India buying Russian S-400 missile will seriously affect defence ties: US

India's decision to buy the long-range S-400 missile defense system from Russia will have serious implications on defence ties, the Trump administration has warned.

The S-400 is known as Russia's most advanced long-range surface-to-air missile defence system. China was the first foreign buyer to seal a government-to-government deal with Russia in 2014 to procure the lethal missile system.

India and Russia signed a USD 5 billion S-400 air defence system deal in October last after wide-ranging talks between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin.

A Senior State Department Official told a group of reporters on Thursday that New Delhi's decision to buy S-400 air defence system from Moscow was significant, disagreeing with the view that it "isn't a big deal".

The official disagreed with the view that India's buying of S-400 from Russia might not have an impact as long as it increases its military purchase from the US.

"I disagree. The S-400 is significant because of CAATSA sanctions. It's also significant because of what it precludes, in terms of future high-tech cooperation," the official said.

The S-400 missile defence system deal could result in US sanctions under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) instituted by the US Congress on arms purchases from Russia.

The official said if India went ahead with its decision to buy the S-400 missile defence system from Russia, it will have serious implications on the defence ties.

The Trump administration has been very clear that the acquisition of advanced Russian technology sends the wrong message to Russia at a time when it continues its aggressions, the official said.

"Those concerns we hold high," said the official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

"You can look at the very serious conversation that's taking place with our NATO partner Turkey and the same concerns will apply should India proceed with an S-400 purchase," the official said.

"We don't commingle highest technology systems. There are threats posed by the purchase of an S-400. So that conversation you're seeing played out in Turkey right now," the official said, asserting that those same concerns would apply to India as well.

Noting that there is no automatic waivers under CAATSA legislation, the official said that there is a provision that allows for presidential determination.

"Every case would have to be looked at individually. But I think the broader issue is where are India's military relations headed? with whom is it going to share the highest technology and that operating environment? because certain choices preclude other choices," the official noted.

"As we have discussions about a combat aircraft sales and other advanced systems, the decisions that India makes with regard to S-400 will have an impact on those conversations," the senior State Department official said.

India has been diversifying its weapons supply over the years. The US estimates that probably 60 to 70 per cent of its hardware is of Soviet/Russia origin.

There is still a significant dependence on Russia. But the jump in India's purchase of military equipment from the US from zero to USD 18 billion is significant, the official said.

"We do more military exercises with India than with any other country in the world. Through these exercises, through the enhanced cooperation we have, whether it's in the disaster assistance and humanitarian relief area or whether it's on this joint sailing that we did in the south China Sea, there's natural interest and also increasing the interoperability of our military equipment.

"So we, we certainly look forward to ongoing discussions about a variety of ones," the official said.

Asked that India took the decision to buy S-400 from Russia as the US was not willing to share such hardware with it, the official said: "There's another message from the United States and let's talk. We have systems that are effective. There are other platforms that are very effective".

There are other considerations at play as well, the official said.

"But I think there's also a very positive message. We are now able to cooperate in ways that we could not before. We are now reaching agreements that we did not have before that allow us to consider sales that were incomprehensible only five years ago," the official said.

"So, we look forward to continuing the conversation because this really is a conversation. Choices that are made now will establish the framework for the future and we certainly have the ambitions for the broadest possible, deepest possible military relationship with India," the official said.

The official underscored that the US was ready to discuss the full array of equipment available to address India's concerns.

Employee base is biggest cause of moderation in biz sentiment: Report

The sentiment among micro and small enterprises (MSEs) got subdued in the March quarter, the sixth CriSidEx survey has shown. The CriSidEx score for January-March 2019 (Q4FY19) was 122, improving only by a unit, from 121 in Q4FY18.

These findings are in consonance with a moderation in several high frequency indicators, including the index of industrial production and rural consumption, observed in the first half of calendar year 2019.

Negative sentiment grew in terms of employee base in both manufacturing and services sectors, the report said. Positive sentiment rose in terms of order books size and profit margins year on year, it added.

However, this is likely to change, with 18 per cent respondents planning to add employees in the next quarter compared with 11 per cent in the previous one, said the report, released jointly by CRISIL and Small Industries Development Bank of India (Sidbi).

Services started from a lower base saw sentiment grow fast in FY19, and converged with manufacturing that saw ups and downs in positive sentiment in Q4, authors of the report told Business Standard. 

“MSEs operating in the leather, chemicals, pharma, IT/ITeS, and human resources segments reported a noticeable increase in positive sentiment, while those into gems & jewellery, textiles, auto components, and health care had a relatively subdued outing,” Mohammad Mustafa, chairman and managing director, Sidbi, said in a release.

Oppo A5s review: Impressive design, capable battery but weak performance

Oppo A5S is a budget smartphone from the stable of Chinese smartphone maker Oppo. Successor of the Oppo A3S, the smartphone boasts a notch-based screen, dual camera module on the back and a powerful battery that makes it an interesting proposition in its segment. Priced at Rs 9,990, the phone competes with the Xiaomi Redmi Note 7, Realme 3 and Asus Zenfone Max Pro M1. Let’s take a look at how the phone fares in terms of design, features and performance:

Design and display

The Oppo A5s has a glossy plastic build that looks mediocre but has a sturdy feel to it. The phone’s front is dominated by a 6.2-inch display, which covers almost the entire front, leaving thin bezels on three-sides and a thick one on the bottom. The phone’s back is made out of glossy plastic, which is a fingerprint magnet. Thankfully, the phone comes with a transparent case to protect the phone from scratches and smudges.

The Oppo A5s has a 6.2-inch waterdrop-shaped notch display of HD+ resolution, stretched in a tall 19:9 aspect ratio. The display looks vivid and has decent brightness, which makes it legible in bright outdoors. However, the sunlight legibility is just above average.

Camera

The Oppo A5s has a dual camera module on the back, featuring a 13-megapixel primary sensor of an f/2.2 aperture mated with a 2MP resolution depth sensor of an f/2.4 aperture. On the front, the phone has an 8MP selfie camera of an f/2.0 lens. The rear camera performs well in good light conditions. The photos come out with good detailing and the colour reproduction is natural. The camera is quick to lock focus exposure. The depth lens comes handy to take portrait shots with enhanced bokeh effect.

Though the has an artificial intelligence-based beautification mode, it does not work as intended and results in over saturation of colours that results in unnatural looking output. The camera struggles in low light and shots taken in such scenarios come out with loss of details, noise and washed out colours.

The front camera is as good as the rear camera. It works well to take selfies in good light conditions, but struggles in low light.

Oppo A5s Oppo A5s

Performance

The Oppo A5s is powered by a MediaTek Helio P35 system-on-chip (SoC). The phone comes in a sole variant with 2GB RAM and 32GB storage – expandable using a microSD card. The Oppo A5s boots dated Android 8.1 Oreo-based ColorOS 5.2 user interface.

The phone handles day to day tasks well and the performance seems sleek and snappy with no lags, until the phone is put to use to multitask or to open multiple apps. Similarly, the Oppo A5s handles casual games without stutters but fails to run graphic intensive games such as PubG and Asphalt 9.

Battery

The phone is powered by a 4320mAh battery. In a mixed usage, which includes WhatsApp, navigation and online multimedia streaming, the battery lasts for around two-days. The phone does not support any fast charge technology. However, the supplied charger is good enough to charge the battery full in about 2 hours.

Verdict

Priced at Rs 9,990, the Oppo A5s is a good-looking smartphone with a waterdrop-shaped notch display, decent cameras and a capable battery with good on-battery time of around two days. Except for its performance, the phone’s battery, display, camera and design makes it a good proposition in the budget segment.

Piyush Goyal retains railways, likely to focus on safety, non-fare revenue

Piyush Goyal, reassigned the charge of the crucial railway ministry, is likely to focus on safety, generation of non-fare revenue, track renewal, modernisation and increase in the production of state-of-the-art coaches in his second tenure at the helm of the national transporter, official sources said on Friday.

Goyal, having achieved the lowest accident figures in his previous tenure, had repeatedly said that his goal was to reach the zero accident standard.

His biggest challenge would be to maintain the record by timely track maintenance and renewal. His aim would be to ensure that railway factories ramp up production of state-of-the-art coaches for trains such as Vande Bharat Express so that more such services can be introduced.

Goyal, who had pushed for generating resources through non-fare revenue, had hit a stonewall during his last stint, but the minister is likely to drive this idea as he believes that this will bring in additional funds to boost the beleaguered railways' finances.

