Junior Digest

Kathmandu: Prime Minister of  Nepal K P Sharma Oli on Sunday said he tried to clear the “misconception” about Nepal’s new Constitution during his India visit. He also assured the Indian leadership that he would not allow the Nepalese territory to be used against any of its neighbours.

Oli said he has always emphasised on maintaining Nepal’s territorial integrity and sovereignty while making bilateral dealings and during his visit to India, he tried to maintain “high dignity” of the country.

He said that during his high-level political meetings in Delhi, he had “tried to clear all doubts regarding the misconception” about the new Constitution of Nepal, opposed by Madhesis who are largely of Indian-origin.

“The constitution has treated all the citizens equally and there is no bias against any community,” he added.

The 64-year-old premier said his maiden six-day state visit to India, which was his first overseas, had been instrumental in clearing past misunderstandings and contributed in strengthening the relations between the two neighbours.

“My visit to India has succeeded in bringing the relations back on track,” pointed out Oli, speaking as chief guest at a programme.

“Nepal-India relations can see ups and downs in the course of time and move hither and thither but there is no way that the relations could take a wrong course”, he said, while terming the visit as “very much successful” that “made significant contributions in strengthening the bilateral ties”.

Oli, who is expected to travel to Beijing next month, also rejected reports that he had played the China card against India.

“I don’t believe in playing cards for one against the other. We want to develop friendly relations with both our neighbours on the basis of equality and mutual benefits,” he clarified.

He said he had properly conveyed the message to the Indian leadership that Nepal would not allow its territory to be used against any of its neighbours.

“We will definitely honour and respect India’s genuine concerns and interests,” he pointed out.

Nepal-India ties suffered when Madhesis led a nearly six-month-long violent protest over better representation in the Parliament and the federal structure of the new Constitution that divides their ancestral homeland.

The agitation, which claimed over 50 lives before being called off unexpectedly, also saw blockade of key border trade points with India that led to acute shortage of essentials like fuel and medicine in the landlocked country.

The various MoUs signed during his visit to India including construction of 1,792 km-long postal roads, opening of Visakhapatnam port and using Banglabandha corridor for Nepal were major achievements, he said.

Former minister and former Ambassador of Nepal to India Bhesh Bahadur Thapa said Nepal should try to resolve its internal issues through political means by holding dialogue and also make diplomatic efforts to improve relations with India.

Another former minister and leader of Rastriya Prajatantra Party, Prakash Chandra Lohani, said Indian bureaucracy should come out of the “colonial mindset” and try to deal with neighbours in the new geopolitical context as Nepal cannot ignore its northern neighbor while trying to maintain friendly relations with the southern one.

Senior leader of ruling CPN-UML Pradip Gywali said Nepal- India relations should not be made victim to the activities of some sections of the people, who are expressing their dissatisfaction to certain provisions of the Constitution.

Deputy chief of mission of Indian embassy Binay Kumar said the premier’s recent visit to India was very important and India has also conveyed message of friendship during the high-level talks.

Referring to the border blockade, he said Nepal should not play the blame game, instead it should focus on harnessing its resources and India is ready to extend necessary assistance in that direction.

@Agency report.

Aurangabad: Former National 6Reds runner-up Rahul Sachdev clinched his maiden title by winning the 1st All India Open Invitational Snooker Championship here.

Sailing in cue sports since last five years, Rahul had achieved the highest by reaching the National 6Reds final in the year 2013. Winning the All India level Invitation tournament is a major breakthrough and certainly will raise his confidence in the years to come.

In the final, Rahul defeated current national 6Reds no.4 Pushpender Singh of Railways 5-3. Though Pushpender emerged as a strong contender and had lost only one frame before reaching the final, Rahul scored a break of 104.

However, Rahul went down by two frames but after that he capitalised in his own style and won the title 5-3. (Frame Score 110(104)-23, 24-70, 32-83, 62-64, 65-08, 84-06, 71-63, 98-49).

