SC asks parties to reveal pending criminal cases against poll candidates

Current Affairs
The Supreme Court on Thursday guided every single ideological group to transfer on their site subtleties of pending criminal arguments against applicants challenging surveys, taking note of that there has been a disturbing increment in criminalisation of governmental issues.
The zenith court said ideological groups will likewise need to transfer purposes behind choosing applicants with pending criminal cases on their site.
The court passed arranges on a scorn supplication which raised the issue of criminalisation of governmental issues asserting that bearings given by the pinnacle court in its September 2018 decision identifying with exposure of criminal precursors by applicants are not being followed.
A seat headed by Justice F Nariman likewise coordinated that ideological groups will distribute these subtleties via web-based networking media stages like Facebook and Twitter and in one nearby vernacular and one national paper.
The top court said ideological groups should present a consistence report right now the Election Commission inside 72 hours of choosing applicants having pending criminal bodies of evidence against them.
It coordinated that the EC will carry it to the notification of the peak court in the event of disappointment of ideological groups to consent to its bearings.

While articulating the request, the seat said apparently there has been a disturbing increment in criminalisation of governmental issues in the last four general decisions...READ MORE

Govt warning: Twitter execs may get 7 years in jail if it doesn't comply

Economy & Policy:

Top Twitter executives could not only face financial penalties but also face upto seven years in jail if they fail to remove content and accounts that are 'objectionable and inflammatory," Times of India reported quoting an unnamed official from the ministry of information technology.

Twitter has been asked to comply with the provisions under the Indian IT Act or else it would face action under Section 69A of the IT Act which gives the government power to seek the blocking of content or accounts that carry information seen as detrimental to the sovereignty and integrity of the country, or has potential to create public disorder.

The warning from the IT ministry comes just as the micro-blogging site faced the heat from a parliamentary standing committee over perceived biases in blocking accounts ahead of elections.
As India heads for national elections, social media giants like Facebook and Twitter have been asked to not undermine or influence the political process. In fact earlier this week, Twitter went live with its 'Ads Transparency Centre' for India, that would allow people to view details of political advertisements in the country, including advertiser spends and impressions data.

A parliamentary panel last month asked micro-blogging site Twitter to engage more with the Election Commission of India (ECI) ahead of general elections and address issues on a "real-time" basis.
The Twitter officials were told that there should not be any "international interference" in the Lok Sabha polls.


 Twitter had last month announced that it would provide details including advertising spends and impressions data of tweets from political entities to users in India, as it sought to bring in greater transparency on its platform by tightening norms for political advertisements...Read More

Morgan Stanley raises 2019 targets for MSCI EM, MSCI Asia Pacific indices

Companies News

Morgan Stanley has raised the 2019 targets for the MSCI Emerging Market (EM) and MSCI Asia Pacific (excluding Japan) indices, boosting prospects for markets like India.

Aggressive stimulus by China, US Federal Reserve’s decision to put interest rate hike on hold and signs of a thaw in the US-China trade war have prompted the brokerage to take an optimistic view on the EM universe.

“The aggressive China stimulus, a longer Fed pause, positive signs for the US-China trade negotiations and a shares index inclusion lead us to raise our targets,” said Jonathan Garner, chief strategist Asia and EM, Morgan Stanley in a note dated March 10.

The target for the MSCI EM index has been raised by 8 per cent to 1,130 from 1,050. The index hovered around 1,035 on Monday. The target for the MSCI Asia ex-Japan index has been increased by 3 per cent to 540.

morganMorgan Stanley has raised 2020 earnings per share (EPS) forecast for EMs to $98.4 from $95.1. It has re-rated the MSCI EM index, assigning it forward price-to-earnings (P/E) of 11.5 times, from 11 times earlier.

It the note, the brokerage said it remains overweight on EM equities and has outlined five key drivers that will boost the markets.

Morgan Stanley says the next Fed rate hike has moved from June to December with a lower US real rates profile, and this will boost EM valuations. Also, earnings season data was “slightly better than feared”, it said.


 Within EMs, Morgan Stanley is overweight on Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and Singapore. On the other hand, it is underweight on Australia, Mexico and the Philippines.

BUDGET SESSION 2019 LIVE: PREZ KOVIND LISTS OUT ACHIEVEMENTS OF NDA GOVT

Interim Budget 2019:

The Budget session of Parliament has begun, a day before the Interim Budget 2019 will be presented by Finance Minister Piyush Goyal.
With the Lok Sabha elections around the corner, this year's Budget session is expected to be a stormy one. While the Opposition will seek to corner the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) -led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government on a range of issues, including Rafale, the problem of farmers and unemployment, the government is expected to push its legislative agenda that includes the Triple Talaq Bill and the citizenship (amendment) Bill.
The session will begin with President Ram Nath Kovind's address to the joint sitting of the two Houses. Apart from a vote of thanks to the President's address, the government's legislative agenda for the day includes replacing three ordinances with Bills. These include the triple talaq Bill, companies (Amendment) Bill and Medical Council (Amendment) Bill.

 Ahead of the Budget session, Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged all the political parties to ensure Parliament runs smoothly.

As India's quality of schooling plummets, here's how Budget 2019 can help

Interim Budget 2019:

India stepped up its spending on school education by 9.35% from 2014-15 (Rs 45,722.41 crore) to 2018-19 (Rs 50,000 crore). But education’s share in the total union budget fell from 2.55% to 2.05% in this period, according to an IndiaSpend analysis of budgetary data.

On February 1, 2019, when the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) presents its last budget before general elections, it will have to address a critical issue in India’s school education: Its quality compares poorly with many south Asian and BRICS nations even though India spends a higher percentage of its gross domestic product (GDP) on education.In rural India, almost half of grade V students cannot read a grade II text and more than 70% them cannot do division, said the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2018. These numbers indicate a fall in standards over the last 10 years.

Why schooling needs special attention this budget

The school education system in India is facing a shortage of trained teachers and a lack of proper infrastructure. Here are some factors that need to be addressed in the budget:
92,275 government schools at both elementary and secondary level have only one teacher to teach all the subjects, Satya Pal Singh, minister of state for human resource development told the Lok Sabha on January 1, 2019.


 1 in every 4 schools in rural India does not have an electricity connection, as per ASER and almost the same number lacks a library. A computer is available only in 21.3% of rural schools.250.53 million children in India are in the age group of 6-15 in 2017, as per government data, and in need of a good education.