Known to work with a team of around 20 trusted advisors, mostly graduates of top business schools, Goyal keeps track of every operational detail through spreadsheets and is usually quick with facts and figures.

Not shy of keeping bureaucrats in line, Goyal burns the midnight oil reading reports and documents related to different aspects of his ministry.

Active on Twitter, Goyal even responds to passengers' queries.

In his first stint as railway minister, Goyal, a Rajya Sabha member, achieved several firsts -- it was during his tenure that the government announced its first bullet train which would run from Mumbai to Ahmedabad in Gujarat, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's home state, manufactured its first indigenously-built and engine-less high-speed train Vande Bharat Express, commissioned its longest bridge, converted a diesel loco into an electric one for the first time, built its first transport university, and its first air-conditioned local train.

The national transporter also registers the lowest accident rate in the past three decades during Goyal's tenure.

Swearing-in: Prahlad Patel makes a comeback to Union Cabinet after 15 years

Prahlad Patel, known as a down-to-earth leader of the BJP, returned to the Union Cabinet after a gap of 15 years on Thursday when he took oath as a minister in the Narendra Modi government.

He was inducted as Minister of State in Atal Bihari Vajpayee government in 2003.

Patel, who hails from Narsinghpur in Madhya Pradesh's Mahakaushal region, is the Lodh face of the BJP and is considered to be a replacement of Uma Bharti, who was a Cabinet Minister in the previous government.

Patel, a law graduate was once a close aide of Uma Bharti. He had quit the BJP in late 2005 along with Uma Bharti when the latter was denied the Chief Minister's post again and Shivraj Singh Chouhan was nominated instead.

Patel started his political career as district President of Bharatiya Janta Yuva Morcha and contested his first election in 1989 from Seoni parliamentary constituency. He reached Lok Sabha by defeating senior Congress leader Gargi Shankar Mishra.

He was re-elected in 1996 from Seoni and became chief whip of the party in Lok Sabha. He was again elected in 1999 but this time from Balaghat parliamentary constituency and was inducted as Minister of State in Vajpayee government in 2003.

In 2014, he was elected for fourth term as BJP MP from Damoh. In 2019 elections he defeated Congress's Pratap Singh Lodhi from Damoh by 3,53,411 votes.

He was rewarded for bringing BJP to power in Manipur where he was the party incharge. The BJP formed its government for the first time in Manipur in 2017.

User privacy our top concern, focus on bringing new features: Google

Tech giant Google Friday said it continues to focus on bringing in new features to empower users "to remain in control of their online experience" amid rising concerns globally around privacy and security of user data.

"Google has doubled down on our commitment to provide best in class, privacy settings and controls across all of our products and services.

"We've made significant investments in getting this right...ensure that our products are continuing to innovate and reflect new and improved features to empower users to remain in control of their online experience," Google Chief Privacy Officer Keith Enright told reporters over a video call.

He added that some of the steps include providing one-tap access to Google account across major products and services, and extending incognito mode to products like Search and Maps.

"We recognise that we have an obligation to have the strongest possible policies and procedures that govern access to data and sharing of data with third party developers, for example.

"Last year, we announced a number of policy updates regarding developer access to information that were further restricting the ability of information to be shared," he said.

Enright said the company is now making additional changes that will mandate developers to only request access to only that data that is necessary for the implementation of features in their Chrome extensions.

Realme C2 review: Smudge free design and good battery makes it a worthy buy

Chinese smartphone brand Realme recently introduced the Realme C2 , a successor of company’s entry level smartphone the Realme C1. The Realme C2 is a decent upgrade from it's predecessor. For starters, it packs a MediaTek Helio P22 processor (12 nm) as opposed to Snapdragon 450 chipset (14 nm) in Realme C1. The phone also packs a 6.1-inch HD+ display and is powered by a 4,000mAh battery.

Business Standard reviewed the Realme C1 on several parameters to see how it fares in comparison to competition in the same segment. Here are our observations:

Design & Display

Realme is back with its diamond cut design and this time the diamond-cut back has micro-patterns that offer a secure grip . The phone is sturdy and feels light in the hands. The textured back does not attract smudges and is offered in Diamond Blue and Diamond Black colours. There is no fingerprint sensor on the back so you have to rely on the face unlock. Although the phone feels comfortable to hold but because of the micro patterns it tends to slip out of the hands a lot.

Coming to the display; Realme C2 features a 6.1-inch HD+ display with a waterdrop-style notch on top. The phone has minimum bezels on the sides but a relatively thick chin at the bottom. Over all the display on Realme c2 is quite average. Viewing angles as well as brightness are quite dull. Even indoors the phone's brightness has to be constantly adjusted and things get even worse when we get outdoors. The multimedia viewing experience on the Realme C2 is average as well because of its dull viewing angles.

Realme C2 Realme C2Performance & Battery

The Realme C2 comes in in two storage option - 2GB + 16GB and 3GB + 32GB and is also one of the cheapest phone to run Android Pie . Coming to processing performance the phone is powered by an octa-core MediaTek Helio P22 processor based on a 12nm process.The phone does lag a bit when we open some apps at first but eventually settles in and then runs smoothly. Daily usage apps such as WhatsApp and Facebook show no lag and offer a decent experience considering the phone's price range. Coming to gaming, the phone can run PubG on low settings but lags a lot for some time.Once you have loaded the game, after a while, the experience gradually gets better considering the price range of the Realme C2.

The Realme C2 is powered by a 4000mAh battery. In our usage, which includes WhatsApp, navigation and a bit of Netflix, the battery lasts for about one and a half day. The phone does not support fast charging and takes about 2-2.5 hours to charge completely once out of juice

Camera

The Realme C2 features a 13 MP primary camera along with a 2MP secondary depth camera. On the front, we get a 5MP AI selfie camera, which is the same as Realme C1. The camera managed to take decent photos in day light but struggled in low light. In adequate light photos come out with good detailing and the colour reproduction but exposure is a bit of a problem. The Realme C2 doesn’t come with Nightscape, but we do get Chroma Boost, which improves that saturation and contrast resulting in better photos.

The front camera takes good selfies in daylight but struggles in low light situations.We also get AI beautification which is a handy feature at this price range

Verdict

Priced at Rs 5,999 the Realme C2 has a smudge free attractive design, decent battery life and satisfactory performance. Plus the phone manages to take decent photos as well. Besides the dull display, Realme C2 is indeed one of the best phones to buy in the entry level segment

US welcomes PM Modi's post-election statement on inclusivity

The US has welcomed the post-election statement of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on inclusivity, saying his re-election was a "clear" mandate for his vision of a strong, inclusive and prosperous India that plays a leading role on the global stage.

Modi last week said that his government will now begin "a new journey to build a new India with new energy" and reached out to minorities, saying the ruling alliance must win their trust and work without any discrimination.

"We certainly welcome Prime Minister Modi's post-election statements that have emphasised inclusivity that no one should be left behind, that there should be no distinction between Indian citizens, that the government should rule with the trust of everyone," a senior State Department official told a group of reporters hours after Modi was sworn in for the second five-year term in office.

Prime Minister Modi was on Thursday administered the oath of office and secrecy by President Ram Nath Kovind.

The BJP's overwhelming victory was historic, the official said, adding that it was the first back-to-back wins since 1971.

"It provided a clear mandate for Prime Minister Modi and for his vision of strong, inclusive and prosperous India that plays a leading role on the global stage," the official, who did not want to be named, said on Thursday.

The recently-concluded election in India was an extraordinary democratic lesson in which 600 million voters out of 900 million eligible voters literally one in eight people living on this globe participated, the official said.

In a news dispatch from New Delhi, The Washington Post said that now that Modi has been sworn, the hard part begins: delivering on his promises and meeting the heady expectations for his second term.

"While much of the election campaign focused on questions of national security, voters also are looking to Modi to accelerate economic growth and deepen progress on development issues," the daily wrote.

The Wall Street Journal said the ruling BJP is planning gradual changes to the economy after winning back-to-back majorities, focusing on streamlining rather than overhauls which many economists and executives say would put India on a higher growth trajectory.

Market experts react to Sitharaman's appointment as Finance Minister

Putting rest to all speculation, the President of India on Friday released the portfolio details of new Cabinet, a day after Narendra Modi took oath as the country's 16th Prime Minister.

