PEOPLE NEWS: June 2019

Spotify is reportedly sharing personal information of users who pre-save music on the app with content labels.

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Tata Sky HD, SD Set-Top Box Price in India Cut Once Again, Now Starts at Rs. 1,399

The Tata Sky HD set-top box will now be available at Rs. 1,499, while the SD set-top box will now be available at Rs. 1,399.

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Huawei's Fortunes Improve, as Trump Says US Firms Can Sell Equipment to It

"US companies can sell their equipment to Huawei," Trump told reporters in Osaka hours after sealing a tariff truce with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

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Google's New 'Equiano' Subsea Cable to Connect Africa and Europe

Google said Equiano is the company's 14th subsea cable investment globally.

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5G Spectrum Prices in India: TRAI Said to Be Unlikely to Review Base Price

The Digitial Communications Commission (DCC) in its last meeting on June 13 decided to refer the spectrum proposals back to the regulator for a review and clarification on many aspects, including a relook at the base price.

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Saturday, June 29, 2019

Bitcoin Volatility on Full Display With $1,800 Drop in Minutes

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Tesla Says Single Battery Module Caused Car Fire in Shanghai, Has Changed Vehicle Settings

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Airtel Offering Free Netflix, Amazon Prime Subscriptions and More to V-Fiber Broadband Customers

Airtel has announced that its ‘V-Fiber’ home broadband customers will get exclusive benefits as a part of the #AirtelThanks rewards programme.

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Tesla Says Single Battery Module Caused Car Fire in Shanghai, Has Changed Vehicle Settings

Tesla said a single battery module caused a car to catch fire in Shanghai and it had revised its vehicle settings to further protect its batteries following an investigation into the incident.

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Flipkart to Replace 40 Percent of Its Delivery Vans With Electric Vehicles

Flipkart said late Thursday it plans to replace nearly 40 percent of its current fleet of delivery vans with electric vehicles (EVs) by March 2020, as part of its efforts to cut down on its carbon footprint.

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Boeing Now Aims to Finish Software Fix for 737 Max in September

Boeing says it expects to finish work on updated flight-control software for the 737 Max in September, a sign that the troubled jet likely won't be flying until late this year.

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Spider-Man: Far From Home Tickets Now Live on BookMyShow, PVR in a Few Cities

Spider-Man: Far From Home ticket bookings are now live in India, strangely two days ahead of what Sony Pictures had promised.

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Hear Shah Rukh Khan as Mufasa in the New Hindi Trailer for The Lion King

Disney India has released a new Hindi-language trailer for its upcoming remake of The Lion King, with Shah Rukh Khan as the voice of Mufasa.

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Henry Cavill Cast as Sherlock Holmes in Enola Holmes, a Film Centred on His Younger Sister

Superman star Henry Cavill has been cast as Sherlock Holmes in the upcoming film adaptation of The Enola Holmes Mysteries, which focuses on the younger sister (Millie Bobby Brown) of the already-famous private detective.

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Salma Hayek Might Join Angelina Jolie, Richard Madden in Marvel’s The Eternals: Report

Salma Hayek is reportedly being considered to star in The Eternals, Marvel Studios' adaptation of the comic book series of the same name, which has already cast the likes of Angelina Jolie, Richard Madden, and Kumail Nanjiani.

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Charlie’s Angels Trailer: Kristen Stewart Trains Naomi Scott in Elizabeth Banks’ Film

The first trailer for the new Charlie’s Angels is here. Kristen Stewart, Naomi Scott, and big-screen newcomer Ella Balinska are the new female trio, with Elizabeth Banks as writer and director.

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Apple Music Hits More Than 60 Million Subscribers, Trailing Spotify

Apple confirmed that the company's streaming music service has more than 60 million subscribers, trailing rival Spotify's 100 million premium subscribers.

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Airtel Offering Free Netflix, Amazon Prime Subscriptions and More to V-Fiber Broadband Customers

Airtel has announced that its ‘V-Fiber’ home broadband customers will get exclusive benefits as a part of the #AirtelThanks rewards programme.

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UK Is ‘Very, Very Keen’ to Learn India's Ability to Create Tech Talent at Scale: techUK's Simon Spier

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Instagram Rolling Out New UI, Making It Easier to Unfollow Users, Contact Businesses

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YouTube Music Gets 'Smart Downloads' Feature to Save Up to 500 Favourite Tracks Automatically

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How to Sync Subtitles in VLC on Mac, PC, iPhone, and Android Mobiles

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Samsung Mass Producing Out-Folding Phone, May Launch Before Huawei Mate X: Report

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LG W30 vs Redmi Note 7S: Price in India, Specifications Compared

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HP Spectre x360 13 Review

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Qualcomm Snapdragon 855 Becomes First Mobile Chip to Receive BSI Certification

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Google, University of Chicago Sued Over Data Sharing

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Oppo Reno 10x Zoom Sold Out in India, Company Scales Up Production

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Friday, June 28, 2019

The credit for my revival goes to me alone: Shami

Mohammed Shami has been to hell and back in the last one and half years, fighting accusations of domestic violence. As a result, he was dropped from the BCCI's central contract list pending inquiry, and also sat out a Test match on fitness ground.

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5 days before the Budget, a silver lining for finance minister

NEW DELHI: Rainfall in the first four weeks has been among the worst ever while its distribution has been as poor as in the drought year of 2014, but the situation is improving as the monsoon has revived in the past week, and crop planting can quickly reach normal level if the country gets good rainfall in the next two weeks.As in 2014, the first of two successive years of poor monsoon, June rainfall has been normal or excessive in only about a quarter of the districts, with the rest being largely dry. This is bad for agriculture as half of the total farmland depends entirely on rains for water.Total rainfall so far in June is 35% below average, but it is already much better than the deficit of 43% last week. As a result, crop planting — which was 12% below normal a week ago — is now about 10% less than normal for this time of the year.The progress of the monsoon, which delivers about three-quarters of India’s annual rainfall, is a key determinant of agri output and rural incomes.These in turn influence demand for consumer goods, gold and automobiles in rural areas, where two-thirds of Indians live.Weather scientists say the initial phase of the monsoon was marred by adverse climatic conditions. The El Nino phenomenon had started developing which delayed the onset of the southwest monsoon by a week and severely retarded its northward movement.69997263 The threat of El Nino has now ebbed, which has helped the monsoon regain momentum.Further, another phenomenon called the Indian Ocean Dipole, which measures the temperature difference between the eastern and western part of the water body, had turned favourable for the vital monsoon system in India.When June rainfall is bad, total June-September rainfall has often been well below normal but there are notable exceptions like in 1926, when June was 48.3% below average but an exceptionally wet August rainfall made the total rainfall 7% higher than normal.In the last 50 years, June rainfall has been worse only in 2014 and in 2009, when farmers were ravaged by the worst drought in 37 years.The weather office has predicted heavy rainfall in western and northern India from the middle of next week. The recent spurt of rainfall has improved the situation in the main grain producing states of Punjab and Haryana as well as Odisha, Bihar, Gujarat, Telangana and parts of Maharashtra and Karnataka. However, rainfall has declined in some parts of Saurashtra, Tamil Nadu and eastern Rajasthan in the past week.The weather office has stood by its initial forecast of monsoon rainfall being 96% of average in the June-September season.

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Trump has a change of heart in Osaka

