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Wednesday 18-25 December , 2014 Rupee Slides to 63.88/Dollar amid Global Turm oil putting pressure on the rupee. On Tuesday, FIIs sold cash shares worth Rs 1,247 crore, extending their selling streak to a sixth consecutive session. Analysts and policymakers are not overly worried about the weakness in the rupee because India's domestic fundamentals continue to be strong and the country is widely seen as sturdier in the face of any sell-off in emerging markets compared with last year. Foreign investors have purchased a net $43.4 billion in shares and bonds this year, allowing India to outperform most emerging markets.On Tuesday, Trade Secretary Rajeev Kher said he was not too (Media Reports) The rupee weakened towards 64 per dollar on Wednesday as it slipped to 63.88 against Tuesday's close of 63.53 in opening trade. The rupee last traded above the 64 per dollar mark in September 2013. Madan Sabnavis, chief economist at Care Ratings expects the rupee to hover between 64 and 65 a dollar in the coming days. The weakness in the rupee has come in the wake of a global turmoil in stocks and currencies. Global risk assets have come under pressure after Russia's sharp increase in interest rates reinforced concerns about the global economy at a time when oil prices are sliding. Global concerns have led foreign investors to pull out money from equities, concerned about the rupee's falls to around 63 to the dollar, while a central bank official told Reuters "it is still not an alarming situation". "India is certainly less vulnerable to the current crisis as compared to other emerging Asian economies," said Samir Lodha, managing director at QuantArt Market Solutions, citing factors such as easing inflation. Black money: Rs 6 lakh crore illegally taken out of India in 2012 (Media Reports) Nearly $95 billion (Rs 6 lakh crore) were illegally taken out of India in 2012, bringing the total illicit outflow of capital from the country to $440 billion (about Rs 28 lakh crore) in the preceding decade, according to the latest study released on Tuesday by Global Financial Integrity (GFI), a Washington DC-based research and advisory organization. Not only have taxes not been paid for these enormous sums, they may be used for various corrupt or criminal activities once parked in foreign safe havens. Overall, just in 2012, nearly a trillion dollars ($991 billion) in illicit capital flowed out of developing and emerging economies the study noted. This is an all-time high. Between 2003 and 2012, the illicit outflows add up to a monstrous $6.6 trillion, averaging nearly four percent of the developing world's GDP. Black money has been a major issue roiling India in the recent past. The new Modi government had promised that it would bring back black money stashed away in foreign banks within 100 days. While investigations are inching forward, Opposition parties have been pressing for more decisive action. Despite much political noise over "black money", the outflow of national wealth seems to be continuing unchecked and growing with each passing year. The GFI study says that illicit outflows are growing at an inflation-adjusted 9.4% per year - roughly double global GDP growth over the same period. As if these numbers are not mindboggling enough, GFI chief economist Dev Kar stresses that these estimates are "conservative" since several types of illegal transactions are not reflected in these figures. "This means that many forms of abusive transfer pricing by multinational corporations as well as much of the proceeds of drug trafficking, human smuggling, and other criminal activities, which are often settled in cash, are not included in these estimates," explained Kar, who served as a Senior Economist at the International Monetary Fund before joining GFI in January 2008. India ranked third after China and Russia in the quantum of illicit outflows in 2012. For the whole decade of 2003 to 2012, India ranks fourth. A total of 151 countries were studied by Kar and his colleague Joseph Spanjers at the GFI. "As this report demonstrates, illicit financial flows are the most damaging economic problem plaguing the world's developing and emerging economies," said GFI President Raymond Baker , a longtime authority on financial crime. "These outflows—already greater than the combined sum of all Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and ODA flowing into these countries—are sapping roughly a trillion dollars per year from the world's poor and middleincome economies." INDIA 10 7-year-old Beaten to Death in School, Allegedly For Not Paying Fees (Media Reports) BAREILLY: A seven-year-old boy died on Tuesday after being beaten brutally in a school in Bareilly in Uttar Pradesh, allegedly by his teacher. Araj, a nursery student, was allegedly thrashed for not doing his homework and not paying the school fee. Senior police officer MP Singh said at around 11 am, a teacher allegedly banged Araj's head against the wall and he started bleeding from his nose. The school authorities allegedly took the boy to a hospital and called his parents, asking them to pick up their son as he was ill.Araj was unconscious when his parents arrived and died soon. A post mortem report says he died of severe head injuries. Residents of Nankara village, where Araj stayed with his parents, protested outside a police station demanding the school principal's arrest. An FIR or police complaint has been filed against the school's manager but no one has been arrested yet.