Contrary to expectation that Amit Shah, a seasoned stock broker and the chief architect of NDA's victory for the second consecutive time will be handed over reigns of the Finance Ministry, after Arun Jaitley expressed his desire to stay away from any role in the new government citing health reasons. Consequently, Nirmala Sitharaman has been given the charge of the Finance Ministry, while Amit Shah will handle the Home Ministry.

Here's what leading analysts have to say on the appointment of Nirmala Sitharaman as the new Finance Minister:

G Chokkalingam, founder and managing editor, Equinomics Research

It would have been better had they brought in some professional, say an economist. One, on the global front, trade war is going to offset a lot of equilibrium forces and on the domestic front, we have some structural issues that are impacting the information technology (IT), pharma and export sectors. All these are growing in poor single-digits. Capex plans and an economic revival is getting delayed. The consumption space, for example the automobile sector, is also going through a tough time. Demand has come down because of the structural issues. In such an environment, hard-core economist would have been a better choice.

Ambareesh Baliga, independent market analyst

I feel market has taken a sigh of relief after the announcement, as for the last few hours, there were speculations that Amit Shah would be the Finance Minister. The best choice for the position, however, would have been Piyush Goyal. In fact, that was what the market was expecting. However, Nirmala Sitharaman is still a better choice than Amit Shah. Had Shah been appointed as FM, the market would have reacted negatively.

Ajay Bodke, CEO, PMS at Prabhudas Lilladher

Ms Nirmala Sitharaman is eminently qualified to steer India's economy which is facing multiple headwinds of slowing consumption impulses, moribund private capex cycle and anemic exports. Unprecedented squeeze in liquidity due to crisis in NBFC sector and consequent spike in risk aversion has severely impacted aggregate demand. Sectors such as real estate, automobiles, consumer goods etc need an immediate respite.

With limited fiscal maneuverability it remains to be seen how she can inject a strong dose of fiscal stimulus to revive animal spirits. She will need to focus on strong & sustainable resource generation by increasing tax-to-GDP ratio and push for aggressive divestments. Resources thus generated will have to be funneled to finding structural solutions to address farm distress and double farmers income over the next five years as well as to create a conducive environment for strong employment generation.

She will need to strike a delicate balance between the re-distributive policies advocated by Mr. Modi towards the poor & downtrodden and yet ensure government's firm commitment to adhere to medium term fiscal consolidation.

HSBC plans to axe hundreds of investment bank jobs to help cut cost

HSBC Holdings Plc is considering eliminating hundreds of investment banking jobs as Chief Executive Officer John Flint pressures the lender’s top managers to cut costs, according to people familiar with the plan.

At least 500 jobs could go within global banking and markets, although formal numbers have not been communicated, said the people who asked not to be named. Greg Guyett, who recently took sole control of global banking, will be pushing through cuts in his part of the business, one person said.

The reductions are expected to begin at the unit as soon as mid-June and will take place over the year, the people said. They are part of wider job reductions across the lender, and mark the latest stage of HSBC’s “Project Oak” revamp.

“Business and function lines constantly re-evaluate their needs to ensure they have the right roles in the right locations,” HSBC said in a statement.

Shares in the bank jumped to an intraday high after the news and were trading down 0.1% at 2:10 p.m. in London.

Flint has made “positive jaws” -- banking jargon for keeping the top line growing faster than expenses -- a key focus as he seeks to put his stamp on the bank, which makes the bulk of its revenue in Asia. The CEO berated his most senior managers in March for missing cost targets, people with knowledge of the matter have said.

The unit known as GBM houses the lender’s corporate finance and trading operations, employing about 24,000 of the division’s total workforce of 48,500 which includes contractors and other support staff.

Project Oak

Project Oak’s job reductions should help the company’s goal of achieving positive jaws, as the cost incurred can be accounted for as a one-off item rather than counting toward HSBC’s overall cost base, one of the people said. That’s a deliberate strategy to encourage aggressive reductions, as managers may have resisted making necessary cuts in the past to avoid the hit to their own budgets from costs such as severance payments, the person said.

HSBC missed a full-year target to achieve an increase in revenues that outpaced the increase in costs. That stepped up the pressure on Flint, who attacked “incompetence” at a Hong Kong event in March attended by about 400 managers, people with knowledge of the event said earlier this year. The bank met its positive jaws target in first-quarter numbers published this month.

In less than two years, as the stock price has remained mostly stagnant, HSBC has changed much of its top management. Flint replaced Stuart Gulliver, Mark Tucker succeeded John Flint as chairman, and Robin Phillips, formerly Guyett’s co-head of banking, is exiting after more than a decade in senior roles.

Even as it cuts in some areas, the bank is expanding in others as it seeks growth opportunities. HSBC has been expanding in private banking in Asia and plans to add 700 jobs in the region by 2022. Private banking in Asia is one of HSBC’s strategic priorities as Flint plans to expand in markets from Greater China to Southeast Asia.

Twitter shows more ads than better ideas: Why it needs a better biz model

Twitter is showing its users more ads. That’s a clumsy approach to boosting advertising revenue in an age of sophisticated micro-targeting, and it shows the weakness of Twitter’s business model.

The problem is that Twitter fosters fleeting engagements with its users. Sure, people like to flip quickly through 280-character fragments of #thin content.

But that isn’t necessarily good for advertisers who want to hook users and draw them off-platform. Moreover, unlike the ad behemoths Google and Facebook, Twitter doesn't learn much about its users as they interact with the site.

Like every Internet platform, Twitter knows more about us than we might think. Every page with a “share on Twitter” button uses cookies to let Twitter know what we’re reading — and that alone is enough infer demographics and other information about our interests.

But that’s nothing compared to what Google and Facebook can do with fine-grained data about user interactions. Google learns through Gmail that your cousin just bought a cool tech gadget, and figures you might soon be in the market for one too. Facebook knows that you asked friends for wallet recommendations, and suddenly you’ll start seeing ads for slim microfiber models.

By contrast, Twitter’s superficial messaging and sparse platform design makes inference about users difficult. In many cases, the platform may not even know whether someone you follow is friend or foe (or just amusing).

And Twitter lists are hard to manage, so many people use the “like” option as an all-encompassing bookmark. Meanwhile, Twitter’s subpar direct messaging feature more or less discourages one-on-one interactions.

The last thing Twitter needs is to put more poorly targeted advertising in front of users and clients.

Why not look instead for some other path to advertising success, like LinkedIn’s focus on offering direct messaging opportunities to recruiters and other premium customers?

Even better might be to move beyond an all-ad business model. Twitter could potentially invest in high-quality content like Netflix (although that would take a lot of work, since these days Twitter content seems to be going in the opposite direction). Or perhaps the platform could adopt some sort of concierge service, producing curated information and analytics for corporate clients (although Twitter would have to do this without accidentally leaking user data). The company might even try selling the right to edit tweets.

Whatever the case, Twitter can’t beat the giants at mass data harvesting. Nobody can. And that means it will have to try harder than just scaling up its current ad model.

Khan Market gang: Modi coins new phrase to swipe at elite adversaries

A tatty shopping centre originally built to house refugees in the heart of New Delhi has become a handy symbol for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his supporters to rub salt in the wounds of their opponents, who just got a drubbing in India's general election.

It is reminiscent of the way Britain's Labour Party leadership got dubbed "champagne socialists" a few years back and the Islington area of London got pejoratively tagged as their home.

On a global scale it is another step in the populist march against elitism that has brought the world Donald Trump, Brexit, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Modi himself in India.

Khan Market, a U-shaped, double-storey complex set amid the bungalows and apartments reserved for lawmakers and senior government officials, is an easy target.

Its restaurants serve mainly foreign food, even everyday products in the grocery stores are much more expensive than in the other parts of the city, and the big luxury brand names have been increasingly moving in.

It is mostly frequented by New Delhi's politicians, lawyers, top civil servants and journalists - all the ingredients for a gossiping, plotting, whispering and tweeting elite.

According to realtors, Khan Market is possibly the most expensive retail location in India per square foot despite its uneven paving stones, mass of overhead cables, and narrow staircases and entrances that would terrify any fire consultant.

Derisive References

Modi, who rarely forgets to remind people of his humble beginnings as the son of a tea seller in his home state of Gujarat, said in an interview to the Indian Express newspaper earlier this month: "Modi's image has not been created by the Khan Market gang, or Lutyens Delhi, but 45 years of his toil... good or bad. You cannot dismantle it."

