.
61. Tempers ran high at the Miraj circuit house in Sangli when public works minister Chand rakant Patil walked in and found that the VIP room reserved for visiting cabinet members was occupied by the wife of a former chief minister. Patil was on a tour of western Maharashtra. His contention was the norms state that in every circuit house, the VIP room is reserved for cabinet members and that another room should have been allotted to the former CM's wife. Officials of the district administration and public works department attempted to explain to Patil the circumstances under which the room was allotted to her, but he was not ready to accept their arguments. Patil insisted it was a mistake on the part of officials of the public works department. Apparently , Congress activists had put pressure to get the VIP room allotted to the woman. Patil eventually agreed to move in to another room, but at the same time a probe was ordered against the official who allotted the VIP room to the wife of the ex-CM.
62. A section officer in the Nashik information commissioner's office has been arrested by the anticorruption bureau (ACB) while accepting a bribe of Rs 10,000. A Dhule-based RTI activist had sought information from the principal of an aided school.When the principal submitted that the information sought by him was not av ailable, the activist filed an appeal before the education officer, who too rejected the appeal. The activist approached Nashik information commissioner K L Bishnoi. While the case was in progress, section officer Ravindra Shyamrao Sonar called the principal's husband and said that the commission would impose a fine of Rs 25,000 for failure to provide the information, but he wo uld settle for Rs 15,000. Ulti mately , Sonar agreed to ac cept Rs 10,000. The principal went to the ACB and deman ded action against Sonar. A trap was laid and Sonar was arrested in the commission's office while accepting the bribe. According to an IPS officer, the appeal had been dismissed and there was no question of imposing a fi ne of Rs 25,000. However, Sonar ensured that the order was not communicated to the RTI activist and the principal.A veteran activist has expressed shock over the incident and said the purpose of the RTI Act will be defeated unless the case against Sonar is fast -tracked.After all, Maharashtra was the first state to enact the Right to Information Act in 2005 to usher in transparency in administration.
63. Cabinet members, their activists and relatives and family members of bureaucrats are upset over Prime Mini ster Modi's order on beacon lights. A notification issued by the ministry of transport and shipping states that ex cept emergency vehicles belonging to the police, ambulances and defence personnel, red or amber beacon has be en completely banned; even a covered beacon is not allowed. A week ago, when a senior cabinet member was travelling in a private car, his vehicle was stopped at the toll plaza on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway . He did make an attempt to explain to the toll staff that he was a cabinet member and hence exempted from payment of toll, but since it was a private car and there were no security officials with him, he was unable to establish his identity and he had to pay the toll. In fact, after Modi's decision, at least half a dozen cabinet members in the Fadnavis government have had to face a similar situation. Besides cabinet members, their relatives, personal staff, OSDs and relatives of bureaucrats have all been moving in private vehicles with a red or amber beacon to avoid payment of toll.
64. The Shiv Sena has reacted strongly against the change of user policy that allows big-ticket housing projects on land earmarked for industrial use. This, Saamna argued on Sunday , will mean loss of the party's electoral base. Sena strategists are of the view that an impending boom in the housing sector, especially in south Mumbai, will trigger mass migration of Marathis to faraway suburbs such as Ambarnath, Virar-Vasai and Badlapur. Slamming the state revenue and forest department's GR of April 15 permitting construction of houses on plots which once housed industrial units, Saamna on Sunday alleged that the decision was a “conspiracy“ to dilute Mumbai's Marathi character. “Should this happen, the Sena will lose its political base in Mumbai,“ said senior party leader Sanjay Raut in Saamna. The article voices the growing concern in the Sena rank and file over the BJP's move to consolidate its base in Mumbai with help from the mercantile community which has been buying up apartments in south and central Mumbai in the recent years, said experts. However, they also point out that the Sena can't deny its role in the rise of multi-storeyed apartments and migration of Marathis from areas that once boasted chawls. “Instead of pouring scorn over the government, the Sena should prepare a list of its own leaders who have sealed partnerships with Gujarati-Jain builders in Dadar, Lal
65. If a vehicle requires repeated repairs, one can infer manufacturing defect--establishes the following case.Case Study: Naryan Thakkar had pur chased a Mercedes Benz diesel car, model E 220(211). It was purchased in 2003 for Rs 34,88,105. He also spent Rs1,54,524 to get the vehicle registered. The vehicle was purchased on July 28, 2003, was covered under a two years' warranty . Within 18 months of purchase, there was a problem with the turbo charger and the engine mount. As spare parts were not available, the vehicle stood idle for a considerable period, awaiting repairs. After considerable correspondence, the service representative of Daimler Chrysler, inspected the vehicle at Auto Hanger. He also extended the warranty for a further period of four months. The vehicle continued to give problems. Thakkar filed a complaint before the Maharashtra State Commission. He pointed out that in another case, taking cognizance of an article published in Times Global Business, which had reported about problems when Mercedes had launched its E Class series in 2002 and faced a barrage of complaints about cars not starting or breaking down repeatedly , the manufacturer had withdrawn 1.3 million defective cars. Thakkar pointed out that the same treatment was not given to Indian customers. Since the company had failed to replace his car, he sought a refund of Rs 36,42,629, claimed a reimbursement of the interest paid for a bank loan to purchase the car. In addition, he demanded a refund of Rs 20,40,871incurred on repairs of the vehicle and asked for compensation and costs. Auto Hanger contested the case stating that the service centre is only provided certain spares to cover replacements required due to normal wear and tear. If other parts are required, these have to be procured from the logistics centre located in Pune or have to be obtained from the Regional Centre in Singapore or the global centre in Germany has to supply the parts. So Auto Hanger claimed that it could not be faulted for its inability to replace the parts. Diamler Chrysler questioned the maintainability of the complaint, contending that the vehicle was used for commercial purpose. It also tried to attribute the problem to unprecedented floods in July 2005 and termed this to be a natural disaster for which it could not be held responsible. The company stated that the vehicle should be inspected by an approved laboratory at Thakkar's cost to ascertain if there was any manufacturing defect. The state commission observed that no evidence was produced to show that the vehicle was being used for commercial purpose. So the complaint was held to be maintainable. Defects had developed during the warranty period, and the complaint was filed within two years. So the complaint was held to be within limitation. On merits, the commission noted that the defects had even before the deluge of July 2005. Even after replacement of several parts, problems persisted. On December 8, 2006, the manufacturer had noted that the torque converter required replacement. The commission concluded that this established that there was a manufacturing defect in the vehicle, without the necessity of it being examined by a laboratory . Accordingly, by its order of April 28, delivered by P B Joshi along with D R Shirsao, the state commission held Diamler Chrysler and Auto Hanger jointly liable to refundRs36,42,629paidforthevehicle,alongwith12%interest from February 22, 2007 onwards. Additionally Rs 2 lakh was awarded as compensation and Rs 25,000 towards litigation costs.
Conclusion: Testing is not required as repeated defects establish manufacturing defect.
64. In a significant order, the first of its kind in the state, the Bombay high court has directed that electronic voting machines (EVMs) from a booth be sent for forensic analysis to detect any sign of tampering. The order, which was passed on May 4 and 5, pertains to booth number 185 from the Parvati constituency in Pune for the 2014 assembly elections. The HC framed nine questions for the central forensic science laboratory , Hyderabad, to answer. It wants the FSL to assess the EVMs and state whether they could have been remotely accessed and whether there exists any additional memory chip with other data that could be activated to alter the results of an election.
65. The Anti-Corruption Bureau has sought the state home department's permission to investigate the deliberate prolonging of investigation in a corruption case pertaining to the tribal department. The Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court recently ordered a probe observing that the delay of five years in investigating the purchase of generator sets for ashramshalas was deliberate and done to benefit the petitioner as well as certain officials. The bench recently ordered the home department to find the real culprits. These ashramshalas provide education to poor tribal children from the region. In 2011, the tribal depart ment decided to purchase 50 generators of 10 KVA each for the ashramshalas in the drought-hit districts of Akola, Amravati and Yavatmal. Subsequently , Bhrashtachar Nirmulan Samiti, an NGO, lodged a complaint with the ACB about misappropriation of public funds.The ACB then began investigating the case quietly . In 2013, it obtained permission to carry out an open investigation as Rs 72 lakh was alleged to have been appropriated by Vishwambar Varvantkar, additional commissioner, tribal department, Amravati, along with the project officer. The officials allegedly connived with G S Enterprises, Mumbai, to purchase manually operated generator sets while the state trea sury had paid for automatic generator sets. The ACB, in its report, said that in 2011 the project officer moved a proposal before the district planning committee to purchase manually operated generator sets for Rs 1.79 crore. The committee approved the proposal. However, states the report, the additional commissioner at his level presented inflated bills to the treasury for purchase of automatic generator sets. For this, forged bills were generated in the name of another company by the proprietor of G S Enterprises. After the ACB filed a criminal complaint against Varvantkar, he moved the Nagpur bench of the Bombay HC in 2015 to quash the complaint.
66. The monitoring committee of eco-sensitive zone at Matheran will recommend to the ministry of environment and forests to bar horse rides on two road stretches of Matheran hill station -MG Road and the stretch between Regal Hotel and Tapal Peti naka. Besides, the tractor service for lifting of garbage is likely to resume after years, if the ministry gives it nod. Further, the long pending environment-friendly alternative transport system proposal is under consideration of the committee. The recently formed committee held a meeting on Saturday .
67. Probing several fraud cases over the last three years, the CBI has unearthed 393 shell companies which allegedly diverted around Rs 2,900 crore. According to CBI officials, the shell companies, used by several accused persons in separate cases, were being used for specified purposes like creating fake invoices and “round-tripping“ of funds to evade taxes and generate black money . Roundtripping is sending money abroad to tax havens in guise of payments for fake imports via shell companies and bringing back that money as “foreign investment“. If the CBI's findings are a hint, the use of shell companies across the country by people diverting bank loan funds is a big scam. Even ED officials agree that shell companies are being used in large numbers by many people. Officials in both CBI and ED said there was a need to control mushrooming of shell companies and investigate every aspect about them. The CBI found out about these shell companies while probing various cases of loan frauds with at least 28 public sector banks and one private bank. The agency is learnt to have found the money trail, cheating and diversion of funds in its cases.
68. India is set to see a countrywide cyber security audit of its power distribution and generation system to prevent hacking as state grids and plants increasingly become smarter with large-scale deployment of digital technology . At last week's two-day state energy ministers' conference piloted by Union power minister Piyush Goyal here, all participants agreed to get their power system -down to the plant level -regularly audited by agencies empanelled by the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) of the department of information technology . The states also agreed to conduct mock drills simulating disasters and hackings to test the preparedness for reviving downed systems. Government sources said they also agreed to nominate a chief information security officer, an acknowledgement of cyber threats and the need to take them seriously . While the control and command systems of plants and distribution networks were semi-isolated in the past, SCADA turns the entire power system into one giant network, raising efficiency but also vulnerability . In this connected environment, hackers can take over control by remotely activating any embedded malware or spyware. The concerns being raised by Indian Electrical Equipment Manufacturers Association have largely come against a backdrop of smart grid contracts being dominated by Chinese companies, the bugbear of western agencies for suspected cases of hacking or planting bugs in equipment. Chinese companies have bagged SCADA contracts for more than 18 cities spanning Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry .More such contracts are on the anvil. Besides, Chinese companies have also qualified to bid for three transmission links being laid by the Centre to strengthen the national grid.
69. Finance minister Arun Jaitley`s remarks ex pressing reservations over China's One Belt, One Road initiative ahead of a major meeting on the pro ject in Beijing brings out the unease in India-China relations on arange of political issues. Jaitley told the media in Japan, where he is attending deliberations of the Asian Development Bank, that the OBOR and its Pakistani component of CPEC (China Pakistan Economic Corridors) raises sovereignty issues for India. He said this even while pushing for more economic cooperation among Asian nations, underlining the specific issues surrounding the CPEC that is seen as a massive economic and political commitment by China in Pakistan but which raises Indian hackles as it passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
70. About 19 Naxals, including nine allegedly involved in the deadly Maoist attack on CRPF personnel on April 24 at Burkapal in Sukma, were arrested from separate places in Chhattisgarh's insurgency-hit Sukma district on Saturday evening. Six out of nine Maoists allegedly involved in the Burkapal attack, were rounded up from Chintagufa area while three others from Chintalnar region, Sukma additional superintendent of police Jitendra Shukla said. Besides, 10 lower rung cadres were held from Kukanar police station area in connection with attacking a police party and torching two trucks in February this year, he added. On April 24, 25 CRPF per sonnel, belonging to the 74th battalion, were killed in a Maoist ambush while patrolling in Burkapal area. Around a dozen suspects were rounded up during joint search operations by CRPF , CoBRA and district force in Chintalnar, Chintagufa and Burkapal for questioning after the attack, the ASP said. During interrogation, nine of them admitted to their involvement in the attack following which they were arrested, he said.
71. A female candidate who appeared at a NEET centre here on Sunday claimed she had to remove her innerwear before sitting for the entrance test. Other women candidates, too, faced a harrowing experience due to a strict dress code in force.“My daughter went inside the centre, only to return later and hand me her top innerwear,“ said one candidate's mother. Another candidate wearing a pair of jeans, was asked to remove a pocket as well as metal buttons from it. Her father said: “I went to a shop 3km away and bought a new dress for her.“ “They were subjected to so much humiliation. I will write to CM Pinarayi Vijayan and seek action,“ said state Mahila Congress President Bindhu Krishna.