Before reaching the final, Rahul ousted Laxman Rawat (Railways) 5-1 whereas Pushpender Singh knocked out Kamal Chawla of Railways 5-1.

@Agency report.

Los Angeles: Oscar-winning sound designer Resul Pookutty has bagged the best sound award for documentary “India’s Daughter” at the Motion Picture Sound Editors’ 63rd annual Golden Reel Awards.

44-year-old Pookutty, who attended the awards ceremony here, took to Twitter to share his excitement about winning the honour for the Leslee Udwin-directed documentary, which is banned in India. “And we won the #63rd Golden Reel Award for #India’a Daughter! First in Asia a Golden reel coming home to India,” Pookutty posted.

@Agency report.

There are clear indications in the Union Budget 2016 that the Government intents to support the National Pension System (NPS). The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) had been asking the government to make NPS tax-free as is the case with other pension products.

Though the government has not conceded to that demand, it has brought pension products at par as far as tax treatment goes. The big change in the budget announcement was that the NPS, which was taxable on maturity, has now been made partially tax exempt, and the EPF and superannuation funds, which were tax-free on maturity, are now partially taxable. In the case of NPS, 40% of the maturity proceeds from the financial year (FY) 2016-17 is exempt from tax.

The NPS is a defined contribution system in which you contribute every year till 60 years of age. At 60 the amount is available for withdrawal, since it’s a dedicated pension product, 40% of the corpus on maturity has to be annuitised. Annuity is a pension product that gives you periodic income during the retirement years. The remaining 60% can be had as lump sum. The budget has announced that withdrawal up to 40% of the corpus at the time of retirement will be tax exempt in the case of NPS.

While Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA)  has reasons to celebrate, the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) has reasons to be worried. The budget has further announced that in case of superannuation funds and recognized provident funds, including the EPF, the same norm of 40% of the corpus to be tax-free will now apply in respect of the corpus created out of contributions made in the products after 1 April 2016. However, this restriction shall not be applicable to an employee participating in a recognised provident fund and whose monthly salary does not exceed `15,000.

@Agency report.

BEIJING: Notwithstanding bumper harvests, China had a massive shortfall of upto 25 million tonnes in the amount of grain it produced and consumed in 2015, prompting record imports, a Chinese official said today.

China faces a problem as people’s appetites grow, Chen Xiwen, director of the office of the central agricultural work leading team, said during an agricultural forum.

China’s total grain output increased 2.4 per cent year on year to 621 million tonnes in 2015, the 12th straight year of growth.

Still, authorities have had to look abroad to close the gap, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.

Food imports reached a record 120 million tonnes last year, with soybean accounting for over 70 per cent of the total.

Policymakers renewed their commitment to safeguarding food security during a top-level rural work conference at the end of 2015.

The government will secure supply of staples, protect farmland and maintain production capacity, they said.

@Agency report.

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday advised students appearing for Board exams to compete with themselves and not with others. Wishing good luck to students, Modi, in his 17th edition of Mann Ki Baat, told students not to be bogged down under pressure of expectations.

“Set your targets and pursue them with a free mind, without pressure. Compete with yourself and not others. Exams are not merely about marks. Never get bogged down under pressure of expectations and set targets for yourself,” said Modi.

Appreciating students, parents and teachers for sharing their thoughts, Modi said, “Do not limit yourself with what will happen in these exams instead work with a much larger purpose.”

Modi also asked students to follow a healthy routine. “A healthy mind resides in a healthy body, therefore I urge students to follow a healthy routine, specially during exams,” said Modi.

Modi was joined by Cricket legend and Bharat Ratna Sachin Tendulkar, Chess grandmaster Viswanathan Anand, religious preacher Murari Bapu and professor CNR Rao in his Mann Ki Baat.

Sachin asked students to stay positive and set realistic targets. “Keep your thinking positive and it will lead to positive results. Have realistic targets and stay focused,” said Sachin.