British architect Sir Edwin Lutyens built the capital city of New Delhi in 1912. Modi and other BJP leaders often use the expression Lutyens Delhi, where Khan Market is located, to derisively refer to the entitled.

In the Indian Express interview, Modi, who referred to himself in the third person, used the "Khan Market gang" jibe six times.

And taking a cue from Modi, his followers and colleagues in the BJP have latched on to the theme by using the tag to deride opposition leaders, intellectuals and left-leaning liberals.

Some BJP followers even came to Khan Market to celebrate Modi's win last week because, as one put it in a tweet, nothing would upset the liberals more.

"The Khan Market cannot be a preserve of a certain set of people," said Tajinder Pal Singh Bagga, a spokesman for the BJP. "It's going to be a favourite hangout for us too."

Rich History

The Indian government named the market after Abdul Jabbar Khan, the brother of Pakistan's Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a close friend of "Mahatma" Gandhi and known as the "Frontier Gandhi".

Khan was honoured because of his role in ensuring safe passage for millions of Hindus fleeing sectarian violence after independence and the bloody 1947 partition of the sub-continent into India and Pakistan, said Sanjeev Mehra, president of the Khan Market Traders' Association.

The original owners of the roughly 70 Khan Market shops, who would live in apartments upstairs, were refugees who fled to Delhi from areas now in Pakistan.

Mamta Bamhi, the proprietress of Faqir Chand and Sons, a popular bookstore, said that her family is one of only four of the original owners left since most of the others have cashed in on sky-high real estate prices.

Now, shops and restaurants are housed on both the floors of the old, white building. Many have added third storeys.

Most shop owners in the market said that they don't believe Modi's jibe was aimed at them or at the majority of their patrons.

"It was only meant for a small section of people who come here to have coffee and indulge in all sorts of endless political gossip," said Anuj Bahri Malhotra, owner of Bahrisons, a landmark bookstore in front of the market's main entrance.

All the traders and many patrons agree on one thing, a proposal from a little-known BJP politician to rename the market after a Hindu saint has gone a step too far.

"This place is pretty rich in history and most shop owners have worked hard to create a name for the market," said Mehra of the traders' association. "By issuing just one order to change the name, the very essence of the place will cease to exist."

Companies pitch for GST rate cut as Modi govt takes charge second time

Companies across sectors such as durables, automobiles and real estate have been lobbying hard for a goods and services tax (GST) cut as the Narendra Modi-led National Democratic Alliance prepares for a second term in office. Modi and his council of ministers were sworn in on Thursday in the presence of over 8,000 people at the Rashtrapati Bhawan.

Durable firms said the issue of rationalising the tax rate of products such as air conditioners and larger television sets, which sit in the 28 per cent tax bracket, has been on the government’s table for long. “Since July last year, when most appliance and electronic products were moved from 28 per cent to 18 per cent, companies have been asking for ACs and larger TVs (above 32 inches) to be shifted too in terms of the GST rate,” said Kamal Nandi, business head and executive vice-president, Godrej Appliances, who is also the president of the Consumer Electronics and Appliances Manufacturers Association (CEAMA). “ACs and TVs are not luxury items, but essential goods. It doesn’t make sense therefore to put them in the highest tax bracket. A tax cut will mean that prices will come down, boosting demand,” he said. A 10 percentage point decline in the GST rate on ACs will see a net reduction of 7-8 per cent in terms of prices, sector experts said, which is a relief for consumers at a time when new energy labeling norms have pushed up prices by at least Rs 5,000 per unit.

MAKING THE CUT

The move comes as the market sees consumption slowdown

ACs, large TVs and all automobiles are in the 28 per cent tax bracket

Real estate firms want a uniform GST rate across segments

The issue of rationalising the tax rate of ACs and larger TV sets has been on the government's table for long

The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (Siam), too, has made a representation to the government to cut the GST rate on commercial and passenger vehicles from the current 28 per cent to 18 per cent, Rajan Wadhera, president, Siam, told reporters on Wednesday. All commercial and passenger vehicles, including cars and two-wheelers attract a standard GST of 28 per cent. Depending on the engine size, vehicle length and fuel type, there is an additional cess of between 1 and 15 per cent levied on automobiles. The request by Siam comes amid flagging sales and tepid demand in the auto market. Passenger vehicle sales in India grew 3.2 per cent in FY19, the slowest in four years. The slowdown worsened in April with sales across all segments seeing a sharp year-on-year decline. Siam has also forecast a growth of 3-5 per cent only for FY20, building a case for a sharp GST rate cut, said experts.

Real estate players, on the other hand, argue that the government should consider a uniform GST rate across price segments to boost sales. Currently, GST for houses up to Rs 45 lakh has been reduced to 1 per cent from 8 per cent earlier in a fillip to affordable housing. While other housing segments attract a GST of 5 per cent from 12 per cent earlier. “The government should reduce the GST for houses up to Rs 75 lakh to 1 per cent, so that a large portion of city dwellers can benefit too,” said J C Sharma, vice-chairman, Sobha Developers.

A recent Anarock report said of the total 673,000 units of unsold housing inventory across cities in India, nearly 85,000 units are ready-to-move-in, with 60 per cent of these in the under Rs 80-lakh bracket. A GST rate cut then will push up sales, bringing down inventory, said experts. Ramesh Nair, chief executive officer of property consultancy JLL, said the government should look into the issue of input tax credit, which has been eliminated when GST was slashed to 1 per cent and 5 per cent, respectively, for affordable and other housing segments. Nair said with input tax credit removed there was a cost implication for developers, nullifying the benefits of a lower GST rate.

Clear dues in 1 month or lose Yamuna Expressway: YEIDA tells Jaypee Sports

Jaypee Sports International has one month to clear its pending dues of Rs 220 crore or their lease on a 1,000 hectare land along the Yamuna Expressway will be cancelled, the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA) said.

The YEIDA has also revised land rates along the Yamuna Expressway, increasing costs for residential plots up to 200 sq metres by 8 per cent, group housing/builder plots by 6 per cent, institutional and industrial plots by 4 per cent, its officials said.

The details were shared on Thursday by YEIDA Chief Executive Officer Arun Vir Singh after the 65thboard meeting of the authority, which was formed by the Uttar Pradesh government for development in the region along the 165-km-long Yamuna Expressway.

He said the Jaypee Sports International, the owners of the Buddha International Circuit, were allotted the land for a special development zone (SDZ) in 2009-10 in Sector 25 along the Yamuna Expressway.

"The group has not cleared pending dues for the land allotted/leased for the SDZ, not paid even the first instalment after re-schedulement despite multiple defaulter notices. It has defaulted two instalments of Rs 1,082,547,095 (due on September 30, 2018) and Rs 1,042,258,611 (due on March 30, 2019)," Singh told reporters.

"Now it has been given a time of one month to clear as per provisions of rules related to cancellation of lease/allotment to clear the first default in instalment and also asked to open an escrow account in which it has to put 20 per cent of the money earned through other allottees in payment towards the authority, he said.

The officer said the group, a part of the Jaiprakash Associates Limited, has further sub-let half of the land to nearly 30 smaller developers who have their projects underway in the region.

"If the group fails to clear the dues in one month, the board has authorised the YEIDA to cancel its lease for the SDZ land," Singh added.

The board, he said, has also approved a proposal of the YEIDA for a "nominal rise" in rates of the land which have not been revised since 2015.

"Rates for residential plots up to 200 sq metres have been increased by 8 per cent, more than 200 sq metres by 6 per cent. The rates for group housing/builder plots will be up by 6 per cent, institutional and industrial plots will be up by 4 per cent. Land rates for plots for IT and ITES will be up by 6 per cent and besides all this, land rates under any other schemes will be up by 6 per cent," Singh said.

At present, residential land costs at a rate of Rs 15,620 per sq metre, group housing/builder land at Rs 16,225, while for institutional land up to 4,000 sq metre the rate is Rs 7,569 per sq metre and for industrial it is Rs 6,405 per sq metre, according to YEIDA officials.

Modi govt cabinet portfolios: Amit Shah Home Minister, Sitharaman new FM

he Narendra Modi government on Friday announced the allocation of the Cabinet portfolios. In a surprise move, Amit Shah, who was speculated to be appointed as the new finance minister, became the Home Minister with Nirmala Sitharaman becoming the new Finance Minister. Rajnath Singh has been appointed as the new Defence Minister and S Jaishankar new External Affairs Minister.