72. The CID has booked three policemen, including a police inspector, for allegedly murdering a 37-year-old man while trying to extort a confession out of him. The CID registered a case against the trio -inspector Shaikh Abdul Rauf, head constable Tulsiram Eknathrao Deshmukh and constable Abdul Mustaq Abdul Majeed Shaikh -at a police station in Parbhani district, about 190km from here. It was at the very same police station that the alleged murder took place on December 25, 2016. The custodial death of Shamsher Khan Pathan, a resident of Parbhani, had resulted in a serious law-and-order situation in town.
73. The horror of a house in east Delhi began to sink in as cops broke open the door on Saturday night. The stench of rotting garbage, piled up four-feet-high, hit them as they stepped in. Garbage was everywhere and there was no space to walk. Inside, the only electrical appliance in working condition was a table fan. On a stinking bed next to the fan lay a 17-year-old, mentally-ill girl who was allegedly kept captive in the flat for at least a year.She was in bad shape, disoriented and hadn't bathed for a long time. The “rescue“ was mounted after residents alerted the beat staff.They had heard a girl sobbing from inside the flat. The girl's mother, Suchitra Sanyal (all names changed), who lives close by with another daughter, came to the house twice a day to give the girl food, residents said. She gave her water once a day , with sleeping pills to put her to sleep, they alleged. The girl, who has studied up to Class X, was last seen almost couple of years ago, a neigh bour said. Suchitra and her ex-hus band Digvijay divorced in 2011. Her case for maintenance is pending in the Karkardooma courts since then.
74. Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken on Sunday demanded the immediate resig nation of chief minister Arvind Kejrwal.Terming the allegations of “corruption“ levelled by Ka pil Mishra a “witness testimony of sitting minister“, Maken said his party would carry out a fiveday referendum on the right to recall the CM. He said the party aimed to secure at least 10 lakh signatures from people of Delhi. Maken called the “ AAP experiment“ a failure. He said: “The Aam Aadmi Party was created on November 26, 2012, with the aim of fighting corruption, bringing in lokpal as well as establishing inner party democracy. Within five years of its creation, all central pillars on which the party was created have been dismantled.“ Maken claimed that of the seven ministers who took oath on February 14, 2015, six already had serious corruption allegations against them. The DPCC chief said the “Rs 2-crore transaction“ between Satyendar Jain and Kejriwal was “not a mere allegation, but a witness affidavit of a sitting minister who saw the transaction himself“.
75. The strategic antiNaxal operations command headquarters of the CRPF has been shifted from Kolkata to right in the heart of the Naxal violence hit state of Chhattisgarh by the Centre in the wake of 37 men of the paramilitary being massacred by Naxals in aspan of less than twomonths. The CRPF issued an order on May 4 directing the “immediate“ transfer of the command headquarters of the central zone of the paramilitary , roughly seven years after it was shifted from Raipur to Kolkata owing to “logistical and connectivity issues“ that gave the West Bengal capital an upper hand over its Chhattisgarh counterpart. The newly appointed CRPF director general Rajeev Rai Bhatnagar has been asked to ensure the command begins functioning from Raipur before the high-level meeting of left wing wxtremism hit states on Monday . Additional director general of CRPF central zone, Kuldiep Singh, was immediately air dashed to Raipur from Kolkata along with the headquarter transfer orders and the IPS officer has taken charge of the command in Raipur on Friday , the sources said.
76. The number of tigers in Maharashtra's Pench Tiger Reserve has increased to 44 this year, as compared to 31 in 2016. The increase of 13 tigers was recorded in East Pench (Sillari), Chorbahuli, Saleghat and Deolapar areas of Mansinghdeo sanctuary , and Paoni and Nagalwadi. Officials said that of the 44 tigers recorded, 22 are males and 22 females. As per National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) guidelines, the Phase IV annual estimation exercise with camera traps was conducted jointly by Wildlife Conservation Trust (WCT) and Pench Tiger Foundation over 21 days in January 2017. The figure of 44 also includes a couple of tigers that have died since the January exercise in and around Pench. Since January this year, Pench has lost four tigers, of which two died in territorial fights.
77. A neighbourhood tiff over scratches on a brand new SUV spiralled into a macabre murder in the wee hours of Sunday in which a young man was allegedly beaten up, dragged behind an SUV , smashed against a tanker and then deliberately run over. All this in the heart of the city in MP Nagar. Two of the accused have reportedly been detained. Police are looking for two others.The four allegedly smashed the windscreen of a dozen vehicles in the locality in revenge for the scratches on the ir car before embarking on their murderous run.
78. Ordnance factories making 87 items, includ ing 39 listed under the weapons sec tion, are set to lose the charge, with the ministry of defence directing the Army to buy them from the private sector.The ministry of defence has asked the ordnance factories to either “wind up or put to alternative use the production facilities for these items in the absence of orders from the user (Army)“. Of the 87 items, 48 are troop comfort articles -from blankets and socks to boots and rain capes, et al -but the other 39 come under the crucial weapons section. Some of them indirectly fall under the weapons classification. The 39 items under the weapons section include 12 types of ammunition boxes, three types of bombs, seven types of empty shells, two types of binoculars and three vehicles, including the Stallion MK-IV truck. Declaring the 39 items “non-core“, the department of defence production (DDP), under the ministry of defence, said in a circular dated April 27: “These can be sourced from the trade (read private sector)... Army can procure them without an NOC (no objection certificate) from the OFB (Ordnance Factory Board).“
79. All ongoing and incomplete realty projects need to be registered (effective from May 1) and only then can builders advertise or sell flats, the real estate regulation law says. Citing this, different flat owners' groups have challenged a couple of regulators' claim that ongoing projects don't have to follow the norms till July 31.
80. Rights activist Irom Sharmila Chanu will marry her long-time British partner Desmond Coutinho in July. “We have not fixed the date of our marriage yet, but are planning it sometime in July-end in Tamil Nadu,“ Sharmila told over the phone from Tamil Nadu's Perumalamalai on Sunday. Sharmila had formed a political party called the People's Resurgence and Justice Alliance (PRJA) after ending her epic 16-year-long fast against the controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) on August 9, 2016.
81. The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), which has completed two orbit raising manoeuvres of the South Asia Satellite, is just two more steps away from making it operational. Isro successfully launched the Geostationary Communication Satellite-9 (GSAT-9), or the South Asia Satellite, on Friday , marking a new era in space diplomacy . On Sunday, the space agency said it had completed the first orbit raising operation by firing the LAM engine for 2,643 seconds at 3.51am on Saturday . Following this, at 9.30am on Sunday , the second orbit raising operation was carried out by firing the engine for 3,529.7 seconds. The 12 transponders in the Ku band that the satellite has put into space, will provide a host of applications and services: Television, Direct-to-Home (DTH), tele-education, telemedicine, very small aperture terminals (VSATs) and disaster management support, besides giving India a secure hotline with the countries that can be used during disaster management and other emergencies.
82. After gaining a foothold in the northeast with the conquest of Assam last year, followed by the formation of governments in Arunachal and Manipur, BJP has set its sights on Tripura. BJP chief Amit Shah kicked off the party's election campaign in the state, 10 months ahead of the scheduled assembly polls, addressing a huge rally here on Sunday .
83. As the standoff with Pakistan continues over the death sentence to Kulbhushan Jadhav and beheading of Indian soldiers, the government has approved the appointment of top Pakistani diplomat Sohail Mahmood as the country's next high commissioner to India. Expressing hope that Mahmood would contribute positively to improving bilateral ties, official sources here said he had been given visa to allow him to take over from incumbent Abdul Basit this month. This brings to an end months of suspense over the appointment of Mahmood, Pakistan's ambassador to Turkey , who is seen as the civilian government's choice. India has been keen to see the back of Ba sit, believing him to be Pakistan army's man who was too hawkish, especially on issues related to J&K.
84. Pakistan on Sunday rejected reports that an Indian woman married to a Pakistani man was being held hostage at the Indian high commission building in Islamabad. Tahir Ali, a resident of Buner town, had lodged a complaint at Islamabad's Secretariat Police Station to help him get his wife, Uzma, an Indian national, back. She had gone to the Indian embassy but did not return. When the police contacted the Indian high commission, the officials said that Uzma was in their office but refused to send her back, saying that negotiations will be held through the foreign office. The Foreign Office said it was in contact with the Indian high commission and the issue would be resolved soon.An Indian government source said the woman had sought help from the Indian mission on May 5. “The high commission is providing consular assistance to the woman and is in touch with Pakistan foreign office and her family in India,“ he said.
85. Scientists have discovered the world's oldest orchid fossil trapped in amber that dates back some 45 million years to 55 million years. Thus far, the orchard fossil credited with being the oldest was believed to be 20-30 million years old. The orchid family has some 28,000 species -more than double the number of bird species and quadruple that of mammal species.
86. Two Australians won this year's race up Taiwan's tallest skyscraper on Sunday, climbing 2,046 steps in the annual `Taipei 101 Run Up'. Some 4,500 runners from 36 countries took part in the race to the 91st floor of the Taipei 101 tower, which is among the tallest buildings in the world. Australian Mark Bourne won the men's event with a time of 11 minutes, 24 seconds, while compatriot Suzy Walsham was the fastest woman with a time of 13 minutes, 36 seconds.
87. Biologists are trying to figure out why hundreds of leopard sharks are dying in the San Francisco Bay this year. This is the largest die-off in six years of the bay's most abundant shark. Experts believe the sharks are picking up toxins in stagnant saltwater. Pelagic Shark Research Foundation executive director Sean Van Sommeran believes the number of dead and dying sharks could be in the thousands.
88. There has been a lot of fuss around period-tracking apps over the last few years. The idea of being able to prevent getting pregnant without contraception sounded too good to be true. You log your period data, and the apps supposedly then tell you when it's safe to have sex at no risk of becoming pregnant (or when you should have sex if you're trying to conceive). But according to new research, these apps may not be as search, these apps may not be as reliable as has previously been claimed. A study from the University of Washington, US, has concluded that menstrual-cycletracking apps often disappoint users with their lack of accuracy and assumptions about sexual identity or partners. The researchers reached their conclusions following a survey of 687 people combined with data from 2,000 reviews of nine of the most popular periodtracking apps.
89. Scientists have developed a unique desk light that automatically switches from green to red when you are focused on your work and do not want to be disturbed. “The light is like displaying your Skype status -it tells your colleagues whether you are busy or open for a chat,“ said Thomas Fritz, assistant professor at the University of British Columbia in Canada. The lamp, called FlowLight, switches between green and red based on keyboard and mouse activity. It was tested among about 450 employees with positive results. Researchers found that not only did the employees report fewer interruptions, the light also changed the office culture in that people became more respectful of each other's time and aware of when they could interrupt a colleague. Some employees even reported that the lights motivated them to finish their work faster. “It is important that the light changes automatically because once someone is focused on a task, stopping to manually turn on a light, close your office door is disruptive to the work and cumbersome,“ Fritz said. FlowLight is designed to only turn red for a certain amount of time each day despite how hard someone works. That feature is key to preventing employees from feeling guilty for not working hard or getting competitive with one another, Fritz said.
90. Zcash, the latest virtual currency, has been a smash success since its launch seven months ago, drawing in new users with promises of unrivaled privacy protection. After debuting on currency trading platforms in October, Zcash took off, hitting an exchange rate of $1,000 per unit, putting it in league with the much better established Bitcoin. While its value has since come down to earth, Zcash is attracting the interest of Russian, Chinese, Venezuelan and South African consumers. Brazilians now use Zcash to pay taxes and electricity bills. To make its mark in the world of virtual currencies, Zcash boasts that it protects user privacy . But because of that guarantee it does not offer the transparency demanded by authorities who want to prevent these new tender from being used in money laundering, financing terror ism, evading taxes or fraud. Zcash was developed by researchers at Johns Hopkins University and MIT in the US and Tel Aviv University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Israel. Only five of the six people who developed the cryptography have been publicly identified. It is based on a technology dubbed zk-Snark, which allows untraceable transactions. Other cryptocurren cies such as Dash and Monero offer a level of privacy , but Zcash, managed by a firm called Zerocoin Electric Coin Company , even obscures the origin of a payment. Virtual currencies are not regulated by any central bank, and can be “mined“ or produced by anyone with sophisticated software skills to gather up the code. Nevertheless, despite this, experts warn that Zcash may be vulnerable to hacking or counterfeiting.
91. She has been in her husband's life since he was 15 -first as a teacher, then lover and now as his first lady. And she will be at Emmanuel Macron's side when the 39-year-old pro-EU centrist takes office as modern France's youngest ever president, after winning Sunday's decisive run-off vote. Elegant and svelte, 64-year-old Brigitte is her husband's closest collaborator, whom he has pledged to give an official role at the presidential palace. “Every night we debrief together and we repeat what we have heard about each other,“ she told “Paris Match“ magazine last year. “I have to pay attention to everything, do the maximum to protect him.“ But before all that she was another man's wife and mother of three who taught French, Latin and drama.She was on course for a comfortable, if somewhat conventional life. Brigitte Trogneux was born on April 13, 1953, in Amiens, northern France, which is also Emmanuel Macron's hometown, into a prosperous family that runs a well-known pastry and chocolate business. Then in the early 1990s she was astounded by a young man acting in a production of Milan Kundera's “Jacques and his Master“. It was Emmanuel.
92. Defeated French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen claimed a “historic, massive result“ for her far-right National Front in Sunday's presidential run-off won by centrist Emmanuel Macron. Le Pen said she had called Macron to wish him “success“ in tackling the “huge challenges“ he faced and announced that she would lead the FN into June's legislative elections.
93. Eighty-two Chibok schoolgirls seized three years ago by Boko Haram have been freed in exchange for detained suspects of the extremist group, Nigeria's government said on Sunday, in the largest release negotiated yet in the battle to save nearly 300 girls.
94. The death of 86-year-old Min Bahadur Sherchan has revived concerns about allowing the elderly to scale mountain peaks. An age limit may be set at 76, said Ang Tshering, the head of the Nepal Mountaineering Association.