Advising students to stay calm during exams, Anand said, “You need to be well rested, get a good night’s sleep, be on a full stomach the most important thing is to stay calm. I have always found that these exams go much better than you fear before. So stay confident and all the very best.”

@Agency report.

Dublin: Ireland today faced the prospect of political deadlock following a knife-edge election, as an exit poll indicated a slump in support for the government of Prime Minister Enda Kenny.

Support for Kenny’s centre-right Fine Gael party slumped to 26.1 per cent compared to 36.1 in the previous election in 2011, according to the exit poll conducted by Ipsos, MRBI for the Irish Times.

Junior coalition partner Labour meanwhile saw its support shrink to 7.8 per cent from 19.

IRISH ELECTION GUIDE

Parties

Fine Gael: A party born out of loyalty to Irish independence military leader Michael Collins, who was assassinated by republican diehards for accepting the 1921 Anglo Irish Treaty that partitioned Ireland. Now centre-right in economic policy, strongly pro-European and increasingly socially liberal. Won 76 seats in the 2011 general election – an all-time high.

Fianna Fáil: Founded by Michael Collins’ great civil war rival Éamon de Valera, the party ultimately accepted the Anglo Irish settlement and became the most successful political force in post-independence Irish history. Economically centrist, often populist, it was blamed for the collapse of the Celtic Tiger amid allegations that the party was too close to property speculators and bankers. In the last election it crashed to just 20 seats.

Sinn Féin: The party once known around the world as the political wing of the Provisional IRA has benefited enormously from the Northern Ireland peace process. Led by Gerry Adams, it had 14 seats in the last Dáil and is expected to return with at least 20 in this election, positioning itself as a party of protest against austerity cuts.
Labour: The oldest party in the state and rooted in the trade unions, Labour faces the possibility of electoral meltdown akin to the Liberal Democrat wipeout in the UK last year. Labour was at the vanguard of social change as junior partner in the current government, championing the gay marriage referendum, but it also took flak over the coalition’s unpopular tax rises and public spending cuts.
Anti Austerity Alliance/People Before Profit: Both parties are rooted in the far-left Socialist party (former Militant Tendency) and the Socialist Workers party. They draw support, like Sinn Féin, from urban working-class areas where there is widespread discontent over austerity.

Main issues

The recovery: Fine Gael emphasises the Irish economic recovery from the 2008 crash and the loss of economic sovereignty when the IMF took over fiscal policy in 2010. The party stresses that the recovery is fragile and needs another stable government. Critics say the measures taken to plug the gap in national finances – tax rises, public spending cuts, wage freezes, etc – were too extreme and hit those on low-to-middle incomes.

Water charges: One condition of the IMF bailout, which prevented national bankruptcy, was that Ireland needed to fund its own water system. The introduction of water charges prompted mass protests across the republic.

Crime: The audacious, televised attack on a boxing bout weigh-in in Dublin this month refocused the public’s mind on crime, gangsters and the drug crisis ravaging certain urban areas of Ireland, particularly in its capital. It has proved to be a problem for Sinn Féin, as the party supports the abolition of the non-jury special criminal court, an institution set up in the 1970s to convict terrorists. The other parties argue that the court is still needed to prosecute organised crime.

@Agency report.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked the Power Ministry to target electrification of around 200 villages every week by holding regular follow ups with the state implementing agencies.

“The Prime Minister has said that Ministry of Power must strive to complete electrification of 200 villages every week by following up with state implementing agencies regularly,” a source said adding, that progress with regard to electrification of villages should be properly highlighted.

“For electrification of the balance villages, the Power Ministry must follow up with state implementing agencies to ensure timely sanctions, procurement, installations and commissioning activities,” the source said.

Over 5,O00 villages have been electrified under the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojna (DDUGJY).

In view of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s address to the nation on Independence Day last year, the ministry had decided to electrify 18,452 villages within 1,000 days i.e. by May 1, 2018.