Smriti Irani, who was expected to be awarded handsomely for defeating Rahul Gandhi in Amethi, has been made the Minister of Women and Child Development and Minister of Textiles.

Under the portfolios officially released today, Piyush Goyal gets to retain the Railways portfolio and has also been given Commerce and Industry which was held by Suresh Prabhu, who has been dropped.

Prakash Javadekar, who was the Human Resource Development minister, gets to retain the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change and will be the new Minister of Information and Broadcasting.

Gajendra Singh Shekhwat will be the Minister of Jal Shakti. Dr Harsh Vardhan has been appointed as Minister of Health and Family Welfare; Minister of Science and Technology; and Minister of Earth Sciences.

Here is the allocation of portfolios among the following members of the Union Council of Ministers:

1. Rajnath Singh - Minister of Defence

2. Amit Shah - Minister of Home Affairs

3. Nitin Gadkari - Minister of road transport and highways; and minister of micro, small and medium enterprises

4. D V Sadananda Gowda: Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers

5. Nirmala Sitharaman - Minister of Finance

6. Ram Vilas Paswan - Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution

7. Narendra Singh Tomar - Minister of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare; Minister of Rural Development; and Minister of Panchayati Raj

8. Ravi Shankar Prasad - Minister of Law and Justice; Minister of Communications; and Minister of Electronics and Information Technology

9. Harsimrat Kaur Badal - Minister of Food Processing Industries

10. Thaawar Chand Gehlot: Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment

11. Subrahmanyam Jaishankar: Minister of External Affairs

12. Ramesh Pokhriyal: Minister of Human Resource Development

13. Arjun Munda: Minister of Tribal Affairs

14. Smriti Zubin Irani - Minister of Women and Child Development; and Minister of Textiles

15. Dr Harsh Vardhan: Minister of Health and Family Welfare; Minister of Science and Technology; and Minister of Earth Sciences.

16. Prakash Javadekar - Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change; and Minister of Information and Broadcasting

17. Piyush Goyal - Minister of Railways; and Minister of Commerce and Industry

18. Dharmendra Pradhan - Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas; and Minister of Steel

19. Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi: Minister of Minority Affairs

20. Pralhad Joshi: Minister of Parliamentary Affairs; Minister of Coal; and Minister of Mines. 

21. Dr Mahendra Nath Pandey: Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship

22. Arvind Ganpat Sawant: Minister of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprise

23. Giriraj Singh: Minister of Animal Husbandry, Dairying and Fisheries

24. Gajendra Singh Shekhawat: Minister of Jal Shakti

Here is the full list of Ministers of State (Independent Charge)

1. Santosh Kumar Gangwar: Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Labour and Employment.

2. Rao Inderjit Singh: Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation; and Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Planning.

3. Shripad Yesso Naik : Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH); and Minister of State in the Ministry of Defence.

4. Jitendra Singh: Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region; Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office; Minister of State in the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions; Minister of State in the Department of Atomic Energy; and Minister of State in the Department of Space.

5. Kiren Rijiju: Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports; and Minister of State in the Ministry of Minority Affairs.

6. Prahalad Singh Patel: Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Culture; and Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Tourism.

7. Raj Kumar Singh: Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Power; Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy; and Minister of State in the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.

8. Hardeep Singh Puri: Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs; Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Civil Aviation; and Minister of State in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

9. Mansukh L Mandaviya: Minister of State (Independent Charge) of the Ministry of Shipping; and Minister of State in the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers.

India valuable partner for us, want to work with new government: UN Chief

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said that India is a "very valuable partner" of the United Nations and he looks forward to working with the new government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Prime Minister Modi was on Thursday administered the oath of office and secrecy by President Ram Nath Kovind at a glittering ceremony just before sunset at the forecourt of majestic Rashtrapati Bhavan, capping a landslide win for the BJP which won 303 of the 542 seats.

UN Secretary-General Guterres has worked very closely with Prime Minister Modi, including on the issue of climate change, Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General, told PTI on Thursday.

"We will look forward to working with the government as it has now taken office. India is a very valuable partner of the United Nations," Haq said at the daily press briefing on Guterres' message for Modi as he was sworn-in as India's Prime Minister for a second five-year term.

Last week, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the UN chief very much looked forward to working with Modi and the two leaders have a "strong relationship" on issues such as the climate change.

Monica Grayley, the spokeswoman for President of the General Assembly Maria Fernanda Espinosa, said last week that the UNGA President congratulates India and the people of India, as well as all newly-elected representatives in the election.

Espinosa "looks forward to continuing to work with India in the months to come," Grayley said.

Espinosa had met Modi during her visit to India in August 2018 and her interaction and cooperation with India is a "very good one," Grayley had said, adding that Espinosa, if given the opportunity, would definitely congratulate the Prime Minister in person.

Win for Wall St dads: Chase to pay $5 mn for parental leave discrimination

Wall Street fathers won a major victory on Thursday, with JPMorgan Chase agreeing to pay $5 million to male employees who felt discriminated over parental leave.

The complaint covered the period from 2011-2017 and was filed jointly by the Ohio branch of the American Civil Liberties Union and the Outten & Golden LLP law firm on behalf of JPMorgan Chase fathers.

Derek Rotondo, an employee who became a father, was the first to raise the issue, accusing the bank of not granting him the same parental leave rights provided to female employees.

"I love my children, and all I wanted was to spend time with them when they were born," Rotondo said in a statement from the ACLU.

"I'm proud that since I filed my charge, Chase has clarified its policy to ensure that both male and female employees who wish to be the primary parental caregiver have equal access to those benefits." Rotondo says that he tried to take 14 weeks of parental leave as a "primary caregiver" after his son was born, but the human resources department told him that policy was only available to mothers -- the only parents their policy considered to be the primary parent and eligible to take up to 16 weeks of 100 percent-paid leave.

Fathers, on the other hand, were considered co-parents and only eligible for more than two weeks of leave if they could prove their partner was "incapacitated" or already back to work according to the ACLU. In 2017, Rotondo filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for gender discrimination, and Chase ultimately granted him the 16 weeks of parental leave.

"We are pleased to have reached an agreement in this matter and look forward to more effectively communicating the policy so that all men and women employees are aware of their benefits," Chase representative Reid Broda said.

"We thank Mr Rotondo for bringing the matter to our attention."

In addition to the $5 million it will pay out, Chase will now train its staff on how to handle the new gender-neutral leave policies.

The case points an awkward spotlight on Chase, the largest bank in the US with $2.39 trillion in assets, according to Forbes.

In 2016, the company became one of the first major businesses in the country to offer 12 to 16 weeks of paid parental leave, and last year non-primary caregivers' leave increased from two weeks to six.

Parental leave practices vary widely on Wall Street, where hours are long and workloads are high.

Bank of America offers up to 26 weeks of parental leave to all new US biological and adoptive parents, with 16 of them paid.

And Goldman Sachs and Wells Fargo both allow for 16 weeks of paid parental leave to US employees considered primary caregivers, regardless of gender, with the other parent eligible for four weeks' paid leave.

Citigroup allows US employees who become mothers to take 16 weeks paid while a second parent or adoptive parents can take eight weeks.

US' Huawei war moves into academia, scientists banned from reviewing papers

The continuing war between the US and Huawei Technologies Co. has moved into the world of ideas. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers announced this week that scientists affiliated with Huawei will no longer be permitted to serve as referees or editors for papers published in the private organization’s 200-odd journals.

This is a big deal. Journal referees review submitted articles long before they see the light of day and offer comments and recommendations, often on whether or not to publish. They are exposed to work the rest of the world has yet to see. Referee comments have long been a key part of the exchange of ideas. Among serious academics, publication in a refereed journal is evidence that an idea has survived rigorous scrutiny.

Huawei employs about 188,000 people around the world, and a fair minority are scientists and engineers. Now, due to US restrictions on the company, they can’t have access to papers submitted to IEEE’s many publications until they’re published. No reviewing, no advising, no editing, no anything — all to keep Huawei from gaining access to technological advances ahead of everybody else.

In explaining its decision, IEEE cited legal concerns arising after the US Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security earlier this month added Huawei and some 68 affiliates to the list of entities to whom exports are restricted. A special application is required, and Huawei has been labeled with the dreaded “presumption of denial.”

