19 APRIL 2016

Ø  In yet another step to secure the presence of liquor baron Vijay Mallya, the Enforcement Directorate on Monday obtained a non-bailable warrant against him from a Special Court here. The Ministry of External Affairs had earlier suspended Mr. Mallya’s passport on the ED’s advice.

Ø  Although India received an all-time high annual foreign direct investment (FDI) in 2015, the surge is led by the inflows into the services sector rather than manufacturing or infrastructure. The ‘Make in India’ initiative has not yet materialised into FDI inflows. More than half of total FDI inflows in 2015 came into the services sector, comprising software, financial services, trading, hospital and tourism, according to an analysis of the official data by the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion and Citi Research. While inflows rose significantly into some sectors the BJP-led NDA government opened up, including insurance, construction, broadcasting and tourism, the impact of the FDI liberalisation measures in defence, railways and retail is not visible. Inflows to construction surged 188 per cent from $1527 million to $4,405 million. Insurance received $581 million against $236 million, a 146 per cent jump. FDI in Railways declined 67 per cent to $71 million from $213 million in the previous year. Air transport too saw lower inflows — $50 million against $73 million. For mining the fall was from $666 million to $547 million. The defence sector is yet to receive FDI. In the 20 months of the NDA government, India has received total FDI of $85 billon compared to $59 billion in a similar period before that. FDI outflows (Indians investing overseas) declined 37 per cent, confirming the change in investor sentiment.

Ø  The heirs of Maharaja Ranjit Singh gave the Kohinoor diamond to the British as “voluntary compensation” to cover the expenses of the Anglo-Sikh Wars. The Supreme Court is hearing a petition filed by an NGO, All India Human Rights & Social Justice Front, on whether the government intends to make a bid to get back the Kohinoor. Solicitor-General Ranjit Kumar told a Bench led by Chief Justice of India T.S. Thakur that if “we start claiming the treasures from the museums of other countries, they will claim their treasures from our museums.”

Ø  External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj on Monday told her Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, that China needed to cooperate with India’s campaign to declare Masood Azhar, leader of the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammed, a global terrorist through the U.N. Security Council’s 1267 Committee against terrorism.

Ø   There’s some good news, peppered with bad, on the investment front for the NDA government that is about to complete two years in office. Since March 2015, it has successfully removed roadblocks facing 170 stalled investment projects worth over Rs. 6,00,000 crore, paving the way for their quicker implementation. Yet, the task of unravelling red tape from such long-delayed projects that are driving up non-performing assets in the banking sector, is proving to be virtually Sisyphean. Over the same period, 260 more held up projects worth almost Rs. 7 lakh crore were added to the waiting list of projects seeking government’s intervention to uproot obstacles thwarting them. As a consequence, 395 stalled investment plans worth Rs. 19.7 lakh crore now await an intervention from the project monitoring group in the cabinet secretariat that was set up to facilitate clearances, licences and other policy hurdles holding up large investment projects. The corresponding numbers in March 2015 stood at 305 projects worth Rs. 18.84 lakh crore.