NEW DELHI: US President Donald Trump told Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday that “Indo-US ties have never been better than this” and pledged “very big” trade deals in manufacturing and 5G between the two countries. That appeared to mark a complete turnabout from his fulminations against India’s “high tariffs” on Thursday. The two leaders,who met on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Osaka, have directed their officials to address irritants over trade.Trump also congratulated Modi on his sweeping election victory. “You did indeed have a landslide election and that was a great election. You have done a great job in pulling everyone together. Many factions were fighting, I remember when you first took over and we were talking, they were fighting with each other and now they are loving you,” Trump said. “I think it is a fantastic tribute to you and your abilities. Thank you for the relationship and the friendship,” he said.The US president also told Modi that “it’s been a lot of fun dealing with you”, adding that major deals were in the offing.“I think we will have something big to announce — very big trade deals,” Trump said. “We will have very big things with India in terms of trade, in terms of manufacturing, in terms of manufacturing 5G. We had some good talks. I think you will hear some very productive elements come out.”The US wants India to shut out Chinese company Huawei over security concerns, just as the South Asian nation is about to start 5G trials. Huawei is a leader in the technology.Trump and Modi were holding their first standalone bilateral meeting since November 2017.They said that trade ministers of both countries would meet at an early date and sort out contentious issues relating to market access, trade barriers and trade imbalance.“The relationship with India I don’t believe has ever been better than this,” Trump said as the meeting began. “India is doing very well as a country. We are doing very well as a country.”Foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale later told reporters there were four issues on the table — Iran, 5G, trade and defence relations. On Iran, the two sides agreed to remain in touch to ensure that the situation in the region remained stable, Gokhale said.Besides issues regarding peace and stability in the region, Modi outlined India’s energy concerns and said although Iran supplied as much as 11% of its needs, it had reduced oil imports from the West Asian country even though this hurt the economy.Modi told Trump that a large number of Indians reside in the region and it had economic interests as well. “Therefore, it’s in India’s fundamental interests to have peace and stability in the region,” Gokhale said.The PM also recalled that the country had despatched two naval ships for the protection of Indian-flagged vessels passing through the Strait of Hormuz, a point which Trump appreciated. He hoped that oil prices would remain stable and that the US was doing its best to ensure this. On 5G, Modi told Trump that it was a new area in communications that provided an opportunity for collaboration between India and the US.“The Prime Minister outlined that we are going to be a billion users of this technology and, in that sense, India is the secondlargest market in the world. The way India moves, whatever choices India makes essentially determine the way the global trend will go,” Gokhale said, adding that Modi pointed out the need to collaborate “to see how we can leverage this.”“The billion Indian users and India’s capacity in technology development and startups and design and Silicon Valley and its role in development of 5G technology for mutual benefit” were discussed, Gokhale said.Modi also highlighted the Make in India programme in this context.Trump is understood to have welcomed the idea and said relevant ministers of the two countries would meet to look at opportunities that the businesses of both sides can leverage and collaborate on. The Prime Minister, according to the foreign secretary, referred to the withdrawal of special export privileges accorded by the US to India and the retaliatory step taken by India to impose duties on 28 items the US exported to India as “something that had already happened and that we should now look forward and see how we can resolve some of the issues”.Gokhale said it was a “very productive discussion” and a “very open discussion” and “we will take this forward.” The discussion on defence relations was, however, cut short due to the two leaders having other engagements, the foreign secretary added.The two leaders exchanged perspectives on progress in the strategic partnership and developing new ideas to bring it to the next level, persons familiar with the matter told ET. The leaders acknowledged the “unprecedented breadth and depth of bilateral ties,” including economic matters, trade, energy, defence, security, counterterrorism and space, said one of the persons. “The leaders affirmed that, as responsible democracies, a close partnership between the US and India is central to global peace and stability,” said another person.“They reiterated their commitment to provide strong leadership to address global challenges and build prosperity for their citizens in the decades to come.”

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Indian café chain market will reach Rs 4,540 cr by 2023: Report

NEW DELHI: India is now the world’s 10th fastest growing market for specialist coffee and tea retail chains, valued at Rs 2,570 crore in 2018, says a report by market researcher Euromonitor International. The café chain market, led by Cafe Coffee Day and Tata Starbucks, is also one of the fastest growing categories in the consumer food service industry, estimated to grow 6.9% a year to Rs 4,540 crore by 2023 in value sales at constant prices exclusive of inflation. In comparison, the Rs 12,845-crore cola carbonated soft drinks market, though on a much larger base, is estimated to grow at 3% a year for the next five years, the report said. (See graphic.) “Specialist coffee shops appeal to young people, especially in large cities, as they not only offer highquality coffee, but also free Wi-Fi and a friendly environment,” the report said. “Consumers frequenting cafes in India are primarily 18-35 years old which comprises the country’s primary working force with higher disposable income and fast-paced lives.”Euromonitor said the outlook for both independent and chained cafes and specialist coffee and tea shops remained strong on the back of constant innovation and wider offering. Some products, such as cold brew coffee, are displaying exceptional growth. “One area with strong long-term growth prospects is tea, which has traditionally mainly been consumed at home,” the report said.On the other hand, aerated beverage makers are looking to diversify their businesses as consumers world over increasingly opt for healthier options.“In the last few years, consumer preferences have shifted towards non-sugary healthier alternatives,” said Amulya Pandit, senior research analyst at Euromonitor International. “PepsiCo gets more than 50% of its global revenue from foods, while Coca-Cola doesn’t have that leverage. Therefore, it is looking to diversify its business in non-alcoholic drinks categories other than carbonated drinks.”

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At least 15 killed in wall collapse following continuous rains in Pune

At least 15 people were killed as a portion of the compound wall of a residential complex collapsed on shanties following incessant rains in Pune, police said on Saturday. The shanties were built for the labourers working at a construction site nearby, they said.

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Jet grounded, international fares take to the sky

MUMBAI: The slump in international capacity created by the grounding of Jet Airways has led to a steep rise in overseas airfares, said executives at airlines and travel companies.Flights to destinations such as London, New York and Toronto have seen the biggest increase. For instance, fares on the Mumbai-New York route rose as much as 157% between March and June, according to data compiled by travel portal Cleartrip.Jet Airways suspended all operations on April 17, having run out of money to operate, although it had been cancelling flights all year before that. Until December, it operated close to 120 daily international flights, which contributed about 60% of its revenue. The abrupt stoppage had meant that some planes were unable to make their scheduled trips back to India. “There has been a major decline in capacity, especially in the medium-to-long haul sectors and we have seen a significant spurt in pricing,” said Rakshit Desai, managing director at FCM Travel Solutions, a corporate travel company. “Sectors such as Mumbai-London, where Jet had as many as three daily flights, have been deeply affected. Leisure travellers, especially those booked on Jet earlier, have suffered the most as they have had to rebook their flights at the last minute at steep prices.”The sharpest rise has come in upper class ticket fares, he said. “It has been difficult to get tickets — business class fares on almost every long-haul sector have more than doubled,” said a top executive at a low-fare carrier. The ministry of civil aviation last week gave away close to 400 international arrival and departure slots to Jet’s rivals. 69997325 Half of them went to state-run Air India, the country’s only carrier that has long-haul operations.The other half were allocated to low-fare carriers led by market leader IndiGo. The government has done the same with Jet’s domestic slots. Local fares too have been rising after Jet’s grounding of flights. But there will be some moderation in these after rivals add capacity to fill the gap.Experts said it won’t be the same for international routes. Low-fare carriers operate to short-haul destinations such as those in the Gulf and Southeast Asia. Air India, itself cashstrapped, has had to ground several planes for lack of spares and will find it difficult to quickly add capacity to capture Jet’s market. Foreign carriers, except in the case of the US and UK, are constrained by bilateral agreements. And, American and British carriers aren’t expected to quickly add capacity to serve the Indian market.Also, Jet had built up a network of partnerships with about 150 foreign carriers over the years.“Jet’s passengers had access to a massive codeshare and interline network built over the course of more than two decades. All of that is wiped out and will take years to replicate or build,” said Manish Dureja, managing director of Jet Privilege, the loyalty programme jointly owned by Jet and its 24% partner Etihad Airways. Dureja was earlier vice president of marketing for Jet.The airline is currently undergoing bankruptcy resolution after attempts to come up a rescue plan failed.

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G20: PM Modi holds separate talks with leaders

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Trai stands by its Rs 3,050-cr fine on telcos

NEW DELHI|MUMBAI: The telecom regulator has rejected the proposition of the Digital Communications Commission (DCC) to reduce the `3,050-crore penalty that the watchdog had recommended against Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea. It’s also set to reject the telecom department’s suggestion to reduce the 5G spectrum reserve price, underlining the differences between the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) and the DCC on critical issues. A senior official at the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) told ET that Trai had said, “We stand by our recommendations (on the penalties).” The matter will now go back to the DCC, the highest decision-making body in the DoT.The companies are being penalised for denying points of interconnect to Reliance Jio Infocomm back in 2016. ET had reported on June 28 that Trai was set to reject the DCC’s call, saying there was no provision for the regulator to lower the penalty in the absence of any specific DoT guidelines on graded penalties for violations. On 5G pricing, senior Trai officials said the regulator was unlikely to back down and will stick to the suggested price of Rs 492 per MHz for the 5G band of 3300-3600 MHz, which the industry has termed exorbitant and unsustainable, likely resulting in a failed auction.“If any spectrum goes completely unsold, that is when historically the regulator has any case for reducing the prices,” a senior official told ET. Officials in the DoT, which is sending a reference back to the regulator seeking a reduction in 5G rates, believe prices need to be lowered, keeping in mind the financial health of the industry. The telecom regulator is set to stand by its suggested rates for the bandwidth, which will be sold for the first time in spectrum auctions.“The regulator has to listen to industry’s demands,” a senior DoT official told ET. “What they will send is just the recommendation — these won’t be their final views.” He added that that the final decision on 5G pricing will be taken by the government. Another official said reserve prices needed to be cut in order to ensure a successful rollout of 5G. “We want the 5G rollout to happen,” he said. “Industry is very clear that they can’t afford it at these rates and we will need to listen to them.”But Trai feels that 5G technology won’t be restricted to telecom players and has widespread use in industry. “Look at Germany,” said an official. “The government has reserved as much as a third of available 5G spectrum for industrial use for companies such as Volkswagen and Siemens who wish to use it for wireless automation and establishing their own 5G networks.”The authority is of the view that if telecom companies do not buy 5G airwaves, the government should keep the airwaves for other companies that might use it better.“Spectrum is no longer going to be a resource only for telecom companies going forward,” the official said. “That opportunity of this technology must reflect in the price. It is very important for the overall economic and digital growth of the country.” Trai officials rejected the contention that the pricing would make India’s 5G airwaves the most expensive in the world.“In South Korea and Italy, spectrum is given for a period of 10 years,” one of them said. “In India, it’s for 20 years. Secondly, the industry conveniently leaves out the fact that the price of spectrum which they quote in these countries is per MHz per million population, which means that Italy is the size of one Andhra Pradesh, not the entire country. Obviously, the pan-India price will take many such countries into consideration. The moment you include that parameter, we are not expensive.”India also offered options such as staggered payment, which other countries don’t have, he said.While the price of spectrum in India in absolute terms is high, when computed on the basis MHz per population, the reserve price — when compared with rates in Italy, South Korea, Australia, UK, Austria and Spain — are the lowest in the world, according to CLSA. Italy is most expensive at $0.42 per capita, while India is at $0.05, based on the reserve price.Officials added that Trai had already reduced the price of certain bands by over 30% in its recommendations last year.Trai last year slashed the base price of premium 4G airwaves in the 700 MHz band by almost 43% and set Rs 492 crore per unit as the minimum rate for 5G spectrum. Sale of the entire Rs 8,500-crore MHz of airwaves available across the country at the recommended reserve price may fetch the government more than Rs 5.9 lakh crore. Auctions are expected to be held at the year end.