The administration of President Donald Trump has been pursuing an anti-Huawei campaign for some while now, and at this point China has few weapons in its arsenal to protect the company from the US assault.(1) But even if the administration’s charges are true — and the company heatedly denies that it in effect spies for the Chinese government — the effort to restrict the flow of technology has a 1980s (or 1960s) feel to it.

Consider that last year, with little fanfare, the administration and Congress decided to cancel the Militarily Critical Technologies List, a Cold War relic maintained by the Department of Defense. The MCTL, as it was known, once placed significant restrictions on the transfer of scientific know-how abroad, but had long been allowed to languish and was no longer affecting decisions to grant export licenses. Nevertheless, the cancellation was an implicit admission that in a connected world, it’s tough to prevent technology transfer, even when national security is involved. And as far as I’ve been able to determine, the commentariat raised nary a peep.

Similarly, in the case of Huawei, nobody in tech imagines that the company can entirely be prevented from participating in the digital universe. Yes, there will be serious effects, at least for now. The BIS listing will keep the company from gaining access to certain services for Google’s Android and from chips made by Intel, Qualcomm and other leading manufacturers. Yet data will continue to flow through Huawei devices. US pressure may be able to keep Huawei out of much of the 5G network, at least for the moment, but there’s no way to avoid using the company’s burgeoning network of undersea cables.

Besides, even if you believe in the importance of keeping Huawei away from certain technologies, there’s less reason to defend keeping the company’s researchers from getting an early look at articles proposed for publication in the major journals in their fields. It’s hard to imagine what enduring advantage China or any other power might derive from getting a peek at research articles a few months in advance. The IEEE seems to believe that, under the BIS rules, it has no choice. If that’s so, there’s something terribly wrong with the rules.

The historian Audra J. Wolfe points out in her engrossing 2018 book, “Freedom’s Laboratory: The Cold War Struggle for the Soul of Science,” that during the years after World War II, Soviet scientists were often permitted to attend Western scientific conferences (provided that they could get permission from their own suspicious government). But in 1950 Congress adopted the McCarran Act, which essentially made it impossible for those with Communist connections to travel to the US The act, writes Wolfe, “had an immediate and chilling effect on scientific exchange, by some estimates blocking the entry of half of foreign scientists who sought to enter the country.”

The effect of today’s restrictions on scientific exchange is likely to be significantly smaller. For one thing, the US long ago yielded its near-monopoly on scientific advancement. In biomedical journals, for example, the share of articles by US-based authors has been steadily declining. A 2018 survey found a significant drop during the 21st century in applications from students abroad seeking to study physics in the top US programs.

For another, as IEEE points out, the BIS restrictions do not seem to prohibit Huawei employees from attending conferences. In other words, they may not be able to referee unpublished papers, but they can still listen as other scientists present that very research. In this sense, at least, the BIS restrictions do not go as far as the Cold War rules. Wolfe recounts tales of US researchers not permitted even to attend international conferences in the 1950s simply because scientists from the Soviet Union or the People’s Republic of China were expected to be present. It’s hard to imagine that the bans hurt Communist science more than American science.

Nevertheless, the fact that the anti-Huawei rules are less intrusive than the Cold War rules does not mean there’s no problem. Efforts to restrict the flow of technology are probably inevitable. Efforts to restrict the free flow of scientific debate, however, were a bad idea during the Cold War and are a bad idea now. Let’s hope someone from the administration will give IEEE a call to say this isn’t what the BIS listing means.

(1) Huawei claims that the listing could hit the bottom lines of some 1,200 US suppliers.

Asthana Bribery case: HC grants 4 more months time to CBI to complete probe

The Delhi High Court Friday granted four more months to the CBI to complete its probe in a bribery case involving the agency's former special director Rakesh Asthana.

Justice Mukta Gupta allowed the CBI's plea seeking extension of time to complete its investigation in the case lodged against Asthana, DSP Devender Kumar and middleman Manoj Prasad.

On January 11, the court had granted 10 weeks to the probe agency to complete its investigation. The CBI had approached the high court after completion of 10 weeks time.

Asthana was booked on the allegations of criminal conspiracy, corruption and criminal misconduct under relevant sections of Prevention of Corruption Act.

Kumar, earlier the investigating officer in a case involving meat exporter Moin Qureshi, was arrested on the allegations of forgery in recording the statement of Hyderabad-based businessman Sathish Babu Sana, who had allegedly paid bribe to get relief in the case.

He was arrested on October 22, 2018 and granted bail on October 31.

Land, labour, privatisation: Big bang reforms soon, says NITI Aayog VC

In the first 100 days of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's second term, a slew of 'big-bang' economic reforms that should please foreign investors are likely to be pursued, according to a top official at the government's main think tank.

The reforms will include changes in labour laws, privatisation moves, and creation of land banks for new industrial development, said Rajiv Kumar, vice chairman of NITI Aayog (National Institute for Transforming India), who reports directly to Modi.

"They (foreign investors) will have reasons to be happy. You will see a slew of reforms I can assure you of that. We are going to pretty much hit the ground running," Kumar told Reuters in an interview.

Modi is chairman of the think tank.

Modi and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were last week declared landslide winners of India's general election with an increased majority in the Lok Sabha.

He was sworn into office for his second term on Thursday night.

Kumar was speaking before Modi on Thursday announced members of his new cabinet, though he hasn't said who will get which portfolio. Several Indian media outlets say that BJP President Amit Shah will become the country's new finance minister.

Niti Aayog, which now acts as the main centre for policy making and for driving new ideas, was founded four years back when Modi scrapped the 65-year old planning commission, saying that India was stifled with Soviet-style bureaucracy.

Kumar said reforms in India's complicated labour laws will see the light of day as early as the next parliamentary session in July, when the government will place a new bill before the lower house for approval.

It will aim to combine 44 central laws into four codes - wages, industrial relations, social security and welfare, and the fourth - occupational safety, health and working conditions.

This should help companies avoid getting embroiled in a series of complicated disputes with their workers and officials that involve regulations set by authorities at different levels of government and can lead to long, drawn-out adjudication in various parts of the legal system.

The government could also offer swathes of land to foreign investors from the land banks it plans to create from unutilised land controlled by public sector enterprises, Kumar said.

"What could be attempted is to build an inventory of government land that can then be offered to foreign investors," Kumar said.

The land parcels could be designed as clusters catering to a specific set of investors or industrial sectors, Kumar said.

Getting access to some of the large amounts of unutilised Indian government land would reduce major risks for foreign companies as there would be a lot less risk of legal challenges over ownership and development. A lot of the sites they have used in the past was previously farm land, opening them up to protests and court action by local communities over land rights, the environment and other issues.

Kumar said the government will focus on fully privatising or closing more than 42 state-controlled companies in the coming months. The government is even mulling lifting the foreign direct investment cap on Air India , the loss-making state-owned flagship carrier, to make it easier to sell.

Kumar also said that it could create an autonomous holding company that would control all state-owned firms and wouldn't be answerable to lots of different ministries. This would speed up decision making for asset sales, avoiding much of the central government's bureaucracy.

India's economic growth rate decelerated to a five-quarter low of 6.6% in the last three months of 2018, and is expected to fall further in the January-March quarter due to a sharp drop in consumption.

The economy needs far faster growth if it is to generate enough jobs for the millions of young people entering the labour market each month.

Kumar blamed the stressed balance sheet of banks and a crisis in the shadow lending industry for the recent drop in growth.

He suggested the government should start with reforming the state-owned banking sector and also create more money for spending on infrastructure and new public housing through more and quicker privatisations and better tax collection.

"We should (start with the banks).. There will be big bang, there will be 100 days action. We are all geared for that ... I have maintained that the fiscal policy should be counter cyclical. There is scope for that."

In a first, an AI taught itself to play a video game, and is beating humans

Since the earliest days of virtual chess and solitaire, video games have been a playing field for developing artificial intelligence (AI). Each victory of machine against human has helped make algorithms smarter and more efficient. But in order to tackle real world problems – such as automating complex tasks including driving and negotiation – these algorithms must navigate more complex environments than board games, and learn teamwork. Teaching AI how to work and interact with other players to succeed had been an insurmountable task – until now.

In a new study, researchers detailed a way to train AI algorithms to reach human levels of performance in a popular 3D multiplayer game – a modified version of Quake III Arena in Capture the Flag mode.

Even though the task of this game is straightforward – two opposing teams compete to capture each other’s flags by navigating a map – winning demands complex decision-making and an ability to predict and respond to the actions of other players.

