Sarah Sanders to step down as White House press secretary this month: Trump

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White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders will step down at the end of the month, President Donald Trump announced Thursday.
Trump making the surprise announcement of her departure hoped that Sanders would run for the Governor of Arkansas State."After 3 1/2 years, our wonderful Sarah Huckabee Sanders will be leaving the White House at the end of the month and going home to the Great State of Arkansas...., Trump said in a tweet.
"She is a very special person with extraordinary talents, who has done an incredible job! I hope she decides to run for Governor of Arkansas - she would be fantastic. Sarah, thank you for a job well done!" tweeted the US president.Sanders (36), only the third woman to serve in the prestigious position, is the daughter of popular GOP politician and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee.
Later at a White House event, Trump praised Sanders.
"We've been through a lot together. She's tough, and she's good. You also have tough and bad, right? She's tough but she's good. She's great. And she's going to be leaving the service of her country and she's going to be going - I guess you could say the private sector but I hope she's going she comes from a great state, Arkansas. That's a state I won by a lot, so I like it. We love Arkansas. She's going to be going back to Arkansas with her great family. Her husband is fantastic, Trump said.
The outgoing White House Press Secretary said it was one of the "greatest jobs she could ever have".

 "This has been the honour of a lifetime, the opportunity of a lifetime. I couldn't be prouder to have had the opportunity to serve my country, and particularly to work for this president.

Sugar output in India may drop to a 3-year low next season on dry weather

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Sugar output in India may drop to a three-year low next season from a record as dry weather shrivels cane plants in some major growing areas of the country.
Production in India, which vies with Brazil as the world’s top grower, may slide to 28 million to 29 million tons in the year that begins Oct. 1 from 33 million tons this year, said Prakash Naiknavare, managing director of the National Federation of Cooperative Sugar Factories Ltd.
Droughts are withering cane fields in parts of Maharashtra and Karnataka, and the monsoon is delayed, reducing prospects for the coming crop. A lower harvest would trim a record domestic surplus, potentially curtailing exports and supporting global prices. India swings between being a sugar importer and exporter, depending on the size of local output.
“Parts of Maharashtra and Karnataka are reeling under drought, which is adversely affecting cane productivity and sugar recovery,” Naiknavare said in a phone interview on Wednesday. “Production will also depend on this year’s monsoon rains.”
Sharp Drop
Sugar production in Maharashtra, the country’s second-biggest grower, may slump about 40% to 6.44 million tons in 2019-20 from this year, said Shekhar Gaikwad, Maharashtra’s sugar commissioner. The area under cane, which will be available for crushing next season, will likely drop about 28% to 843,000 hectares (2.08 million acres) from a year earlier, he said.

 Sugar cane plants in a large part of Maharashtra have dried up, Gaikwad said. Many farmers are selling their cane to fodder buyers as they are currently fetching better prices than a sugar mill offers, he added. Farmers need to keep irrigating the crop for the next 6 to 8 months, but they are not certain about the monsoon’s performance this year, Gaikwad said.

GDP data under cloud: Govt should know that this is a crisis of credibility

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India’s government has long claimed that the country is one of the fastest-growing large economies in the world. That boast was a crucial part of the ruling party’s message in India’s recent election campaign — that, under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the economy was in safe hands. Competence and sincerity as an economic manager is central to the image Modi has sought to project.
Unfortunately, that claim looks increasingly unsupportable. Earlier this month, official government figures revealed that the economy had been slowing for three quarters. After months of denial, the government also admitted that unemployment is higher than it has been for four decades. Now, Arvind Subramanian, a well-regarded economist who was till last year one of Modi’s most senior advisers, has argued in a Harvard working paper that India’s official figures overestimate growth by several percentage points. While the government claims that India is growing at 7%, Subramanian suggests it’s actually growing at closer to 4.5%.
Subramanian’s methodology can certainly be questioned, and his estimate of actual GDP growth may be wrong. But, the fact remains that he has merely made explicit, through comparisons across time and with other middle-income economies, the central puzzle of Indian GDP data: If India’s growing so fast, why do most other indicators suggest the economy is stagnating or slowing? Whether looking at credit growth or vehicle purchases, exports or investment, there’s little support for the idea that India is enjoying breakneck growth at the moment.

 It’s past time that India’s government took this problem seriously — both the questions about India’s GDP data and the concerns about what the data reveals about the economy. So far, the government has denied that official data could be questioned, even though senior independent statisticians have quit after accusing politicians of concealing the unemployment figures.

