Friday 30 October 2015

India-Africa Summit 2015: PM Modi announces $10 bn concessional credit to Africa

 India Thursday announced a concessional credit of USD 10 billion to Africa in the next five years and a grant assistance of USD 600 million as Prime Minister Narendra Modi strongly asked the continent to speak in "one voice" with it in pushing for UN Security Council reform and combating climate change and threat of terrorism

In his address at the 3rd India Africa Forum Summit, Modi assured 41 Heads of State and Government and hundreds of senior officials from 54 African countries that India will extend all possible assistance to them including in areas of defence, security, trade and infrastructure development.

In the concluding session, the summit adopted 'Delhi Declaration' and a India Africa Framework for Strategic Cooperation to chart a new course of engagement in diverse areas with Modi describing it as a historic day for both sides.
"Today, it is not just a meeting of India and Africa. Today, the dreams of one-third of humanity have come together under one roof. Today, the heart beat of 1.25 billion Indians and 1.25 billion Africans are in rhythm," he said.
On India's development works in Africa, he said it will strengthen the monitoring system to ensure effective implementation of the projects noting that "We are conscious of the shadow that falls between an idea and action, between intention and implementation."
He said a joint monitoring mechanism with African Union will be set up.
"To add strength to our partnership, India will offer concessional credit of USD 10 billion over the next five years. This will be in addition to our ongoing credit programme," Modi said, adding India will also offer a grant assistance of USD 600 million which includes an India-Africa Development Fund of USD 100 million and a Health Fund of USD 10 million.
Identifying reform of UN Security Council as a major issue, Modi cautioned that the global body ran the risk of becoming irrelevant unless it adjusted to the changing world.
The Delhi Declaration said Africa took note of India's position and its aspirations to become a permanent member with full rights in an expanded UN Security Council, calling for a decisive push in achieving "concrete outcomes" in reforming the top decision making body.
When asked why the African leaders did not clearly spell out their support for India's candidature for permanent membership of UNSC, Secretary West in Ministry of External Affairs Navtej Sarna said the summit was not about reform of the global body and that it was one of the subjects discussed in it.
Modi specifically called for stronger ties between India and Africa in the strategic areas of counter-terrorism and climate change. "Closer defence and security cooperation, will be a key pillar of India-Africa partnership. We will intensify our cooperation against terrorism and rally the world to build a common cause against it." 
On climate change, the Delhi Declaration said India and Africa looked forward to finalising negotiations on an ambitious and comprehensive agreement based on the principles of equity and common but differentiated responsibility.
It said the developing countries, while undertaking ambitious actions on their own, need to be assisted to mitigate climate change and to adapt and adjust to its impact.
In his address, Modi invited Africa to join an alliance of solar-rich nations to be announced on November 30 at the crucial climate summit in Paris. He asserted that "excess of few cannot become the burden of many", in an apparent attack on the developed world.
Calling India and Africa two bright spots of hope and opportunities in the global economy, he said both sides must work together to defeat scourge of terrorism.
"Today, in many parts of the world, the light of a bright future flickers in the storm of violence and instability. When terror snuffs out life on the streets and beaches, and in malls and schools of Africa, we feel your pain as our own. And, we see the links that unite us against this threat," he said.
Modi said both sides can deepen cooperation in maritime security and hydrography as well as countering terrorism and extremism and stressed on the need to have a UN Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism to deal with the menace.
The Delhi declaration listed range of sectors for stepping up engagement including in trade, energy and power sector. It was decided that the summit will be held at an interval of five years.
Pitching for deeper trade ties, Modi said India will give high priority to increase trade and investment flows between the two sides and will make trade more balanced.
"We will facilitate Africa's access to the Indian market. We will ensure full and effective implementation of the duty free access extended to 34 countries," he said.
The African leaders on their part raised several issues like climate change and reform of the UN and thanked India for its development programmes while calling for their effective monitoring and implementation.
Talking about overall ties, Modi said India was honoured to be a development partner of Africa and that it is a partnership beyond strategic concerns and economic benefits.
"We will work with you to realize your vision of a prosperous Africa based on inclusive growth, empowered citizens and sustainable development an integrated and culturally vibrant Africa and, a peaceful and secure Africa, which has its rightful global place," said Modi
Talking about trade ties, Modi emphasised the need to exploit potential of the "blue economy".
"For me, Blue Economy is part of a larger Blue Revolution to reclaim our blue skies and blue waters, as we move on the path of clean development," he said.
In the Delhi Declaration, both sides acknowledged that
terrorism and violent extremism have emerged as primary threats to nations and condemned them in all their forms and manifestations.
"The menace of non-state actors including armed groups has acquired a new dimension as they expanded geographically, acquired resources and new instruments to spread extremist ideology and draw recruits.
"Tackling this challenge requires global strategy and cooperation. We emphasise that no cause or grievance can justify acts of terror and resolve to maintain zero tolerance against terrorism," it said.
In the declaration, both sides also called on all countries to ensure that their territories are not used for cross-border terrorist activities.
"We strongly condemn direct or indirect financial assistance given to terrorist groups or individual members thereof by States or their machinery, to pursue such activities," it said.
On maritime security, the declaration said India would work to support Africa, as appropriate, in the implementation of the AU 2050 Africa's Integrated Maritime (AIM) Strategy in accordance with International Maritime Law.
Both sides also supported establishment of the Continental Free Trade Area (CFTA) aimed at integrating Africa's markets in line with the objectives and principles enunciated in the Abuja Treaty, establishing the African Economic Community (AEC).
Both sides resolved to support the Continental Free Trade Area-Negotiating Forum (CFTA-NF) towards concluding the negotiations by 2017.
India and Africa also agreed to work towards creating conducive environment for trade facilitation in accordance with the WTO Bali Trade Facilitation Agreement.
At the end of the summit, a commemorative stamp as well as a commemorative coin was also released.
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Briefing reporters after the conclusion of the Summit, Sarna said Modi held bilateral meets with a number leaders, including Egypt's President and King of Morocco and Tanzania's President, in which focus was on more cooperation in areas like health, education and employment generation.
Bilaterals will continue tomorrow both at the level of the Prime Minister as well as the External Affairs Minister.
Noting that the joint delcartion talks about cooperation in fighting terrorism, he said India and Africa had shared goals as conflict was an enemy of development.