The project has been taken on mission mode and strategy for electrification consists of squeezing the implementation schedule to 12 months and also dividing village electrification process in 12 Stage milestones with defined timelines for monitoring. The Centre has fixed a target of electrifying 7,000 villages by March-end.

@Agency report.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will visit India and Bhutan from April 10 , Kensington Palace announced on Friday.

The visit was first announced during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to London in November. It will be the royal couple’s first trip to India, but the parents of the Duke – Prince Charles and the late Diana, princess of Wales – visited the country more than two decades ago.

It will be a poignant moment on April 16, when they travel to the Taj Mahal, where Diana sat alone on the bench during her and Prince Charles’ visit in February 1992. The image symbolised her marital troubles at the time and is one of her most known images. She died in 1997 in a car crash.

Tamil actor-comedian Kumarimuthu died in Chennai on Sunday at a private hospital. He was 77.

“He passed away on Sunday night at Kauvery hospital due to some age-related ailments,” said a source close to the actor.

Known for his comic roles, Kumarimuthu starred in nearly 50 films in his career spanning over three-decades. He was best known for his signature laugh.

Some of his best films are Idhu Namma Aalu, Sahadevan Mahadevan, Oru Oorla Oru Rajakumari and Marumagan.

@Agency report.

Police spokeswoman Goldie Lou Siega said: “We have no evidence of a second person aboard and no weapon was found on the yacht,” reported AFP. Dr Mark Benecke, a forensic criminologist in the city of Cologne, told German newspaper Bild: “The way he is sitting seems to indicate that death was unexpected, perhaps from a heart attack”.

A second sailor, who the German had met in 2009, added: “He was a very experienced sailor. I don’t believe he would have sailed into a storm. I believe the mast broke after Manfred was already dead.”

When the fishermen found Bajorat’s mummified body, old family photo albums and tins of food where around him and most of the cabin was underwater. It is believed a mixture of the high temperature, dry winds sand salty air had helped preserve Bajorat’s body.

His body was discovered near the radio telephone on the 40ft yacht called Sayo, as if he was trying one last desperate mayday call.

The tragic sailor has also penned a haunting final message to his wife Claudia, who died from cancer in 2010.

The note read: “Thirty years we’re been together on the same path. Then the power of the demons was stronger than the will to live.

“You’re gone. May your soul find its peace. Your Manfred.”

It is not clear how long he had been dead and for how many years his yacht had been drifting.

The mast was broken and much of the cabin was underwater, but what killed the skipper is unclear.

Dry ocean winds, hot temperatures and the salty air helped preserve his body. He was identified by paperwork found on the vessel.

@Agency report.

Mumbai: Superstar Shah Rukh Khan, whose remarks on intolerance had kicked up a political storm last year, today said freedom of speech also means the right to be silent.

He was speaking at the trailer launch of his upcoming movie ‘Fan’ here.

When asked about his experience after his remarks on intolerance, Shah Rukh said, “When I would watch Mumbai Indians’ match against KKR, the only one appeal I would make is ‘Out’…I am not getting into this. Freedom of speech means the right to keep silence also. I am very silent about this.”

On his 50th birthday in November last year, Shah Rukh had said there was “extreme intolerance” in the country. “There is intolerance, there is extreme intolerance… there is I think… there is growing intolerance,” he had said.

However, his remarks kicked up a controversy with several BJP members criticising him. His film ‘Dilwale’ also faced demonstrations in parts of the country.

However, the actor had later claimed that he never said India is intolerant and that his words were misconstrued.

@Agency report.

Islamabad: Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy was today hailed in Pakistan for being a “source of inspiration” to all women of her country by winning the prestigious Oscar, her second, for her new documentary dealing with the sensitive topic of honour killings.

President Mamnoon Hussain termed Chinoy’s choice of the subject as “heroic”.