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Customs regime may be tweaked to boost make in India

NEW DELHI: India is likely to revamp its customs duty regime, weeding out some exemptions and correcting inverted duty structures to give a boost to the government’s Make in India manufacturing initiative as well as exports.It is also considering easing of procedures for industry such as anonymous assessments and speedier clearances, while taking steps to curb evasion.Some of these measures could be announced in the budget for FY20 on July 5 as India looks to take advantage of companies wanting to diversify their global production and set up base in the country.“There will be a review in respect of encouraging domestic manufacturing,” said a government official.Policymakers are of the view that some exemptions on commodities and other items should be weeded out.Sectors such as telecom, metals, batteries and chemicals for electric vehicles could see changes. The government had earlier imposed and enhanced duties on smartphones and telecom equipment. It is now expected to undertake a comprehensive review that could lead to reduction of duties on some critical inputs used in the manufacture of phones while raising it on finished products to further encourage domestic manufacture of handsets.69997071 Vietnam has been able to woo a number of telecom companies from China and policymakers feel that now may be the right time to offer a conducive tax regime to such investors to set up shop in the country.While a number of companies have established assembly lines, the government wants the entire manufacturing chain to be located in India.Experts say any increase in duties would negate the impact of free trade agreements that levy zero duty on many products.“Realigning exemptions to encourage Make in India is a step in right direction,” said Rahul Shukla, executive director, PwC. “However, imports under FTAs (free trade agreements) continue to have an impact on domestic industry.” Trade Facilitation Tops Agenda The government is also eyeing simplification of procedures for exporters and importers. The move to anonymous assessment is aimed at greater efficiency and transparency in functioning. Ease of doing business weighs high on the government’s agenda. The country jumped 23 points in the World Bank’s last ease of doing business ranking to 77 and a push is on to enter the top 50.Single-window clearance has already been put in place for traders. Measures to boost exports, including tax refunds, are also on the anvil. While enhancing facilitation, the government is also looking at tightening some provisions to check tax evasion. “Proposed faceless assessment in customs, hopefully, will increase the processing efficiencies and remove the physical interface and associated hassles,” said Shukla. An inverted structure is one in which the import duty on finished goods is lower than that on the materials or parts that go into making such a product, thus acting as a disincentive for local manufacture.

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G20 live: PM holds talks with Brazilian Prez

After a first day dominated by public shows of bonhomie, all eyes at the G20 Summit on Saturday turn to a pivotal trade showdown between economic rivals China and the United States. PM Modi is also holding important plurilateral and bilateral meetings with world leaders. Stay here for all live updates:

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YouTube Music Gets 'Smart Downloads' Feature to Save Up to 500 Favourite Tracks Automatically

YouTube Music for Android version 3.19.54 brings the Smart Downloads feature that replaces the existing Offline Mixtape option.

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Typewriter Trailer Sets Up Netflix, Sujoy Ghosh’s Haunted House Mystery Thriller Series

Netflix has released the trailer for Typewriter, its next Indian original series from Kahaani writer-director Sujoy Ghosh, which has a release date of July 19.

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Netflix’s The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance Casts Game of Thrones, Marvel Stars

Netflix has expanded the star-studded cast of The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, by adding Sigourney Weaver, Lena Headey, Benedict Wong, Awkwafina, Hannah John-Kamen, and Dave Goelz.

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Google Workers Petition San Francisco Pride to Exclude Company From Parade

Almost 100 Google employees are urging the organiser of this weekend's San Francisco Pride parade to kick the company out of the celebration.

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Fast and Furious 9 Begins Filming, Cast and Crew Share Set Photos

Fast and Furious 9 is now in production, with the first leg of filming kicking off in London on Monday. Vin Diesel, Michelle Rodriguez, and Justin Lin shared photos and videos from the set.

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Huawei Warns US Patent Curbs Would Hurt Global Tech

Huawei warned Thursday a US senator's proposal to block the company from pursuing damages in patent courts would be a "catastrophe for global innovation."

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Huawei Employees Worked With China Military on Research Projects: Report

Huawei employees worked on at least 10 research projects with Chinese armed forces personnel over the past decade, Bloomberg reported.

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Huawei Says It Got Over $1.4 Billion in Licensing Revenue Since 2015

Huawei said it has paid more than $6 billion in royalties to legally implement intellectual property of other companies.

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BSNL Brings Rs. 1,345 Prepaid Recharge Plan With 1.5GB Daily Data Benefits for 365 Days

Rs. 1,345 BSNL prepaid recharge plan is valid in the Kerala circle as a promotional offer until September 19.

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Huawei Says 5G 'Business as Usual' Despite US Sanctions

Huawei said that its 5G business has not been impacted by the recent US sanctions amid a prolonged trade war between the world's two largest economies.

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Boeing 737 Max Jet Sees Another Software Flaw

A new software problem has been found in the troubled Boeing 737 Max that could push the plane's nose down automatically.

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Delhi Government Announces Pilot Project to Deliver Online Orders via Electric Vehicles

Delhi government announced its first EV freight pilot under which up to 1,000 such vehicles are aimed to be deployed over the next year for delivering online orders.

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G20: Crunch time as US-China showdown looms

After a first day dominated by public shows of bonhomie, all eyes at the G20 Saturday turn to a pivotal trade showdown between economic rivals China and the United States. US President Donald Trump and China President Xi Jinping will meet in a bid to thrash out a truce in a long-running trade war that has seen hundreds of billions of dollars in tit-for-tat tariffs.

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Thursday, June 27, 2019

US Waives Tariffs on Japanese Aluminium for Tesla Battery Cells

US Commerce Department has agreed to Tesla’s request to waive 10 percent tariffs on imported aluminium from Japan used in the manufacture of battery cells at Tesla's Nevada Gigafactory.

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DJI Plans to Build Drones in California Amid US Security Concern

DJI Technology has said it plans to use a company warehouse in California to assemble them, a move that follows security concerns raised by some US lawmakers.

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Redmi K20 Pro India Launch Date, Samsung M40 Sale, Poco F1 Price Cut, Asus 6Z, and More Tech News This Week

Redmi K20 Pro, Redmi K20 India launch details, Samsung M40 sale, Poco F1 price cut, and Asus 6Z launch were some of the tech news developments this week.

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Kiara Advani Cast in Karan Johar-Produced Netflix Film Guilty

Kiara Advani (Kabir Singh) has been cast in Karan Johar-produced Netflix Indian film Guilty, which is slated to release in 2019.

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Spider-Man: Far From Home Release Date in India, Tickets, Cast, Review, Spoilers, and More

Spider-Man: Far From Home release date in India, cast, trailer, spoilers, review, tickets, and more — here’s all you need to know about the next movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

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Amazon Prime Day 2019: A Star Is Born, Venom, Kalank Among 14 Titles to Release in 14-Day Run-Up

Amazon has announced 14 new movie and TV series titles that will be dropping on Prime Video in the 14-day run-up to Prime Day 2019, which runs for two days from July 15-16 even though it’s singular in the name.

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Spider-Man: Far From Home Release Date in India Brought Forward to July 4

Spider-Man: Far From Home has a new release date in India: July 4. Sony Pictures Entertainment India has decided to bring forward the new Marvel Cinematic Universe movie by a day.

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Black Widow Set Photos Reveal Florence Pugh Might Play Yelena Belova in Prequel Movie

New set photos from Black Widow’s production in Budapest, Hungary have revealed that Yelena Belova might be a part of the film. Given what we know of the Black Widow movie cast, it’s likely that Florence Pugh (Lady Macbeth) will play Yelena Belova.

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iQiyi, China’s Netflix, Looks Abroad After Hitting 100 Million Paying Subscribers

iQiyi, China's answer to Netflix, intends to push harder into overseas markets such as North America and Japan after the video-streaming service hit a milestone of 100 million paying subscribers this month.

