Oil bulls distressed that last week’s rally fizzled can find some comfort in forecasts for a bigger and longer rebound by the end of the year. Analysts are projecting prices will climb more than $15 by the end of 2016. New York crude will reach $46 a barrel during the fourth quarter, while Brent in London will trade at $48 in the same period, the median of […]
MODI SARKAR PICKS NAMES TO TRUMP RIVALS
By Arun Srivastava
The politics of vengeance has been the key factor in the Modi government denying the smart cities to the eastern Indian states. Except Bhubaneswar, Odisha’s capital, no city from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand or Bengal has made it to the smart list. Last year, when the names of the cities for including in the list of the smart cities were being finalized Bihar government was given the impression that at least three of its cities – Bhagalpur, Biharsharif and Muzaffarpur – are among the 97 shortlisted and would be upgraded. But none made it to the first list of 20 released by the Union minister Venkaiah Naidu.
Reacting to it Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar compared the Centre to the fabled “andher nagri (City of lawlessness)” for ignoring Bihar while picking the first list of 20 smart
SOLAR-SCAM TAINTED CHANDY BUDGES NOT
By Amulya Ganguli
The Congress’s barefaced conduct in Kerala is typical of the coarseness, which Natwar Singh said he had detected in Sonia Gandhi in his autobiography, One Life Is Not Enough.
Oommen Chandy’s decision to stay on in the chief minister’s post by claiming that nothing has been proved as yet against him in the solar scam will not surprise the general public who are aware of the average politician’s fondness for the seat of power. They prefer to stick to it till all the options are exhausted. Given the slowness of the legal process, Chandy can hope to remain ensconced till the assembly elections.
What is unacceptable, however, is his move to reinstate even those who had left his ministry on various charges of corruption. These include the excise minister, K. Babu, who had been implicat
The global oversupply of crude will decline this year even after Iran adds an expected 500,000 barrels a day in oil output, United Arab Emirates Energy Minister Suhail Al Mazrouei said. Oil prices are fluctuating on speculation about the potential impact of more Iranian crude entering the market this year after the lifting of economic sanctions, Al Mazrouei said on his Twitter account. Iran has pledged to boost […]
CAN JAYA OUTSMART BOTH BJP-LED NDA AND DMK?
By S. Sethuraman
Political parties in Tamil Nadu, ahead of the May elections to the Assembly, want to usher in a “change” in the state’s governance, and BJP is trying hard to bring NDA rule through an alliance by reportedly offering bulk of the seats to contest for the influential state parties, DMDK and PMK, and thus break the hold of “corrupt” regimes of AIADMK and DMK over the last five decades.
Whether the BJP dream fructifies or not, it could cut into the assumed strength of both the ruling AIADMK, which still remains confident of a renewed mandate for ‘Amma’s’ welfare schemes, and of a resurgent DMK which, however, faces difficulty in forging a stronger alliance, with only a divided and demoralised Congress willing to go with it at present..
Pri
Drivers in the U.S. oil hub of Houston can fill their tanks for less than the cost in Abu Dhabi and Dubai for the first time since 2008 as falling crude prices push Middle East exporters to cut government fuel subsidies. The price of the cheapest grade in the United Arab Emirates, of which Abu Dhabi is the capital, is 1.51 dirhams per liter ($1.55 a gallon) […]
NATHU LA NEW OUTPOST OF COMMERCE
By Ashis Biswas
While investors and business circles grumble over the tardy pace of growth in Indo-China bilateral trade through the Nathu La Himalayan outpost, Beijing is apparently not too keen to launch any export promotion initiative just yet. In the context of India’s large trade deficit vis-à-vis China, the reverse trend at Nathu La, where China imports far more from India than it exports, strikes most observers as an oddity.
In statistical terms, the volume of trade has increased considerably. In 2006, when movement between the two countries was resumed linking Sherathang, Nathu La in Sikkim with Rinqinjing, once part of the Tibet autonomous area(TAR)which is currently Southwest China, there was a trade turnover of Rs 20 lakh only !And there was nil import from China that year.
However, by Jan 2015,
WHY TAX/GREEN BREAK FOR INDIA’S RICH?