Let's tree again: Macron offers Trump replacement 'friendship' oak

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French president Emmanuel Macron will send a replacement oak tree to US President Donald Trump after the original was dug up from the White House garden and died.
The French leader offered the young oak to Trump during a state visit to Washington in 2018, and the two shovelled dirt around it under the watchful eyes of their wives -- and cameras from around the world.
It was a symbolic gesture: the tree came from a northern French forest where 2,000 US Marines died during World War I.
But after the cameras left, the young oak was dug up and placed in quarantine -- where it died soon after, with many seeing it as symbol of US-France ties, which have since frayed over issues ranging from Iran to trade.
"The poor thing did not survive," Macron said Tuesday, when he also asked reporters not to "look for meaning where there is none".
"I will send another."
The two leaders recently marked the 75th anniversary of D-Day together, with Macron, who has been an outspoken critic of Trump's nationalism and isolationist tendencies, using the occasion to send a message to his American visitor.

 "America is never as big as when it is fighting for the freedom of others," he said.

Urge Pak to take sustained, irreversible action against terror groups: US

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Pakistan has taken some "important" steps against terror groups post Pulwama attack but they are still reversible, a top US official said Wednesday, urging the Pakistani leadership to take sustained actions against terrorists operating in the country.

Terrorist organisations such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) will continue to pose a grave risk to international peace as long as they are able to operate freely in Pakistan, Alice G Wells, senior state department official for South and Central Asian Affairs told House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee for Asia, the Pacific and Nonproliferation.

"On the broader issue of counter-terrorism, the Pulwama terrorist attack in February that sparked a crisis between India and Pakistan underscored the importance and immediate need to halt terrorist activity in the region," she said in a prepared statement.

The sub-committee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing US Interests in South Asia and the FY 2020 Budget on Thursday.

"We continue to urge Pakistan's leaders to make good on their pledges to take sustained and irreversible actions against terrorist groups operating within the country's borders, which is necessary for the long-term stability and prosperity of the region, she said.

In recent months, we have seen Pakistan detain some militants and seize assets belonging to front organisations raising funds for terrorist groups. While these steps are important, they are still reversible, she told the lawmakers.


 She asserting that Pakistan must sustain these measures and expand upon them, including by prosecuting terrorist leaders.

Paytm mulls investing Rs 250 cr to expand Paytm QR in tier IV and V towns

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Digital payments major Paytm Wednesday said it will invest Rs 250 crore this year for the expansion of Paytm QR in tier IV and V towns.
"With this investment, Paytm expects to reach more than 20 million merchants across India by the end of this fiscal," it said in a statement.
Paytm had introduced QR code-based payments to enable merchants, irrespective of the size of their business, to receive money directly into their bank account.
"More than 1.2 crore merchants across the country already accept payments through Paytm QR. However, the majority of these are based in larger towns and cities. We are aiming to reach merchants in smallest of towns across India such as Ajmer, Bekgaon, Kurnool, Rohtak, and Latur," Paytm Senior Vice President Deepak Abbot said.Paytm said the cost of on-boarding a merchant in a small town is at least three to four times more compared to larger cities.
The company is focussing on getting more than 60 per cent of merchants on-boarded from these tier IV and V towns."In the long run, we want to reach all of the 26-30 million merchants across every nook and corner of the country. We are progressing to enable financial inclusion in the remotest part of our country; and therefore, the Paytm QR accepts all digital payment instruments such as UPI, wallets, credit cards, debit cards, and net banking," Abbot said.

 In a separate statement, Paytm Money - a wholly-owned subsidiary of One97 Communications that owns Paytm - said it has received the approval from the QR Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) to offer National Pension System (NPS) on its platform.With this service, investors registered with Paytm Money will be able to invest in NPS.The company aims to offer NPS services (both Tier 1 and Tier 2 accounts) from all eight major pension fund managers on the platform, the statement said.

L&T's open offer price at Rs 980/share fair: Mindtree independent directors

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Independent Directors' panel of Mindtree has said that Larsen and Toubro's open offer price at Rs 980/share appears "fair and reasonable".
The committee cited the closing market price of Mindtree shares on the stock exchanges on June 10, being "lower than the offer price" and said that L&T's offer price of Rs 980 a share is in accordance with the regulations and "appears to be fair and reasonable".
Mindtree shares closed at Rs 975.50 a piece on NSE and Rs 974.65 a share on BSE.
"The shareholders of the target company are advised to independently evaluate the open offer and take an informed decision about tendering the equity shares held by them in the open offer," the company said in a regulatory filing on Wednesday.
On June 7, the infrastructure major Larsen & Toubro announced a Rs 5,030-crore open offer to acquire an additional 31 per cent stake in mid-tier IT company Mindtree at a price of Rs 980 per share.
L&T has so far acquired 28.90 per cent stake in Mindtree and the open offer, if fully subscribed, will take its shareholding in the IT company to about 60 per cent.
In all, the infrastructure major is eyeing about 66 per cent stake in Mindtree for over Rs 10,700 crore -- though a mix of recent stake acquisition from Cafe Coffee Day owner, the ongoing open market transactions and the ensuing open offer.

 The open offer is slated to commence on June 17 and close on June 28.