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Cricket World Cup 2019: Hotstar Breaks Record With 100 Million Daily Active Users on India vs Pakistan Match Day

The India vs Pakistan match marked a 1.7x increase in average concurrency on Hotstar compared to any other India match so far.

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Spider-Man: Far From Home Has Two Post-Credits Scenes: Report

Spider-Man: Far From Home reportedly has two post-credits scenes according to members of the press who attended the early screening for the upcoming Marvel movie last week.

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Spider-Man: Far From Home Alleged Spoilers Leaked on Reddit, 4chan

Those lucky enough to catch an early screening of Spider-Man: Far From Home have been posting alleged plot spoilers on 4chan and Reddit over the past week.

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Toy Story 4 Delivers Biggest Opening Weekend for Animated Movies With $238 Million Worldwide

Toy Story 4 ruled the worldwide box office this past weekend with a global opening of $238 million, the highest-ever opening for an animated title, improving on Disney-Pixar’s own Incredibles 2.

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The Office Indian Remake Sets June Release Date on Hotstar

Hotstar has set a June 28 release date for the Indian remake of The Office, the Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant-created British series that aired on BBC.

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Netflix Spotted Testing a Pop-Out, Picture-in-Picture Video Player on Desktop

Netflix seems to be testing a new pop-out, floating video player that plays content on top of all other windows and apps on your desktop.

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Redmi K20 Pro India Launch Date, Samsung M40 Sale, Poco F1 Price Cut, Asus 6Z, and More Tech News This Week

Redmi K20 Pro, Redmi K20 India launch details, Samsung M40 sale, Poco F1 price cut, and Asus 6Z launch were some of the tech news developments this week.

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YouTube Tests Hiding Comments by Default on Android in India

YouTube for Android appears to have added a 'Comments' button to hide comments for some users in India.

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The Best TV Series on Netflix in India

From Sacred Games to The Crown, here are the best TV series on Netflix in India.

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Black Widow Movie Might Be Like Breaking Bad Prequel Better Call Saul, Says Kevin Feige

Marvel isn’t ready to confirm that a standalone Black Widow movie is in the works, but Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige has hinted that it would likely be a prequel — and that it might be a bit like Better Call Saul, the prequel series to Breaking Bad.

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Best Movies on Hotstar Right Now

From Avengers: Infinity War to Mughal-e-Azam, here are the best movies on Hotstar in India.

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The Lion King Hindi Dub Casts Asrani, Sanjay Mishra, Shreyas Talpade, and Ashish Vidyarthi

Disney India has added four new voice actors to the Hindi-language dub of The Lion King remake: Ashish Vidyarthi as Scar, Shreyas Talpade as Timon, Sanjay Mishra as Pumbaa, and Asrani as Zazu.

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In Final Stranger Things Season 3 Trailer, the Monster Has a Voice

With Stranger Things season 3 less than two weeks away, Netflix has released a new and final trailer that shows what the Hawkins teenagers are up against and gives a voice to the monster.

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Toy Story 4 Review: A Terrific Blend of Emotion and Action

Woody, Buzz Lightyear, and the rest of the toy gang are back in Toy Story 4, as they set off on a road trip with new toy Forky. On the way, Woody reunites with Bo Peep, who teaches him that there’s more to a toy’s life than loving your human.

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Wednesday, June 26, 2019

Redmi K20 Pro India Launch Date, Samsung M40 Sale, Poco F1 Price Cut, Asus 6Z, and More Tech News This Week

Waymo Teams Up With Renault, Nissan on Robotaxis Outside US

Waymo is teaming up with automakers Renault and Nissan to make its first journey outside the US with a ride-hailing service that will dispatch a fleet of robotaxis in France and Japan.

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India Plans to Exempt Electric Vehicles From Registration Fee

India has issued draft rules to exempt electric vehicles from paying registration fee, the government said Wednesday.

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Coca-Cola sits down for stake talks with CCD

Coca-Cola is in exclusive talks to pick up a significant stake in Café Coffee Day (CCD) as the soft drinks giant looks to gain a foothold in the rapidly growing space and hedge risks associated with its core carbonated drinks business, said executives with knowledge of the matter.Talks are in the early stages and may not lead to a deal, they said. “The potential stake acquisition is being driven by Coca-Cola’s headquarters in Atlanta and officials from the beverage maker’s global team are engaged in active talks with the Coffee Day management,” said one of the persons. “It would give Coca-Cola significant scale in the fast-growing café business, compared to aerated soft drinks, which have been slowing down.”ET broke the story in its online edition on Wednesday.A Coca-Cola spokesperson said, “This news is absolutely speculative in nature. As a matter of company policy, we do not have any comments to offer at this point.” Coffee Day Enterprises didn’t respond to queries.Promoted by VG Siddhartha, the country’s largest coffee chain is owned by Coffee Day Global, a subsidiary of Coffee Day Enterprises. With a footprint of 1,752 cafés as of March 2019, CCD is market leader in the organised café space. It competes with Starbucks and smaller chains such as Barista and Costa Coffee. In India, Starbucks operates through a venture with the Tatas and has 146 stores.CCD’s expansion plans have slowed over the past two years on the back of rising debt.‘Coca-Cola Can Play A Good Role’Café Coffee Day is also facing fresh competition from tea shop chains such as Chaayos and Chai Point and boutique coffee shops. It shut 90 small format stores in FY18.Coffee Day Enterprises reported standalone net sales of Rs 76.9 crore for the March quarter, up 43.64% from the year earlier. Losses widened to Rs 22.28 crore from Rs 16.52 crore. It has been reporting same-store sales growth of 10-11% over the past three quarters.“Cafe Coffee Day introduced India to the café culture back in 1990s and has been able to build a massive footprint,” said Jaspal Sabharwal, veteran private equity professional and cofounder of online product review platform TagTaste. “But the chain badly needs some innovation and facelift. There has been plenty of innovation in the café industry in recent years, but not enough of it has come from giant brands. Coca-Cola can play a very good role in this space.”While Coca-Cola had announced the global acquisition of British coffee chain Costa Coffee in August 2018 from parent company Whitbread Plc for $5.1 billion, the deal had little significance for India. Costa Coffee, which is operated by RJ Corp-promoted Devyani International in India, has less than 50 stores. Globally, however, Costa Coffee has close to 4,000 stores and another 8,000-plus Costa Express vending machines.Siddhartha had sold a 20.32% stake held by him and two CCD affiliate firms (Coffee Day Enterprises and Coffee Day Trading) in software services company Mindtree to Larsen & Toubro in March for Rs 3,200 crore, which was largely seen as a move to pare debts and focus on his consumer-facing café business.The listed Coffee Day Enterprises, with a market cap of Rs 4,732 crore, closed 3.87% up on the BSE on Wednesday.The Chikkamagaluru-based Coffee Day Enterprises is Asia’s largest producer of Arabica coffee beans.It grows coffee on 20,000 acres of self-owned estates and set up the first Café Coffee Day in 1996 in Bengaluru. Internationally, CCD has a presence in Vienna, the Czech Republic, Malaysia, Nepal and Egypt.The café chain business is an attractive channel for traditional beverages and foods makers. In the middle of last year, Swiss food giant Nestlé struck a $7.1-billion deal with Starbucks to license and sell its packaged coffees and teas across global markets.While the global market for packaged coffee and drinks is estimated at $83 billion by Euromonitor, compared with the $513 billion market for soft drinks, it is growing significantly faster.

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Tata Global seeks new captain to power its FMCG ambitions

The Tata Group has shortlisted a few candidates to become the new chief executive of its beverages company Tata Global Beverages (TGBL) to help build a scalable FMCG business in India, people familiar with the development said.Senior Unilever executives Sanjiv Kakkar, JV Raman and Hemant Bakshi and the CEO of a leading Indian foods company are among those being shortlisted for the job. Current CEO Ajoy Misra will handhold the new hire until his one-year term ends in March 2020, they said.TGBL declined to comment on the CEO hiring. “We will make the necessary announcements at the appropriate time,” a spokesperson said.Tata Sons chairman N Chandrasekaran had acknowledged at TGBL's AGM recently that the company's financial metrics were inadequate, and that tea and water businesses cannot provide the required scale to grow the maker of Tata Tea, Tetley, Eight O’Clock coffee and Himalayan mineral water brands.The Kolkata-based company has transformed from a plantations company to a branded beverages company and will soon change into a foods company due to the proposed transfer of the consumer products business of Tata Chemicals. TGBL will be renamed Tata Consumer Products after completion of the transfer of the salt, spices and pulses businesses.“The company wants to ensure the CEO has the right experience to build global brands,” said an official close to the development.Former Unilever director Harish Manwani is an independent member on the board of Tata Sons.TGBL reported consolidated revenues of Rs 7,251 crore for FY19 with a net profit of Rs 408 crore. The company’s topline and bottomline have largely remained flat in recent years. Raw material burden on revenues has been rising steadily. Its international business has been a drag on its performance. The coffee business in the US is sluggish and the black tea market in the UK has been declining. The company has been exiting non-performing international operations in Russia, Sri Lanka and China.For a FMCG company, TGBL has very low return on capital employed and return on net worth at 9.3% at 6.6%, respectively, for fiscal 2019. Typically, foods businesses need a 10-15 year plan to scale it up and build a presence in the country.Top officials close to the development said internally there is no business clarity yet among TGBL executives about the plan to grow the pulses portfolio acquired from Tata Chemicals. The FMCG business would require a massive overhaul to stay relevant and competitive, they said. 69966961 “The back-end of TGBL, such as supply chain, product development and warehousing, is lagging behind compared to competitors,” one of the sources said. Also, the company would need to scale up its core tea, coffee and water businesses to support the acquisition of the pulses business from Tata Chemicals, the sources said.A TGBL spokesperson said the company would absorb Tata Chemicals’ consumer products division and its food science technology team at the innovation centre, which will continue to work on the food business. “The combined business reach (Including food business) will be 200 million households,” he said. “We have a strong sales and distribution network in place and clear plans to strengthen and scale it up further. A digitally enabled sales, distribution and supply chain transformation initiative is well underway to further enhance reach and improve channel efficiency.”TGBL has a complex structure with 39 subsidiaries. The management has been restructuring its operations, and consolidation of arms is one of the agendas, company insiders said. However, the merger of Tata Coffee, a listed subsidiary, with TGBL has been ruled out for now, they said.

