📰 CDSCO issues safety guidelines for Isotretinoin
Drug was approved in 2002 for treatment of severe acne
•The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) has issued safety guidelines for Isotretinoin, an oral drug, which is used in the treatment of severe acne.
•Drug Controller General Dr. S. Eswara Reddy has now directed Drug Controllers of all the States and Union Territories to monitor the sale, manufacture and distribution of Isotretinoin, which can cause birth defects in progeny if not taken without proper guidance. The directions have been given after taking recommendations from the Subject Experts Committee (SEC) with CDSCO.
•The public notice states: “Pack of drug should carry box warnings including, ‘The medicine may cause severe birth defects; You must not take this medicine if you are pregnant or may likely become during treatment. You should also avoid pregnancy for six months after stopping the treatment.’”
•Isotretinoin may sold by retailers only against a dermatologist’s prescription, and details of the sale have to be strictly maintained as required under the Drugs and Cosmetics Rules, 1945.
•Isotretinoin capsules of 10 mg/20 mg were approved by CDSCO in 2002 for the treatment of cystic and conglobate acne, and severe nodular acne unresponsive to antibiotic therapy.
•The directions are based on recommendations from CDSCO’s Subject Experts Committee (SEC).
📰 Towards a genetic panopticon
The DNA Bill will give the state untrammelled access to deeply personal and penetrating material
•Parliament today serves less as a locus for debate and discussion and more as one for din and discord. But the pandemonium that appears to be the permanent state of affairs in both Houses scarcely seems to stop the government from passing laws, as we’ve seen this winter session. The government’s disdain for dissent, though, makes the potential introduction of the DNA Technology (Use and Application) Regulation Bill, 2018, for consideration by the Rajya Sabha an especially invidious proposition.
Problems with the draft Bill
•The draft statute, approved by the Union Cabinet in July, not only disregards the serious ethical dilemmas that are attendant to the creation of a national DNA database, but also, contrary to established wisdom, virtually treats DNA as infallible, and as a solution to the many problems that ail the criminal justice system. What’s more, any infringement of civil liberties, caused by an almost indiscriminate collection of DNA, is seen as a legitimate trade-off made in the interests of ensuring superior justice delivery. But what the Bill fatally ignores is that the disproportionality of the DNA bank that it seeks to create, and the invasiveness of its purport and reach, imposes a Faustian bargain on the citizen.
•The genes encoded in deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), which can be collected from blood, hair, skin cells and other such bodily substances, have undoubtedly proven to be an important tool in forensic science. Much like fingerprints, a person’s DNA profile is unique (except in the case of identical twins) and can, therefore, help in establishing the identity of, say, a suspect. That only a small amount of genetic material is needed to create such a profile makes the form of evidence especially appealing to criminal investigators. And to be sure, across the world, the use of DNA evidence has helped exonerate a number of innocent people from wrongful conviction, and has also helped find the guilty party in complex investigations.
•It is to that end that we no doubt need a law to help regulate the manner and circumstances in which the state may be entitled to collect biological material from a person. The requirement for such a law is only accentuated by an amendment made to the Code of Criminal Procedure in 2005, which expressly authorises investigating officers of a crime to collect a DNA sample from an accused with the help of a medical practitioner. But for years, every iteration of a proposed Bill, aimed at regulating the use of DNA, has failed to provide a constitutionally sustainable model.
•In its latest form, the draft law seeks to create a National DNA Data Bank, which will be maintained on the basis of various different categories, including a crime scene index, a suspects’ index and an offenders’ index, with a view to “facilitating identification of persons”. This attempt at identification may relate, among other things, to a criminal investigation, to a judicial proceeding of any kind, and even to civil cases such as “parental disputes”, “issues relating to pedigree”, and “issues relating to establishment of individual identity”. The proposed law, however, is not only decidedly vague on how it intends to maintain this DNA Bank, but it also conflates its objectives by allowing the collection of DNA evidence not only in aid of criminal investigations but also to aid the determination of civil disputes.
•Moreover, while consent is not required before bodily substances are drawn from a person accused and arrested for an offence punishable with either death or imprisonment for a term exceeding seven years, in all other cases a person refusing to part with genetic material can be compelled to do so if a Magistrate has reasonable cause to believe that such evidence would help establish a person’s guilt. Therefore, there’s no end to the state’s power in coercing a person to part with her DNA.
