New Delhi, Mar 20: The Enforcement of Directorate on Monday filed a petition in the Delhi High Court against a Special Court’s order which acquitted former Telecom Minister A Raja, DMK legislator K Kanimozhi and others in the 2G spectrum case.
On December 21, last year, the Special Court had acquitted Raja and Kanimozhi and others due to lack of evidence.
The ED, in its charge sheet, had alleged that Rs 200 crore was paid by Swan Telecom (P) Ltd promoters to DMK-run Kalaignar TV.
A Special Court was set up in March 14, 2011 for hearing 2G cases.
CBI Special Judge OP Saini has heard the case against Raja, Kanimozhi and 15 others under the provisions of Indian Penal Code and the Prevention of Corruption Act dealing with offences of criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery, using as genuine fake documents, abusing official position, criminal misconduct by public servant and taking bribe.
The accused who were acquitted included former Telecom Secretary Siddharth Behura, Raja’s erstwhile private secretary R K Chandolia, Swan Telecom promoters Shahid Usman Balwa and Vinod Goenka, Unitech Ltd MD Sanjay Chandra and three top executives of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (RADAG) — Gautam Doshi, Surendra Pipara and Hari Nair
New Delhi, Mar 20: The Department of Telecom today amended licence norms of service providers to increase number of instalments for spectrum payments and radiowaves frequency holding limit to provide relief to the sector reeling under deep financial stress.
“The Licensee may opt one time for higher number of instalments including in the current financial year 2017-18 (maximum 16 instalments) for deferred payment liabilities as per Notice Inviting Application (NIA) for auctions conducted for award of spectrum in the years 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016,” a DoT note on licence amendment said.
Before this amendment, a portion of spectrum auction amount used to be taken as upfront payment by Department of Telecom(DoT) and the balance, after a two-year moratorium, was paid out every year — 10 instalments in all.
The amendment is part of relief measures approved by the Cabinet early this month for the sector reeling under debt of 7.87 lakh crore and suffering from reduction in margins due to cut-throat competition induced with entry of Reliance Jio.
There will be no change in value and interest rate that telecom companies have to pay for the spectrum. The total amount that telecom operators will pay for the spectrum will be higher by Rs 74,446.01 crore till 2034-35 if they opt for more number of instalments.
It will be optional for telecom operators to choose between current number of instalments and increased number of instalments.
“The instalments that have already been paid shall not be modified,” the note said.
Before 2012, the DoT had held auction of 3G and BWA (Broadband Wireless Access) spectrum in 2010.
The DoT has also amended spectrum holding limit of telecom operators as per the cabinet decision, which will provide exit route for loss making mobile service providers.
“The overall spectrum cap is revised from the current limit of 25 per cent to 35 per cent,” the DoT note said.
A telecom operator was earlier allowed to hold maximum of 25 per cent of all spectrum allocated in a service area for mobile telephony.
The new licence norms ends spectrum holding limit in and above frequency range of 1,000 megahertz band. However, the spectrum holding cap will remain in frequency range below 1 gigahertz.
“The current intra-band cap is removed. Instead, there is a cap of 50% on the combined spectrum holding in the sub-1 GHz bands (700 MHz, 800 MHz and 900 MHz bands),” the note said.
The DoT will continue to use existing method to determine spectrum cap. Under present norm, all spectrum, including allocated through auction, unsold in auction and surrendered by mobile operators, will be considered as total spectrum for calculating spectrum cap.
The spectrum that may be made available to DoT for commercial use by other ministries or departments as result of refarming will not be considered as part of total spectrum for determining radio waves cap.
The revised spectrum caps may be revisited after Final Acts of World Radio communication Conference (WRC) 2019, the note said.
Beijing, Mar 20: India and Hong Kong today signed a double taxation avoidance agreement (DTAA) that seeks to improve transparency in tax matters and help curb tax evasion and avoidance.
The agreement between India and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) of the People’s Republic of China was signed by Indian Ambassador to China Gautam Bambawale and Hong Kong Finance Secretary Paul Chan Mo-po in Hong Kong, a press release from the Indian consulate in Hong Kong said.
The agreement on the avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of fiscal evasion with respect to taxes on income will stimulate flow of investment, technology and personnel from India to HKSAR and vice versa, prevent double taxation and provide for exchange of information between the two contracting parties, the press release said.
It will improve transparency in tax matters and will help curb tax evasion and tax avoidance, it said.
Bambawale is visiting Hong Kong, a Special Administrative Region of China, for the first time after he took over as envoy to Beijing last year.
He called on Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor, Chief Executive of Hong Kong and met various other officials.
He also spoke on India-China relations at an event hosted by the Hong Kong Centre of Asia Society.
Hong Kong is a leading economic hub of Asia which reverted to Chinese rule in 1997.
US President Donald Trump will present on Monday his plan to combat an opioid abuse epidemic which will include seeking the death penalty for drug traffickers.
The Department of Justice “will seek the death penalty against drug traffickers, where appropriate under current law,” a White House official indicated Sunday whilst outlining the plan’s main points.
