Today's Hot Stories - May 09, 2013 - PT education

Today's Hot Stories - May 09, 2013

10 Headlines for Today

(1) Pak prisoner Sanaullah, attacked in Jammu jail, dies
(2) Siddaramaiah, Mallikarjun Kharge lead contenders for Karnataka CM
(3) Vertebrae broken, Imran fights from hospital
(4) Liquor baron Kishore Chhabria buys Wales Distilleries in Bengal
(5) Quadricycles set to get transport vehicle tag
(6) Ferrari to sell fewer cars to boost exclusivity
(7) Super Kings end Sunrisers' home run
(8) Nadal eases through Madrid opener
(9) Hockey: India beat Netherlands 4-2 in Rotterdam
(10) Surat diamonds found in Hollywood-style heist

5 Stories for Today

(1) Railway bribery scam: Mamu will fix Kumar’s posting, Singla boasted
(2) U.S., Russia agree on Syria peace process
(3) Verify and refund Sahara investors: SC to SEBI
(4) China inflation data shows central bank policy dilemma
(5) Inflation-linked bonds to debut soon

(1) Railway bribery scam: Mamu will fix Kumar’s posting, Singla boasted


CBI sources on Wednesday said they had evidence to prove that Pawan Bansal's nephew Vijay Singla had been "boasting about his maternal uncle (mama) being the railway minister and confidently assuring Sandeep Goyal that Mahesh Kumar would be made member (electrical)" in the Railway Board.

This could spell trouble for Bansal as he has maintained that Singla was acting on his own and he had nothing to do with his nephew's activities. The CBI probe also got closer to the minister with sources saying the agency had examined his long-time private secretary Rahul Bhandari on Wednesday.

According to sources, while invoking his mama to assure that Kumar's promotion would be cleared, Singla also allegedly talked about other postings/transfers he got done in the Railway Board in the past.

"Recorded conversations between Vijay Singla, Sandeep Goyal, Mahesh Kumar and Manjunath have several references to the railway minister. Singla is confidently assuring Goyal that the minister would get the work done and Goyal further assures Mahesh Kumar. We have to verify the same by checking whether the railway minister signed any document to give dual charge to Mahesh Kumar," a top CBI source said.

After Singla's assurance, Mahesh Kumar verified the claim on his own and also checked the track record of Singla and Goyal to ascertain whether they could get the job done. "Once Mahesh Kumar got convinced, he agreed to pay and that's when he called Manjunath, asking him to arrange the money," the CBI officer said. The agency will soon call Bansal to clarify the claims made by his nephew and about previous postings which have come under the scanner.

CBI has, meanwhile, formally started investigations into all recruitments, transfers, postings and promotions since October 28, 2012, the day Bansal took charge of the ministry.

Sources said the crucial appointments include member (engineering) S K Jain, member (mechanical) Arunendra Kumar and member (staff) Mahesh Kumar and the agency has sought all documents related to their appointment apart from that of some general managers.

The agency is questioning all 10 accused - Vijay Singla, Sandeep Goyal, Ajay Garg, Mahesh Kumar, Manjunath, Dharmendra Kumar, Vivek Kumar, Sushil Daga, Samir Sandhir and Rahul Yadav -- confronting them with documentary and telephonic evidence. About Delhi-based businessmen Rahul Yadav and Samir Sandhir and Faridabad-based Sushil Daga, sources said they were not regular contractors in railways and were "money-arrangers" for Manjunath, who had got several contracts in the railways.

The agency has received documents related to appointment of Mahesh Kumar from the railway ministry and the Appointments Committee of Cabinet (ACC) while documents related to other postings are expected in a week's time.

CBI officials on Wednesday said they will not "share any details of investigations/status reports or any other details with railway ministry, board or any other government authority", in the 'jobs for sale' scam, a claim which comes in the backdrop of Supreme Court's strictures against the CBI in Coalgate.

Source: The Times of India

(2) U.S., Russia agree on Syria peace process


Russia and the United States agreed to work together to bring the warring sides in Syria to the negotiating table raising hopes for an end to carnage in the war-torn country and a thaw in frosty relations between Moscow and Washington.

Emerging from hours-long talks with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry that stretched late into the night on Tuesday, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced that the sides agreed to convene “as soon as possible, maybe at the end of this month” an international conference on Syria.

The meet will be a follow-up to the Geneva peace conference in June 2012, which called for the Syrian government and the opposition to create a transitional government to steer the peace process in Syria. The Geneva plan got stalled because the U.S. demanded that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad step down as a precondition for peace talks.