Infringement of privacy
•When, in August 2017, a nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy (Retd) v. Union of India declared that the Constitution recognises a fundamental right to privacy, it also explicated the various facets of this right. Significantly, it ruled that any meaningful right to privacy would include protection over the physical body. As a result, even if, for the purposes of argument, we were to consider a mandatory collection of bodily substances from a person as consonant with the right against self-incrimination that the Constitution guarantees — although on a dubious rationale courts have tended to see the drawing of genetic material as non-testimonial — it would unquestionably impinge on a person’s right to privacy. Indeed, a 2012 report filed by a group of experts on privacy, led by Justice A.P. Shah, found explicitly that a person’s basic liberties stand violated by a compelled extraction of DNA from her body.
•To be sure, that the right to privacy is infringed does not mean that the government cannot under any circumstances gather DNA evidence. What it does mean is that such collection ought to be made under a legislative regime guided by principles of necessity and proportionality. That is, the state must show that there exists a legitimate reason for extracting DNA evidence, and that the extent and scope of such extraction does not disproportionally contravene a person’s right to privacy.
The use of DNA evidence
•In its present draft, however, the Bill woefully falls short of meeting these tests. World over, the idea behind maintaining a DNA database is to help match and compare samples collected from a crime scene against a set of stored profiles, thereby helping in the identification of a potential suspect in a criminal investigation. India’s Bill, though, seeks to make the DNA Bank available for a slew of unconnected purposes, including permitting its use in civil cases. Consider the consequences: a person wrongfully accused of a crime, say, for speeding a vehicle over permissible limits, who might have been compelled to give her genetic material may well see this evidence being used against her in an altogether different proceeding of a purely civil nature. Given that in India, even illegally obtained evidence is admissible in a court of law, so long as the relevance and genuineness of such material can be established, the Bill’s failure to place sufficient checks on the use of DNA evidence collected in breach of the law makes the process altogether more frightening.
•What’s more ominous is that the Bill potentially allows DNA evidence to be used for any other purpose that may be specified through subsequent regulations, thereby according to the state a potential power to create a “genetic panopticon,” to borrow the words of the late U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. That this is a distinct possibility is clear from the range of privacy protections that are absent in the Bill. As Helen Wallace, Director, GeneWatch UK, wrote in these pages, the draft law does not restrict DNA profiling to the use of non-coding DNA, which would ensure that the evidence can only be used for the purposes of identification and not for determining personal characteristics, including medical conditions.
•As a result, the state will effectively have at its disposal the ability to profile every one of its citizens. It’s been reported previously, for instance, that the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, whose director will occupy an ex officio place in the DNA Regulatory Board, already seeks information on a person’s caste during the collection of genetic material. One hardly needs to spell out the dangers inherent in gathering such data.
•To enact the law in its present form, therefore, would only add a new, menacing weapon to the state’s rapidly expanding surveillance mechanism. We cannot allow the benefits of science and technology to be privileged over the grave risks in allowing the government untrammelled access to deeply personal and penetrating material.
📰 Against the mandate for inclusion: the Transgender Persons Bill 2018
The Transgender Persons Bill will do more damage than good if passed without revision
•The transgender community has once again been let down, as the Lok Sabha passed the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Bill, 2018 in a hurry amid ongoing protests over the Rafale deal. The Bill, ostensibly aiming to protect transgender persons’ rights, has been drafted hastily, with no real understanding of gender identity and expression. This was made amply clear in the original draft, with the offensive and unscientific definition of a transgender person as someone who is “neither wholly male nor wholly female”. After several submissions made by the transgender community and the recommendations of a parliamentary standing committee, the definition of transgender has been rectified and made inclusive of diverse gender identities.
•However, all nuance of people’s self-identified gender expression is lost in the Bill. It proposes setting up a District Screening Committee comprising five people, including a medical officer and a psychiatrist to certify a transgender person. This process is in direct violation of the Supreme Court’s directions in National Legal Services Authority v. Union of India (or NALSA), 2014 that affirmed the right to self-determination of gender as male, female or transgender without the mandate of any medical certificate or sex-reassignment surgery (SRS). In fact, NALSA had clearly directed that “any insistence for SRS for declaring one’s gender is immoral and illegal”.
A regressive Bill
•Drafted by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment in 2016, the Bill was met with immediate protests from the transgender and intersex community as it has several provisions that take away from the rights accorded through NALSA while injecting disempowering and regressive clauses. The Bill does not provide for employment opportunities through reservations, disregarding the directions of the Court in NALSA “to treat them as socially and educationally backward classes of citizens and extend all kinds of reservation in cases of admission in educational institutions and for public appointments.”