SFIO starts probe into BoB Rs 6,100-cr money laundering case

The Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) has initiated a probe into the alleged Rs 6,100-crore black money transaction case involving a Delhi branch of Bank of Baroda.

"Besides CBI and ED, has also initiated a probe into the BoB matter," a senior Ministry official said.

The SFIO is a multi-disciplinary organisation under the Ministry of Corporate Affairs to tackle white-collar crimes or frauds.

Last week, CBI and the Enforcement Directorate started investigating the matter. It is alleged that Rs 6,172 crore black money was remitted from Bank of Baroda to Hong Kong which was passed off as payments for non-existent imports like cashew, pulses and rice.

It is also alleged that the amount was deposited in 59 accounts of the bank's Ashok Vihar branch (New Delhi) in cash as advance for import and the money was sent to some select companies in Hong Kong.


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The branch opened 59 current accounts during May 2014 to June 2015 through which large foreign exchange remittances were done, the bank said in a regulatory filing.

During this one year, a total of 5,853 outward foreign remittances aggregating USD 546.10 million (around Rs 3,500 crore) were made through 38 current accounts to various overseas parties numbering some 400, mainly based in Hong Kong and one in the UAE.

The bank has admitted that the branch did not adhere to FEMA (Foreign Exchange Management Act) guidelines.

As many as six persons including two officials of Bank of Baroda -- S K Garg and Jainish Dubey -- have been arrested in this case for criminal conspiracy, cheating and provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

Garg was AGM while Dubey headed the foreign exchange division at BoB's branch in Ashok Vihar.

Cow has to go out of politics, enter economics: R Seshasayee, Infosys

Infosys chairman R Seshasayee may be cautiously optimistic about investments picking up in India but appears more confident when it comes to the future of the $9-bil ion IT behemoth, which seems to have found its mojo back over the last two quarters. Despite the bottlenecks and slow demand for credit in he economy, he feels enthused about the fact that investments have finally started figuring back on the board agenda at India Inc. 

"There is a 30 per cent overcapacity still in manufacturing globally. As it comes down, nvestments will come back," Seshasayee, also chairman of IndusInd BankBSE -0.27 % and a former CII president, told TOI n an interview. He, however, held out a word of caution."The cow has to go out of politics and enter economics since right wing voices are a distraction." 


