Mumbai, Nov 30: Municipalities are likely to raise Rs 6,000 crore through bonds over the next three fiscal years–more than four-times of what they had mopped in the past two decades, says a report.
Between fiscals 2011 and 2017, there were no issuances of municipal bonds in the country.
“We expect Rs 6,000 crore of municipal bonds to be issued over the next three fiscal years from progressive and proactive urban local bodies (ULBs), riding on policy and regulatory facilitations,” Crisil said in a report today.
Government and market regulator Sebi have been working to improve ULBs’ access to the capital markets
In June 2017, Sebi had notified guidelines on disclosure of financial information by ULBs at regular intervals, and audit of accounts to increase transparency, to improve the prospects for municipal bonds.
Government has also announced an interest subsidy scheme to make such issuances competitive.
The report said while the amount may seem small in the context of the massive infrastructure needs of the cities, it is more than four times what was raised –Rs 1,350 crore — in the past 20 years. This June, Pune Municipal Corporation had raised Rs 200 crore from 10-year bonds.
Government move to develop civic infrastructure through the Amrut and Smart City missions requires significant capital spending by ULBs.
The report estimates ULBs will have to borrow nearly Rs 15,000 crore to fund these projects through fiscal 2023.
These will have to be funded by market borrowings in addition to government grants.
Several ULBs have initiated their bond issuance process by appointing transaction advisors, Subodh Rai of Crisil said, adding more such issuances are in the offing.
“That’s because bonds offer ULBs structuring flexibility through longer tenures, annual interest payments, and fixed coupon rates compared with bank loans,” Rai said.
Capital market also has a large investor base and can turn out to be more competitive than bank borrowing,” he said.
The agency expects a gradual increase in investor interest in municipal bonds over the medium-term.
The implementation of Sebi guidelines will improve transparency and can go a long way in helping ULBs access the capital markets, it added.
New Delhi, Nov 28: GST collections slipped almost 10 per cent to Rs 83,346 crore in October as tax rates on several product were cut and teething troubles with the new regime pushed back implementation of key provisions.
As many as 50.1 lakh Goods and Services Tax (GST) returns filed for October resulted in a revenue of Rs 83,346 crore, down from over Rs 92,000 crore in the previous month, a finance ministry statement said.
It attributed the drop in collections to rates on several commodities being cut and tax administration being based on self-declaration as matching of returns, electronic transit permit system or e-way bill and reverse charging being postponed.
Also, there was additional tax inflow on inter-state movement of goods, called Integrated-GST or IGST, in the first three months while the actual credit being utilised only when final sale transaction taking place.
The GST, which was implemented from July 1, has subsumed over a dozen central and state levies including excise duty, service tax and VAT. The revenues collected are split between the Centre and states in a pre-decided formula.
The finance ministry said Rs 10,806 crore was released to states from the revenue collected from levy of cess on luxury and sin goods, in July and August. A compensation of Rs 13,695 crore for September and October is being released, it added.
The compensation is to make up for any loss of revenue to the states arising from implementation of the GST.
“The states’ revenues have been fully protected taking base year revenue as 2015-16 and providing a projected revenue growth rate of 14 per cent,” the ministry said.
As per official data available, GST collections in the maiden month of July was over Rs 95,000 crore while in August, the figure was over Rs 91,000 crore. In September, it was over Rs 92,150 crore. October is the fourth month of GST rollout.
Explaining the downward trend in tax revenue under GST, the ministry said initially Integrated GST was paid on transfer of goods from one state to another.
“As and when the final transaction of these goods takes place, the credit for IGST is being utilised for payment of SGST and CGST and therefore, the inflow of new taxes is low,” it said.
Also, since the overall incidence of taxes on most of the commodities has come down under the GST, it would naturally have some implication on the revenues of the government, the ministry said.
The total number of initial GSTR-3B returns filed for the return period July, August, September and October 2017 till is 58.7 lakh, 58.9 lakh, 57.3 lakh and 50.1 lakh, respectively.
Dhaka, Nov 28: The Bangladesh High Court today upheld the death sentence of 139 and the life imprisonment of 146 convicted soldiers involved in a 2009 mutiny and their role in the massacre of 74 people, including 57 Army officers, in the country’s biggest-ever criminal case.
The judgement comes after the court started delivering the verdict yesterday in the death sentence of the total 152 convicted soldiers of the then Bangladesh Rifles (BDR) for the brutal killing at the border guards’ headquarters here.
“One thirty nine will have to walk to gallows and 146 will be imprisoned for life,” Attorney General Mahbubey Alam told a media briefing, quoting the over 1,000-page judgement delivered by a three-judge High Court bench.
“The rebels staged the mutiny so no military officer could serve in BDR, so they killed the innocent (army) officers systematically. This is unprecedented,” Alam said.