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Coca-Cola sits down for stake talks over coffee with CCD

Government plans WhatsApp-like app for official communication

A senior government official told ET that the way US companies such as Google and Qualcomm are preparing to cut ties with Huawei following Washington’s sanctions against the Chinese company has set alarm bells ringing in New Delhi.

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Local data storage ready, Whatsapp to open payments tap

Company set to go live with UPI-based service with ICICI Bank; move big win for RBI.

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Motorola One Vision to Go on Sale in India Today at 12 Noon via Flipkart: Price, Specifications, Launch Offers

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IL&FS board to consider release of payments to creditors

NEW DELHI: The Infrastructure Leasing & Finanacial Services board will on June 28 take up a proposal to release stuck payments of creditors in 13 group entities, according to a senior government official. An apppellate tribunal had set July 12 as deadline for the IL&FS group to reach an agreement with creditors of these 13 companies to begin releasing payments.These companies have a total outstanding debt of Rs 16,372 crore.IL&FS had earlier agreed in principle to begin servicing the debt of one of the 13 companies—Moradabad Bareilly Expressway—after some creditors agreed to reduce interest rates on outstanding loans and release payments to operational creditors and creditors within the IL&FS group.The group intends to follow a similar process to reach agreements with the creditors of the other 12 companies.The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal had in October granted a moratorium on claims against all group entities to allow for an orderly resolution of IL&FS after shock defaults by the group in September set off a liquidity crunch among non-banking finance companies (NBFCs).Subsequently, the NCLAT directed that 55 group entities begin servicing their debts. The rest 114 domestic group entities, however, are currently not servicing debt obligations.The official also said that IL&FS can proceed with plans to sell these companies through a bidding process akin to the corporate insolvency resolution process under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code if it fails to reach an agreement with their lenders.The government is of the view that monetisation of company assets through infrastructure investment trusts (inVits) would be the best option to resolve the debts of these companies if IL&FS is not able to get a fair value for these entities through the bidding process, the official added.“Bids are a superior alternative but, if there is any problem with getting good offers then inVits would be the ideal alternative,” said the official.InVits are often used to monetise operational infrastructure assets by raising funds from investors who are then entitled to dividends from cash flows to the infrastructure project. Funds raised through inVits can then be used to fulfill debt obligations.

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BSNL to Launch 3 New Broadband Plans With Up to 8Mbps Speed at as Low as Rs. 349 Per Month

Rs. 349, Rs. 399, and Rs. 499 BSNL broadband plans will be available starting July 1.

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Suspected Chinese State Hackers Attack Global Telecom Carriers: Cybereason

Suspected Chinese hackers have infiltrated into the networks of over a dozen telecommunication providers in Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, Cybereason said.

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Huawei's US Research Arm Futurewei Said to Be Building a Separate Identity

US-based research arm of Huawei - Futurewei - has moved to separate its operations from its corporate parent since the US government in May put Huawei on a trade blacklist.

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Jio Added Most Subscribers in April, Airtel and Vodafone Idea Lost Users

Reliance Jio added around 80.82 lakh subscribers in April, showed data released by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) on Monday.

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Kiara Advani Cast in Karan Johar-Produced Netflix Film Guilty

Spider-Man: Far From Home Release Date in India, Tickets, Cast, Review, Spoilers, and More

Amazon Prime Day 2019: A Star Is Born, Venom, Kalank Among 14 Titles to Release in 14-Day Run-Up

Spider-Man: Far From Home Release Date in India Brought Forward to July 4

Black Widow Set Photos Reveal Florence Pugh Might Play Yelena Belova in Prequel Movie

iQiyi, China’s Netflix, Looks Abroad After Hitting 100 Million Paying Subscribers

Cricket World Cup 2019: Hotstar Breaks Record With 100 Million Daily Active Users on India vs Pakistan Match Day

US Waives Tariffs on Japanese Aluminium for Tesla Battery Cells

DJI Plans to Build Drones in California Amid US Security Concern

Tuesday, June 25, 2019

LG W30 India Launch Expected Today at LG W-Series Event: What You Need to Know

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The liquidity debate: Surplus or deficit?

Eight years ago, when Dr Manmohan Singh was serving his second term as Prime Minister and India’s retail inflation neared 9%, the central bank chose to have a hard look at the liquidity adjustment framework to make its rate signals more effective.A panel headed by Reserve Bank of India executive director Deepak Mohanty suggested that the liquidity adjustment facility operate in a deficit mode, with the repo rate, the rate at which RBI lends to banks, being the single policy rate to unambiguously signal monetary policy stance. Citing an example, the panel said a 100 bps change in the repo causes around 80 bps change in the weighted average call rate (WACR) over a month. However, the strength of the response turns out to be relatively small in a surplus liquidity situation. In theory, the job of the central bank is to anchor the overnight call money rate around the policy rate. While this objective works better in developed economies, it remained pretty wayward in India over the last decade.Keeping liquidity “in deficit” is easier said than done.The banking system was awash with funds after demonetisation when humble savers were forced to dig out money kept under the mattresses and deposit them in banks. Former Governor Urjit Patel did his bit to suck out liquidity and restore normalcy, but then lost his chair for sticking to his ground on “slightly deficit” liquidity even after the non-bank credit crisis of 2018, antagonising the government. Patel had a rift with the fiscal authority on issues such as the fate of RBI’s excess reserves and central bank autonomy.His successor Shaktikanta Das, who initially followed the 2011 liquidity guidance, has now flagged expectations of easier flow of funds, setting up an internal working group that will review the existing liquidity management framework, suggest measures to simplify the system, and clearly communicate the objectives, quantitative measures and toolkit of liquidity management. The group is expected to submit its report by mid-July. System liquidity was in surplus of ?16,500 crore at the end of last week vs ?49,500 crore in the previous week.CHANGE IN CONTOURSLiquidity in the system turned into an average daily surplus in June after remaining in deficit during April and most of May due to restrained government spending. RBI said that transmission of the cumulative reduction of 50 bps in the policy repo rate in February and April 2019 was 21 bps to the weighted average lending rate (WALR) on fresh rupee loans. Interest rates on longer tenor money market instruments remained broadly aligned with the overnight weighted average call rate, reflecting near full transmission of the reduction in policy rate.The central bank lowered the policy rate by another 25 bps on June 6, making it the straight third rate cut in the year. The central bank has also changed its stance to accommodative from neutral, which means there would be no possibility of a rate hike in the near horizon. More critically, Das said that the central bank would ensure adequate liquidity in the system for all productive purposes.MARKET GIVES A THUMBS UPThere are many options for the new committee. The Reserve Bank’s MPC could be advised to look beyond the WACR to gauge the liquidity situation in the economy.“Like major central banks, MPC should look at the entire term structure of money market rates to gauge the efficacy of its liquidity stance,” said B Prasanna, head of global markets groups at ICICI Bank. “Second, RBI may ease the daily CRR maintenance framework from the current 99% compliance to 80% or so. This will be indirectly relaxing CRR without officially cutting it. This will improve the banking liquidity condition.”Corporate bond yields in the secondary market in April and May were lower than the lending rate of banks, indicative of the faster transmission of the RBI rate cuts in the bond markets. Corporate bond yields (weighted average in the secondary markets) were 9 bps lower than the banks’ marginal cost-based lending rate (MCLR) in April and 44 bps lower in May, said CARE Ratings. The 10-year government securities benchmark yield has also declined by about 56 basis points from its average in April 2019 to about 6.86%.The softening of bond yields in the secondary market and the consequent softening in the cost of borrowing in the primary market coincided with a rise in bond issuances. Prime Database showed an 86% monthly jump in volume to Rs 45,539 crore in May. The weighted average cost of issuances in the primary market was 13 bps lower at 8.49% compared to the month-ago rate.At the heart of the mismatch between the RBI’s policy and the banks’ failure to pass on the benefit to the borrowers is the slowdown in household savings.“Deposit rates became soft in June as compared to the rates in April. But they are not as soft as was expected by the regulator. This is because small savings rates still remain elevated. A correction is needed in small savings rates for better transmission of monetary policy,” said Allahabad Bank chief executive director SS Mallikarjuna Rao.The transmission in lending rate was restricted merely to new loans. The weighted average lending rate on outstanding rupee loans rose by 4 bps as past loans continue to be priced at high rates.“Increased government borrowing and elevated small savings rates have rendered deposit mobilisation by banks expensive. Also, India’s consumption demand is still not a pronounced credit fuelled or leveraged demand,” Sunil Kumar Sinha, principal economist at India Ratings and Research, said ahead of the third rate cut of the year.The situation at the current juncture has become further complicated due to the crisis in both the banking and the non-bank sectors. While banks are saddled with about 11% of their loans turning bad, NBFCs are struggling with solvency issues leading to credit freeze.This creates a sense of déjà vu. Easier fund flow in inter-bank system in the yesteryears has led to credit underwriting crisis more often than not. RBI, which is at the cusp of cleansing the banking sector balance sheet after a four-year fire-fighting, should not allow it go waste.RBI may do well in harmonising the definition of liquidity and create a more effective communication channel among itself, market players and the government.“The market often confuses between the liquidity availability with the willingness of entities to lend to one another, which is an independent commercial decision,” said CARE Ratings chief economist MadanSabnavis.Rationalisation of market expectations and new ideas and tools are essential, but at the core of the operating framework is monetary transmission.