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Though the VUCA world, a erm that CEOs use to describe rising global uncertainties, is eading to reduced labour arbitrage globally , Seshasayee feels it would still be relevant for ndian IT from an availability and cost point of view. The world, he said, was moving beyond digital to artificial intelligence and internet of things, among others, which needs to be understood and applied for Infosys customers. 

Since companies like GE, which have drafted a large software play , would need partners, Infosys would be well positioned to provide new solutions in the new digital world, he said. Similarly , he also sees substantial deals coming from emerging businesses like web aggregators and e-commerce. It may be pointed out that Infosys, under its new CEO Vishal Sikka, has drawn plans to invest $500 million into startups, which he said was on course 

The last two quarters, ever since Sikka joined the organi zation, also witnessed better financial results, which prompted the question if it has anything to do with a change in leadership. The Infosys chairman sidestepped it, saying the similarities and differences in the way the promoters in the past and Sikka now have approached the business boils down to being contemporaneously adapting to respond to market conditions.He also scotched talks that a section of senior employees who predated the  entry of Sikka were uncomfortable in the new dispensation. These talks had emerged when Infosys CFO Rajiv Bansal recently put in his papers. He also emphasized that the leadership bench was strong. 

Seshasayee said the company's 2020 targets of touching revenues of $20 billion were intact and it would be aggressively chasing acquisitions to bring on board companies which have appropriate technology to offer as part of it."We would earn back the bellwether status by then," he said. As for the business potential next year, Seshasayee said since a lot of companies are sceptical of the future, the average size of business deals will get smaller. 

India up 12 spots in 'Ease of doing business' report; Singapore tops

 India now ranks 130 out of 189 countries in the ease of doing business, moving up 12 places from last year, according to a World Bank reportSingapore remains the easiest place to do business, while developing countries stepped up their pace of business-friendly reforms in the past year.

There were barely any changes in the report's top 10, according to adjusted data using this year's criteria for both the 2015 and 2016 rankings.

New Zealand remained in the number-two position, followed by Denmark (3), South Korea (4), Hong Kong (5), Britain (6) and the United States (7). Sweden moved up a notch to number eight, switching places with Norway. Finland kept its 10th place.


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The World Bank's annual "Doing Business" report, now in its 13th year, looks at the regulatory environment for small and medium-sized companies to see how it hampers or helps them conduct business, from starting up and paying taxes to registering property and trading across borders.

"A modern economy cannot function without regulation and, at the same time, it can be brought to a standstill through poor and cumbersome regulation," said Kaushik Basu, World Bank chief economist.

"The challenge of development is to tread this narrow path by identifying regulations that are good and necessary, and shunning ones that thwart creativity and hamper the functioning of small and medium enterprises."

Significant improvement for India

"A forward movement of 12 spots in the ease of doing business by an economy of the size of India is a 'remarkable achievement," Basu was quoted as saying by PTI.

NTT opens its largest data centre in India

Action is heating up in India with the world's top names like Oracle, Microsoft and Amazon queuing up to open data centres here. NTT Communications, the world's largest data centre company and a unit of the $112-billion Japanese giant, NTT, also has mega plans in the country. On Wednesday, the company, which entered India in 2012 with the acquisition of Netmagic, opened its ninth facility spread over 3 lakh sq ft, the largest in the country, entailing an investment of Rs 700 crore. Tetsuya Shoji, president & CEO, NTT Communications, talks to Christoph Kober & Reeba Zachariah about the Indian data centre scenario.

Data centres are an important part of infrastructure. Several sectors are spurring growth, for instance, e-commerce. Also, a new set of banks is coming to play while the existing ones are becoming more aware of disaster recovery, resulting in them approaching data centres.

What challenges do you see?

Securing reliable access to electricity is the biggest challenge. Other than Mumbai, power supply is a challenge in Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi and Noida where we have our data centres. It is also an opportunity as people are unwilling to invest in fuel and generators to maintain their own data centres. And so, they are more likely to outsource the data centres to us.

Globally, NTT is No. 1 in data centres. How do you see yourself in India?

It is important to be No. 1 but we are not pursuing only scale. We also consider quality to be important. We want customer satisfaction and we want to provide it at a price where we can make appropriate profits. Netmagic is the fastest growing company in India. We were No. 3 but today we are No. 2 - depends on how you judge. India is where we want to make strategic investments. The latest Mumbai facility is not the last. We plan to have three more data centres in the near future. Whether our growth strategy will be organic or through M&A is a matter of calculation and consideration.