•To make matters worse, the Bill criminalises begging, thereby targeting transgender persons who rely on begging for sustenance. Such provisions disregard the lived realities of transgender persons for whom begging often is the last resort. In fact, provisions such as these could give immunity to the police to exert force on transgender persons and “rehabilitate” them in beggars’ homes or detention centres against their will. Such harsh measures of detaining marginalised individuals under the garb of rehabilitation have also been criticised by the Delhi High Court in Harsh Mander v. Union of India, 2018, declaring provisions of the Bombay Prevention of Begging Act, 1959 as unconstitutional on grounds that it violates Article 14 (equality before the law) and Article 21 (right to life and personal liberty), and affects the rights of persons who have no other means of sustenance but to beg.
•The Bill fails to extend protection to transgender persons who might be victims of sexual assault or rape, as the Indian Penal Code recognises rape in strict terms of men and women as perpetrator and victim, respectively. While the Bill makes “sexual abuse” punishable, with a disproportionate punishment of imprisonment only up to two years, it does not define the acts that constitute sexual offences, making it complicated for transgender persons to report such crimes and access justice. Moreover, the Bill does not grapple with the realisation of civil rights such as marriage, civil partnership, adoption and property rights, thereby continuing to deprive transgender persons of their fundamental rights and the constitutional guarantee provided by the Supreme Court in NALSA.
•Transgender persons have faced prejudice, discrimination and disdain for years, and it is dehumanising to deny them their dignity, personhood and, above all, their basic human rights. The Bill in its present form continues to push them into obscurity, making a mockery of their lives and struggles by failing to secure for them their constitutional rights.
Still time to reconsider
•The need of the hour is a robust Bill with strong anti-discrimination provisions that will remedy the historical injustices faced by the transgender community, which continues to fight for the most basic rights even today. The community has its hopes pinned on the Rajya Sabha. It is hoped that the Bill will be revised and brought in line with the NALSA judgment to ensure full realisation of transgender persons’ fundamental rights.
📰 Long road home: Hamid Nihal Ansari's return
India and Pakistan should adopt a more humane approach to each other’s prisoners
•The return to India of Hamid Nihal Ansari, an engineer from Mumbai who spent six years in a Pakistani prison, is cause for cheer on the otherwise bleak landscape of India-Pakistan relations. The plight of the young man, who had crossed over into Pakistan from Afghanistan in 2012 on a mission to save a woman he had befriended online and been arrested for espionage, had caught public attention in both countries. Subsequent investigations proved his innocence on all charges other than entering Pakistan illegally, but even so, the authorities there put him through a trial in a military court. In December 2015, the court sentenced him to three years in prison. All through his ordeal, Mr. Ansari’s parents kept alive the struggle to bring him back, without letting the emotional and financial costs deter them. To its credit, the Ministry of External Affairs applied sustained diplomatic pressure on Islamabad, first to demand information on Mr. Ansari’s whereabouts and then for a fair trial and consular access, which was never granted. The Government of Pakistan must also be commended for expediting Mr. Ansari’s release after he completed his sentence on December 15, although it had received another month from a Peshawar court to finish the formalities. Above all, credit goes to citizens’ groups in both countries that helped the family, particularly lawyers and human rights activists in Pakistan who worked pro bono to ensure Mr. Ansari’s release.
•Given the downturn in bilateral relations, further complicated by the international case India is pursuing against Pakistan over the conviction of Kulbhushan Jadhav, and instances of prisoners like Sarabjit Singh dying in Pakistani jails, it is nothing short of a miracle that Mr. Ansari has returned home safe and sound. New Delhi would do well to acknowledge the Imran Khan government’s gesture in releasing him. Both India and Pakistan must dedicate themselves to freeing hundreds of other prisoners who remain in each other’s jails, many of whom have completed their sentences but await long processes of identification and repatriation. According to government figures, Pakistan holds 471 Indian prisoners while India holds 357 Pakistani prisoners, a large number of them fishermen who inadvertently trespassed into each other’s waters. The two countries must also revive the biannual meetings of the Joint Judicial Committee on Prisoners as agreed to a decade ago; the committee has not met since 2013. Its last recommendations, that women and children as well as prisoners with mental health issues be sent back to their countries on humanitarian grounds, are yet to be implemented. There is little to be gained by holding these prisoners hostage to bitter bilateral ties and prolonging the misery of their impoverished families. There needs to be a more humane approach.