A key lawyer on the defence side Aminul Islam, however, called the judgement “unexpected” and “defiance of justice” as it mostly upheld the lower court verdict “which had been delivered in most cases without any evidence”.
“I will advice my cleanest (convicts) to file appeals before the (apex) Appellate Division of the Supreme Court to get justice,” he said.
The judgement comes four years after a lower court in Dhaka handed down capital punishment to 152 and life term to 158 soldiers of the BDR.
The bench yesterday started reading out the entire judgement on the death sentence and appeal hearing of the trial of what is said to Bangladesh’s biggest ever criminal case.
A Dhaka court had awarded death penalty to 152 jawans and non-commissioned officers of the BDR, which was renamed as the Border Guard Bangladesh (BGB), in November 2013.
The court had sentenced 158 to life imprisonment, 251 to imprisonments up to 10 years for the February 25-26, 2009 carnage, when 74 people, including 57 military officers serving in the BDR, were killed.
“It appears from discussions and reviews before and after the BDR mutiny that it was a conspiracy by a quarter with vested interest to hamper the stability of the state and socio-economic safety,” said the bench in its observation part of the judgement.
The bench observed that it was “an attempt to destroy a trained and skilled professional force through conspiracy”.
The BDR jawans had been accused of masterminding the mutiny plots, torturing and killing their officers, looting their belongings or keeping their family members captive during the rebellion.
They had also killed eight civilians, eight fellow BDR soldiers who apparently were opposed to the revolt and an army soldier apart from the 57 military officers.
Legal experts had called it the country’s biggest-ever criminal trial in which some 800 ex-paramilitary soldiers had been accused of the murder of 74 people during the revolt in February 2009.
Never before had so many accused, 850 in total, been tried in a single case in the history of Bangladesh.
The bench heard the death sentences and appeals for over a year during which BDR’s former deputy assistant director Touhid Ahmed, a soldier-turned-officer, appeared as the key leader of the mutineers. He was also given the capital punishment.
Two civilians, who were awarded the life term, included former lawmaker of main opposition BNP Nasiruddin Ahmed Pintu and Awami League leader and ex-BDR soldier Torab Ali as they were found guilty of collaborating with the mutineers.
Pintu died few years ago.
Bangladesh had renamed the mutiny-stained force as BGB in 2012 under a massive revamp.
The rebel BDR soldiers had staged the mutiny, alleging “deprivation”, at the force’s Pilkhana headquarters here. It soon spread at the frontier force’s sector headquarters and regional units across the country.
The soldiers turned their guns on their commanders, shot them from close range or hacked and tortured them to death.
They hid their bodies in sewers and hurriedly-dug graves and also held captive their frightened family members and humiliated them in barracks.
They had set the date for staging the revolt coinciding with the annual ‘Darbar’ or meeting of ordinary soldiers with the top brasses, while the then BDR chief Major General Shakil Ahmed was their first victim.
The casualties took place at Pilkhana alone during the mutiny when the rebel soldiers outside Dhaka defied the command, took charge of the armoury and came out of their barracks confining their commanders from military inside.
The rebels went on a killing spree during the 33-hour revolt at Pilkhana when they also murdered the then Dhaka sector chief Colonel Mojibul Haque and other army officers.
The mutiny was a challenge for the newly elected government of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.
Earlier in 2012, Bangladesh concluded another phase of trial of the rebellion with 11 paramilitary courts sentencing 6,011 rebel soldiers of 57 units to jail terms up to seven years under the relatively lenient BDR Act.
Moscow, Nov 28: India and Russia on Monday agreed to help each other in combating terrorism as the two strategic partners signed a key agreement, asserting that there are no good or bad terrorists and the menace should be fought jointly.
The agreement between the two countries for cooperation in tackling all forms of terrorism was signed by Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Russia’s Interior Minister Vladimir Kolokoltsev here after they held wide-ranging talks.
The ministers underlined that cooperation in the field of security is an important aspect of this bilateral relationship further strengthen cooperation to combat terrorism, extremism and radicalism, a statement issued by the Indian embassy said.
They agreed that terrorism must be fought unitedly and there were no good or bad terrorists, it said.
“The new agreement between India’s MHA and Russia’s interior ministry will replace the October 1993 agreement between both the countries. This agreement will help in expanding and deepening cooperation on issues related to internal security,” Singh tweeted after signing the pact.
The Indian embassy statement said the two leaders agreed to cooperate in combating new challenges, enhance exchange of information, cooperate in building a data base and in training of police and investigative agencies.
Indian and Russian representatives also signed the joint action plan for countering the threat posed by narcotics and the agreement will provide legal framework for bilateral cooperation in this field.
The pact was signed by Indian ambassador to Russia Pankaj Saran and deputy minister for internal affairs of the Russian Federation Igor Zubov in presence of Singh and Kolokoltsev.