Wednesday 18-25 December , 2014 INDIA 11 India's capacity to develop advanced indigenous arms industry questionable: SIPRI (Media Reports) CHENNAI: Smriti Muralishankar, a Class 12 student in Coimbatore, has spent the last four years burning the midnight oil to prepare for one of the toughest exams in the country - the JEE. Only two weeks ago did she realise that she was not eligible to write the test as she was born abroad and didn't have an Indian citizenship. Shreya Venkatesh, who has been studying in a Chennai school for the last 10 years, also found herself in a similar situation when she came to know that only Indian citizens can take the JEE (Main), which serves as the screening test for JEE (Advanced), mandatory for entry into IITs. The IIT dreams of these two and thousands across the country have been shattered because they were born abroad, to Indian parents who went overseas for higher education and jobs. They may have been studying in India for years now, but when it comes to applying for higher education in central and state institutions these students find themselves denied of opportunities open to their peers born in India.For years now, such students have been paying a hefty fee (around nine times of what is paid by Indian students) to study in a state institution. But, since IITs out of bounds for students born abroad the JEE was split in 2014, they have lost out on the opportunity to sit for the IIT entrance test. Foreign, Overseas Citizenship of India (OCI) and Person of Indian Origin (PIO) category students are not eligible for admission to NITs, IIITs and other centrallyfunded institutions through JEE (Main). They can only be admitted through the Direct Admission to Students Abroad (DASA) channel using their SAT 2 scores. But, admission to IITs is only through JEE (Advanced), which requires the students to figure among the top 1.5 lakh candidates in JEE (Main).The students hope that the officials will take their case into consideration and make some changes in the process before December 18, the last date for submission of applications for JEE (Main). But, many have applied for admission to universities abroad rather than wait for the changes. Educational consultant D Nedunchezhiyan of Technocrat India College Finder said, "The situation is ironical, and is a loss to our institutions as well." He said IITs should at least accept the SAT 2 scores of these students for admission. "There are many bright students who secure good marks in SAT going to NITs because IITs are out of bounds for them. A lot of IT professionals who went abroad during the IT boom in the 90s are coming back, but the brain drain may continue to happen in this generation too as their children are forced to go overseas to study," Nedunchezhiyan said. Till 2014, admissions to NITs and IIITs were based on AIEEE and entry to IITs on JEE. But only Indian nationals could take AIEEE, and others entered NITs and IIITs through Direct Admission to Students Abroad (DASA) channel. No such restriction for JEE. In 2014, JEE was split. JEE(Main) replaced AIEEE, but the bar on non-Indian citizens remained. Since JEE(Main) also served as the screening test for JEE (Advanced), which is a must for admission to IITs, non-Indian students remained out of the entire process The split has affected children born overseas to Indians who had travelled for higher education and jobs to other countries years ago and have now come back They can still get into NITs and IIITs through DASA, but not to IITs because JEE (Advanced) is the only gateway (Media Reports) While acknowledging that the current government in New Delhi has made defence exports a central goal, the world's leading think tank on the weapons industry has said that India's arms making capability remains questionable. In its latest report on worldwide arms producing companies, SIPRI (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute) has said that successive government in India have declared an intent to set up a technologically advanced indigenous arms industry, reaching the goal remains dubious. "(current) Sales are mainly based on bulk license production of foreign-designed weapons, while the development of indigenous systems has been plagued with problems for decades," the SIPRI Top 100 Arms Producing and Military Services Companies, 2013 report says. While American firms top the list of global arms producers - Lockheed Martin at the top followed by Boeing - the first Indian company to feature is Bangalore based HAL at number 42 with a profit of USD 476 million in 2013. However, most of the profit is only on license production of mostly Russian platforms. Incidentally, while there has been a global decline of 2 percent in arms sales, which totaled USD 402 billion last year, sales by Russian arms manufacturers grew by a rapid 20 percent. The total estimated sales of the 10 Russian companies at $31 billion in the SIPRI report. The SIPRI report has also taken note of the BJP government's efforts to promote exports, including formulation of a strategy for defence exports that also seeks to use arms sales as a diplomatic tool. "The Indian industry's role in the arms export market is also negligible. Nevertheless, success in the export market remains a central goal of the current government, and significant national resources are dedicated to attaining it," it says. A recent report by the defence and aerospace division of Ernst and Young suggests that India is likely to spend over USD 260 billion on major military purchases over the next 12 years and a saving of USD 50 billion can be achieved in this time period if the Make in India model kicks off.
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