from Economic Times https://ift.tt/2X06rEF

Ban on audit firms may not hit their entire network

NEW DELHI: Any ban on audit firms may not impact those entities that are part of their networks or their lead partners, a senior government official said. This implies that disruption from a possible prohibition on Deloitte Haskins & Sells and BSR & Co, a KPMG network firm, may not be as widespread as earlier presumed.On the other hand, the government is set to tighten restrictions on audit firms to minimise conflicts of interest, the official said. These will apply to non-audit services offered to the companies they’re auditing, he said. Earlier, this month, the Reserve Bank of India had barred audit firm SR Batliboi & Co, an EY member firm, from auditing commercial banks for a year starting April 1, citing lapses in a statutory audit.“There is a lot of difference between an audit firm being debarred and the network being debarred,” he said. “There may be more than one firm associated with the brand name. The ministry has not asked for debarring the use of the brand name.”The Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) has sought a five-year ban on Deloitte Haskins & Sells and BSR & Co following an investigation into their role as auditors of IL&FS Financial Services (IFIN). The Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO), MCA’s inquiry wing, has alleged that the auditors colluded with the management to conceal information and falsify accounts. 69951103 ET reported on June 12 that KPMG network firms audit 175 listed companies while the count is 167 for the Deloitte network.Prohibited List of Non-audit ServicesThese companies account for about 40% of the market capitalisation of listed companies, according to Prime Database. Deloitte has seven firms while KPMG has six in India. In India, the Big Four firms — EY, KPMG, Deloitte and PwC — operate through separate local entities to abide by Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) rules. The official said that conflict-of-interest rules will be strengthened.“The prohibited list (of non-audit services) may have to be extended, or there can be a cap on the revenue you generate though non-audit services as a percentage of (revenue from) audit service or you can completely ban nonaudit services to an auditee firms or its associates and subsidiaries,” he said.The Companies Act prohibits some non-audit activities, including accounting and bookkeeping, investment advisory, investment banking and management services. The idea is that audits should not be influenced by any other consideration, said the official.Such steps are being debated in developed economies as well, the person said. The UK government, for instance, is considering a plan to get the Big Four firms to separate their audit and consultancy businesses.Some auditors backed the Indian proposal, saying it will eliminate the subjectivity that clouds the current list of such non-audit services.“Restricted services are subjective in nature and therefore open to various interpretation, and in some cases, associate or network firm (of the auditor) is able to keep it out of disqualification criteria,” said Ankit Singhi, partner at Corporate Professionals. He said the government should broaden the disqualification criteria or provide a maximum cap on revenue from non-audit services instead of a complete ban on nonaudit services.The shock default by Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) on repayments in September last year led to a liquidity crunch at nonbanking finance companies (NBFCs) that has roiled the country’s financial markets.

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Government mulling budget sops to put its house in order

NEW DELHI: The government is contemplating measures to boost the housing sector in the budget, seeing this as a quick way of providing an impetus to the slowing economy and creating more jobs.The steps under consideration include a bigger tax benefit to encourage purchases, softer interest rates for affordable housing and restoring some benefits for a second house.“There is a view that some incentives need to be given to encourage the housing sector,” a senior government official said, adding that various options, including higher tax incentives or steps to boost the affordable housing sector, are being considered.Discussions have taken place, the official said, adding that a final call on the proposal will be taken closer to the July 5 budget.69951053 69951054 Policymakers are eyeing measures to reverse the economic slowdown and housing is seen as one of the potential sectors that can aid the process. India’s GDP slowed to a five-year low of 6.8% in FY19.The Narendra Modi-led government had raised the maximum deduction from income for interest paid on a loan for self-occupied house from Rs 1.5 lakh to Rs 2 lakh in its maiden budget in July 2014.DELAYED POSSESSIONEffectively, for a person in highest 30% income tax rate, this meant a rise in tax saving from Rs 45,000 a year to Rs 60,000 a year.Full deduction can be claimed if construction is completed within five years, which leads to issues where possession is delayed. The government could allow some benefit for the preconstruction period, keeping in view the delays faced by buyers. One of the options could be to allow the entire interest deduction for preconstruction.“Bunching of interest of preconstruction period with the current year with a limit of Rs 2 lakh needs to be removed as the individual is never able to recoup the interest actually paid to the bank,” said Rakesh Nangia, founder and managing partner, Nangia Advisors LLP.SECOND HOUSEPreviously, individuals having a second house could claim deduction on the interest paid on the housing loan without any monetary limit in a year. The loss, arising from interest being more than rental income, was eligible for offset against other income. In the budget for FY18, this deduction for interest on a second house had been capped at Rs 2 lakh. The loss is allowed to be carried forward for eight assessment years.However, with lower rental yields, it has become difficult to offset this loss.Tax experts said removal of these restrictions and reverting to the previous regime will provide relief to taxpayers as the primary investment of most of Indians is in real estate.“Investors who have bought houses on loans will be able to set off these losses on account of the big difference in rental yields and prevailing interest rates,” said Amit Maheshwari, partner, Ashok Maheshwary & Associates LLP.Apart from taxpayers, such a move will help clear unsold inventory and provide a boost to the real estate sector, which has been struggling for the last several years, Maheshwari said.

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Airport charges may fall as AERA ambit shrinks

NEW DELHI: The government has decided to more than double the passenger traffic threshold for airports to be categorised as ‘major airports,’ effectively reducing the ambit of the Airports Economic Regulatory Authority (AERA).“The Union Cabinet on Monday approved the note we moved on the issue,” said a senior aviation ministry official who did not want to be identified. The Cabinet also approved an amendment to the AERA Act that will allow the government to bid out private airport projects on the basis of predetermined tariff.AERA was created to decide charges at major airports, handling over 1.5 million passengers per annum. Now, as per an aviation ministry proposal, only airports handling 3.5 million passengers per annum will be classified as ‘major,’ a move that removes 17 airports from this bracket.69951105 AERA, which regulated 30 airports, will now have only 13 airports under it. The job of deciding charges at the remaining 17 now comes back to the civil aviation ministry, and airlines and passengers can expect respite in charges.The regulator was part of the government’s public-private partnership (PPP) plan to develop airports, which required a mechanism to decide charges at airports built through private investment.FLAYED FOR HIGH AIRPORT CHARGESIt decided charges on the basis of a certain rate of return on the amount invested in the airport.AERA was criticised for employing a model that has led to high airport charges, comprising up to15% of the airline’scostof operations. Another official said there was too much in AERA’s kitty due to a double-digit increase in air passengers in the past four years.PREDETERMINED TARIFFThe government can now also bid out private airport projects on the basis of predetermined tariff. “The AERA Act gives powers to the regulator to decide on charges. The amendment will allow the government to award projects after fixing the airport tariff,” said one of the officials quoted above.In the predetermined tariff model, the government will fix the fee that the prospective private airport operator will charge. This will be linked to inflation for any future increase.This model will help keep airport charges under control and also ensure regulatory certainty —not justfor airlines and passengers,but alsofor companies bidding for PPP airport projects.