“Sharmeen had performed a heroic deed by highlighting an important social issue. She deserves congratulation for this,” Hussain said.

Chinoy, 37, was today awarded the Oscar for the documentary “A Girl in the River: The Price of Forgiveness” which tells the story of a girl who was shot in the face and thrown in a river for marrying a man of her choice.

18-year-old Saba, who fell in love and eloped, was targeted by her father and uncle but survived to tell her story.

“Every year, more than 1,000 girls and women are the victims of religiously motivated honour killings in Pakistan, especially in rural areas,” the Oscars website said.

Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs (SAPM) Syed Tariq Fatemi also congratulated Chinoy for winning the best documentary short award at the 88th Academy Awards at a ceremony held at Los Angles, United States.

“It was a matter of pride for the nation that a daughter of Pakistan had yet again, achieved this distinction, which was a source of inspiration for all Pakistani women,” he said.

He appreciated the invaluable contribution made by Chinoy for promoting the concept of rights of women in Pakistan through her art by drawing attention to socially challenging issues.

Earlier, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif congratulated her for the Oscar nomination and also organised a special screening of her documentary at his office exactly a week ago.

Sharif said on the occasion that “there was no honour in honour killing” and reiterated his government’s unequivocal resolve to ensure women’s rightful place in society, as well as to bring an end to violence against women.

This is the second win for Chinoy, who previously bagged the Oscar in the same category in 2012 for “Saving Face”, a documentary which dealt with another important issue of acid throwing on women in Pakistan.

@Agency report.

Anaheim : Four people were stabbed, and one of them critically wounded on Saturday in a scuffle between members of the Ku Klux Klan and counter-protesters near a planned KKK rally in Anaheim, California, police said.

Thirteen people were arrested following the melee, including one Klan member who is accused of stabbing a counter-protester with a flagpole, said Anaheim Police Sergeant Daron Wyatt.

Several counter-protesters were taken into custody after stomping a KKK member on the ground, Wyatt said.

Wyatt said the altercation took place as soon as several Klan members arrived at the park about a mile north of Disneyland, for a planned rally there.

Wyatt said four people were wounded in the ensuing confrontation. The person most seriously wounded was stabbed with a flagpole that had an American eagle finial at the top and taken to a local hospital in critical condition.

The Ku Klux Klan

The Klan, founded after the abolition of slavery in the U.S. South in the mid-19th century, has evolved in recent years into a collection of loosely affiliated or independent groups that share a political philosophy based on racial separation.

Most recently it made national headlines when a former KKK leader, David Duke, said he backed Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination.

Trump rejected Duke’s support and on Friday a man wearing a shirt reading “KKK endorses Trump,” was ejected from a Trump campaign rally in Oklahoma.

@Agency report.

New Delhi: Creation of a Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA) to finance educational institutions to ensure 20 such places of learning emerge as world class and opening of 62 Navodaya Vidyalayas are among the announcements of the Union Budget 2016-17 presented today.

The Union HED Ministry also witnessed a sharp increase in its budgetary allocation.

The Department of School Education and Literacy has got an allocation of Rs 43,554 crore in the financial year 2016-17 as compared to Rs 42,186 crore as per the revised estimates for 2015-16.

The Department of Higher Education was allocated Rs 25,399 crore for the year 2015-16 while it Rs 28,840 crore for the year 2016-17.

In his budget speech, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley announced creation of a Higher Education Financing Agency (HEFA) with an initial capital base of Rs 1,000 crore which will leverage funds from the market and work to create infrastructure in India’s top institutions like IITs.

HEFA, Jaitley said, will be a not-for-profit organisation that will leverage funds from the market and supplement them with donations and CSR funds.

“These funds will be used to finance improvement in infrastructure in our top institutions and will be serviced through internal accruals,” he said.

Jaitley also spoke about creating a regulatory architecture for ten public and ten private institutions to emerge as world-class teaching and research institutions.