On Tuesday Mr Kerry essentially fell in line with what Russia has been saying all along – that Assad’s fate should be decided by the Syrians themselves.

“I’m not going to decide that [Assad departure] tonight. And I’m not going to decide that in the end. Because the Geneva communique says that the transitional government has to be chosen by mutual consent by the parties. Who are the parties? The parties are the current regime and the opposition,” Mr Kerry said.

The U.S. Secretary of State said the failure to reach a negotiated settlement would push Syria to “chaos”, “breakup” and “ethnic cleansing” and trigger “wider instability in the Middle East.”

Moscow appears to have convinced Washington that a violent removal of the current regime in Syria will land the country in the hands of Al-Qaeda-linked jihadists.

“One of the threats in Syria is – that has become a magnet for extremists, for people who have already announced their desire to do harm to other people in the world, to align themselves with al-Qaida, to attack Western interests or other interests,” Mr Kerry said addressing at a joint press conference with his Russian counterpart.

He also said Russia and the United States agreed that “our special services will be in close contact” on the controversial issue of chemical weapons use in Syria.

Earlier on Tuesday U.S. Secretary of State called on President Vladimir Putin and their meeting continued for 21/2 hours, well beyond the planned 40 minutes.

“I was impressed by his [Putin’s] desire to try to see us make a transformation [in bilateral relations],” Mr Kerry said.

Relations between Moscow and Washington have recently soured over alleged human rights violations in Russia and differences over Syria. However, on Tuesday Mr Kerry said the two countries shared “some very significant common interests” in Syria.

“What we’ve done today is come together and try to focus on those [larger strategic interests], even as we will work on these other [divisive] issues in a constructive and thoughtful way.” the U.S. Secretary of State said.

Source: The Hindu

(3) Verify and refund Sahara investors: SC to SEBI


The SEBI should come out with a mechanism to verify the genuineness of investors, who had invested in the Sahara Group, and start refunding money to them, the Supreme Court said on Wednesday.

A bench of justices KS Radhakrishnan and JS Khehar also sought an affidavit detailing

their assets from Sahara India Real Estate Corp Ltd (SIREC) and Sahara India Housing Investment Corp Ltd (SHIC), the two companies in which the investors had put in their money, and are facing property attachment proceedings in the case.

The court said that Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) should start making payments to the investors whose genuineness had been verified. The bench added that if any investor is not found to be genuine, the same must be put to Sahara Group for verification.

The court has fixed July 17 for hearing on SEBI's plea for initiating contempt proceedings against the two companies, its directors, and Sahara Group chief Subrata Roy for not obeying its August 31 last year orders.

Meanwhile, in a statement, Sahara's advocate Keshav Mohan said that during the hearing, they also pointed out that modalities for such a verification process needs to be worked out for implementation of the order.

On May 2, the apex court had stayed the proceedings on pleas filed by Sahara Group and Roy in the tribunal and the high court.

Earlier, the bench had accused Sahara Group and Roy of "manipulating courts" by approaching different forums for relief.

Sahara Group and the market regulator, SEBI, are locked in legal dispute over the refunding of Rs. 24,000 crore by its two companies--SIREC and SHIC--to over three crore investors.

Earlier, the Supreme Court had dismissed Sahara's plea for more time to refund the amount.

SIREC and SHIC along with Roy are facing contempt proceedings in the apex court which had on February 6 allowed SEBI to freeze accounts and seize properties of its two companies for defying court orders by not refunding the money to the investors.

Source: Hindustan Times

(4) China inflation data shows central bank policy dilemma


China's annual consumer inflation rose by more than expected in April while factory prices fell for a 14th consecutive month, highlighting the dilemma facing the central bank as it balances support for the economy against the threat of rising prices.

With global growth sputtering, China's central bank has limited room to move, unlike counterparts in South Korea and Australia which both made surprise rate cuts this week.

Any easing could fuel property market risks, while tightening would hurt a nascent recovery after economic growth unexpectedly slowed to 7.7 per cent in the first quarter from 7.9 per cent in the previous three months.

Instead the onus may be on the government to push structural reforms to help sustain long term growth in the world's second largest economy.

"We cannot rely too much on the central bank to support the economy," said Xu Hongcai, senior economist at China Centre for International Exchange ( CCIEE), a top government think-tank in Beijing.