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Indian Accounting Standards may pose challenge for new IL&FS management

MUMBAI: Amid regulatory scrutiny and resignation of one of its statutory auditors, the audit committee of the Uday Kotak-led board at Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) is closely monitoring the preparation of the financial statements of three group companies.The three companies — IL&FS, IL&FS Financial Services (IFIN) and IL&FS Transportation Network (ITNL) — will be taking the last audited results as the base to prepare these statements.Getting the accounts ready according to the Indian Accounting Standards (Ind-AS) principles will entail making multiple changes in the way financial statements are reported compared for fiscal 2018.The group would be adopting the Ind-AS standards for the first time. A company spokesperson said this would require preparation of an opening balance sheet as on April 1, 2017, a comparative statement of March 31, 2018, a statement of changes in equity and profit and loss statement and balance sheet for March 31, 2019.Sharad Goel, the spokesperson, said: “The company is making all efforts to complete and adopt its accounts (under IndAS) within the stipulated statutory timeline of September 30, 2019, as per the Companies Act, 2013.”One of the technical issues before the audit committee and the finance department of the companies was around the opening balance for the current financial statements, given that investigative agencies have raised questions over the authenticity of certain figures in the previous audited financial statements.“The opening balances for April 1, 2018 will be taken as per past audited accounts. The opening balances will be subject to the outcome of reopening and recasting of accounts which is presently under process,” said Goel.The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) had ordered reopening and recasting of the accounts for IL&FS, IFIN and ITNL from fiscal 2013 to fiscal 2018, a move that was subsequently challenged in the Supreme Court by Hari Sankaran, a former director at IL&FS. On June 5, the top court allowed the reopening and recasting of the past five years’ accounts.This exercise is expected to begin soon under the supervision of the new audit committee.The Serious Fraud Investigation Office, the investigation arm of the Ministry of Corporate Affairs, had alleged that there was evergreening of loans. It has also raised question mark over the authenticity of some figures stated in earlier financial statements.Calculating the opening balance for FY2018 is the main challenge that the management is facing as they try and close books for the financial year 2018-2019, said people in the know.Under the Companies Act, there are two situations when a company can reopen accounts: one, when the board believes there is negligence in preparing accounts or a fraud has been committed; and two, when the government believes the statement of accounts is incorrect. In both cases, the NCLT has to be approached.69951058 Experts said it would be difficult to reopen the accounts, because a lot of documents and people involved in preparing those would be unavailable.In IL&FS, most of the key decision makers and senior management have quit, or are in jail. So, piecing together the accounts will be a nightmare for the firm tasked with preparing the new sets of accounts, as site reports, working notes, collaterals and valuations would require deep consultations with old employees and a deep dive into old records. Also complicating the matter would be the fact that the auditors who had signed on the reporters earlier would defend their positions against the new auditors.A complete restatement of accounts has never been done in India. In the Satyam Computer case, the restatement was done by Deloitte and KPMG using the prior-period statement method.

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Asus 6Z to Go on Sale in India Today at 12 Noon via Flipkart: Price, Specifications, Launch Offers

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Differences between promoters over terms of related party transaction: IndiGo

IndiGo’s co-founder Rakesh Gangwal wants “higher standards” when the airline gets into related party transactions, a demand that is the bone of contention between him and business partner Rahul Bhatia, a top executive at the airline said Monday.“The differences (between the two promoters) is that Mr Gangwal wants higher standards while following related party transactions,” the executive said on the condition of anonymity. “He wants an additional step.”The two promoters were trying to resolve their differences, the executive said.Related party transactions are deals or arrangements between two parties who are joined by a pre-existing business relationship or common interest. In IndiGo’s case, it would, for instance, be the airline’s contract with Novotel, locally owned in part by Bhatia’s Interglobe Enterprises for crew accommodation.The executive clarified the transactions are done at “arm's length” and through a tendering process and Interglobe owned companies don’t always win the contracts.ET had on May 16 reported the differences between the promoters, which if unresolved would hamper the working of the airline.Legal firms Khaitan & Co and J Sagar Associates are helping the founders resolve the problems.On May 18, IndiGo’s CEO Ronojoy Dutta acknowledged there “may be differences” between the promoters .Later, after IndiGo announced its earnings, Dutta reiterated there are differences but said they weren’t about growth strategy, overseas expansion or management changes.Dutta said the promoters are debating “one issue” which will be “resolved soon”.Gangwal, a United Airlines and US Airways veteran, has been the driving force behind IndiGo’s emergence as one of the fastest growing carriers in the world.Gangwal crafted IndiGo’s record-breaking plane orders, its aggressive expansion in India and the ambition to make it a global carrier, which resulted in major changes to the senior management. Gangwal is a US citizen. Bhatia ran the show in India, ably supporting the airline’s growth and manoeuvring regulatory hurdles.Differences cropped up in the last couple of years, with Gangwal insisting IndiGo shouldn’t break its momentum of aggressive growth, while Bhatia opted for a more cautious approach.There were differences also in choosing senior management personnel.Sources have said the differences between the promoters stemmed from a shareholders’ agreement heavily skewed in favour of Bhatia. The agreement expires in October.But in a statement, Gangwal had earlier clarified he didn’t want control of the airline.“I am categorically and clearly stating that there is no interest or desire whatsoever on the part of the RG (Rakesh Gangwal) Group to take control of the company. Also, to put to rest the messaging on the fact that the RG Group is attempting to renegotiate the Shareholders Agreement, I am placing on record that the RG Group stands by the current SHA which, in any case, expires this October”.

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Differences between promoters over terms of related party transaction: IndiGo

Microsoft Planning 9-Inch Foldable Surface Tablet That Runs Android Apps: IHS Markit

Microsoft is planning to launch in 2020 a foldable Surface tablet that would run Android apps and iCloud in Windows 10.

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Huawei Digs in for Long Battle With US

The Trump administration has called Huawei a threat to US national security and has taken several steps in recent months to undermine Huawei's business.

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The $84 Billion Dilemma Vexing India's Three Telecom Tycoons

Some of India's billionaires are bracing for more as their next battle looms: 5G.

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BSNL Superstar 300 Broadband Plan Brings Free Hotstar Premium Subscription

BSNL has announced a new broadband plan called Superstar 300 which comes with free Hotstar Premium subscription.

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Huawei Files Lawsuit Against US Commerce Department Over Seized Equipment

Huawei filed a lawsuit against the US Commerce Department on Friday challenging over equipment it sent from China to the United States, and then back to China.

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Huawei Asks India to Take 'Informed and Independent Decision' on 5G Trials

Huawei has urged India to make an "informed and independent decision" on permitting its 5G trials in the country as Huawei reels under pressure following the US ban.

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Redmi K20 Pro India Launch Date, Samsung M40 Sale, Poco F1 Price Cut, Asus 6Z, and More Tech News This Week

Redmi K20 Pro, Redmi K20 India launch details, Samsung M40 sale, Poco F1 price cut, and Asus 6Z launch were some of the tech news developments this week.

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Spider-Man: Far From Home Has Two Post-Credits Scenes: Report

Spider-Man: Far From Home Alleged Spoilers Leaked on Reddit, 4chan

Toy Story 4 Delivers Biggest Opening Weekend for Animated Movies With $238 Million Worldwide

The Office Indian Remake Sets June Release Date on Hotstar

Netflix Spotted Testing a Pop-Out, Picture-in-Picture Video Player on Desktop

Redmi K20 Pro India Launch Date, Samsung M40 Sale, Poco F1 Price Cut, Asus 6Z, and More Tech News This Week

Monday, June 24, 2019

ICC's proposal for ODI World Cup every three years shot down

via Sports News: Latest Cricket News, Live Match Scores & Sports News Headlines, Results & more http://bit.ly/31RjXy9

England need a win against Australia to stay on course

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Debit cards show up more at retail stores, less at ATMs

MUMBAI: Bank customers are increasingly getting comfortable making payments through debit cards on swipe machines at kirana stores and local retail outlets. Latest data from the RBI show that over a third of all debit card transactions were made at point of sale (PoS) terminals in April this year for the first time since demonetisation.With about 80-crore withdrawals worth Rs 2.84 lakh crore in April, ATM transactions made for just over 66% of overall debit card transaction volume. PoS machines registered the rest 34% of the transaction volume in this period. The only other time the ATM transaction share fell below the two-thirds mark was in December 2016 — a month after demonetisation — when it was at 60.3% and PoS transactions at 39.7%, owing to the lack of cash in the system.The transaction share was 68.6% to 31.4% for ATMs and PoS in March this year while in January, ATMs made up for over 70% of debit card transaction volume share, an analysis of RBI data showed.The Reserve Bank of India, in its payments vision document published in May 2019, has set an objective of achieving a PoS-based debit card transaction share of 44% by 2021 to push New Delhi’s goal of a lesscash digital economy. With increasing number of banks, both public sector and private sector, aggressively deploying swipe machines across small stores in the country, bankers say that cardbased digital transactions are only set to gain share from here on.“While absolute cash continues to dominate India’s payment landscape, an advancement in technology and better cost-benefit economics make deployment of POS devices a new business avenue for banks,” said Surinder Chawla, head retail liabilities and wealth management, RBL Bank. The private sector bank has been one of the leading acquirer banks in terms of PoS deployment with over 7 lakh functional terminals across the country. Currently, there are about 37.5 lakh active PoS terminals deployed by public, private and payment banks. “We see PoS deployment not as profit-making business model, but more as a tool to increase customer engagement on their primary accounts… Historically, these devices have found more traction in tier-1 urban centres but over the past four years, most volume has been coming from tier-2 and tier-3 cities and also from ecommerce sites,” Chawla said.Since 2016, PoS deployment has grown at an annual rate of almost 39% to 37.5 lakh terminals in April 2019. In this period, banks barely added 7000 ATMs to their fleet of 2 lakh such machines. The saturation in ATM growth has largely been due to the high cost of setting up and maintaining these machines, say experts.“We have seen ATM growth stalling over the past few years. However, they remain the key access infrastructure for most people’s cash needs in this country… Low interchange fee, high maintenance costs and high security compliances have held banks back from deploying ATMs especially in rural India,” said Radha Rama Dorai, managing director ATM business, FIS and a member of India’s ATM industry body CATMi.India’s ATM penetration is amongst the worst for any major economy. While China, the US, Germany, Brazil and South Africa all had a per capita ATM deployment rate of under 2,000, India’s ATM deployment rate was at 5,919 in 2017, according to RBI’s Benchmarking Payments report.