📰 Misusing NSA: the detention of a Manipur journalist
The Manipur government must revoke the vindictive detention order against a journalist
•The detention of a journalist in Manipur under the stringent National Security Act for a social media post is a clear instance of misuse of power and a blatant violation of his rights as a citizen. It indicates a dangerous trend among those wielding power to invoke laws aimed at preserving public order and security in a casual or vindictive manner, with utter disregard for constitutional provisions that uphold individual liberty. It is immaterial how scathing the Facebook post of Kishorechand Wangkhem was in its criticism of the Manipur Chief Minister and his party. Calling the Chief Minister a “puppet” can in no way be a reason to arrest him, as was done by the police in Imphal in November, on the charge of sedition. A magistrate granted him bail, noting that Mr. Wangkhem’s remarks were no more than an expression of opinion against the public conduct of a public figure, albeit in “street language”. However, in a sign that the regime of Chief Minister N. Biren Singh could not tolerate the journalist being set free, he was arrested again a couple of days later and detained under the NSA, which provides for detention for a year without bail to prevent someone from “acting in any manner prejudicial to the security of the state” or for “the maintenance of public order”. The NSA can be used only against those advocating armed insurrection or violent disaffection. It is shocking that the statutory advisory board held there was “sufficient cause” for detention, when he posed no threat to public order or security. The State should revoke its vengeful detention order.
•The Manipur government confirmed his imprisonment for a year as soon as the detention order was cleared by the advisory board. It is questionable whether a person can be detained under the NSA for one year at a go, as its provisions say the detention can only be for three months at a time and up to one year in total. This position has also been confirmed by the Supreme Court. The NSA advisory board consists of three members who are, or have been, or are qualified to be high court judges. It is not expected to approve detention orders in a routine or mechanical manner. At a time when the Law Commission is revisiting Section 124A of the Indian Penal Code, which deals with sedition, and there is a demand for its repeal, it is disturbing that State governments continue to use it. It is even more deplorable that on failing to make the sedition charge stick, a government puts away the same person under the NSA. This is a fit case for judicial review, and the protests and the outrage against the incarceration of Mr. Wangkhem ought to result in a stinging indictment of the State government’s action. This will inhibit any future move to throttle free expression by misusing the law.
📰 China’s Pak. investments take a military turn
A host of defence projects, from making military jets to deepening ties in space, were designated as part of Belt and Road
•When U.S. President Donald Trump started the new year by suspending billions of dollars of security aid to Pakistan, one theory was that it would scare the Pakistani military into cooperating better with its U.S. allies.
•The reality was that Pakistan already had a replacement sponsor lined up.
•Just two weeks later, the Pakistani Air Force and Chinese officials were putting the final touches on a secret proposal to expand Pakistan’s building of Chinese military jets, weaponry and other hardware.
•The confidential plan, reviewed by The New York Times , would also deepen the cooperation between China and Pakistan in space, a frontier the Pentagon recently said Beijing was trying to militarise after decades of playing catch-up.
•All those military projects were designated as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), a chain of infrastructure development programmes stretching across some 70 countries, built and financed by Beijing.
•Chinese officials have repeatedly said the Belt and Road is purely an economic project with peaceful intent. But with its plan for Pakistan, China is for the first time explicitly tying a Belt and Road proposal to its military ambitions.
•Since the beginning of the BRI in 2013, Pakistan has been the programme’s flagship site, with some $62 billion in projects planned in the so-called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). In the process, China has lent more and more money to Pakistan at a time of economic desperation there, binding the two countries ever closer.
•For the most part, Pakistan has eagerly turned more toward China as the chill with the U.S. has deepened. Some Pakistani officials are growing concerned about losing sovereignty to their deep-pocketed Asian ally, but the host of ways the two countries are now bound together may leave Pakistan with little choice but to go along.
•Even before the revelation of the new Chinese-Pakistani military cooperation, some of China’s biggest projects in Pakistan had clear strategic implications.
Strategic card
•A Chinese-built seaport and special economic zone in the Pakistani town of Gwadar is rooted in trade, giving China a quicker route to get goods to the Arabian Sea. But it also gives Beijing a strategic card to play against India and the U.S. if tensions worsen to the point of naval blockades as the two powers increasingly confront each other at sea.
