The U.S. action against a top Huawei executive threatens the tariff thaw with China The 90-day trade truce between China and the United States reached over the weekend on the sidelines of the G20 meet in Argentina is already proving to be fragile. Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei’s chief financial officer …

The extradition may have been a diplomatic success, but don’t tout it as a political victory The extradition to India of British businessman Christian Michel, alleged to be the middleman in the AgustaWestland helicopters case who bribed officials to secure the deal, is a diplomatic success for a number of …

It is time to repeal the Habitual Offenders Act, which has only ended up re-stigmatising marginalised communities Consider this. Fifteen crore individuals, better known as the Denotified Tribes (DNT) of India, continue to be considered ‘criminal by birth’. The term, ‘De-notified and Nomadic Tribes’, can be traced to the Criminal …

The Electoral Bond Scheme inhibits the citizen’s capacity to meaningfully participate in political and public life Early this year the government introduced an Electoral Bond Scheme purportedly with a view to cleansing the prevailing culture of political sponsorship. But the programme’s failings have been so blindingly obvious, and its consequences …

With farm distress becoming a major electoral issue in the run-up to the 2019 Lok Sabha election, Vikas Pathak visits two pockets of rural India, Mandsaur inMadhya Pradesh and Jodhpur district in Rajasthan, and finds that the political instincts of the rural voter are not necessarily rooted in agriculture A …

Literary bodies oppose MHRD plan Kashmir-based literary bodies are up in arms against a move by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) to withdraw Kashmiri translations from its language-promoting portal, Bhasha Sangam, after Kashmiri Pandits objected to the “regional script” of the language. “We appeal to the MHRD to …

Over half of world population online Some 3.9 billion people are now using the Internet, meaning that for the first time more than half of the global population is online, the United Nations said on Friday. The UN agency for information and communication technologies, ITU, said that by the end …

The liquidity stress affecting non-banking finance companies and housing finance companies since September 2018 has abated significantly, and the Indian markets have performed better than several developed markets despite high global volatility this year, the chief of India’s stock market regulator Ajay Tyagi said on Friday. The Securities Exchange Board …

Trade deficit rises to $50 bn compared with $32.5 bn a year ago: RBI Current account deficit (CA) widened to 2.9% of GDP for the July-September quarter due to higher trade deficit compared with 1.1% during the same period of the previous year, the Reserve Bank of India said on …

Fresh flows into liquid schemes, recovery in stock markets boost AUM in November Despite stock market volatility, assets under management (AUM) of mutual funds (MFs) in November increased 8% to Rs. 24.03 lakh crore from Rs. 22.23 lakh crore reported in October. This was primarily on account of fresh fund …