The government will instead rely on fiscal policy by boosting infrastructure investment and cutting taxes to underpin the economy, said Xu, a former central bank researcher.

Indeed, any investors betting on easing could be disappointed after the central bank's sale on Thursday of 10 billion yuan ($1.63 billion) of three-month bills, the first time since 2011 it has done this.

The move suggested the central bank will rely on other tools.

Tightening, meanwhile, is unlikely given a series of factory and services PMIs issued earlier this month that signalled tepid economic activity in April.

Chinese factories are saddled with excess capacity due to weak demand, putting downward pressure on producer prices that in turn erodes their profits.

"On policy, the priority now is industrial reform to tackle the problem of excess capacity. As such, the focus will be shifted away from macro policy to micro policy. We expect the monetary policy to remain intact this year," said Dongming Xie, China economist at OCBC Bank in China.

The National Bureau of Statistics said that China's producer prices dropped 2.6 per cent in April, the 14th consecutive month of year-on-year declines and sharper than a drop of 1.9 per cent in March. China's biggest listed steelmaker, Baoshan Iron & Steel , said on Thursday it would cut its main steel product prices for June bookings, its first reduction in nine months, underscoring demand worries amid a fragile economic recovery.

The firm, known as Baosteel, usually sets the tone for pricing by the rest of China's steel sector, which is currently gripped by a supply glut due to less than expected demand.

CONSUMER PRICES TICK UP

Consumer inflation quickened to 2.4 per cent in April from March's 2.1 per cent due to higher food costs, data from the National Bureau of Statistics, showed on Thursday.

Economists polled by Reuters had forecast April inflation to quicken to 2.3 per cent and factory gate prices to fall 2.3 per cent from a year earlier.

Food prices rose 4.0 per cent in April from a earlier, quickening from the 2.7 per cent rise in March.

"Rising vegetable prices were the main factor pushing up the CPI," Yu Qiumei, a senior statistician at the statistics bureau, said in a statement accompanying the data, noting bad weather and lower rainfall had reduced supplies.

Consumer inflation may quicken to around 3 per cent in May, partly because of the base effect, said Zhou Hao, China economist at ANZ in Shanghai.

But he added that the central bank is widely expected to keep policy broadly neutral with some fine-tuning to support the economy amid the global uncertainties.

"Monetary policy is likely to stay relatively accommodative as China's economic recovery remains fragile."

Source: The Economic Times

(5) Inflation-linked bonds to debut soon


The proposed inflation-indexed bonds are likely to make a debut this month with the Reserve Bank of India and the finance ministry finalising the structure of these instruments. Further, the tax treatment of these bonds is also being debated in order to ensure sufficient retail participation.

With its eye firmly on attracting retail investors, the finance ministry is likely to index the principal on these instruments to the wholesale price index. To help determine the coupon rate, the ministry plans to hold an auction for institutional investors, before the bonds are launched for the retail segment.

"An auction will enable us to get response from the market on what they perceive to be the interest rate on these bonds. This will ensure that it is attractive enough to wean away retail investors from instruments like gold by providing them real returns that do not get eroded by inflation," said a senior government official, adding that the bonds are likely to have a 10-year maturity.

In the interim, the department of economic affairs is also in talks with the department of revenue to finalise the tax treatment of these bonds. "Investments in these bonds will be under the 80C limit of the Income Tax Act. The principal will be tax free but returns will be taxed," the official said.

Announced as part of the Union Budget 2013-14 by finance minister P Chidambaram, inflation indexed bonds are expected to incentivise the household sector to save in financial instruments rather than buy gold.

"I propose to introduce instruments that will protect savings from inflation, especially the savings of the poor and middle classes. These could be Inflation Indexed Bonds or Inflation Indexed National Security Certificates," the minister had said at the time. Accordingly, the finance ministry plans to issue such bonds worth Rs 15,000 crore in this fiscal. "The RBI is in talks with market dealers to get their response and will soon decide on the structure of these bonds," the official said.

INVESTING HOUSEHOLD SAVINGS

* Finance ministry is looking at indexing the principal on the bond to the wholesale price index
* In order to determine the coupon rate, the ministry plans to auction the bonds to institutional investors before launching it in the retail segment
* Experts feel sovereign bonds would bring in more transparency for credit rating agencies and strengthen the rupee
* The bonds are likely to be brought under Section 80C of the Income Tax Act, where the principal would be tax free but the interest earnings would be subject to tax
The bond was announced in the Union Budget 2013-14 to channel household savings away from gold

Source: The Indian Express

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