The agreement on internal security is an updated and more comprehensive agreement on cooperation on security between the MHA and the Russian ministry of interior.
This pact provides a comprehensive approach for help in security related issues, including information technology crimes, counterfeiting currency, illicit trafficking in narcotic drugs and psychotropic substances, trafficking in human beings, economic crimes, crimes related to intellectual property, cultural property amongst others, the statement said.
During the meeting, the ministers emphasised the strength of the relationship between India and Russia that has been consolidated in the past 70 years in all areas.
Before leaving for Russia, Singh said India and Russia share a special relationship which has withstood the test of time over the decades.
Singh was scheduled to visit Russia on September 18, 2016, but he had cancelled it following a terror attack on that day at the Brigade headquarters in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir, in which 19 Army soldiers were killed.
London, Nov 25: Terrorist networks like the ISIS and Al Qaeda may soon begin instructing recruits on how to create killer viruses just like bomb-making lessons, a senior European Union (EU) security expert has warned.
Gilles de Kerchove, the EU’s counter-terrorism co- ordinator, said that terror networks based in the Middle East like Al Qaeda and Islamic State (ISIS), could begin using the internet to instruct on the use of biological agents.
“If we don’t address the grievances which led to the creation of Daesh (ISIS) Sunni grievances against sectarian Shia policies and state violence from [Syrian President] Assad, we are likely to see the resurgence of something that could be Daesh 2.0,” Kerchove told a conference organised by the UK-based think tank Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) in London this week.
Tracing that the first edition of ‘Inspire’, Al Qaeda’s online propaganda magazine, had an article on “how to make a bomb in your mum’s kitchen”, he said: “What if anyone will have a similar article on how to process a virus in your mum s kitchen?
“Unfortunately, it’s probably easier than before for a lone actor to perpetrate an attack with catastrophic consequences.”
Kerchove also warned that terrorists could tap into networks of cyber criminals to develop or buy the expertise to launch a devastating cyber-attack.
Patrick McGuinness, the UK’s Deputy National Security Adviser and one of British Prime Minister Theresa May’s senior-most security advisers, agreed that all terrorists needed was the “internet and a mindset” to perpetrate global atrocities and it was important to defeat them online.
“The frontline [against ISIS] is now online…Until there is not a presence online, until ISIS cannot occupy space online freely, we will not be safe,” he said.
He said the speed at which people are “brought to violence” was now “almost too fast to catch without the most extraordinary intrusive surveillance techniques which are not going to be sustainable or acceptable in a Western democracy.”
The UK’s security minister, Ben Wallace, told the conference a total of eight planned attacks had been thwarted since the ISIS-inspired attack on the UK Parliament building in Westminster in March this year, bringing the total to 21 since 2013.
“Nearly 600 investigative leads are ongoing, covering about 3,000 people and approximately another 20,000 people who we have at some stage had concern about,” he told RUSI’s Westminster Counter-terrorism Conference”.
“It is not a spike in the threat, but a shift that we are now facing, and that is something we all have to deal with,” he added.
Wallace said a new counter-terrorism strategy is set to be unveiled by the UK government in the New Year, to keep “one step ahead of the terrorists”.
Brussels, Nov 24: Britain can no longer host the European Capital of Culture in 2023 as planned because of Brexit, even though some non-EU countries are eligible, the European Commission said today.
Britain and Hungary had been due to get the honour in six years’ time, and five British cities had even reportedly submitted nominations at the invitation of the government.
But the European Commission, the executive arm of the soon-to-be 27-nation EU, said it had sent a letter to the British culture ministry yesterday saying that it was no longer possible.
“As one of the many concrete consequences of its decision to leave the European Union by 29 March 2019, the UK cannot host the European Capital of Culture in 2023,” a European Commission spokeswoman said in a statement, confirming a story in Politico Europe.
“Given that the UK will have left the EU by 29 March 2019, and therefore be unable to host the European Capital of Culture in 2023, we believe it makes common sense to discontinue the selection process now.”
Belfast and Derry in Northern Ireland, Dundee in Scotland, and Milton Keynes, Leeds and Nottingham had put themselves forward, the Guardian newspaper said.
Explaining why non-EU cities including Istanbul in Turkey, Stavanger in Norway and Novi Sad in Serbia have been named European Capital of Culture, the spokeswoman said the scheme is “not open to third countries except candidate countries and European Free Trade Association/European Economic Area countries.”
Turkey and Serbia have begun the EU accession process and Norway is part of the EEA.
Britain however has said it will not be part of the EEA after it leaves the EU.
The blow comes days after Paris and Amsterdam were named as the host cities of two major London-based EU agencies, in what the commission said was the “first visible result” of the June 2016 Brexit vote.
The EU started the European Capital of Culture scheme in 1985, and currently names two cities a year. The current holders are Aarhus in Denmark and Paphos in Cyprus.