95. A preschool teacher in Ohio has been fired after she was seen dragging a student by the arm down a school hallway. The school said one of their teachers saw this teacher pull the child and took a picture of it.
96. Pakistan International Airlines has taken its senior pilot off-duty for allegedly sleeping on a Londonbound flight, risking the lives of over 300 passengers on board by handing over the aircraft to a trainee. Captain Amir Akhtar Hashmi had taken a two-and-ahalfhour nap in the business class passenger cabin on April 26 soon after flight PK-785 took off from Islamabad for London, the Dawn reported. The airline was initially reluctant to take action against Hashmi, a former president of the highly influential Pakistan Air Lines Pilots Association (PALPA), but later caved in to “pressure from above“.
97. The Pakistani army said on Sunday it has killed over 50 Afghan soldiers near the border between the two countries, as tensions between the two forces escalated after clashes earlier this week killed 10 Pakistani civilians. Major Gen Nadeem Ahmed said more than 100 Afghan soldiers were also injured in the retaliatory attack by the army to the firing by Afghan forces on Friday in the Balochistan province.Ahmed, however, told reporters he was “not happy“ about the incident as “Afghans are Muslims, our brothers.“
98. Niti Aayog, the government's thinktank, will soon recommend a fresh set of state-run firms for strategic sale as part of its overall agenda of reforming the public enterprises sector and raise muchneeded revenues for the government.
1. Keki Dadiseth and Nasser Munjee are no longer trustees of the Tata Trusts that together hold a 66% stake in Tata Sons, the group's holding company . As independent directors at Tata-run companies, both had at times supported Cyrus Mistry in his conflict with Tata Sons following his ouster as its chairman. Dadiseth used to be on the board of Tata-run Indian Hotels Co Ltd. The Tata Trusts, chaired by Ratan Tata, are a group of 14 public trusts managed by about 20 trustees. The trusts disburse more than Rs 750 crore annually for various causes including healthcare, livelihood, sanitation and education. The Tata Trusts are governed by the Maharashtra Public Trust Act and Income-Tax Act. They enjoy a unique position in India because they are allowed to hold shares in a commercial entity despite being exempt from income tax, exempt because of their philanthropy.
2. After almost a year, Indian authorities have turned their glare on Jatin Mehta, a man who has proved to be far more elusive and low profile than Vijay Mallya. The Enforcement Directorate is learnt to have asked Dubai to expedite its response to India's letters rogatory (LR) relating to Mehta's Winsome Group -the country's secondlargest wilful defaulter after Mallya's Kingfisher Airlines. Winsome Diamonds and Jewellery, a listed company , and group firm Forever owe Rs 6,800 crore to 15 banks in India. India had sent LR to the United Arab Emira tes around the middle of last year. The UAE, which is yet to respond to the request, had a few months ago shared some information with India's Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), which handles inputs on suspect financial transactions. Agencies such as ED and CBI need help from the UAE to verify Winsome's explanation for its inability to repay Indian banks. Winsome, which first defaulted in the summer of 2013, said it was unable to repay following $1billion derivative losses suffered by its UAE clients. Here's the sequence of transactions: Winsome had imported gold on the back of standby letters of credit (SBLC) given by Indian banks in favour of international bullion banks which supplied the gold. Winsome and Forever used the gold to make jewellery that was exported to 13 clients in Dubai. The arrangement was that Winsome and Forever would pay back the banks once they received payments from Dubai buyers -who, according to Winsome, could never pay up due to losses suffered in over-the-counter derivative bets. The global bullion banks invoked the SBLCs -just as any bank would encash guarantees in the event of a default -when Winsome was unable to pay them back. Banks extended the facility as per an RBI-approved scheme that was introduced to promote jewellery export. The facility which gave 270 days' credit to borrowers was discontinued after the Winsome fiasco. Indian banks took the hit because the terms of SBLC said that if Winsome failed to pay the bullion banks, the lenders would step in to pay for the gold import. Winsome informed stock exchanges in India that courts in the UAE have been moved to recover funds from the 13 Dubai companies led by one Haytham Ali Salman Abu Obidah, a Jordanian national. But lenders led by Standard Chartered Bank and Punjab National Bank never bought the Winsome story. PNB has the highest exposure and had filed the first FIR with Central Bureau of Investigation in early 2014.
3. The wheels now appear to be turning for scooters to reclaim their leadership status in India's personaltransport industry. The latest data from the world's biggest two-wheeler market show that one in three such vehicles sold now is a scooter, reflecting a turnaround for the narrowwheel mode of transport that began trailing motorcycles -with wider and bigger tyres -about 25 years ago. At the vanguard of the latest switch in favour of the trendy , gender-neutral machine is the urban consumer: The country's biggest metropolitan centres now show a distinct preference for scooters. In the past couple of years, one in every two two-wheelers sold in Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru, Hyderabad and Chennai is a scooter. The statistics are similar for other aspiring metros, such as Pune, Ahmedabad and Lucknow.
Today, the introduction of automatic transmission in scooters, increasing urbanisation, better roads and a growing number of women consumers are helping turn the wheels in favour of scooters. In the past five years alone, the share of scooters in the overall twowheeler market in the country has risen from 20% to 33%. Had the demand for scooters not increased, the overall two-wheeler market would have witnessed negative growth. Scooter sales have reported a compounded annual growth rate of 20% in the past five years, whereas motorcycle sales have expanded in low single digits.
Analysts tracking the two-wheeler market in India say a prospective buyer would choose a motorcycle over the scooter because of its high fuel efficiency, longer wheel-base to ride over poor roads, and reliability. But with improving road infrastructure and an increase in the number of women buyers, scooters have staged a major comeback.
States and UTs with higher literacy rates and affluence have seen increasing acceptance for scooters. In Kerala, Goa, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh, Manipur and Mizoram, the scooter outsells the motorcycle. In Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Jammu & Kashmir, scooters have a share of 40% in total sales -higher than 33% national average.
There exists a strong correlation between urbanisation and scooter purchase. This has been previously seen in highly urbanised Southeast Asian economies.In the past five years, size of the overall scooter market more than doubled from 2.5 million to 5.6 million at the end of FY17, whereas the motorcycle market has merely grown from 10 million units to 11 million units since FY12. More than half of those scooter volumes came from Japan's largest twowheeler maker, HMSI. Led by Activa, HMSI has more than doubled volumes to 5 million units. Chennai-based TVS Motor Co too has gained on account of Jupiter brand, helping the company overtake Hero MotoCorp as the second-largest scooter maker.
4. ICICI Bank CEO Chanda Kochhar tells that the recent ordinance on bad loans gives the much-needed comfort to bankers in resolving the NPA mess. She also says that RBI should create more oversight committees and widen their scope so that all types of restructuring are covered.
5. Amazon India will pay its sellers a fixed percentage of the selling price of every unit shipped as damage allowance to cover for potential damage during transit. The move comes weeks after it drew sellers' flak for raising commission.
6. US private-equity giant KKR would invest Rs 300 crore in Walchand Nagar Industries, one of India's oldest business groups, in a structuredfinancing deal that would help the Mumbaibased conglomerate realign its businesses and repay some of its term loans.
7. Myntra.com, the country's largest online fashion retailer, is close to signing up two sub-franchisees to manage Mango stores in India, according to three people familiar with the matter. Myntra, which took over the offline and online franchisee rights for the Spanish fashion and lifestyle brand in India earlier this year, is likely to appoint Samarth Lifestyle and G&B Fashion as the subfranchisees. Jaipur-based Samarth operates more than 100 outlets of Benetton, Tommy Hilfiger, US Polo, Puma, Lee, Wrangler and Calvin Klein, while New Delhi-based G&B operates 25 outlets of Benetton in the National Capital Region. Samarth Lifestyle and G&B declined to comment on the possible deals with Mango. Myntra has decided not to run the Mango stores itself, at least in the initial stages, due to high capital expenditure, operational costs and the need to maintain a separate team for offline stores, the people said.Mango's former franchisee Major Brands has already given notice to vacate a prominent mall in New Delhi. The mall operator hasn't decided whether to lease the premises to Mango. One person said Myntra's decision to let franchisees operate the Mango stores stems from the fact that its own entry into brick-andmortar retail a month ago with a Roadster-branded store has so far received a lukewarm response in Bengaluru, which the company said wasn't correct.
On the other hand, Myntra, which was acquired by Flipkart in 2014, said sales of Mango products have surged 25% on its platform since it signed on the Spanish fashion and lifestyle brand in February.
8. Another attempt at mobilising support to champion the cause of IT employees perceived to be facing the axe from large service providers such as Cognizant Technology Solutions is gathering momentum. A bunch from the workforce in Chennai is preparing for conciliation proceedings with the state labour department in what they claim is a fight against retrenchment. Cognizant president Rajeev Mehta told ET categorically there is no retrenchment. The company recently introduced a voluntary separation programme for top-rung staff to accelerate its shift to delivering more digital services and align the workforce to meet growth targets.Reportedly , Cognizant may also increase involuntary exits from its workforce during the current appraisal cycle. As the first step, employees who believe the company is adopting unfair methods to let go of some of its workforce have rallied behind a go-to front for IT grievances to petition the state government. The Forum for IT Employees (FITE), which helped an employee litigate against retrenchment in the Madras High Court, has now sent representations to assistant labour commissioners in certain districts and the state labour commissioner urging the state government to urgently intervene in what it terms “illegal termination“. “We have submitted a representation with the state government as of now. The plan is to formally file for conciliation, which is the first step before the issue can be taken to labour courts,“ Vinodh AJ, general secretary of FITE.
9. The venture capital arms of Singapore's sovereign fund Temasek and Southeast Asia's largest real estate developer CapitaLand have teamed up to invest more than $5 million (Rs 32.2 crore) in Bengaluru-based ecommerce consultancy Ace Turtle. Temasek's Vertex Venture led the Series-A funding and CapitaLand's C31Ventures is the co-investor in Ace Turtle, an omni-channel specialist.
10. In April, Google Drive quietly passed another major milestone. Two million files are now stored on the file-hosting service. Prabhakar Raghavan, Google's vice-president responsible for G Suite in Google Cloud, said the stat at the Google Cloud Next event in London on Tuesday. Google Drive passed the 800-m user mark in Jan 2016. Meanwhile, the number of files or “objects“ passed 2 trillion in April. That's 2,000,000,000,000.
11. Delhi-based cold pressed juice maker, MyGreens has raised `3-5 crore in an angel round led by early-stage investment platform, LetsVenture. The one-year-old firm, which claims an annual revenue of `1-2 crore in its Delhi market, recently acquired JusDivine in an all-stock deal to enter the Mumbai market in March. MyGreens will use the capital raised to launch a new range of beverages in keeping with its vision to be a `clean label', fast-moving consumer goods brand by early 2018. The new line of products will open up a larger market for the company , which is targeting an increase in sales volume to 5,000 bottles a day , from the current 500-1,000 a day, in the next 12 months. MyGreens, which competes with the Sequoia Capital-backed RAW Pressery , offers beverages in the range of `100-250 a bo ttle in different sizes.The firm is targeting a 30% monthly growth and is looking to reach profitability by the end of 2017.
12. Facebook is looking to premiere its first slate of TV programming in mid-June, according to reports. FB plans to have two-dozen shows for this initial push. According to reports, Facebook is looking for shows in two distinct tiers: a marque tier for big-budget shows that would feel at home on TV, and a lower tier for shorter, less expensive shows of 5-10 minutes that refreshes every 24 hours.
13. GENEVA Researchers at Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne in Switzerland have developed a touchscreen tablet to help visually impaired people find their way around unfamiliar places using their fingers. The device quickly forms shapes and relief maps that users can then explore with their fingers. It could also be used to help them learn subjects such as geometry and mathematics. Users can “read“ the graphic data on the screen with their fingers.
14. Online home rental platform NestAway Technologies has acquired Bengaluru-based home aggregator and rental management company Zenify for an allstock deal, according to industry sources. Zenify will continue to operate as an individual brand under the NestAway umbrella and will add to the family rentals business started by NestAway in April 2016. The deal values Zenify at $10 million, said sources close to the transaction though NestAway refused to comment on the size or the nature of the deal. “The current acquisition will add 4,000 homes to NestAway's family rentals business. Zenify will continue to operate as a separate brand under the NestAway umbrella and we will do some cross-linkages in terms of inventory on the family rentals business. Zenify will not list any shared properties. Going forward we will figure out what is working on each of the platforms and think about merging or not,“ said Amarendra Sahu, CEO of NestAway. He added that the 100-member team of Zenify will continue to work with the brand. The platform had close to 1,000 family properties listed on it out of the 10,000-plus homes under management across eight cities in India. The company, backed by Tiger Global, Yuri Milner, and others, has raised $43 million so far and is in the market to raise a $30 million round. The company, started in 2015, provides fully-furnished homes as part of its shared-home package, working with rental managers and house owners. The shared accommodation has a lock-in period of six months while the family accommodations are unfurnished.Quikr has also built out its real estate vertical QuikrHomes with acquisitions, including Sequoia-backed GrabHouse in November 2016 in an all-stock deal of $10 million and realestate portal CommonFloor in January 2016 for $200 million in an allstock deal. Family home rentals market, independent of brokers, also includes NoBrokers which is backed by KTB Ventures, Paytm founder Vijay Shekhar Sharma, and others.
15. Restaurant automation solution provider Devourin has raised an undisclosed amount of seed funding from Relfor Labs' Deepak Nathani. Nathani, also co-founder of Cybage, has acquired a 20% stake in the company following his investment. Devourin provides a cloud-based platform adaptable for different kinds of food businesses across PoS, websites, tabletops and mobile apps, and has an operation central command that allows owners to control multiple operations from a single location.