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The government has insisted on hosting data centres in the country as data sovereignty is a concern...

Data sovereignty rules for some sectors are present almost everywhere in the world. In India, it is for some select sectors like banking wherein you have to host facilities within the country. In Indonesia, data centres for almost all sectors have to be within the boundary. One of the reasons why NTT recently made an acquisition there.

Soon, foreigners won’t be able to rent wombs

The Centre is set to inform the Supreme Court on Wednesday that it will soon ban commercial surrogacy and not permit couples from foreign countries to have children through surrogate mothers in India.

After a high-level meeting, the Modi government has instructed solicitor general Ranjit Kumar to inform the Supreme Court that India will no longer be the 'surrogacy capital of the world'.

Kumar will, however, clarify that surrogacy will still be available as an option to childless Indian couples. In another decision, the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has decided to withdraw its 2013 notification allowing free import of human embryo to India for artificial reproduction.


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The move to curtail commercial surrogacy is an ill-considered one. After all, both sides of the bargain— would-be mothers unable to bear children themselves and poor women offering their wombs as surrogates for these women — gain from it. One gains a child they would not otherwise be able to have and another money that they desperately need. And it is not as if the arrangement hurts any third person. Such arrangements should be allowed to continue, therefore, with proper checks and regulation in place to ensure that there is no exploitation of the poor in the process. Banning them benefits no one and certainly hurts some.

Studying in UK gets more expensive

It will soon become a lot more expensive for overseas students to study in the UK. An overseas applicant for a Tier 4 (student) visa needs to show that he/she has enough funds not just for their educational fees, but also to meet the cost of living (referred to as maintenance fund). The maintenance fund requirement has risen by 24%. Further, unless a student has a graduate-level job on hand, he/she has to return to their home country on completion of studies. Both these changes will come into force from November 12. 

The cost increase will impact many Indian aspirants, and the restrictive job provisions will dampen the dreams of those currently studying in the UK. Indians there constitute the second largest group of overseas students. Students from India in the UK numbered 19,750 during 2013-14, though this was a drop of 2,635 from the previous year, according to data released by the UK's Higher Education Statistics Agency. 

For a course of over nine months, an overseas student applying for a visa needs to have a maintenance fund of about £11,385 (about Rs 11 lakh) for London-based institutions and £9,135 (about Rs 9 lakh) for outside London. For courses of shorter durations, monthly maintenance funds have been specified at £1,265 (about Rs 1.26 lakh) for London and £1,015 (about Rs 1.01 lakh) for outside London. 

The provision allowing students with an 'established presence' in the UK to meet a lower requirement will also be removed from November 12. Going forward, students who have completed bachelors in the UK and are starting masters will be required to hold the same level of funds as a student who is new to the UK. 

The maintenance fund, required to be in place when applying for a visa, needs to be a cash deposit; even an overdraft facility is not permitted. In case a UK-based relative is helping the overseas student, the money towards the maintenance fund needs to be transferred to the student or his/her parent or guardian's account. Proof of holding such fund needs to be submitted when applying for the visa. 

In another big change, overseas students who have completed further educational courses will not be permitted to extend their student (Tier 4) visa or switch to a points-based scheme visa such as a skilled worker (Tier 2) visa without first leaving the UK. This change does not affect international students who complete a degree in the UK and then wish to start a masters course, or those who have managed to get a graduate-level job while in the country. 


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"As Tier 4 visas for courses of 12 or more months are normally granted for the duration of the educational course plus four months, overseas students have just four months within which to find a job or else have to return home," explains an educational counsellor attached to a UK institute. "The UK should aim to strike a balance between maintaining its reputation as an international centre for leading study and research, while implementing measures to counter bogus educational establishments. These are very different challenges which require distinct solutions," says Margaret Burton, EY-UK partner specialising in global immigration. 

"Further restrictions on legitimate students, coupled with the increased cost of studying in the UK, could have an adverse effect on the numbers of students that choose the UK as their study location. Removing students from the UK's net migration targets could help reverse that trend," adds Burton. 

Students are trying to work their way around these challenges. "My counsellor has advised me to start applying at several companies, in my last semester or even earlier," says a student hoping to get a job in London's financial sector. "If I have to return to India empty-handed, I know it will be impossible to then get a UK-based job; no investment banking outfit will agree to a telephone or Skype interview."