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Shakib Al Hasan eyes India upset after Bangladesh boost bid for World Cup semis

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L&T inches closer to sealing the Mindtree deal

MUMBAI: Nalanda Capital is exiting Mindtree, having tendered its entire 10.6 per cent stake in the open offer by Larsen & Toubro on Monday, said sources aware of the development. Nalanda founder Pulok Prasad had opposed the takeover and held out against it for months. The fund will make a four-fold return on its investment if it sells all its shares.The turnabout was attributed to the regulator having written to the Singapore-based public market fund, asking if it was acting in concert with the founders of Mindtree without triggering an open offer, sources said.This came after a handful of institutional investors in L&T and Mindtree wrote to the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), complaining against Prasad for allegedly provoking minority investors of Mindtree, ET reported on June 11. The investors asked the markets regulator to investigate if Prasad was acting in concert with Mindtree’s promoters and other investors opposed to L&T’s takeover.If so, according to the letter, their combined shareholding as persons acting in concert (PAC) exceeded the regulatory threshold of 25 per cent, beyond which they needed to make an open offer to counter that of L&T.Proxy advisory firm Ingovern also wrote to Sebi earlier this month on the issue, citing the independent directors’ committee recommendation of June 12.The committee found L&T’s offer of Rs 980 a share a “fair and reasonable one.”Legal sources said that even after tendering its shares, Nalanda, registered as a foreign portfolio investor (FPI) with Sebi, will have to respond to the show cause notice or face penal action by the regulator.Nalanda, the single largest institutional investor in the midcap company, had from the start been vocal about its opposition to L&T’s $1.6-billion “hostile takeover attempts,” with Prasad rallying support from other minority shareholders such as Baburaj Pillai’s Singapore-based Arohi Asset Management Pte, which holds 2.44 per cent.Prasad was of the opinion that L&T had undervalued Mindtree and that investors should hold out for a better deal. Nalanda’s average acquisition cost in Mindtree was Rs 260 per share and it has been holding its stake for 10 years, adding up to a 276 per cent return at Rs 1,254 crore if it manages to cash out entirely. The Sensex, in comparison, gained 168 per cent in the same 10-year period.Prasad did not respond to queries and neither did Sebi.Sources said Sebi has not yet received any response from Nalanda.L&T currently has a 48 per cent stake, said people with knowledge of the matter. It mounted the takeover bid in March after entering into a deal to buy Cafe Coffee Day owner VG Siddhartha’s 20.32 per cent and placed an order with brokers to pick up another 15 per cent. It has been buying from Nemish Shah’s Enam Holdings, White Oak, Avendus Capital, HDFC Life Insurance and other public shareholders, such as mutual funds and foreign institutional investors (FIIs).Subsequently, L&T launched an open offer for 51.3 million shares, or 31 per cent of Mindtree. It aims to take its holding to 66 per cent. Another institutional investor, Amansa Capital, sold its 2.6 per cent stake last Friday, while UTI Asset Management is likely to tender its 3 per cent holding later this week.In the past few weeks, backchannel negotiations have seen the founders tone down their hostility. In a message to shareholders in the FY19 annual report, executive chairman Krishnakumar Natarajan and CEO and managing director Rostow Ravanan wrote that shareholders’ interests were paramount. 69935832 THAW IN THE BOARDROOMLast week saw Mindtree giving the nod to L&T representatives on the board. The board will seek shareholder approval at the annual general meeting, scheduled in July, to induct five new members. They include three non-executive directors —SN Subrahmanyan, chief executive and managing director, L&T; R Shankar Raman, chief financial officer, L&T; and Jayant Patil, senior executive vice-president (defence business), L&T.The others are independent directors — Prasanna Rangacharya Mysore and Deepa Wadhwa. Subroto Bagchi, one of the founders and a critic of the takeover, won’t seek reappointment.This latest move is seen as a thaw in the relationship, since the appointments came through board resolutions and were vetted by the nominations committe. 69876563 69901450 69765244

from Economic Times http://bit.ly/2N9BG0x

Modi's healthcare plan has a Korean twist

SEOUL/NEW DELHI: India is looking at the South Korean model for Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s flagship universal healthcare programme, Ayushman Bharat, much in line with the government’s inclination to look at development models in east Asian countries rather than Europe or the US.The country has already borrowed important lessons from different countries for its 10-month-old Ayushman Bharat national health insurance scheme, but is now looking closely at South Korea’s universal healthcare programme, which covers primary, secondary and tertiary healthcare, for inspiration.“We have a proposal to study South Korea’s technological innovations in their universal healthcare programme,” said Indu Bhushan, CEO at Ayushman Bharat. “A team would be visiting soon.”ET takes a look at why Modi administration is looking at its newest international trade partner South Korea in the health insurance sector:THE SOUTH KOREAN MODELWhile India launched Ayushman Bharat, which is termed as world’s largest health insurance scheme, in 2018, South Korea is one of the earliest countries to ensure universal healthcare through an Act of Parliament. It enacted Medical Insurance Act in 1963 and started contributive medical insurance programme for employees of large companies. Gradually by 1988, this scheme was extended to local medical insurance in rural areas. In 1999, South Korea enacted National Health Insurance Act and within a year established National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) to bring in a singlepayer healthcare system.About 97% of the Korean population is covered by a contributory health insurance scheme and the rest 3% poorest of the poor segment is under government public health insurance scheme. The country is ranked first in healthcare access among high-income OECD countries.The poorest of the poor do not pay and are managed through the Medical Aid Programme, which is financed by the central and local governments, but administered (including payments to providers) through the health insurance system. Be it cancer screening or a small illness, Medical Aid provides free treatment and reimburses the provider.NHIS under the health ministry oversees the contributory scheme, which has different procedures for employees and self-employed insured. The employee’s contribution depends on his income and varies between $20 and $6,000 per month. For the self-employed, declared income, immoveable assets, age, property and vehicle ownership and gender are taken into account before deciding the monthly insurance contribution. It varies between $11 and $3,000 per month.Every year, NHIS and heads of six types of institutions – hospitals, clinics, oriental medicine, dental clinics, pharmaceuticals, and maternity hospitals – sit across the table in May to decide fee schedules of each healthcare facility and procedures. These are declared in June. In case, negotiations fail, a high-level committee under the health ministry declares them. These fee schedules are uniform and effective for a year.“We have changed our system over the years,” Inseok Yang, general manager of NHIS’ department of international relations and cooperation, told ET. “When we started, healthcare providers, just like in India, did not want to join it. But gradually they realised that most of the people were going to empanelled healthcare centres. This changed their attitude.Now we have a uniform fee system and all hospitals are part of the scheme.”One of the biggest successes of Korea’s universal healthcare programme, according to Yang, has been the technological interface. It is a paperless system that has data of 50 million people accumulated over decades. For the user – both healthcare providers and beneficiaries – it means glitchfree insurance claims. The claim is electronically processed by Health Insurance Review and Assessment Service (HIRA), which reviews for any frauds or abuse. The results are relayed electronically to NHIS, which provides the reimbursements. If India’s National Health Agency reimburses hospital bills within 15 days, NHIS verifies and reimburses the claims on the same day. “We have kept an official limit of 45 days, but in reality this is done on the same day,” Yang said.LESSONS FOR INDIAOne of the biggest lessons for India is to go paperless. “The attempt is now to go completely paperless and depend on IT interface to process claims and check frauds at the same time,” said Kiran Anandampillai, who has helped in setting up Ayushman Bharat’s IT platform.South Korea’s NHIS has 3.4 trillion data points, which have been used for various purposes. With all Koreans covered with insurance scheme and entitled to periodic health checks, the data is now being used to give personalised health advice.The biggest use that South Korea has put the data to has been in filing lawsuits against tobacco companies. With specific data, NHIS was able to calculate quantum it was spending in treating diseases related to smoking.THE CHALLENGES AHEADSouth Korea’s universal healthcare system faces a challenge in its gatekeeping system. Unlike Ayushman Bharat, which is linked to Aadhar, South Korea’s system has no such checks. “There could be cases where a person can use another’s identity,” Yang said. “We can learn from India’s unique identification card.”(The correspondent was in Seoul at the invitation of Korea Foundation)

from Economic Times http://bit.ly/2x9fQzm