16. With no regulatory approval for the HDFC Life-Max Life merger even nine months after the plan was unveiled, the mortgage lender is open to revisiting the structure of the deal, which may revive hopes of an initial public offering (IPO) of the merged entity to overcome regulatory obstacles. The proposed merger, announced in August, is a two-leg transaction where Max Life will first merge with its listed holding company Max Financial Services, which owns 68% in Max Life. Subsequently , HDFC Life will merge with Max Life, the companies said. Max Life will be folded into parent Max Financial Services (MFS), which will then be split into two parts.“We will have to go for an IPO in the second structure, because then we don't merge with the listed company ,“ Mistry said. Post Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India, both the companies will need approvals from the Securities and Exchange Board of India, the Competition Commission of India and the courts.
17. Warren Buffett kicked off the proceedings at the Berkshire H at h aw ay 2 0 1 7 A n nu a l Shareholders Meeting with some high praise for a fellow stock market icon. He told attendees that Jack Bogle has “probably done more for the average investor than probably any man in the country,“ citing lower fees combined with solid returns through investing in index funds. Bogle has put “10s and 10s and 10s of billions into their pockets, and those numbers are going to be 100s and 100s of billions over time,“ Buffett continued to rave. It isn't the first time Buffett has lauded Bogle's efforts to shape the modern investment landscape. In a shareholder letter published earlier this year, he called Bogle a “hero,“ and touted the merits of low-cost S&P 500 index funds.
18. Bengaluru-based microfinance company Grameen Koota may write off 3-5% of its Rs 3,075 crore loans owing to non repayment, a sign of demonetisation hitting the financials of lenders to the unbanked borrowers. All micro lenders are facing asset quality stress in varying degree, estimated to be between 1% and 10% of loans, despite significant improvement of their collection efficiency compared with what it was during the first few months to demonetisation. Grameen Koota managing director Udaya Kumar told that the company is looking to make a provision of Rs 100 crore, which is two-third of the expected writeoffs. He is expecting a dip in profit to Rs 75 crore for FY17, compared with `84 crore in the preceding one. Its board is slated to meet on May 17 to consider the financials.
19. Warren Buffett assured shareholders that they'll be fine after he's gone. “If I die tonight, I think the stock would go up tomorrow,“ Buffett said. “And there'd be speculation about breakups and all that sort of thing, so it would be a good Wall Street story.“ Buffett was answering an investor's inquiry on whether Berkshire would repurchase stock if the shares fell after the 93-year-old vice chairman, Charles Munger, were to move on. The idea underpinned a larger question of succession planning at Berkshire. Buffett over five decades has expanded the conglomerate into industries including insurance, energy and transportation, while assembling a $135 billion stock portfolio. He said the board would consider a buyback if it were in the best interest of shareholders, and that the next CEO would have to be a capital allocator. The next leader of Berkshire is “going to have to allocate maybe $400 billion or something like that, maybe more“.
20. City-based digital marketing startup MintM, which builds an interactive `Engagement Bot', a cloud-based smart digital signage solution, has partnered with Treebo Hotels, a budget hotel chain startup. The technology will allow Treebo guests to interact with the bot, which will display relevant content, respond and track expressions, and generate useful statistics around customer engagement.
21. General Insurance Corporation of India, the state-owned reinsurance company , has moved a step closer to an initial public offering. It has selected HSBC, Citibank, Deutsche Bank, Kotak and Axis as merchant bankers for the planned issue and Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas as its legal consultant.
22. It's arguably the most iconic brand among high-performance motorcycles. And it could soon be owned by an Indian company . Royal Enfield is understood to have been approached to acquire Italian superbike maker Ducati, owned by Germany's embattled automaker Volkswagen group.
23. Digital payments and commerce platform Paytm is in talks with curated events platform Insider.in to pick up a majority stake in the Mumbaibased company , said people aware of the development. This would be one of the largest external investments made by Paytm if the deal materialises. The Noida-based company is expected to pump up to $30 million into Insider.in, told sources. Typically , Paytm invests $5-7 million in other startups.
24. As CureFit, a healthcare startup founded by former Myntra co-founder Mukesh Bansal and ex-Flipkart senior executive Ankit Nagori, goes live, it has raised another $3 million in fresh funding from Tata Sons chairman emeritus Ratan Tata's UC RNT Fund and angel investors from Silicon Valley .The fresh investment comes at a time when the company , which is using a mix of offline and online channels, has just rolled out its services. All told, the one-year-old company has picked up $18 million already , making it one of the most wellfunded early-stage startups in the country .The Bengaluru-based startup raised $15 million from Accel Partners, IDG Ventures and Kalaari Capital in July last year.
25. At a time when PSU banks in India need about Rs 2 lakh crore for recapitalisation to tackle rising nonperforming assets (NPAs), Kotak Bank alone may sell shares worth a similar amount. This is because the RBI has asked promoters Uday Kotak and family to cut their stake from the current level of 32% in the country's third largest private sector lender to 15% by March 2020. The Rs 2-lakh-crore amount is more than the current market cap of ICICI Bank, which is the third largest bank in the country after HDFC Bank and SBI respectively . It is also more than the market cap of eight top PSU banks (except SBI) put together.
POLITICS, ECONOMY, SPORTS, ENTERTAINMENT,CRIMES AND NEWS AROUND THE WORLD
1. The defence ministry seems to have unlocked the strategic partnership (SP) logjam with a firm push from the Prime Minister's Office and sustained focus by defence minister Arun Jaitley, setting up the private sector to play a major role in the production of weapons systems for the armed forces. A tussle within the bureaucracy over what rules the SP model would follow had resulted in a stalemate within the ministry since February 2016, frustrating leading private sector companies that were expecting to get mega production orders for aircraft, submarines and land systems, a traditional stronghold of the public sector.
2. The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) is developing a dedicated portal for the investigation of those identified to have made deposits or large purchases not in line with declared income as a follow-up to Operation Clean Money, which was launched in the wake of demonetisation to crack down on black money. The second phase of Operation Clean Money will focus on highrisk individuals who made highvalue transactions and will be subject to detailed investigations.The department has already identified more than 60,000 such persons, based on data analytics. The cases that are being taken up for deeper investigation deal with deposits as well as high-value purchases or sales. Black money continues to be a priority for the Modi government. A dedicated portal will ensure focussed and non-intrusive interaction between tax authorities and suspected evaders, said the official. The Prime Minister was given a detailed presentation on Operation Clean Money and various actions taken by the apex direct taxes body. Operation Clean Money was launched soon after demonetisation to ensure that those with undeclared incomes were brought into the tax fold. The department identified about 1.8 million persons who were contacted through SMSes and ema ils and asked to explain their deposits, pay tax or declare past undisclosed income through the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana. Of these, 1 million responded in the e-verification process.The department managed to get about 9.5 million new taxpayers into the tax net in FY17. Total returns filed in the year earlier had amounted to 52.8 million, an increase of 22% from FY15. The trend was not just restricted to returns. The number of applications for permanent account numbers (PAN) jumped after the demonetisation announcement on November 8 as the department issued a diktat to banks that all accounts had to be linked to PAN. The department received about 173,000 daily applications for PAN against an average 83,000 before that. On some days, this rose to as much as 300,000. The department allotted 46.5 million PANs between November 8, 2016, and March 31, 2017.
3. Companies that had announced dividend or restructured debt in the previous financial year will have to pay minimum alternate tax in the current financial year after IndAS, the new Indian accounting standard, came into effect.
4. Finance minister Arun Jaitley has asked the Asian Development Bank to speed up loan processing. He also said the lender should fund projects other than those in the infrastructure space, especially in health and education.
5. Pro-European Union Emma nuel Macron was elected president of France on Sunday, emphatically defeating far-right nationalist Marine Le Pen.The former economy minister bagged an estimated 65% votes to Le Pen's 35%, early projections from five polling organisations showed.
6. Sacked Delhi minister Kapil Mishra on Sunday accused chief minister Arvind Kejriwal of taking Rs 2 crore from his Cabinet colleague Satyendar Jain. The charge has been refuted by deputy CM Manish Sisodia. Even senior AAP leader Kumar Vishwas came out in support of Kejriwal.
7. The Centre is bracing for its biggest anti-Naxal operation under this government -it's a call that involves launching a large-scale assault into the heart of Naxal stronghold in Konta block of Sukma, Chhattisgarh, where the heavily armed Battalion number 1, comprising 700-1,000 hardcore battle-hardy Maoist cadre, is entrenched.
8. The distribution of licences for sale of country liquor in UP by the Mayawati and Akhilesh government(s) has come under the scanner of the Lucknow high court, which has summoned the record of such licences granted in the past nine years. The high court has also taken cognizance of the accusation that “shell companies were set up by the beneficiaries to evade relevant rules of the state liquor policy“. It has also sought details of the list of directors of companies owned by the late Ponty Chadha. The petitioner represented by senior lawyer Mohan Jain has alleged that, as per rules framed by the government, such licence(s) cannot be granted to a company which is also a manufacturer. Referring to four companies which were granted licences for country liquor, Jain contended that the said companies were controlled by Chadhaowned group and that the companies represented a shell company . Representing a company which was also a manufacturer and producer, Jain argued that the grant of licence was a clear case of “discrimination“. And if licences were to be granted in violation of rules, then other manufacturers and producers should also be considered to participate in a “transparent“ manner, he added.
9. Uttar Pradesh's two month-old Yogi Adityanath government has sent an ambitious proposal to the Centre -hold camps to distribute assistive devices to differently-abled in all 403 assembly constituencies of the state. This is the first such request from any state government for a camp under the Assistance to Disabled Persons for PurchaseFitting of AidsAppliances (ADIP) scheme of the department of empowerment of persons with disabilities (DEPwD).The scheme has become a massive outreach programme for the Narendra Modi-led government since 2014. The government distributes aids and assistive devices to below poverty line (BPL) families. Sources said the Uttar Pradesh government has requested the Centre to hold a camp in each assembly constituency irrespective of the party represented by its MLA. Each camp involves large-scale preparations by DEPwD and the state administration. First, the state government conducts survey to determine how many BPL households exist and have a differently-abled person eligible for assistive devices. After the survey, a list is sent to DEPwD, which holds a camp. On the day of the camp, the beneficiaries are brought from their villages to the camp site and given assistive devices. As a rule social justice and empowerment minister Thaawar Chand Gehlot and all government officials have food with the beneficiaries.
Over the last three years, the government has held 4,718 camps bene fitting 6.40 lakh beneficiaries under this scheme. In 2012-13 and 2013-14 a mere 37 camps were organised The scheme has become a game changer for the Modi government as it has generated a lot of goodwill.However, so far, the camps have been held district-wise.
10. Rattled by t wo incidents of rioting within 15 days in the sensitive district of Saharanpur just ahead of the Uttar Pradesh municipal polls, the Yogi Adityanath government rushed its top officers to Saharanpur on Sunday promising an impartial probe. State DGP Sulkhan Singh and pr i ncip a l s e c r et a r y ( home ) Debasish Panda assured locals in Saharanpur that no innocent would be arrested in both the matters. The Yogi government is concerned that in both the cases of rioting in village Dhudli and Shabbirpur separated by 15 days, trouble was triggered after processions were carried out despite local authorities denying permission to the same. The state DGP has said in clear terms that locals should desist from taking out any unauthorised processions and not resort to “any new traditions“ or “carry any weapons“. The BJP had taken out the unauthorised procession in the name of Bhim Rao Ambedkar in Dhudli village last month. The DGP and home secretary met representatives of all political parties in Saharanpur as SP, BSP and Congress have stationed teams here to probe the matter.
11. Apart from training personnel and sharing knowhow on holding elections, India has recently supplied vehicles to the Election Commission of Nepal. It would come in handy in hilly terrain and far flung areas. Nepal is preparing to conduct local polls that would empower Madhesis.
12. Amit Shah seems to have started a novel fan club -the `Selfie Morcha Jingbang'. The members of the club were so obsessed with selfies with the BJP president that they blocked him from addressing a meeting when he was in Kolkata recently. Finally, Shah had to intervene. Calling them `Selfie Morcha', he requested them to be seated for the speech.
13. With the Centre taking its ambitious plan to set up world-class institutes to the Cabinet soon, institutes have already started lining up to bag the status. Vedanta University chairman BK Patnaik, former Odisha chief secretary, was recently in HRD ministry to discuss the intricacies involved in the process to win the special status.
14. What were rumblings before the Punjab assembly elections have now translated into an open protest against comedianturned-politician Bhagwant Mann. AAP supporters from Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and the US have written to Kejriwal opposing Mann's likely appointment as party's Punjab convener. The authors of the joint letter, who claim to have made huge donations to the party, have claimed that if Mann is made convener, it will be a `regressive' move and the decision will have `irrevocable' consequences.
15. Samajwadi patron Mulayam Singh Yadav on Sunday blamed the alli ance with the Congress for the “poor“ state of the party and said efforts should be made to strengthen the SP. He said though the Congress left no stone unturned to “ruin“ his life, his son Akhilesh Yadav forged an alliance with the party in the polls.
16. Mango lovers will get to relish a “slender“ and “beautiful“ mango this sum mer “Yogi mango“ named after chief minister Yogi Adityanath.The mango variety has been developed by the city's famous mango grower Padamshri Haji Kalimullah. Kalimullaha, 74, who had earlier named mangoes after Prime Minister Narendra Modi and actresses, has developed the “Yogi mango“ in his orchard in the Dussehri mango belt in Malihabad area.