•A less scrutinised component of BRI is the central role Pakistan plays in China’s Beidou satellite navigation system. Pakistan is the only other country that has been granted access to the system’s military service, allowing more precise guidance for missiles, ships and aircraft. The tightening China-Pakistan security alliance has gained momentum on a long road to the Arabian Sea. In 2015, under BRI, China took a nascent port in the Pakistani coastal town of Gwadar and supercharged the project with an estimated $800 million development plan that included a large SEZ for Chinese companies.
•Linking the port to western China would be a new 2,000-mile network of highways and rails through the Balochistan province, a resource-rich region plagued by militancy.
Naval footprint
•The public vision for the project was that it would allow Chinese goods to bypass much longer and more expensive shipping routes through the Indian Ocean and avoid the territorial waters of several U.S. allies in Asia.
•Military analysts predict that China could use Gwadar to expand the naval footprint of its attack submarines, after agreeing in 2015 to sell eight submarines to Pakistan in a deal worth up to $6 billion. China could use the equipment it sells to the South Asian country to refuel its own submarines, extending its Navy’s global reach.
•According to the undisclosed proposal drawn up by the Pakistani Air Force and Chinese officials at the start of the year, an SEZ under the CPEC would be created in Pakistan to produce a new generation of fighter jets. For the first time, navigation systems, radar systems and onboard weapons would be built jointly by the countries at factories in Pakistan.
•The proposal, confirmed by officials at the Ministry of Planning and Development, would expand China and Pakistan’s current cooperation on the JF-17 fighter jet, which is assembled at Pakistan’s military-run Kamra Aeronautical Complex in Punjab province. The Chinese-designed jets have given Pakistan an alternative to the U.S.-built F-16 fighters.
📰 Govt to infuse ₹83,000 crore in PSBs in next few months: Jaitley
•The government on Thursday moved a proposal in Parliament for an additional ₹41,000 crore to recapitalise public sector banks, over and above the already budgeted ₹65,000 crore, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told a press conference.
•If approved by the House, this would take the total recapitalisation package for the current financial year to ₹1,06,000 crore, of which the government plans to utilise ₹83,000 crore over the remaining portion of the year.
•The government also said the recognition of loans that are non-performing assets (NPAs) was nearly complete and the recovery process was progressing strongly, with ₹60,726 crore recovered in the first half of this financial year.
•“At the beginning of this year, a total amount of ₹65,000 crore was still remaining to be used,” Mr. Jaitley said. “As of today, of that ₹65,000 crore, ₹42,000 crore is still remaining. And therefore, with this additional ₹41,000 crore, this year’s recapitalisation will be ₹1,06,000 crore.”
•The government had announced a ₹2.11 lakh crore capitalisation plan in October 2017, of which ₹1.35 lakh was to be raised through recapitalisation bonds and the remaining was to be raised by the banks either through the market or the sale of non-core assets. So far, the banks have raised ₹24,400 crore and have received all approvals to raise more from the market.
•The enhanced provision the government has asked for is aimed at four broad categories. The first is to help banks meet the regulatory capital norms. The second is aimed at helping banks currently under the Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) framework to come out of it by improving their capital to risk-weighted asset ratios (CRAR) to 9%, their capital conservation buffers to 1.875% and reduce their net NPAs to 6%.
•The third category of banks to receive capital would be the non-PCA banks that are in danger of crossing the threshold into the PCA framework. The fourth would be to provide regulatory and growth capital to banks that are undergoing mergers, such as Vijaya Bank, Dena Bank, and the Bank of Baroda, which are to be merged into a single entity.
•“Three banks are close to the PCA threshold, and so they will be provided capital to strengthen their base,” Financial Services Secretary Rajiv Kumar said at the briefing. “Whichever PCA banks have shown performance in terms of reduction of net NPAs to 6% and improvement in return on assets will be given capital.”
•The names of these banks are yet to be decided, and they will also be assessed on their performance in Q2 and Q3, Mr. Kumar said. However, he said there were some banks that did not need the additional capital as they were on a healthy base. These include State Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Indian Bank, and Vijaya Bank. Punjab National Bank is in breach of the PCA benchmark, he said, so it is a likely candidate for additional funds. “The recognition of NPAs, a process which started in 2015, has made considerable headway and is almost complete,” Mr. Jaitley said. “At a time where it had peaked in March 2015, the non-recognition was to the extent of about 7%. That is now at about 0.59%.”