This is the first time an AI has attained human-like skills in a first-person video game. So how did the researchers do it?

The robot learning curve

In 2019, several milestones in AI research have been reached in other multiplayer strategy games. Five “bots” – players controlled by an AI – defeated a professional e-sports team in a game of DOTA 2. Professional human players were also beaten by an AI in a game of StarCraft II. In all cases, a form of reinforcement learning was applied, whereby the algorithm learns by trial and error and by interacting with its environment.

The five bots that beat humans at DOTA 2 didn’t learn from humans playing – they were trained exclusively by playing matches against clones of themselves. The improvement that allowed them to defeat professional players came from scaling existing algorithms. Due to the computer’s speed, the AI could play in a few seconds a game that takes minutes or even hours for humans to play. This allowed the researchers to train their AI with 45,000 years of gameplay within ten months of real-time.

The Capture the Flag bot from the recent study also began learning from scratch. But instead of playing against its identical clone, a cohort of 30 bots was created and trained in parallel with their own internal reward signal.

Each bot within this population would then play together and learn from each other. As David Silver – one of the research scientists involved – notes, AI is beginning to “remove the constraints of human knowledge… and create knowledge itself”.

The learning speed for humans is still much faster than the most advanced deep reinforcement learning algorithms. Both OpenAI’s bots and DeepMind’s AlphaStar (the bot playing StarCraft II) devoured thousands of years’ worth of gameplay before being able to reach a human level of performance. Such training is estimated to cost several millions of dollars. Nevertheless, a self-taught AI capable of beating humans at their own game is an exciting breakthrough that could change how we see machines.

The future of humans and machines

AI is often portrayed replacing or complementing human capabilities, but rarely as a fully-fledged team member, performing the same task as human beings. As these video game experiments involve machine-human collaboration, they offer a glimpse of the future.

Human players of Capture the Flag rated the bots as more collaborative than other humans, but players of DOTA 2 had a mixed reaction to their AI teammates. Some were quite enthusiastic, saying they felt supported and that they learned from playing alongside them. Sheever, a professional DOTA 2 player, spoke about her experience teaming up with bots:

It actually felt nice; [the AI teammate] gave his life for me at some point. He tried to help me, thinking ‘I’m sure she knows what she’s doing’ and then obviously I didn’t. But, you know, he believed in me. I don’t get that a lot with [human] teammates.

Others were less enthusiastic, but as communication is a pillar of any relationship, improving human-machine communication will be crucial in the future. Researchers have already adapted some features to make the bots more “human friendly”, such as making bots artificially wait before choosing their character during the team draft before the game, to avoid pressuring the humans.

But should AI learn from us or continue to teach themselves? Self-learning without imitating humans could teach AI more efficiency and creativity, but this could create algorithms more appropriate to tasks that don’t involve human collaboration, such as warehousing robots.

On the other hand, one might argue that having a machine trained from humans would be more intuitive – humans using such AI could understand why a machine did what it did. As AI gets smarter, we’re all in for more surprises.

Maude Lavanchy, Research Fellow in Behavioural Economics, IMD Business School and Amit Joshi, Professor of Artificial Intelligence, IMD Business School

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Burning tyres: the murky oil business polluting India and parts of Asia

When local investigators scoured a riverbed in southern Malaysia for clues in a chemical dumping case that hospitalised over one thousand people earlier this year, they found a cocktail of toxins, including a colourless liquid commonly secreted when tyres are recycled.

That led environment officials and police to a small firm called P Tech Resources involved in pyrolysis - a business of burning old tyres to make low-grade oil that industry sources say is also common elsewhere in Southeast Asia, China and India.

Police have charged a lorry driver and all three of P Tech's directors for violating a law prohibiting the illegal dumping of waste. The firm's directors and the firm also each face 15 charges for offences related to waste controls and air pollution brought by the environment department.

They have all denied wrongdoing. Lawyers representing them and local police declined comment citing ongoing court proceedings.

Reuters was not able to reach the three directors of P Tech or the company secretary, the only four company officials listed in documents filed with Malaysia's companies regulator. Its premises were closed and calls to its registered office went unanswered.

The documents show P Tech, registered in 2017, manufactures and trades tyre oils.

Done properly, in a controlled environment, tyre pyrolysis has been lauded by the recycling industry as a green way of turning a complex waste into a useful energy source. In this process, tyres are heated in the absence of oxygen and the gases released are condensed into a low-quality oil that can be used in asphalt or fuel oil, depending on its purity.

Some firms in Europe and the United States have developed technology to limit emissions and waste from pyrolysis, but with low margins this green approach has not had widespread commercial success, industry experts said.

Reuters visited the premises of P Tech. Piles of tyres bound in bales, a tall chimney and a filthy pond could be seen behind closed gates.

Neighbouring workers told Reuters the firm operated at night and its work produced a stench that would linger until the morning. No one from P Tech was available for comment.

"Tyre pyrolysis is not a problem. The problem is with the mismanagement of it," Yeo Bee Yin, Malaysia's environment minister told Reuters when asked about the pyrolysis industry in her country. She noted P Tech was licensed for pyrolysis but did not speak specifically about the dumping case.

Yeo said Malaysia used to have "very lax environmental laws" and "very low punishments" for breaches but has stepped up enforcement recently and closed down some illegal pyrolysis operators in order to better regulate the sector.

BACKYARD OPERATIONS

Malaysia's department of environment said 22 tyre pyrolysis firms across the country are licensed but declined comment on the number of unlicensed operators.

Over half a dozen industry sources said pyrolysis in India, China and Southeast Asia also is prevalent mostly in small backyard operations.

Earlier this month, Reuters visited a cluster of about 10 tyre burning factories in an industrial area in Jokhabad, a town on the outskirts of New Delhi.

Mounds of black powder lay on open ground at the first plant, as about half a dozen workers wearing no protection, some barefoot, their clothes and skin stained black, milled about.

Most said they lived inside the plant itself, pointing to a cement shed set up barely a few feet away from large, round recycling machines.

At a second plant, where a teenager sorted through a pile of odd-sized tyres, plant supervisor Manoj Kumar said he was producing oil mainly used as tar for road construction.

While he maintained his plant had high standards, Kumar said most of the other firms in the area were lax, had no mechanism for waste processing and their factories emitted potentially harmful gases in the air. Reuters could not verify his comments.

Shops and homes stood barely a kilometre (a half-mile) from the industrial cluster.

A report commissioned by Indian environmental rights group SAFE last year said at one site in Jokhabad, carbon fumes and sludge were so bad that monkeys in the surrounding area had black faces and fur. Reuters couldn't independently confirm its findings.

SAFE sent its findings on six plants in a letter to India's environment ministry in January, and said they were exposing "people at large to environmental risks" and "risking the lives of those involved in such practices for perverse profits."

India's environment ministry did not respond to a request for comment on the SAFE report.

There is no official data on the size of this business, which is being fuelled by a global demand for tyres expected to rise about 3 percent this year to nearly 3 billion units, according to a report by Cleveland, Ohio-based research firm Freedonia.

With free raw material - used tyres - and demand for unconventional oils increasing for everything from tar to build roads to fuel for ships, pyrolysis can be a lucrative business even at a small scale.

Asphalt currently sells for about $100 per tonne, while fuel oil sells for about $400 per tonne.

LAX LAWS

Villager Zulkifly Kassim was one of the first to become aware of the dumping of chemicals by P Tech in the Sungai Kim Kim river in the Malaysian state of Johor on March 7.

Shortly after midnight he was awoken by a putrid smell. He went outside to investigate and shone a torchlight into the stream behind his house.

"I could see the water already had become black and the fish were coming up and down," said Zulkifly, 50.

Minutes before Zulkifly was awoken, a lorry parked near a bridge upstream from his house and dumped oil waste and sludge into the river, according to the chargesheet filed in court by the police against P Tech.

Over the next few hours and days after the dumping, noxious vapours caused breathing problems, vomiting and dizziness, especially among children and elderly, local authorities said.

Selahudeen Aziz, Johor state's health director, said over 1,200 people were hospitalised with 26 treated in intensive care. Fourteen people were brought to hospital unconscious.

The ports around southern Malaysia where the March dumping took place and nearby Singapore make up the world's most important marine refuelling hub.

Two oil traders in Singapore, requesting anonymity, told Reuters that oil from Malaysian tyre pyrolysis had been offered around the market in recent months in the marine oil sector, known as bunker fuel.