17. Four terrorists joined the crowd at the funeral of their slain associate and fired from their rifles as a form of gun salute in Kulgam on Sunday . The terrorist, Fayaz Ahmad Ashwar, was killed in retaliatory fire after a police convoy was attacked in Anantnag on Saturday . The `gun salute' is also a reflection of the open display of defiance by terrorists of late to assert their presence, especially in south Kashmir. J&K is witnessing a new age militancy that is challenging the state after a gap of almost 15 years, since the massive militant attacks of 2002-03. With its `changing tactics and social acceptance', the militancy , police observers say , is not only able to survive but also attract attention. The new form of terrorism with the highest percentage of locals in last two decades has become a `monolith' operationally , say police officials, and the lines between different organisations have almost blurred on ground.
18. The much-hyped C h i n a Pa k i s t a n E c o n o m i c Corridor or CPEC not only challenges India's sovereignty as it passes through PoK but has all the potential to trigger socio-economic collapse of Pakistan giving rise to instability impacting India and other neighbours. CPEC that is being touted as the flagship project under Beijing's One Belt One Road (OBOR) or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) could make Pakistan politically and economically subservient to China, warn scholars within Pakistan.“The result of CPEC would be Pakistan turning into a country like Greece and taking unprecedented loans in the name of CPEC.Our voice will not be heard until and unless we rebel,“ claimed Dr Qaiser Bengali, a Pakistani economist, while addressing a meet in Karachi on Fridayahead of PM Nawaz Sharif 's trip to Beijing for the BRI meet. Indirectly referring to CPEC Dr. Bengali further claimed that all the statistics given by the government are presented in a way that people believe the economy is going in the right direction.
19. The Congress leadership seems to have changed its stance towards one of its Maharashtra Congress leaders Narayan Rane. Only days after promising him the Maharashtra Congress chief 's post if he stays back in the party the party leadership has now changed its stance. According to several Congress leaders the deal is `off' as the party leadership has adopted a tougher posture against him. Rane had been making noises about Maharashtra Congress Chief Ashok Chavan's leadership, he had also reportedly met BJP chief Amit Shah in Gujarat (which Rane vehemently denied) which spooked the Congress leadership which then dangled the carrot of him being appointed the Maharashtra Congress Chief post in another three months if he stays back in the party. Party leaders said that there have been `developments' after the assurance. Several party leaders from the state told the Congress top brass that making Rane the Maha Congress Chief would not go down well with the other party functionaries. Importantly they pointed out that Rane's entry in to the BJP has been scuttled and hence the Congress should not `encourage' him by offering him any post. State level Congress leaders have told the party top brass that Rane's attempts to get in to the BJP have been rebuffed as senior BJP Leaders are not keen on his induction.
20. The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) on Sunday confirmed India's participation in the upcoming Champions Trophy, ending month-long speculation, at a special general meeting (SGM) in Delhi. The board was deliberating its next plan of action after it got outvoted in the International Cricket Council (ICC) over a revised financial model. It has decided to keep legal options open, while continuing with the ICC in the best interests of the country.
21. An inter-ministerial committee being set up by the government to look into the financial woes of the telecom sector would have about three months to hand over its views and solutions to the government. According to people in the know, the panel is likely to have six to eight members, including two from the telecom department and one each from the departments of revenue and economic affairs. The panel would look into issues related to the sector's financial related to the sector's financial health, which has taken a beating due to cut throat competition triggered by the entry of Reliance Jio. “The suggestions will be given to the telecom ministry, which will then go to finance ministry, and then, if needed, to the Cabinet for action,“ a senior government official said, asking not to be named as details are yet to be finalised.
22. Tech-focused venture capital firm, Iron Pillar, has made the first close of its maiden India fund at `129 crore, bringing on board two major anchor investors, Small Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi) and diversified financial services player IIFL. Iron Pillar India Fund-I, which is a Sebi-registered Category-II alternative investment fund, and has a target corpus of `200 crore, has already made two investments till date -Hyderabad-based small and medium enterprise-focused SaaS startup NowFloats Technologies, and Bluestone Jewellery and Lifestyle, which owns and operates online jewellery platform Bluestone.com.
23. China will further tighten its internet regulations with a pledge on Sunday to strengthen controls over search engines and online news portals, the latest step in President Xi Jinping's push to maintain strict Communist Party control over content. Xi has made China's “cyber sovereignty“ a top priority in his sweeping campaign to bolster security.He has also reasserted the ruling Communist Party's role in limiting and guiding online discussion.
24. The Agriwatch Agri Commodities Index dipped 0.53% to 108.66 during the week ended May 6, 2017 from 109.25 during the previous week, led by lower prices of chilli and cotton. The base for the Index and all sub-Indices is 2014 (= 100). The Chilli Index fell 16.1% to 58.12 while the Cotton Index fell 5.9% to 103.44. Six of the nine commodity group sub-Indices and 21 of the 29 individual commodity sub-Indices declined during the week. The commodity group sub-Index values and their weekly changes are as follows: Cereals: 114.08 (+0.19%), Pulses: 141.38 (-1.10%), Vegetables: 39.27 (-4.37%), Edible Oils: 101.51 (-0.41%), Oilseeds: 89.87 (-0.20%), Spices: 84.42 (-8.05%), Sweeteners: 124.73 (+1.48%), Fibres: 103.44 (-5.86%) and Other Non-Food Articles: 92.27 (+0.47%).
25. Federal Bank, whose origins predate India's Independence, would raise up to `. 2,500 crore through a stock sale to institutional buyers, boosting the private lender's capital adequacy and building a warchest ahead of a likely revival in credit demand. The move marks the entry of the Keralabased lender into an expanding league of banks that are harnessing a liquidity-driven market rally in Indian stocks to fund their capital requirements. Its proposed fund-raising coincides with the government's empowerment of the RBI for tackling bad loans, which continue to weigh on the financial sector.
26. The government is planning a comprehensive National Vocational Education and Training System in the country along the lines of programmes in European countries to facilitate job-readiness and entrepreneurship among the youth. The skill development ministry is examining the recommendations of a high-level panel on rationalisation of skills training and sector skills council in India, a senior government official told
27. In wake of lowest rise in daily wages of MNREGA workers in some states, the Centre is looking to rework the baseline on basis of which the remuneration is paid to beneficiaries under the employment guarantee scheme. According to the rural development ministry data, the daily wage under the MNREGA has risen by just Re 1 in Assam, Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, by `2 in Odisha and by `4 in Bengal. MNREGA wages have been increased by 2.7% this year compared to 5.7% last year.
28. India's FDI inflow momentum may slow down this year and exports too may not revive with “full gusto“ as domestic bottlenecks remain, says a report. Although higher world growth is likely to buoy exports, a strengthening rupee and worsening domestic bottlenecks could limit the increase, it said.“Stronger exports and higher FDI inflows have ikely contributed to the strong performance of the INR is recent times. While both are likely to remain buoyant, we believe it is important to note that incremental gains over the short term may not be limitless,“ HSBC said.
29. Chartered account ants' apex body ICAI has asked its members to ensure that companies have made adequate disclosures about transactions involving cancelled notes post demonetisation till December 30, 2016.Companies are required to disclose details about transactions involving scrapped notes from November 8 till December 30 in the annual financial statements and auditors are required to mention in their reports about suc details. In this regard, the Corporate Affairs Ministry has made amendments to certain provisions under the Companies Act, 2013.
30. The government is looking to “refine“ the present norms for regional air connectivity scheme as it prepares for the second round of bidding in three months, according to a senior official. While the UDAN scheme became operational after the first flight from Shimla to the national capital, the authorities have started the groundwork to comprehensively review its framework, including those on number of seats and exclusivity period for an airline.
31. The Hinduja brothers have topped the 2017 list of the richest 1,000 people in the UK with an estimated fortune of £16.2 billion, a massive £3.2 billion hike in their fortunes over the previous year as Britain's wealthy “kept calm and carried on making billions“ amidst the uncertainty over Brexit. Besides brothers Srichand and Gopichand Hinduja, who invest in property , healthcare and oil and gas, there are over 40 Indian-origin super-rich in this year's list which also includes a record number of British billionaires -134 -with 14 new ones emerging over the last year. `The Sunday Times Rich List' says that uncertainties triggered by Britain's vote to leave the European Union (EU) last June have not impacted the country's billionaires' ability to make money , as they grew in numbers with a 14% rise in their fortunes since last year to earn a record £658 billion collectively .
32. Thousands of women dressed in white marched in Venezuela's capital on Saturday to keep pressure on President Nicolas Maduro, whose authority is being increasingly challenged by protests and deadly unrest. The death toll since April -when the protests intensified after Maduro's administration and the courts stepped up efforts to undermine the opposition -is at least 36, according to prosecutors, with hundreds more injured. Led by opposition leaders, lawmakers and Lilian Tintori -the wife of jailed opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez -the crowd carried flowers and placards denouncing “repression“. Police and soldiers initially prevent ed it from reaching the interior ministry. But the women -led by several lawmakers -eventually made it to the Interior and Justice ministries.
33. Organisers barred journalists on Sunday from a publicly advertised event in Shanghai that offered Chinese investors the chance to get US immigrant visas if they put money in a real estate project linked to the family of President Donald Trump's son-in-law. The two-tower luxury apartment complex in New Jersey, One Journal Square, is being developed by KABR Group and the Kushner Companies, which until recently was headed by senior White House advisor Jared Kushner, the husband of Trump's daughter Ivanka. The developers are seeking to raise $150 million, or 15.4% of funding for the project, from investors through the EB-5 visa programme, according to marketing materials posted by the event's organiser, immigration agency Qiaowai. The controversial EB-5 programme allows wealthy foreigners to, in effect, buy US immigration visas for themselves and families by investing at least $500,000 in certain development projects.
34. German police on Sunday evacuated some 50,000 people from the northern city of Hanover in one of the largest post-war operations to defuse World War II era bombs. Residents in a densely populated part of the city were ordered to leave their homes for the operation, planned since mid-April, to extract five recently discovered unexploded bombs.Seven retirement and nursing homes were affected and some rail traffic through the city was disrupted for the operation, which was expected to last all day. Local authorities arranged sports, cultural and lei-sure activities, including museum visits and film screenings, to occupy residents affected by the evacuation. More than 70 years after the end of the war, unexploded bombs are regularly found buried on German land, legacies of the intense bombing campaigns by the Allied forces against Nazi Germany.
35. A French mineworker who was kidnapped in Chad and taken to neighbouring Sudan has been freed after more than six weeks in captivity, French and Sudanese officials said on Sunday. Thierry Frezier, 60, was freed after collaboration between Sudanese, Chadian and French intelligence services, a member of the National Intelli-gence and Security Service (NISS) told reporters in Khartoum. Frezier was taken to Sudan's capital after being freed on Saturday. French President Francois Hollande's office put out a statement saying he felt “great pleasure“ at the release. Sudanese security agents launched a search for Frezier in late March after a Chadian minister said he was being held there after being abducted near Goz Beida in southeastern Chad on March 23.
36. Suicide attackers from the Islamic State group killed two Kurdish peshmerga forces on Sunday in an opera-tion against a base in northern Iraq.
37. US Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt has recused himself from several court cases that he pursued against the agency when he was Oklahoma attorney general, according to a recusal statement. Pruitt, who had sued the environmental agency more than a dozen times when he was the oiland gas-producing state's top legal officer, had pledged during his Senate confirmation that he would step aside from ongoing cases if the agency's ethics panel required it.
38. North Korea said on Sunday it has detained another American citizen on suspicion of acts against the state, which if confirmed would make him the fourth US citizen to be held by the isolated country amid diplomatic tensions. Kim Hak Song, who was detained on Saturday, worked for the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology, the North's KCNA news agency said.
39. In Vivo IPL 2017 Kolkata Knight Riders won against Royal Challengers Bangalore by 6 wickets.
40. Disaster was averted at the IGI Airport here on Sunday when the tail wing of Jet Airways flight 9W603, bound for Srinagar, hit the tail wing of a Patnabound Jet flight (9W730) while the planes were preparing for take-off. At about 2.48 pm, sources said, when the two aircraft were taxiing to runway 29, the Srinagar-bound plane began to turn and its tail wing struck the wing of the static Patna-bound plane. The tip of 9W603's right tail wing broke off and got stuck in the rear of the Patnabound plane's wing, sources said. The crews have been derostered pending probe. All flyers were safe. A Jet Airways spokesperson confirmed the “ground incident“ and said that the airline has reported the incident to the regulatory authorities.
41. Judicial activism shown by the Bombay high court has come to the rescue of mangroves on a three-acre plot in Thane district. The mangroves had been destroyed by illegal constructions three years ago.
42. Physics proved to be a challenging paper for many of the 11.35 lakh aspirants who appeared for the National Eligibility-cumEntrance Test (NEET) in 104 cities on Sunday . Students aspiring to gain admission to medical and dental colleges--whose figure has grown 40% this year--found the paper tough and lengthy; some also claimed that a few questions in the biology section were out of syllabus. Parents at some centres complained that their wards lost time as the papers were not handed out 15 minutes before 10am. At several centres in the city, students were disappointed as they were not allowed to enter minutes after the 9.30am deadline.
43. Five Virar residents were killed and three others injured when a Honda City they were travelling in rammed into a stationary luxury bus in the Kamshet tunnel after skidding on an oil spill on the Pune Expressway on Sunday . The bus driver had pulled over after spotting an oil leak from the vehicle.
44. Legendary sitar player Ustad Raees Khan passed away in Karachi on Saturday. He was 77. Khan had been bedridden for quite some time. The maestro, who was born in Indore in 1939 to a family of renowned musicians, belonged to the Mewati gharana of Indian classical music.
44. Petrol pump owners will begin their indefinite agitation from this week. They will observe a `no purchase' day on Wednesday (May 10), and will shut all operations, including CNG sale, on Sunday and take a `day off '. And from May 15 onwards, the pumps will work in single shifts (9amt o 6pm) only .