•“The last quarter has shown that there is an improved performance, and the downward slide in the NPAs would commence,” he said.
📰 Indigenous gun trials of the Army to enter next stage by June
•The development of the indigenously-designed heavy artillery gun, the Advanced Towed Artillery Gun System (ATAGS), has advanced to a stage where user-assisted trials of the gun are likely to start by June and the Army has begun finalising the Preliminary Specifications Qualitative Requirements (PSQR), a defence official said.
•“Two guns are currently undergoing trials and another two guns will join the trials in a month,” the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said. “User-assisted trials will begin from May-June while the PSQR should be ready by July,” the official added.
•The ATAGS is a 155mm, 52 calibre gun being developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation on two parallel tracks: one prototype is being built in partnership with Tata Power (Strategic Engineering Division), and the other is in collaboration with Bharat Forge. There is a sanction for production of 10 guns as part of the development process.
•The Army, which is in the process of drawing up the PSQR that details the essential and desired parameters for the gun, has already flagged a few concerns related to weight and accuracy. The gun currently weighs about 18 tonnes while the ideal weight for the army would be 14-15 tonnes. While the development team wanted the weight, accuracy and firing parameters to be relaxed in the PSQR, the Army has said that would be looked into after the user-assisted trials commence.
•The gun has been undergoing development trials for some time now, with a few trials held in the Pokhran firing ranges as recently as last month.
•Once the PSQRs are approved, the process for formulating the final Qualitative Requirements would begin. Guns from both Bharat Forge and Tata Power would be evaluated and based on the commercial bids, the order would be split between them with the lowest bidder getting a larger order. The Defence Ministry has already approved the in-principle purchase of 150 of these guns at an approximate cost of ₹3,365 crore.
•The gun has several significant features including an all-electric drive, high mobility, quick deployability, auxiliary power mode, advanced communications system, automated command and control system. It also sports a six-round magazine instead of the standard three-round magazine. This necessitates a larger chamber and is a major factor pushing up the overall weight of the system.
•The Army, which has been seeking to accelerate the modernisation of its weaponry, recently inducted its first modern pieces of artillery in three decades: the M777 Ultra-Light Howitzer from the U.S. and the K9 Vajra-T tracked self-propelled artillery gun from South Korea.
📰 Lok Sabha clears amended Consumer Protection Bill
•For the second consecutive day on Thursday, the Lok Sabha passed two Bills amid protests by members of the Congress, the TDP and the AIADMK.
•Besides the Consumer Protection Bill, 2018, which seeks to replace the Consumer Protection Act, 1986, the National Trust for Welfare of Persons with Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation and Multiple Disabilities (Amendment) Bill, 2018, was passed.
•The Consumer Protection Bill will become law once it goes through the Rajya Sabha. It is meant to protect those who use new technologies such as e-commerce and online shopping. The financial jurisdiction of the District Consumers Courts has been increased: they can deal with complaints involving ₹1 crore as against the ₹20 lakh earlier. Under the clause of product liability, a manufacturer will be liable to compensation for products with defects.
•The Bill was passed after a very short discussion as members of the Congress and the AIADMK intensified their slogan-shouting. While the Congress demanded a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe into the Rafale deal, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka members were protesting over the Cauvery issue. TDP MPs were demanding the special category status for Andhra Pradesh and a steel plant.
•Determined to run the House, Speaker Sumitra Mahajan was keen on taking up the Triple Talaq Bill. However, it was postponed till December 27 after Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge assured her that the Opposition would participate in the debate next week.
📰 RBI caps outstanding ECBs at 6.5% of GDP
Sets rule-based dynamic limit
•The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Thursday has announced a cap for funds raised via external commercial borrowing (ECB) at 6.5% of the country’s GDP.
•Based on GDP figures for March 31, 2018, ‘the soft limit works out to $160 billion,’ the central bank said in a statement.
Outstanding stock
•“It has been decided, in consultation with the Government of India, to have a rule-based dynamic limit for outstanding stock of external commercial borrowings (ECB) at 6.5% of GDP at current market prices,” the RBI said. The outstanding stock of ECB as on September 30, 2018 was $126.29 billion.
•ECBs refer to commercial loans in the form of bank loans, securitised instruments buyers’ credit, suppliers’ credit availed of from non-resident lenders with a minimum average maturity of three years.