They said blending such oil into bunker fuels was on the rise as tightening regulations due to come in next year have pushed up benchmark bunker fuel prices to their highest seasonal level in years.

Amit Shah likely to be FM; investors say he will 'get things done'

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to name Amit Shah, the chief of his Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), as the country's new finance minister after taking his oath of office for the second time on Thursday, according to several Indian media reports.

As Modi's right-hand man and long-time strategist, Shah would be in a powerful position to direct financial policy in Asia's third-largest economy in his first role as a federal lawmaker.

Shah masterminded the BJP's landslide victory in the April-May general election, but there are questions about his lack of central government experience and financial background, especially at a time of growing signs of weakness in the economy.

Modi is expected to announce his ministers' departments on Friday, after all of them were sworn in on Thursday evening at an open-air ceremony outside the colonial-era presidential palace with some 8,000 guests including Bollywood stars and leaders of neighbours Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.

The 54-year-old Shah, among 57 new and old ministers who will join Modi in the next government, pledged to give his best to create a strong and prosperous India.

"This team is a blend of youthful energy and administrative experience," Modi said on Twitter. "It has people who have excelled as parliamentarians and those who have had distinguished professional careers. Together, we will work for India's progress."

The BJP swept to victory in the general election, held over 39 days, and increased its majority in the lower house of parliament.

Shah is tipped to replace Arun Jaitley, who wrote to Modi on Wednesday asking not to be considered for a ministerial position because of health problems.

Shah would be taking over the finance portfolio at a sensitive time. He will probably need to move quickly to stimulate an economy beset by weak farm incomes, slow jobs growth and falling sales of key consumer goods including cars and motorbikes.

This week, two major industrial bodies called on the new government to take steps to bolster a growth rate that slowed to 6.6% in the three months to December - the lowest in five quarters - and is expected to have dropped further to 6.3 percent between January and March.

Gets things done

Several investors and traders said they did not expect Indian markets to react much if Shah's appointment was confirmed, believing his ability to get things done would offset his lack of financial experience.

"The hallmark of this government is that there's more PMO (prime minister's office)-driven strategy and guidance," said Jayesh Shroff, co-founder of investment advisory firm Cask Capital. "So, to that extent, you don't need a proper technocrat to run the finance ministry - you need someone who can get things done."

Others were more wary.

"We have no clue of what this guy knows or his financial knowledge," said a trader at a private bank, who declined to be identified. "The market will take some time to understand his views."

In the election campaign, Shah helped galvanise the BJP's nationalist base and make up for the loss of key state elections in December. Part of his strategy included deftly exploiting national security fears.

"He's a very hard taskmaster even as party president," political analyst Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay said. "Very soon he acquires this ability to be one step ahead of the people who are part of his team. The finance ministry or whichever ministry he handles is going to be run with an iron fist."

India will also have a new foreign minister, with incumbent Sushma Swaraj, who has had health issues, sitting among the audience but not on the dais with Modi's new ministerial team.

In the federal Indian system of appointments, ministers are sworn in before their specific positions are announced.

A potential replacement for Swaraj could be former foreign secretary, S. Jaishankar, who took an oath as a cabinet minister. A former ambassador to the United States and China, Jaishankar led India's diplomatic corps during Modi's first term before retiring in early 2018 and subsequently joining the Tata Group conglomerate.

Shah and Jaishankar were not available for comment.

Many other ministers who are also senior members of the ruling coalition are expected to retain their cabinet jobs.

The BJP controls 303 of the 545 seats in the lower house, which might tempt Modi to push for controversial land and labour reforms to help stimulate the economy.

.Uber loses $1bn in first quarter due to high spending on food, drivers

Uber Technologies Inc reported a $1 billion loss on Thursday as the ride-hailing service spends heavily to build up its food delivery and freight businesses, sending revenues up 20% in its first quarterly report as a public company.

Revenue of $3.1 billion matched the high end of the range Uber forecast for the quarter and the loss of $1.0 billion compared with the company's forecast of $1.0 billion to $1.11 billion.

Shares rose 2.6% following a conference call with executives in which Chief Executive Dara Khosrowshahi cited business improvements, such as fewer consumer promotions in the second quarter, but called 2019 an "investment year."

With its share price trading more than 10% below its IPO price of $45, Khosrowshahi will have to convince investors Uber can turn a profit, given its reliance on rider incentives and competition in all parts of its business, from its core business of ride hailing to food delivery to freight.

"Our story is simple. We're the global player," Khosrowshahi told analysts on his first earnings call after the company's IPO earlier this month. "Our job is to grow fast at scale and more efficiently for a long, long time."

The results indicate the newly public company was able to hit its own financial targets, likely to offer some assurance to investors.

Costs went up 35% in the quarter, as the company spent heavily in the run-up to its IPO earlier this month. Gross bookings, a measure of total value of rides before driver costs and other expenses, rose 34% from a year ago to $14.6 billion. Bookings were up 3.4% from the previous quarter, showing the difficulty of recruiting new riders in saturated markets.

But Wedbush analyst Ygal Arounian said he was encouraged by improvements in take rates, and accelerating revenue growth. Uber's take rate is the revenue pocketed by the company after subtracting driver or restaurant pay and incentives.

"We're still a while away from profitability, but Uber is expecting strong signs of improvement across many of its key metrics and that is an important sign for investors."

Uber was the biggest of a group of Silicon Valley startups that have gone public this year against the backdrop of a global stock market sell-off sparked by renewed trade tensions between the United States and China. Uber also faces increased regulation in several countries and fights with its drivers over wages.

In the mature U.S. market, where Uber's main rival is Lyft Inc, Khosrowshahi said two levers for growth were the expansion of rides into suburbs and a generational wave, in which millennials show little interest in car ownership.

Executives said signals from Lyft during its recent earnings call that its rival was focused less on price and more on brand and product was a positive. Khosrowshahi called it a "healthier mode of competing than just throwing money at a challenge."

Overall, incentives paid to drivers more than doubled from a year earlier, outpacing revenue growth, as the company invested in its growing food delivery service, Uber Eats. In that unit, driver incentives tripled to $291 million while revenue rose 89 percent.

Uber was "very early in the stages" of exploiting how ride-hailing can help its Eats business, where take rates would improve over 2019, he said.

The company had begun to "upsell" riders to Eats deals, with encouraging early signs, Khosrowshahi said.

Uber said its monthly active users rose to 93 million globally, from 91 million at the end of the fourth quarter.

A net loss was $1.01 billion, or $2.26 per share, in the first quarter ended March 31 compared with net income of $3.75 billion, or $1.84 per share, a year earlier, when results were helped by its sale of operations to Grab and Yandex.

In its fourth quarter, Uber's net loss was $887 million and revenue was $2.97 billion.

Uber previously said it expected first-quarter revenue in the range of $3.04 billion to $3.1 billion while seven analysts polled by Refinitiv IBES on average expected revenue of $3.04 billion.

Exim Bank to raise up to $3 billion through capital markets in FY20

Export-Import Bank of India (Exim) will raise up to $3 billion (nearly Rs 21,000 crore) in bonds and loans through capital markets in 2019-20.

David Rasquinha, managing director, says it will begin to scout the markets from July. The timing will depend on requirement and market conditions. The bank would prefer to tap the American market, being wider and deeper.

In 2018-19, Exim Bank raised foreign exchange aggregating to $1.22 billion (Rs 8,530 crore) through a variety of instruments. Its net profit in FY19 was Rs 82 crore, after a net loss of Rs 2,924 crore in 2017-18. Its loan portfolio fell to Rs 93,617 crore, from Rs 107,532 crore the previous year.

Gross NPAs reduced to Rs 11,678 crore in FY19, from Rs 11,976 crore. Net NPAs were Rs 2,288 crore, from Rs 4,028 crore at the end of FY18. The provision coverage ratio improved to 85 per cent, from 71 per cent. This year, the bank expects recovery of Rs 3,000-3,500 crore from stressed accounts facing resolution under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code.

An exposure of about Rs 2,000 crore to Videocon Oil Ventures (VOV) was categorised as an NPA in FY19, the provision in the balance sheet being Rs 700 crore. Exim has been

making a prudential provision for this firm’s account over two to three years. The provision now fully covers the account. VOV has an oil exploration business in Brazil and a lenders’ consortium, headed by SBI, has appointed a valuer for the firm.