45. An elephant trampled two CRPF men to death at a training camp in Karnataka's Taralu village on Sunday . The deceased, H Dakshina Murthy (55) and Puttappa Lamani (35), were part of a platoon undergoing training at a facility near Kaggalipura, south of Bengaluru.
46. The high court has taken over four floors under the occupation of the builder of a Nagpada 32-storey highrise, hitting out at the developer for doing little to obtain occupation certificate. The May 5 direction came on a PIL which alleged FSI and fire safety violations.
47. Bitcoin surged to an all time high last week as investors bet the digital currency will gain greater acceptance globally as an investment vehicle. The cryptocurrency crossed the $1,500 mark on Thursday . Gold price has not touched the $1,500 range in the last four years.
48. Small investors are finally warming up to stock markets through SIPs (systematic investment plans). Last August saw SIP accounts hit the 1 crore mark and the fiscal year ended with 1.35 crore accounts. This fiscal, SIPs contributed Rs 43,921crore to equity mutual funds.
49. In a major breakthrough, 19 Naxals, including nine allegedly involved in the deadly Maoist attack on CRPF personnel on April 24 at Burkapal in Sukma, were arrested from separate places in Chhattisgarh's insurgency-hit Sukma district on Saturday evening.
50. Bowing to pressure from parents' groups, the state government is considering amendments to its fee regulation Act. The state education department has set up a 11member committee to suggest changes to the Maharashtra Educational Institutions (Regulation of Fee) Act, 2011. For the past month, parents from various schools in the city have staged protests and organised meetings with school education minister Vinod Tawde, demanding the state's intervention in fee-related disputes.They have also been demanding changes in the Act to enable them to file complaints with regulatory committees. A government resolution issued by the department on Saturday stated that the committee led by V J Palshikar, chairman of the fee revision committee, will study complaints and suggestions and propose a format for amendments in 15 days. “Parents have several complaints about fee hikes. In relation to these complaints, the divisional fee regulatory committees (DFRC) has noticed that there are a few things lacking in the provisions of the Act which need to be improved,“ said the GR . The committee will have to study the fee-hike related complaints, educational policies, provisions of the act and make suggestions for necessary improvements. The committee will also have to draft a format to issue an ordinance for the suggested changes.
50. Late actor Nutan's hill-top bungalow in Mumbra continues to court controversies. Police on Saturday arrested a gang of burglars for breaking into the bungalow and making off with silverware and idols, among other things, collectively worth Rs 1lakh. The crime took place on Friday .Most of the accused are teenagers. About three years ago, a newborn's body had been found in a swimming pool attached to the sprawling home of the late film doyen. In Friday's case, police said that the six teenage robbers armed with sharp weapons broke into the vacant bungalow atop the Parsik hills around 3.45am and attacked the three security guards deputed there by the actor's family.
51. In a move that will bring the far suburbs closer to the heart of Mumbai, the MMRDA plans to start construction work on five Metro corridors by December 2017.The corridors are: DN Nagar-Mankhurd; WadalaGhatkopar-Mulund-Kasarvadavli; Thane-BhiwandiKalyan; Swami Samarthnagar-Jogeshwari-Kanjurmarg-Vikhroli; and Dahisar East-Mira Road-Bhayander. The new alignments are expected to improve connectivity across fast-growing suburbs, which are heavily reliant on road and rail networks. Areas such as Bhayander, Mankhurd, Kalyan and Bhiwandi have recorded a surge in residential populations, which necessitate urgent expansion in transport and allied urban infrastructure. For instance, the Kalyan-Dombivli belt had a population of 12.46 lakh in 2011, according to the last census. But in the five years since, the number is estimated to have swelled by nearly five lakh, a roughly 40% increase. Within Greater Mumbai limits too, suburban rail network and arterial roads like the Western and Eastern Express Highways, and SV Road and LBS Marg bear a disproportionate share of the commuter burden. The Metro lines would help to declog these routes and cater to areas a bit further removed from the immediate vicinity of these trunk lines. The five routes are likely to be commissioned for passenger traffic by 2022. The MMRDA has allotted almost half of this year's Rs 6,976 crore budget for Metro projects. At present, the city has a 12km Metro line (VersovaAndheri-Ghatkopar), which opened in June 2014, and work is in progress on three routes: Colaba-BandraSeepz (Metro 3); AndheriDahisar (Metro 7); and Dahisar-DN Nagar (Metro 2A).The government has set a deadline of 2019 for Metro 2A and Metro 7. The first phase of Metro 3 is likely to be commissioned by 2021. The commissioning of just Metro 3 will help in the reduction of 6.6 lakh vehicle trips a day. Experts say it would help decrease 6,00010,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions per year, besides bringing about an equal amount of reduction of particulate matter, hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide. An expert said this will be the equivalent of planting 2.54.5 lakh full-grown trees across Mumbai every year. The biggest benefit of Metro rail will be on subur ban railway commuters.Both Central Railway and Western Railway carry around 75 lakh passengers per day. The introduction of a Mass Rapid Transit System (MRTS) will decongest local trains, which witness at least a couple of deaths per day due to people falling off overcrowded coaches. According to the MMRDA, congestion in each suburban rail compartment will be reduced by 35-40%, which will ensure that seven people will together get one square meter of space to stand on as compared to 12 people in the same space today. Vehicular traffic on roads will be reduced by 3540% and travel time will be reduced by 30-50 minutes.More significantly, about 10 litres of fuel per vehicle will be saved every day, thus reducing pollution.
52. A 32-year-old jobless man from Gothivali village in Rabale allegedly murdered his wife by slitting her throat with a kitchen knife around 1 am on Sunday when she was asleep. The suspect, Jayesh Mahalim, is absconding. “The murder came to light after 12 hours when Mahalim called up his friend and said he had killed his wife. His friend informed the police, who went to the spot and found Vaishali (30) in a pool of blood,“ said senior inspector Pradeep Tidar.The couple has two sons.
53. For a city that is already witnessing depletion of green cover, here's some notso-good news. Those living along Linking Road in Bandra were shocked last week to find branches of more than a dozen trees hacked. A police complaint has been lodged. Trees that stood as high as signboards of shops lining the popular shopping hub stand out like sore thumbs, propped up against the backdrop of a grey sky . Branches, which seemed to have been freshly hacked in a random manner, were stacked at the base of the trees.
54.Monday May 8 marks six months since demonetisation, and many Mumbaikars are back to using cash in their daily transactions. Rs 500 notes have reentered circulation so the problem of getting change for Rs 2,000 has ebbed. “India has and will always be a cash economy . Even the upper class cannot always use credit cards or make cashless payments,“ said Shivaji Pawar, who owns a cellphone repair shop near Andheri market and only accepts cash. The government's attempt to encourage more cashless transactions faces two obstacles: security concerns relat ed to fraud and theft, and the fact that card users pay a premium on e-transactions. “Every other day we read of phishing frauds in the newspapers. Why take needless risk by giving personal details to unknown salespersons when you can safely hand out cash? And why pay more at all?“ says Sarita Sadarangani, a 65-year-old resident of Khar. Senior citizens are particularly reluctant to use online technology for shopping.
55. Eleven customs officers have been transferred after a surprise inspection at the Sahar air cargo complex found that a group of importers has been smuggling mobile phones and accessories. During a surprise check in April-end, officials of the Central Intelligence Unit of the customs found the consignments were cleared without examination. The consignments were ready to leave the import shed when the officials intervened, a source said. In the past few months, 600 consignments were imported from Hong Kong and cleared through air cargo complex by importers, sources said. The imports were handled by two customs house agents. Around Rs4 crore duty was evaded. Customs investigation found that the addresses of the importers in the records were fake. “ All the importers were first timers and such huge imports in a short span should ha ve caught the attention of the officials. Moreover, the Hong Kong based traders have not supplied to anyone except these importers,“ a source said.These traders could be shell companies and not the real masterminds, the source added. Chief commissioner of customs Devender Singh did not respond to a text message. The importers mis-declared the product and value thus evading duty , an official said.Imports of mobile phones attract a duty of around 28%. In some instances, branded pho nes were declared as cheap ones as it involves violation of intellectual property rights.Some of the accessories such as chargers did not meet the Indian certifying standards, the official added. A 100% examination of consignment is carried out if traders, instead of manufacturers, supply goods. In the present case, most of the the suppliers were traders, not manufacturers. “ All imports were physically assessed and examined and not cleared automatically through the electronic facilitation mode. This shows that officers were aware of the imports,'' an official said.
56. There's no such thing as a free lunch, leave alone a free car. A 32year-old woman working for a hospital in south Mumbai learnt this the hard way recently. The woman, who had received a courier about being the lucky winner of a car for shopping on an online portal, ended up losing Rs60,500. The police said this is the latest trick in the fraudster's book. A day after she received the courier, the woman got a call from a person who identified himself as Rajesh Gupta and claimed to be from the shopping portal.He asked for personal details to get the car registered in her name and asked her to deposit cash in one bank account for insurance and transportation fees, said a police officer. “To her, it seemed so genuine that she deposited the cash,“ he said. She was left disillusioned after she failed to get delivery of the car. She contac ted the portal's office only to learn that they had not come up with any such scheme nor was any Rajesh Gupta working with them, said the officer. A case of cheating has been registered at the cyber crime police station.
57.A 20-year-old BCom student stole jewellery and valuables worth Rs 8 lakh from her home and gave the booty to her Pune-based boyfriend to help him set up a dental clinic. But he blew it up on betting at horse races, police said. Police say the girl had met Vinay Dhoble, a 34-year-old dentist by training, at a wedding in Dombivli a few months ago, after which they became friends on Facebook. Dhoble allegedly told the girl he wanted money to set up a dental clinic so that he could be financially independent and marry her. Taken in by his assurances, she started stealing valuables from her home. Dhoble, who comes from a well-off family, had met the girl at least10 times at Kalyan railway station, where he would ask her to come with valuables. He would sell the valuables to jewellers in Ka lyan and spend the money on betting at horse races in Pune, police said.
58. A newborn girl was found abandoned in Vasai (west) early on Sunday. Swaddled in a piece of red cloth, the infant's feeble cries alerted a local, Daisy Dabre, who lives closeby . Police said the baby, barely a week old, was found around 5 am. Daisy said she woke her husband, Marcus, after which the couple alerted the police. The baby has been admitted to the civil hospital in Vasai. A case has been filed against the parents of the newborn. Police said they are going through footage of closed-circuit television cameras installed in the locality to get a clue about the person who left the baby there.
59. Two people have been arrested for extorting money by masquerading as policemen and posing as informer, the police said. In the first case, two men who allegedly robbed a Chandivli resident of Rs 4,000 by posing as policemen, were arrested on Sunday . The accused, Prashant Mahadeshwar (29) and his friend Tejas Kamble (30), who were on a motorcycle accosted Kabir Nizamuddin on Friday and insisted on frisking him. Nizamuddin said that they took away Rs 4,000 from his trouser pocket and sped away . Nizamuddin who noted down the bike number lodged a complaint.The two were nabbed on the basis of the registration number. In the other case, Pawankumar Dhuru (35), who posed as a police informer and extorted money from beer bar owners was arrested from Andheri on Saturday.
60. The captain of a fine dining restaurant-cum-hotel at Nalasopara, who was manning the reception counter, was shot at on Sunday afternoon. The shooter left behind a handwritten note with `Gangster Suresh Pujari' scribbled on it. Dilip Varma (26), who works at Galaxy , was hit on the chest. The suspect has been captured on the hotel's closed circuit television (CCTV). The footage shows a man in a white shirt and cap entering a little after 1 pm.Varma, a resident of Kargil Nagar in Virar (E) is at the counter, when the suspect puts his hand in his right trouser pocket and waits. A few men walk in and out of the hotel.Varma's attention is drawn towards the suspect and he offers to help him. Just when he says in Marathi `Bola (tell me)', the suspect pulls the trigger and throws a white paper with his left hand. The note has Pujari's name scribbled in English in blue ink. The suspect then runs out of the hotel. The 40-second footage has been retrieved by police, who suspect that dropping the fugitive gangster's name may be to mislead them. Pujari, who is believed to be operating from the Middle East, has allegedly been threa tening and extorting money from builders in Kalyan-Dombivli and Ulhasnagar.
61. Tempers ran high at the Miraj circuit house in Sangli when public works minister Chand rakant Patil walked in and found that the VIP room reserved for visiting cabinet members was occupied by the wife of a former chief minister. Patil was on a tour of western Maharashtra. His contention was the norms state that in every circuit house, the VIP room is reserved for cabinet members and that another room should have been allotted to the former CM's wife. Officials of the district administration and public works department attempted to explain to Patil the circumstances under which the room was allotted to her, but he was not ready to accept their arguments. Patil insisted it was a mistake on the part of officials of the public works department. Apparently , Congress activists had put pressure to get the VIP room allotted to the woman. Patil eventually agreed to move in to another room, but at the same time a probe was ordered against the official who allotted the VIP room to the wife of the ex-CM.
62. A section officer in the Nashik information commissioner's office has been arrested by the anticorruption bureau (ACB) while accepting a bribe of Rs 10,000. A Dhule-based RTI activist had sought information from the principal of an aided school.When the principal submitted that the information sought by him was not av ailable, the activist filed an appeal before the education officer, who too rejected the appeal. The activist approached Nashik information commissioner K L Bishnoi. While the case was in progress, section officer Ravindra Shyamrao Sonar called the principal's husband and said that the commission would impose a fine of Rs 25,000 for failure to provide the information, but he wo uld settle for Rs 15,000. Ulti mately , Sonar agreed to ac cept Rs 10,000. The principal went to the ACB and deman ded action against Sonar. A trap was laid and Sonar was arrested in the commission's office while accepting the bribe. According to an IPS officer, the appeal had been dismissed and there was no question of imposing a fi ne of Rs 25,000. However, Sonar ensured that the order was not communicated to the RTI activist and the principal.A veteran activist has expressed shock over the incident and said the purpose of the RTI Act will be defeated unless the case against Sonar is fast -tracked.After all, Maharashtra was the first state to enact the Right to Information Act in 2005 to usher in transparency in administration.