He said that after universalisation of primary education throughout the country, the government wants to take the next big step forward by focusing on the quality of education.

An increasing share of allocation under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan will be allocated for this, he said.

“An enabling regulatory architecture will be provided to 10 public and 10 private institutions to emerge as world-class Teaching and Research Institutions. This will enhance affordable access to high quality education for ordinary Indians. A detailed scheme will be formulated,” he said.

The Finance Minister also proposed to establish a digital depository for School Leaving Certificates, College Degrees, Academic Awards and Mark sheets on the pattern of a Securities Depository.

“This will help validate their authenticity, safe storage and easy retrieval,” Jaitley said.

He also declared that 62 new Navodaya Vidyalayas will be opened in the remaining uncovered districts over the next two years.

@Agency report.

New Delhi : More men are smoking in India than ever before, with the number rising by more than a third from 79 million in 1998 to 108 million in 2015, report researchers in the journal BMJ Global Health.

Smoking rates haven’t increased for women, though, with 11 million women smoking in India in 2015, the study found.

Only China has more adult smokers — 300 million — than India, where more than one in four adults also uses smokeless and chewing tobacco.

Tobacco-control measures, such as banning smoking in public places, haven’t helped much. They led to a fall in smoking prevalence from 27% in 1998 to 24% in 2010 among men aged 15-69 years, but the modest gains were offset by rising population and incomes.

“During this period, India added about 1.7 million male smokers each year, with roughly an equal number smoking cigarettes and bidis,” said the study’s co-author Dr Prakash C Gupta, director, Healis-Sekhsaria Institute of Public Health, Mumbai.

The study found that 61 million Indian adult men smoked cigarettes (40 million exclusively) and 69 million smoked bidis (48 million exclusively).

Tobacco use, including smoking, accounts for 10% of all deaths in India. “In 2010, tobacco use caused about one million deaths in India, with about 70% of these deaths killing people in their prime, between ages 30 and 69,” said co-author Dr Prabhat Jha, professor at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health at the University of Toronto.

Smoking causes about 30% of all cancer deaths (including 90% of lung cancer deaths), 17% of heart disease deaths, and at least 80% of deaths from bronchitis and emphysema.

But cessation is uncommon in India. Last year, in the 45-59 age group, there were roughly four current smokers for every person who quit. In comparison, in the US and countries where cessation support is available, there are more quitters than current smokers.

“Raising tax on tobacco is the single most effective intervention to lower smoking rates, increase cessation and deter future smokers,” said Dr Jha.

The Tobacco Institute of India disagrees: “As a result of discriminatory taxation, the share of legal cigarettes in total tobacco consumption declined from 21% in 1981-82 to 11%, but overall tobacco consumption increased 38% during this period.”

For the BMJ Public Health study, researchers used data from three nationally representative surveys — Special Fertility and Mortality Survey (1998), Sample Registration Survey – Baseline data (2004) and Global Adult Tobacco Survey (2010) — covering about 14 million people from 2.5 million households, and made forward projections to 2015.

@Agency report.

Beijing: China will send its second orbiting space lab Tiangong-2 into space in the third quarter of this year, which is expected to dock with a cargo ship next year, authorities said on Sunday.

As part of the country’s space lab programme, China also plans to launch the Shenzhou-11 spacecraft, which will carry two astronauts on board, in the fourth quarter of this year to dock with Tiangong-2, Xinhua news agency reported.

After its first test flight in the Wenchang satellite launch centre in Hainan province, a next-generation Long March-7 rocket will put the country’s first cargo ship Tianzhou-1, which literally means “heavenly vessel” into space in the first half of 2017 to dock with Tiangong-2 and conduct experiments.

During the process, China will verify key technologies including cargo transportation, on-orbit propellant resupply, astronauts’ medium-term stay, as well as conduct space science and application experiments on a relatively large scale.

China’s multi-billion-dollar space programme aims to put a permanent manned space station into service around 2022.