By Garga Chatterjee
On 16th January, with much fanfare, the Union government announced its “Start-up India” scheme. On attendance were big people, big enough not to deserve any income tax break in their next seven lives. But this is precisely what the Government of India (GoI) has offered – an income tax exemption for first three years of a “start-up”. There will also be tax exemption on capital gains. After all its fake environment-love recently in Paris, this GoI scheme has also offered a three-year exemption on environment law compliance! Entities will only need to self-certify! In the name of “start-up”, exactly what anti-environment, anti-labour racket are we starting up here? This will also be true for labour law and working condition compliance (including payment of wages and benefits to staff). Shamelessly, this whole sch
|By Matein Khalid| The collapse in Brent crude oil below $30, a 20% fall in the Tadawul share index in January 2016’s global equity bloodbath, the cut in fuel subsidies and geopolitical risk escalation in the Middle East has spawned speculation in financial markets that Saudi Arabia will devalue the kingdom’s riyal, now pegged at 3.75 against the US dollar. Senior princes of the royal family and […]
Thanks to Apple’s introduction of the WKWebView rendering engine beginning with the iOS 8 version of its mobile operating system, Google said it has been able to update its Chrome Web browser so it can perform far better on iPhones and iPads. Rolling out today, version 48 of Google Chrome for iOS is faster, more responsive and far more stable than previous generations of the browser, according […]
Has the mighty iPhone reached its selling peak? If good sales, as opposed to outrageously great sales, are any indication, that could be. Apple said on Tuesday that it sold 74.8 million iPhones during its fiscal first quarter, which ended December 26. That marks the slowest quarter of growth since the company began selling the smartphones in 2007. In the same period in 2014, Apple sold 74.5 […]
Lei Jun, founder and chief executive officer of Xiaomi, attends a session of the second annual World Internet Conference in Wuzhen town of Jiaxing, Zhejiang province, China, December 16, 2015. Reuters/Aly Song HONG KONG/ BEIJING Xiaomi Inc, China’s second-biggest smartphone vendor, more than doubled Internet services revenue in 2015 to about $564 million, an internal document reviewed by Reuters showed, but still fell well short of an […]
A remote-controlled Parrot AR.Drone 2.0 Quadricopter is seen during a flight demonstration at the Google I/O Conference at Moscone Center in San Francisco, California June 28, 2012. Reuters/Stephen Lam/Files SAN FRANCISCO Google’s secretive drone delivery project could include a component designed to store packages securely. A patent filed Tuesday in the United States by the company, a unit of Alphabet Inc, describes a “delivery receptacle” designed to […]
UAE. To coincide with the annual Arab Health Exhibition & Congress this week, six major investment opportunities in the GCC’s health care market in 2016 have been predicted by EY as being areas of high demand and growth in the region. According to the EY ‘Investment Big Bets – Healthcare and Life Sciences in the GCC’ report launched today, specialized centers of excellence (CoEs), home health care […]
UAE. Businesses must adjust how they nurture loyalty among Millennials or risk losing a large percentage of their workforces, according to Deloitte’s fifth annual Millennial Survey. Forty-four percent of Millennials say, if given the choice, they expect to leave their current employers in the next two years. That figure increases to 66 percent when the time frame is extended to 2020. The findings were revealed through a […]
ECONOMY BEING HELD HOSTAGE BY BULLION MERCHANTS
By Nantoo Banerjee
Swiss banks may not be too happy with India’s latest round of searches for big Indian accounts there. But, largely impoverished India’s endless gold hunt, especially at a time when the global economy and trade are shrinking and stock markets around the world are going topsy-turvy following economic slow-down in China, has placed the Geneva-based World Gold Council on top of the world. India’s gold import last month hit a new 120-day high at nearly $4 billion while all other imports to the country shrank by over 15 per cent in value. The massive gold import by bullion merchants, mostly from Mumbai and Ahmedabad, widened the country’s trade deficit to $11.7 billion in just one month. In the pre-reform period, India’s annual trade deficit rarely topped $5 billion. During the current financial year 2015-16, t
The $15 trillion rout in global equity markets since May is reawakening the lure of gold for investors seeking safety. Hedge funds more than doubled their net-long position in bullion last week, just three weeks after they were the most-bearish ever. Investor holdings of gold through exchange-traded products are expanding at the fastest pace in a year, and the value of the ETPs has jumped by $3 […]
SAUDI ARABIA. Since August 2011 the Ministry of Labour in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has focused on promoting employment for KSA nationals and updating labour legislation to produce a more dynamic labour market. Recently these measures culminated in the amendment of the KSA Labour Law (Labour Law) with the amendments coming into effect on 18 October 2015 and the introduction of new fines to support […]
SAUDI ARABIA. 2015 has established itself as a record-breaking year for cross-border M&A post-financial crisis, according to a Cross-Border M&A Index* by global law firm Baker & McKenzie. With corporate deal-making activity at record highs, those companies are also executing record levels of cross-border transactions, a global trend reflected in the Middle East. Overall M&A in 2015 reached US$4.28 trillion, of which 39% were cross-border in nature […]
Senior Saudi and Iranian figures clashed behind closed doors at a private meeting convened by the World Economic Forum in Davos this week to try to promote peace in Syria, participants said. The barbed exchange between Saudi Prince Turki al-Faisal and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif at an invitation-only meeting on Wednesday underlined the hostility between the two Gulf rivals, who are waging proxy wars in Syria, […]
Reuters/Stephen Lam (Corrects spelling of Prem Sikka) By Tom Bergin LONDON Google has agreed to pay 130 million pounds ($185 million) in back taxes to Britain, prompting criticism from opposition lawmakers and campaigners who said the “derisory” figure smacked of a “sweetheart deal”. Google, now part of Alphabet Inc, has been under pressure in recent years over its practice of channelling most profits […]
DUBAI // A young lioness that escaped from her owner is believed to have roamed the streets for more than three hours before she was captured by a team of Dubai Municipality animal welfare officers. Dubai Police said they received reports of the lioness prowling the streets of Al Barsha neighbourhood, one of the newer residential developments on the city’s west side, at about 7pm on Thurday. […]
DUBAI // Enduring an 18-hour flight from Colombia to take part in the Standard Chartered Dubai Marathon yesterday was worth it, says Juan Carlos, a physical training teacher. “The first few kilometres were difficult, but I wanted to take part because it’s a long course and for me, it’s good for my health,” the 28-year-old said about his first marathon. He completed the 42-kilometre course in two […]
Oil rallied, heading for biggest two-day advance since 2009 after a slump to a 12-year low prompted some investors to buy back record bearish bets. Front-month futures have jumped more than 18 percent after the February contract expired Wednesday at $26.55 a barrel, the lowest settlement since 2003. Speculators this month amassed the biggest-ever short position in U.S. crude amid concern that turmoil in China’s markets would […]