63. Cabinet members, their activists and relatives and family members of bureaucrats are upset over Prime Mini ster Modi's order on beacon lights. A notification issued by the ministry of transport and shipping states that ex cept emergency vehicles belonging to the police, ambulances and defence personnel, red or amber beacon has be en completely banned; even a covered beacon is not allowed. A week ago, when a senior cabinet member was travelling in a private car, his vehicle was stopped at the toll plaza on the Mumbai-Pune Expressway . He did make an attempt to explain to the toll staff that he was a cabinet member and hence exempted from payment of toll, but since it was a private car and there were no security officials with him, he was unable to establish his identity and he had to pay the toll. In fact, after Modi's decision, at least half a dozen cabinet members in the Fadnavis government have had to face a similar situation. Besides cabinet members, their relatives, personal staff, OSDs and relatives of bureaucrats have all been moving in private vehicles with a red or amber beacon to avoid payment of toll.
64. The Shiv Sena has reacted strongly against the change of user policy that allows big-ticket housing projects on land earmarked for industrial use. This, Saamna argued on Sunday , will mean loss of the party's electoral base. Sena strategists are of the view that an impending boom in the housing sector, especially in south Mumbai, will trigger mass migration of Marathis to faraway suburbs such as Ambarnath, Virar-Vasai and Badlapur. Slamming the state revenue and forest department's GR of April 15 permitting construction of houses on plots which once housed industrial units, Saamna on Sunday alleged that the decision was a “conspiracy“ to dilute Mumbai's Marathi character. “Should this happen, the Sena will lose its political base in Mumbai,“ said senior party leader Sanjay Raut in Saamna. The article voices the growing concern in the Sena rank and file over the BJP's move to consolidate its base in Mumbai with help from the mercantile community which has been buying up apartments in south and central Mumbai in the recent years, said experts. However, they also point out that the Sena can't deny its role in the rise of multi-storeyed apartments and migration of Marathis from areas that once boasted chawls. “Instead of pouring scorn over the government, the Sena should prepare a list of its own leaders who have sealed partnerships with Gujarati-Jain builders in Dadar, Lal
65. If a vehicle requires repeated repairs, one can infer manufacturing defect--establishes the following case.Case Study: Naryan Thakkar had pur chased a Mercedes Benz diesel car, model E 220(211). It was purchased in 2003 for Rs 34,88,105. He also spent Rs1,54,524 to get the vehicle registered. The vehicle was purchased on July 28, 2003, was covered under a two years' warranty . Within 18 months of purchase, there was a problem with the turbo charger and the engine mount. As spare parts were not available, the vehicle stood idle for a considerable period, awaiting repairs. After considerable correspondence, the service representative of Daimler Chrysler, inspected the vehicle at Auto Hanger. He also extended the warranty for a further period of four months. The vehicle continued to give problems. Thakkar filed a complaint before the Maharashtra State Commission. He pointed out that in another case, taking cognizance of an article published in Times Global Business, which had reported about problems when Mercedes had launched its E Class series in 2002 and faced a barrage of complaints about cars not starting or breaking down repeatedly , the manufacturer had withdrawn 1.3 million defective cars. Thakkar pointed out that the same treatment was not given to Indian customers. Since the company had failed to replace his car, he sought a refund of Rs 36,42,629, claimed a reimbursement of the interest paid for a bank loan to purchase the car. In addition, he demanded a refund of Rs 20,40,871incurred on repairs of the vehicle and asked for compensation and costs. Auto Hanger contested the case stating that the service centre is only provided certain spares to cover replacements required due to normal wear and tear. If other parts are required, these have to be procured from the logistics centre located in Pune or have to be obtained from the Regional Centre in Singapore or the global centre in Germany has to supply the parts. So Auto Hanger claimed that it could not be faulted for its inability to replace the parts. Diamler Chrysler questioned the maintainability of the complaint, contending that the vehicle was used for commercial purpose. It also tried to attribute the problem to unprecedented floods in July 2005 and termed this to be a natural disaster for which it could not be held responsible. The company stated that the vehicle should be inspected by an approved laboratory at Thakkar's cost to ascertain if there was any manufacturing defect. The state commission observed that no evidence was produced to show that the vehicle was being used for commercial purpose. So the complaint was held to be maintainable. Defects had developed during the warranty period, and the complaint was filed within two years. So the complaint was held to be within limitation. On merits, the commission noted that the defects had even before the deluge of July 2005. Even after replacement of several parts, problems persisted. On December 8, 2006, the manufacturer had noted that the torque converter required replacement. The commission concluded that this established that there was a manufacturing defect in the vehicle, without the necessity of it being examined by a laboratory . Accordingly, by its order of April 28, delivered by P B Joshi along with D R Shirsao, the state commission held Diamler Chrysler and Auto Hanger jointly liable to refundRs36,42,629paidforthevehicle,alongwith12%interest from February 22, 2007 onwards. Additionally Rs 2 lakh was awarded as compensation and Rs 25,000 towards litigation costs.
Conclusion: Testing is not required as repeated defects establish manufacturing defect.
64. In a significant order, the first of its kind in the state, the Bombay high court has directed that electronic voting machines (EVMs) from a booth be sent for forensic analysis to detect any sign of tampering. The order, which was passed on May 4 and 5, pertains to booth number 185 from the Parvati constituency in Pune for the 2014 assembly elections. The HC framed nine questions for the central forensic science laboratory , Hyderabad, to answer. It wants the FSL to assess the EVMs and state whether they could have been remotely accessed and whether there exists any additional memory chip with other data that could be activated to alter the results of an election.
65. The Anti-Corruption Bureau has sought the state home department's permission to investigate the deliberate prolonging of investigation in a corruption case pertaining to the tribal department. The Nagpur bench of the Bombay high court recently ordered a probe observing that the delay of five years in investigating the purchase of generator sets for ashramshalas was deliberate and done to benefit the petitioner as well as certain officials. The bench recently ordered the home department to find the real culprits. These ashramshalas provide education to poor tribal children from the region. In 2011, the tribal depart ment decided to purchase 50 generators of 10 KVA each for the ashramshalas in the drought-hit districts of Akola, Amravati and Yavatmal. Subsequently , Bhrashtachar Nirmulan Samiti, an NGO, lodged a complaint with the ACB about misappropriation of public funds.The ACB then began investigating the case quietly . In 2013, it obtained permission to carry out an open investigation as Rs 72 lakh was alleged to have been appropriated by Vishwambar Varvantkar, additional commissioner, tribal department, Amravati, along with the project officer. The officials allegedly connived with G S Enterprises, Mumbai, to purchase manually operated generator sets while the state trea sury had paid for automatic generator sets. The ACB, in its report, said that in 2011 the project officer moved a proposal before the district planning committee to purchase manually operated generator sets for Rs 1.79 crore. The committee approved the proposal. However, states the report, the additional commissioner at his level presented inflated bills to the treasury for purchase of automatic generator sets. For this, forged bills were generated in the name of another company by the proprietor of G S Enterprises. After the ACB filed a criminal complaint against Varvantkar, he moved the Nagpur bench of the Bombay HC in 2015 to quash the complaint.
66. The monitoring committee of eco-sensitive zone at Matheran will recommend to the ministry of environment and forests to bar horse rides on two road stretches of Matheran hill station -MG Road and the stretch between Regal Hotel and Tapal Peti naka. Besides, the tractor service for lifting of garbage is likely to resume after years, if the ministry gives it nod. Further, the long pending environment-friendly alternative transport system proposal is under consideration of the committee. The recently formed committee held a meeting on Saturday .
67. Probing several fraud cases over the last three years, the CBI has unearthed 393 shell companies which allegedly diverted around Rs 2,900 crore. According to CBI officials, the shell companies, used by several accused persons in separate cases, were being used for specified purposes like creating fake invoices and “round-tripping“ of funds to evade taxes and generate black money . Roundtripping is sending money abroad to tax havens in guise of payments for fake imports via shell companies and bringing back that money as “foreign investment“. If the CBI's findings are a hint, the use of shell companies across the country by people diverting bank loan funds is a big scam. Even ED officials agree that shell companies are being used in large numbers by many people. Officials in both CBI and ED said there was a need to control mushrooming of shell companies and investigate every aspect about them. The CBI found out about these shell companies while probing various cases of loan frauds with at least 28 public sector banks and one private bank. The agency is learnt to have found the money trail, cheating and diversion of funds in its cases.
68. India is set to see a countrywide cyber security audit of its power distribution and generation system to prevent hacking as state grids and plants increasingly become smarter with large-scale deployment of digital technology . At last week's two-day state energy ministers' conference piloted by Union power minister Piyush Goyal here, all participants agreed to get their power system -down to the plant level -regularly audited by agencies empanelled by the Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) of the department of information technology . The states also agreed to conduct mock drills simulating disasters and hackings to test the preparedness for reviving downed systems. Government sources said they also agreed to nominate a chief information security officer, an acknowledgement of cyber threats and the need to take them seriously . While the control and command systems of plants and distribution networks were semi-isolated in the past, SCADA turns the entire power system into one giant network, raising efficiency but also vulnerability . In this connected environment, hackers can take over control by remotely activating any embedded malware or spyware. The concerns being raised by Indian Electrical Equipment Manufacturers Association have largely come against a backdrop of smart grid contracts being dominated by Chinese companies, the bugbear of western agencies for suspected cases of hacking or planting bugs in equipment. Chinese companies have bagged SCADA contracts for more than 18 cities spanning Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Puducherry .More such contracts are on the anvil. Besides, Chinese companies have also qualified to bid for three transmission links being laid by the Centre to strengthen the national grid.
69. Finance minister Arun Jaitley`s remarks ex pressing reservations over China's One Belt, One Road initiative ahead of a major meeting on the pro ject in Beijing brings out the unease in India-China relations on arange of political issues. Jaitley told the media in Japan, where he is attending deliberations of the Asian Development Bank, that the OBOR and its Pakistani component of CPEC (China Pakistan Economic Corridors) raises sovereignty issues for India. He said this even while pushing for more economic cooperation among Asian nations, underlining the specific issues surrounding the CPEC that is seen as a massive economic and political commitment by China in Pakistan but which raises Indian hackles as it passes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
70. About 19 Naxals, including nine allegedly involved in the deadly Maoist attack on CRPF personnel on April 24 at Burkapal in Sukma, were arrested from separate places in Chhattisgarh's insurgency-hit Sukma district on Saturday evening. Six out of nine Maoists allegedly involved in the Burkapal attack, were rounded up from Chintagufa area while three others from Chintalnar region, Sukma additional superintendent of police Jitendra Shukla said. Besides, 10 lower rung cadres were held from Kukanar police station area in connection with attacking a police party and torching two trucks in February this year, he added. On April 24, 25 CRPF per sonnel, belonging to the 74th battalion, were killed in a Maoist ambush while patrolling in Burkapal area. Around a dozen suspects were rounded up during joint search operations by CRPF , CoBRA and district force in Chintalnar, Chintagufa and Burkapal for questioning after the attack, the ASP said. During interrogation, nine of them admitted to their involvement in the attack following which they were arrested, he said.
71. A female candidate who appeared at a NEET centre here on Sunday claimed she had to remove her innerwear before sitting for the entrance test. Other women candidates, too, faced a harrowing experience due to a strict dress code in force.“My daughter went inside the centre, only to return later and hand me her top innerwear,“ said one candidate's mother. Another candidate wearing a pair of jeans, was asked to remove a pocket as well as metal buttons from it. Her father said: “I went to a shop 3km away and bought a new dress for her.“ “They were subjected to so much humiliation. I will write to CM Pinarayi Vijayan and seek action,“ said state Mahila Congress President Bindhu Krishna.
72. The CID has booked three policemen, including a police inspector, for allegedly murdering a 37-year-old man while trying to extort a confession out of him. The CID registered a case against the trio -inspector Shaikh Abdul Rauf, head constable Tulsiram Eknathrao Deshmukh and constable Abdul Mustaq Abdul Majeed Shaikh -at a police station in Parbhani district, about 190km from here. It was at the very same police station that the alleged murder took place on December 25, 2016. The custodial death of Shamsher Khan Pathan, a resident of Parbhani, had resulted in a serious law-and-order situation in town.
73. The horror of a house in east Delhi began to sink in as cops broke open the door on Saturday night. The stench of rotting garbage, piled up four-feet-high, hit them as they stepped in. Garbage was everywhere and there was no space to walk. Inside, the only electrical appliance in working condition was a table fan. On a stinking bed next to the fan lay a 17-year-old, mentally-ill girl who was allegedly kept captive in the flat for at least a year.She was in bad shape, disoriented and hadn't bathed for a long time. The “rescue“ was mounted after residents alerted the beat staff.They had heard a girl sobbing from inside the flat. The girl's mother, Suchitra Sanyal (all names changed), who lives close by with another daughter, came to the house twice a day to give the girl food, residents said. She gave her water once a day , with sleeping pills to put her to sleep, they alleged. The girl, who has studied up to Class X, was last seen almost couple of years ago, a neigh bour said. Suchitra and her ex-hus band Digvijay divorced in 2011. Her case for maintenance is pending in the Karkardooma courts since then.