The official did not offer greater detail on how the death penalty could be invoked against drug dealers without amending statutes.
Trump is due to unveil his plan in a speech in Manchester, New Hampshire, a state hard hit by the crisis.
An estimated 2.4 million Americans are addicted to opiates, the narcotics that include prescription painkillers, as well as heroin.
Nationwide, emergency room visits for overdoses from drugs like heroin, fentanyl and prescription painkillers up 30 percent from 2016 to 2017, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said earlier this month.
The report found that from July 2016 to September 2017, a total of 142,557 emergency room visits were due to suspected opioid overdoses.
Trump has previously mooted the “ultimate” punishment for drug dealers, and is said to have spoken in glowing terms about the policies of deeply controversial Filipino leader Rodrigo Duterte, who has ordered extra-judicial killings of traffickers.
New Delhi, Mar 18 : The Congress Party on Sunday criticised the foreign policy of Narendra Modi government and said the Prime Minister has pursued a ‘personalised foreign policy’ and resolved to restore the vision of late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in international relations..
The resolution on foreign policy adopted at the 84th Congress Plenary here, while charing Prime Minisetr Narendra Modi of pursuing a personalised foreign policy, said, the foreign policy engagements and PM’s visits abroad have been reduced to being purely transactional.
The resolution, which was earlier moved by its senior leader Anand Sharma, said the Congress will strive to restore the vision of the Jawaharlal Nehru on the foreign policy .
He said the Prime Minister is always saying that nothing has happened before 2014, which is an insult to the people of this country.
“We will throw out this government that has destroyed the foreign policy”, Mr Sharma said.
Attacking the Narendra Modi government, the resolution said the diplomacy must have depth and gravitas. “Grand events and photo opportunities cannot be a substitute to effective diplomacy”, it said.
The resolution further said there should be credibility and a ring of sincerity in India’s International engagements.
“India has long enjoyed international respect as a country deeply committee to multilateralism and a rule based world order even while zealously safeguarding its vital interests”, it added.
The resolution also said an urgent need to re-calibrate equations with the US, arrest the slide in relations with Russia and improve communication and trust with China.
Stressing on the significance of Nehru’s vision on foreign policy, the resolution said his vision laid the foundation of a foreign policy, which had the objective of enhancing India’s engagment with all regions of the world and to find its rightful place in the comity of the nations.
The resolution also condemned the trend of the PM running down his predecessors on foreign soil.
‘the Prime Minister’s tendency to disparage its predecessors and diminish India’s achievements since independence, has undercut India’s own credibility abroad”, the resolution said.
Criticising the BJP Government, the resolution added that the foreign policy has always been marked with continuity with the backing of a strong national consensus. But, “the BJP government has disrupted it, and its ill-advised actions have unravelled the national consensus. the government is carried away by its own propaganda, and has mismanaged India’s relation with major partner countries”, the resolution blamed.
Foreign policy of Narendra Modi government is confused and bereft of focus and direction, it added.
“A rapidly transforming and uncertain gloabal landscape demands a carefully crafted national security strategy”, said the resolution and added that “India should remain committed to concerted international cooperation for curbing terrorism”.
The foreign policy resolution also criticised the Narendra Modi government for its foreign policy towards neighbouring countries and said “never before in Indipendent India’s history, has the country been so diminished in its immediate periphery”.
The resolution warned that this policy will have significant implications for any meaningful role that India aspires to play in Asian region and the World.
“We have created spaces in our neighbouring countries through episodic engagement, which has allowed other powers, in particular China, to engage themselves”, it added.
It also pointed out the developments in Maldives Nepal, Myanmar and Sri Lanka and said these are a matter of serious concerns.
“Relations with India do not become a factor in the domestic politics of the countries in our neighbourhood”, it said.
Unless Inida is able to manage its neighbourhood effectively, it will be unable to play any credible regional or global power, the resolution said.
The resolution criticised the Modi government’s policy on Pakistan and said, while “confronting cross-border terrorism with a robust security response, has enjoyed across the board national consensus”.
However, the resolution blamed that it is being undermined by the government by making policy towards Pakistan a divisive domestic issue.
“It needs mention that under the Congress led UPA Government, the long standing India-Pakistan hyphenation in international perception was successfully removed”, it said.
There is a danger of that hyphenation being revived as a result of renewed international focus on Indo-Pak tensions, the resolution said.
It also blamed that the BJP Government has no roadmap and its Pakistan policy has been a disaster.
It also advocated that India’s approach to China must not only be marked with pragmatism, but also realism.
Moscow, Mar 17 : Russia is to expel 23 British diplomats amid tensions over the nerve agent attack on a former spy and his daughter in the UK., a BBC News report said on Saturday.
The Russian foreign ministry said staff from the UK’s Moscow embassy would be expelled within a week.
It also said it would close the British Council in Russia, which promotes cultural ties between the nations, and the British Consulate in St Petersburg.
The move comes in response to Britain’s decision to expel 23 Russian diplomats.