China already launched its first space lab, Tiangong-1, in September 2011 and has conducted two dockings with the module in the following two years.

@Agency report.

Professor Bertram said: “It is exciting to discover a new and unusual particle that will help us understand the strong interaction- one of the four known fundamental interactions in physics.”

DZero is one of two experiments at Fermilab’s Tevatron collider. Although the Tevatron was retired in 2011, the experiments continue to analyse billions of previously recorded events from its collisions.

The tetraquark observation came as a surprise when DZero scientists first saw hints in July 2015 of the new particle, called X(5568), named for its mass—5568 megaelectronvolts.

Professor Bertram worked on the analysis, developing the model used to simulate the X(5568).

Quarks are point-like elementary particles that typically come in packages of two or three, the most familiar of which are the proton and neutron (each is made of three quarks).

There are six types, or “flavours,” of quark to choose from: up, down, strange, charm, bottom and top. Each of these also has an antimatter counterpart.

While all other observed tetraquarks contain at least two of the same flavor, X(5568) has four different flavors –  up, down, strange and bottom.

@Based on  phys.org report.

New Delhi: Former Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran, his brother Kalanithi Maran and four others were today summoned as accused by a special court in a Aircel-Maxis deal- related money laundering case, saying there was “enough incriminating material” to proceed against them.

Beside Maran brothers, Special CBI Judge O P Saini also summoned Kalanithi’s wife Kavery Kalanithi, K Shanmugam, Managing Director of South Asia FM Ltd (SAFL), and two firms — SAFL and Sun Direct TV Pvt Ltd (SDTPL) — as accused for July 11.

The court also asked the ED to continue the ongoing investigation and file fresh complaints, if required.

ED has chargesheeted the six accused under provisions of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

During arguments earlier, ED’s special prosecutor N K Matta had claimed that there were money transactions which allegedly showed that SDTPL and SAFL had received Rs 742.58 crore as “proceeds of crime” from Mauritius-based firms in the Aircel-Maxis deal.

The agency had claimed that “proceeds of crime” amounting to Rs 549.03 crore and Rs 193.55 crore were received by SDTPL and SAFL, allegedly controlled by co-accused Kalanithi Maran, respectively through various Mauritius-based entities.

@ Agency news.

New Delhi: Former CAG Vinod Rai was today appointed first Chairman of the Banks Board Bureau, which will advise the government on top-level appointments at public sector lenders and ways to address the bad loans problem among other issues.

Besides, ICICI Bank’s former Joint Managing Director H N Sinor, Bank of Baroda’s former CMD Anil K Khandelwal and rating agency CRISIL’s former chief Rupa Kudwa have been appointed members.

The bureau has been set up at a time when public sector banks are grappling with a huge problem of bad loans with their collective gross NPAs (Non Performing Assets) approaching Rs 4 lakh crore level.

Rai was the Comptroller and Auditor General between January 2008 and May 2013, during which a number of CAG reports led to various scams including in the telecom and coal sectors coming to light.

The bureau will give recommendations on appointment of directors in public sector banks and advise on ways to raise funds and mergers and acquisitions to the lenders.

There are 22 state-owned banks in India including SBI, IDBI Bank and Bhartiya Mahila Bank.

The BBB was earlier proposed by the government as a body of eminent professionals and officials, which will replace the Appointments Board for appointment of Whole-time Directors as well as non-Executive Chairman of PSBs.

They will also constantly engage with the Board of Directors of all the public sector banks to formulate appropriate strategies for their growth and development.

The bureau will search and select heads of public sector banks and help them develop differentiated strategies of capital raising plans to innovative financial methods and instruments.

It would also be responsible for selection of non-executive chairman and non-official directors on the boards.

Besides, the body will also steer strategy discussion on consolidation based on the requirement.

The government wants to encourage bank boards to restructure their business strategy and also suggest way forward for their consolidation and merger with other banks.

@Agency news.