74. Delhi Congress chief Ajay Maken on Sunday demanded the immediate resig nation of chief minister Arvind Kejrwal.Terming the allegations of “corruption“ levelled by Ka pil Mishra a “witness testimony of sitting minister“, Maken said his party would carry out a fiveday referendum on the right to recall the CM. He said the party aimed to secure at least 10 lakh signatures from people of Delhi. Maken called the “ AAP experiment“ a failure. He said: “The Aam Aadmi Party was created on November 26, 2012, with the aim of fighting corruption, bringing in lokpal as well as establishing inner party democracy. Within five years of its creation, all central pillars on which the party was created have been dismantled.“ Maken claimed that of the seven ministers who took oath on February 14, 2015, six already had serious corruption allegations against them. The DPCC chief said the “Rs 2-crore transaction“ between Satyendar Jain and Kejriwal was “not a mere allegation, but a witness affidavit of a sitting minister who saw the transaction himself“.
75. The strategic antiNaxal operations command headquarters of the CRPF has been shifted from Kolkata to right in the heart of the Naxal violence hit state of Chhattisgarh by the Centre in the wake of 37 men of the paramilitary being massacred by Naxals in aspan of less than twomonths. The CRPF issued an order on May 4 directing the “immediate“ transfer of the command headquarters of the central zone of the paramilitary , roughly seven years after it was shifted from Raipur to Kolkata owing to “logistical and connectivity issues“ that gave the West Bengal capital an upper hand over its Chhattisgarh counterpart. The newly appointed CRPF director general Rajeev Rai Bhatnagar has been asked to ensure the command begins functioning from Raipur before the high-level meeting of left wing wxtremism hit states on Monday . Additional director general of CRPF central zone, Kuldiep Singh, was immediately air dashed to Raipur from Kolkata along with the headquarter transfer orders and the IPS officer has taken charge of the command in Raipur on Friday , the sources said.
76. The number of tigers in Maharashtra's Pench Tiger Reserve has increased to 44 this year, as compared to 31 in 2016. The increase of 13 tigers was recorded in East Pench (Sillari), Chorbahuli, Saleghat and Deolapar areas of Mansinghdeo sanctuary , and Paoni and Nagalwadi. Officials said that of the 44 tigers recorded, 22 are males and 22 females. As per National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) guidelines, the Phase IV annual estimation exercise with camera traps was conducted jointly by Wildlife Conservation Trust (WCT) and Pench Tiger Foundation over 21 days in January 2017. The figure of 44 also includes a couple of tigers that have died since the January exercise in and around Pench. Since January this year, Pench has lost four tigers, of which two died in territorial fights.
77. A neighbourhood tiff over scratches on a brand new SUV spiralled into a macabre murder in the wee hours of Sunday in which a young man was allegedly beaten up, dragged behind an SUV , smashed against a tanker and then deliberately run over. All this in the heart of the city in MP Nagar. Two of the accused have reportedly been detained. Police are looking for two others.The four allegedly smashed the windscreen of a dozen vehicles in the locality in revenge for the scratches on the ir car before embarking on their murderous run.
78. Ordnance factories making 87 items, includ ing 39 listed under the weapons sec tion, are set to lose the charge, with the ministry of defence directing the Army to buy them from the private sector.The ministry of defence has asked the ordnance factories to either “wind up or put to alternative use the production facilities for these items in the absence of orders from the user (Army)“. Of the 87 items, 48 are troop comfort articles -from blankets and socks to boots and rain capes, et al -but the other 39 come under the crucial weapons section. Some of them indirectly fall under the weapons classification. The 39 items under the weapons section include 12 types of ammunition boxes, three types of bombs, seven types of empty shells, two types of binoculars and three vehicles, including the Stallion MK-IV truck. Declaring the 39 items “non-core“, the department of defence production (DDP), under the ministry of defence, said in a circular dated April 27: “These can be sourced from the trade (read private sector)... Army can procure them without an NOC (no objection certificate) from the OFB (Ordnance Factory Board).“
79. All ongoing and incomplete realty projects need to be registered (effective from May 1) and only then can builders advertise or sell flats, the real estate regulation law says. Citing this, different flat owners' groups have challenged a couple of regulators' claim that ongoing projects don't have to follow the norms till July 31.
80. Rights activist Irom Sharmila Chanu will marry her long-time British partner Desmond Coutinho in July. “We have not fixed the date of our marriage yet, but are planning it sometime in July-end in Tamil Nadu,“ Sharmila told over the phone from Tamil Nadu's Perumalamalai on Sunday. Sharmila had formed a political party called the People's Resurgence and Justice Alliance (PRJA) after ending her epic 16-year-long fast against the controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) on August 9, 2016.
81. The Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), which has completed two orbit raising manoeuvres of the South Asia Satellite, is just two more steps away from making it operational. Isro successfully launched the Geostationary Communication Satellite-9 (GSAT-9), or the South Asia Satellite, on Friday , marking a new era in space diplomacy . On Sunday, the space agency said it had completed the first orbit raising operation by firing the LAM engine for 2,643 seconds at 3.51am on Saturday . Following this, at 9.30am on Sunday , the second orbit raising operation was carried out by firing the engine for 3,529.7 seconds. The 12 transponders in the Ku band that the satellite has put into space, will provide a host of applications and services: Television, Direct-to-Home (DTH), tele-education, telemedicine, very small aperture terminals (VSATs) and disaster management support, besides giving India a secure hotline with the countries that can be used during disaster management and other emergencies.
82. After gaining a foothold in the northeast with the conquest of Assam last year, followed by the formation of governments in Arunachal and Manipur, BJP has set its sights on Tripura. BJP chief Amit Shah kicked off the party's election campaign in the state, 10 months ahead of the scheduled assembly polls, addressing a huge rally here on Sunday .
83. As the standoff with Pakistan continues over the death sentence to Kulbhushan Jadhav and beheading of Indian soldiers, the government has approved the appointment of top Pakistani diplomat Sohail Mahmood as the country's next high commissioner to India. Expressing hope that Mahmood would contribute positively to improving bilateral ties, official sources here said he had been given visa to allow him to take over from incumbent Abdul Basit this month. This brings to an end months of suspense over the appointment of Mahmood, Pakistan's ambassador to Turkey , who is seen as the civilian government's choice. India has been keen to see the back of Ba sit, believing him to be Pakistan army's man who was too hawkish, especially on issues related to J&K.
84. Pakistan on Sunday rejected reports that an Indian woman married to a Pakistani man was being held hostage at the Indian high commission building in Islamabad. Tahir Ali, a resident of Buner town, had lodged a complaint at Islamabad's Secretariat Police Station to help him get his wife, Uzma, an Indian national, back. She had gone to the Indian embassy but did not return. When the police contacted the Indian high commission, the officials said that Uzma was in their office but refused to send her back, saying that negotiations will be held through the foreign office. The Foreign Office said it was in contact with the Indian high commission and the issue would be resolved soon.An Indian government source said the woman had sought help from the Indian mission on May 5. “The high commission is providing consular assistance to the woman and is in touch with Pakistan foreign office and her family in India,“ he said.
85. Scientists have discovered the world's oldest orchid fossil trapped in amber that dates back some 45 million years to 55 million years. Thus far, the orchard fossil credited with being the oldest was believed to be 20-30 million years old. The orchid family has some 28,000 species -more than double the number of bird species and quadruple that of mammal species.
86. Two Australians won this year's race up Taiwan's tallest skyscraper on Sunday, climbing 2,046 steps in the annual `Taipei 101 Run Up'. Some 4,500 runners from 36 countries took part in the race to the 91st floor of the Taipei 101 tower, which is among the tallest buildings in the world. Australian Mark Bourne won the men's event with a time of 11 minutes, 24 seconds, while compatriot Suzy Walsham was the fastest woman with a time of 13 minutes, 36 seconds.
87. Biologists are trying to figure out why hundreds of leopard sharks are dying in the San Francisco Bay this year. This is the largest die-off in six years of the bay's most abundant shark. Experts believe the sharks are picking up toxins in stagnant saltwater. Pelagic Shark Research Foundation executive director Sean Van Sommeran believes the number of dead and dying sharks could be in the thousands.
88. There has been a lot of fuss around period-tracking apps over the last few years. The idea of being able to prevent getting pregnant without contraception sounded too good to be true. You log your period data, and the apps supposedly then tell you when it's safe to have sex at no risk of becoming pregnant (or when you should have sex if you're trying to conceive). But according to new research, these apps may not be as search, these apps may not be as reliable as has previously been claimed. A study from the University of Washington, US, has concluded that menstrual-cycletracking apps often disappoint users with their lack of accuracy and assumptions about sexual identity or partners. The researchers reached their conclusions following a survey of 687 people combined with data from 2,000 reviews of nine of the most popular periodtracking apps.
89. Scientists have developed a unique desk light that automatically switches from green to red when you are focused on your work and do not want to be disturbed. “The light is like displaying your Skype status -it tells your colleagues whether you are busy or open for a chat,“ said Thomas Fritz, assistant professor at the University of British Columbia in Canada. The lamp, called FlowLight, switches between green and red based on keyboard and mouse activity. It was tested among about 450 employees with positive results. Researchers found that not only did the employees report fewer interruptions, the light also changed the office culture in that people became more respectful of each other's time and aware of when they could interrupt a colleague. Some employees even reported that the lights motivated them to finish their work faster. “It is important that the light changes automatically because once someone is focused on a task, stopping to manually turn on a light, close your office door is disruptive to the work and cumbersome,“ Fritz said. FlowLight is designed to only turn red for a certain amount of time each day despite how hard someone works. That feature is key to preventing employees from feeling guilty for not working hard or getting competitive with one another, Fritz said.
90. Zcash, the latest virtual currency, has been a smash success since its launch seven months ago, drawing in new users with promises of unrivaled privacy protection. After debuting on currency trading platforms in October, Zcash took off, hitting an exchange rate of $1,000 per unit, putting it in league with the much better established Bitcoin. While its value has since come down to earth, Zcash is attracting the interest of Russian, Chinese, Venezuelan and South African consumers. Brazilians now use Zcash to pay taxes and electricity bills. To make its mark in the world of virtual currencies, Zcash boasts that it protects user privacy . But because of that guarantee it does not offer the transparency demanded by authorities who want to prevent these new tender from being used in money laundering, financing terror ism, evading taxes or fraud. Zcash was developed by researchers at Johns Hopkins University and MIT in the US and Tel Aviv University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Israel. Only five of the six people who developed the cryptography have been publicly identified. It is based on a technology dubbed zk-Snark, which allows untraceable transactions. Other cryptocurren cies such as Dash and Monero offer a level of privacy , but Zcash, managed by a firm called Zerocoin Electric Coin Company , even obscures the origin of a payment. Virtual currencies are not regulated by any central bank, and can be “mined“ or produced by anyone with sophisticated software skills to gather up the code. Nevertheless, despite this, experts warn that Zcash may be vulnerable to hacking or counterfeiting.
91. She has been in her husband's life since he was 15 -first as a teacher, then lover and now as his first lady. And she will be at Emmanuel Macron's side when the 39-year-old pro-EU centrist takes office as modern France's youngest ever president, after winning Sunday's decisive run-off vote. Elegant and svelte, 64-year-old Brigitte is her husband's closest collaborator, whom he has pledged to give an official role at the presidential palace. “Every night we debrief together and we repeat what we have heard about each other,“ she told “Paris Match“ magazine last year. “I have to pay attention to everything, do the maximum to protect him.“ But before all that she was another man's wife and mother of three who taught French, Latin and drama.She was on course for a comfortable, if somewhat conventional life. Brigitte Trogneux was born on April 13, 1953, in Amiens, northern France, which is also Emmanuel Macron's hometown, into a prosperous family that runs a well-known pastry and chocolate business. Then in the early 1990s she was astounded by a young man acting in a production of Milan Kundera's “Jacques and his Master“. It was Emmanuel.
92. Defeated French presidential candidate Marine Le Pen claimed a “historic, massive result“ for her far-right National Front in Sunday's presidential run-off won by centrist Emmanuel Macron. Le Pen said she had called Macron to wish him “success“ in tackling the “huge challenges“ he faced and announced that she would lead the FN into June's legislative elections.
93. Eighty-two Chibok schoolgirls seized three years ago by Boko Haram have been freed in exchange for detained suspects of the extremist group, Nigeria's government said on Sunday, in the largest release negotiated yet in the battle to save nearly 300 girls.
94. The death of 86-year-old Min Bahadur Sherchan has revived concerns about allowing the elderly to scale mountain peaks. An age limit may be set at 76, said Ang Tshering, the head of the Nepal Mountaineering Association.
95. A preschool teacher in Ohio has been fired after she was seen dragging a student by the arm down a school hallway. The school said one of their teachers saw this teacher pull the child and took a picture of it.
96. Pakistan International Airlines has taken its senior pilot off-duty for allegedly sleeping on a Londonbound flight, risking the lives of over 300 passengers on board by handing over the aircraft to a trainee. Captain Amir Akhtar Hashmi had taken a two-and-ahalfhour nap in the business class passenger cabin on April 26 soon after flight PK-785 took off from Islamabad for London, the Dawn reported. The airline was initially reluctant to take action against Hashmi, a former president of the highly influential Pakistan Air Lines Pilots Association (PALPA), but later caved in to “pressure from above“.
97. The Pakistani army said on Sunday it has killed over 50 Afghan soldiers near the border between the two countries, as tensions between the two forces escalated after clashes earlier this week killed 10 Pakistani civilians. Major Gen Nadeem Ahmed said more than 100 Afghan soldiers were also injured in the retaliatory attack by the army to the firing by Afghan forces on Friday in the Balochistan province.Ahmed, however, told reporters he was “not happy“ about the incident as “Afghans are Muslims, our brothers.“
98. Niti Aayog, the government's thinktank, will soon recommend a fresh set of state-run firms for strategic sale as part of its overall agenda of reforming the public enterprises sector and raise muchneeded revenues for the government.
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