They were ordered to leave over the incident on 4 March which the UK government has blamed on Russia – but which Russia denies.
The UK Foreign Office said it had “anticipated a response of this kind” from Russia and the National Security Council would meet early next week to consider its next steps.
Its statement added: “Russia’s response doesn’t change the facts of the matter – the attempted assassination of two people on British soil, for which there is no alternative conclusion other than that the Russian State was culpable.”
Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal, 66, and his daughter Yulia Skripal, 33, remain critically ill in hospital, after they were found unconscious on a bench in Salisbury, Wiltshire.
The UK government says they were poisoned with a nerve agent of a type developed by Russia called Novichok, and PM Theresa May has said she believes Moscow is “culpable”.
On Friday, Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said it was “overwhelmingly likely” that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered the nerve agent attack.
Responding, Mr Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the accusations were “shocking and unforgivable”.
The tensions come as presidential elections take place in Russia.
Britain’s ambassador to Russia, Laurie Bristow, was summoned to Russia’s foreign ministry on Saturday and was handed Russia’s response to the UK’s sanctions.
Following the meeting, Mr Bristow said the UK had no quarrel with the Russian people and would “always do what is necessary to defend ourselves”.
The British ambassador had been expecting this call for three days.
In the end, he spent just over 10 minutes in the foreign ministry where he was handed Russia’s counter-sanctions.
The response from Moscow is robust and does go further than the UK measures. But it doesn’t appear calculated to escalate tensions.
The ministry has stuck to 23 for 23 in terms of diplomatic expulsions, no more.
And while it is ordering the closure of the UK consulate in St Petersburg — both Moscow and Ekaterinburg remain open.
Russia’s response has also targeted the British Council, which promotes cultural ties.
That will be seen by Britain as a low blow, hurting the Russian people – not the British government. But the UK is unlikely to want to retaliate in kind.
The council’s activity here had already been significantly curtailed by Moscow after the last crisis in relations, when Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned.
Meanwhile, the double tactic of denial and distraction here continues, both in comments by officials, and in the mocking, dismissive coverage of the Skripal case on state-run media.
The Russian foreign ministry said in a statement that the British diplomats would be “declared persona non grata”, adding that it “reserves the right to introduce other retaliatory measures in case of further unfriendly actions”.
It said it was responding to “provocative actions” and “unproven accusations” by Britain.
A Downing Street spokesman said the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had been invited to come to the UK to take a sample of the nerve agent.
Counter-terrorism police have renewed their appeal for witnesses who may have seen Mr Skripal’s burgundy BMW car in Salisbury on 4 March.
Neil Basu, Met Police Assistant Commissioner, said: “We are learning more about Sergei and Yulia’s movements but we need to be clearer around their exact movements on the morning of the incident.”
Police believe the car – registration plate HD09 WAO – may have been in the areas of London Road, Churchill Way North and Wilton Road at about 09:15 GMT. At about 13:30 GMT it was seen being driven down Devizes Road towards the centre of town.
Mr Basu said investigators were making good progress but further work could take “months”.
He added that the continued presence of officers in the area wearing specialist protective clothing was a precaution and that the risk to the public was low.
Det Sgt Nick Bailey, who was part of the initial response to the incident, remains in a serious but stable condition in hospital after being exposed to the chemical.
Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Police have launched a murder investigation into the death of businessman and Kremlin critic Nikolai Glushkov – a Russian exile who was found dead in his south-London home on Monday.
A post-mortem examination found the 68-year-old died from “compression to the neck”.
Police say there is no evidence at this stage linking his case with the Salisbury attack.
However, they have begun to contact a number of Russian exiles to discuss their safety as they investigate the murder.
Russia has also opened criminal investigations into “the murder” of Mr Glushkov, and the “attempted murder” of Ms Skripal.
Kochi, Mar 17: Top corporate honchos, business analysts and academicians will analyse the phenomenal changes in the conduct of businesses that are likely to be unleashed by new age disruptive technologies in the next 5-10 years in the Kerala’s upcoming Global Digital Summit #FUTURE.
‘Technology Disruption and Inclusion’ is among the major topics for panel discussions at the two-day event, to be held here on March 22-23, organisers said in a release here today.
The event is being viewed by the state government as a path-breaking initiative that would offer an array of innovative solutions for transforming the lives of people by leveraging digital and other emerging technologies.
The presentations by business and technology leaders, followed by a debate, will focus on how the changes are impacting individuals, especially the old and those with disabilities, in their daily lives and how businesses are visualising and planning to come to grips with those changes.
The speakers at #FUTURE will also put across their ideas on how Kerala can benefit from such opportunities or contribute to the changes for making technology inclusive and sustainable, the release said.
The panel on “Technology Disruptions and Inclusion” has six speakers.
The session will look into vital aspects of the emerging global scenario such as the changing needs of the global population in the next two decades, the role of technology in meeting these changing needs and how it can be designed for inclusion at all levels.
Other topics to be covered will include the importance of technologies such as Blockchain and how technology be used to complement or bring to the forefront the differently abled and economically disadvantaged people, the release said.