Manufacturing sector growth slows in April

India’s manufacturing sector performance eased to an eight-month low in April as new business growth moderated, curbed by the general election and a challenging economic environment, a monthly survey showed. The Nikkei India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index declined from 52.6 in March to 51.8 in April, reflecting the weakest improvement in business conditions since August 2018. This is the 21th consecutive month that the manufacturing PMI remained above the 50-point mark. In PMI parlance, a print above 50 means expansion, while a score below that denotes contraction. Disruptions arising from the election was a key theme as firms seem to have adopted a wait-and-see approach on their plans until public policies become clearer upon government formation.

Chandrayaan-2 modules getting ready

All modules of India’s second moon mission Chandrayaan-2, scheduled for launch in July, are getting ready, ISRO said. “The launch window is from July 9 to July 16 with an expected moon landing on September 6,” ISRO said in an update on the mission, which was earlier scheduled for an April launch. ISRO said the three modules - orbiter, lander (Vikram) and rover (Pragyan) - of Chandrayaan-2 were getting ready for the July launch. The orbiter and lander modules will be interfaced mechanically and stacked together as an integrated module and accommodated inside the GSLV MK-III launch vehicle. The integrated module will reach the moon orbit using the orbiter propulsion module after its launch into earth-bound orbit by the rocket.

Govt curtails sale period of electoral bonds

The Union government has curtailed the time period for sale of electoral bonds by the SBI in the current month to only 5 days from May 6, instead of 10 days as was announced earlier. The government did not give any reason for reducing the time period for the sale. “The Government of India has now decided to restrict the next phase of electoral bonds sale to May 6, 2019 to May 10, 2019 (instead of May 6, 2019 to May 15, 2019 scheduled and notified earlier),” a finance ministry statement said. Ahead of the general election, the government in February had announced that electoral bonds will be sold in three tranches from March 1 to 15, April 1 to 20 and May 6 to 15. The seven-phase general election, which began on April 11, will continue till May 19 and vote counting will take place on May 23.

GST collection hits milestone in April

GST revenue mop-up scaled a monthly record high of more than Rs 1.13 lakh crore in April, an increase of 10 per cent over the collection in the year-ago period, on the back of anti-evasion steps taken by tax officers. The total number of summary sales return GSTR-3B filed for the month of March up to April 30 stood at 72.13 lakh. April is the second consecutive month when GST collection exceeded Rs 1 lakh crore. In March, the mop-up was Rs 1.06 lakh crore. “The total gross GST revenue collected in April is Rs 1,13,865 crore. The revenue in April 2018 was Rs 1,03,459 crore and the revenue during April 2019 is a growth of 10.05 per cent over the revenue in the same month last year,” the finance ministry said.

India, Iran to hold trade talks this month

Senior officials of India and Iran are likely to hold the fifth round of negotiations for a bilateral preferential trade agreement (PTA) this month, an official said. Till now, four rounds of negotiations have been completed and the last one was held in March in Tehran where both countries discussed the draft text of the pact. Unlike in a free trade pact, where two trading partners significantly reduce or eliminate duties on maximum number of goods traded between them, PTA involves the removal of duties on certain identified products. According to trade experts, the proposed agreement will give India a greater market access in the Persian Gulf nation. Trade Promotion Council of India chairman Mohit Singla said the PTA is important as India will be able to diversify its export basket, which is now limited to agri products.

SEBI directs NSE to pay over Rs 687 crore

Cracking the whip in the NSE co-location case, markets regulator SEBI on April 30 directed the exchange to disgorge profits worth more than Rs 687 crore, imposed a six-month ban on launching new derivative products, barred some present and past executives from the market and initiated strict action against stock brokers. SEBI passed five separate orders related to the case, wherein some entities allegedly got preferential access in high frequency trading. India’s largest stock exchange has also been barred from accessing the securities market directly or indirectly for six months. Ravi Narain and Chitra Ramkrishna - who had served as NSE’s MD and CEO - have been prohibited from “associating with a listed company or a market infrastructure institution or any other market intermediary for a period of five years”.

UK parliament declares climate emergency

Opposition Labour Party called for “real action” after the UK parliament became the first in the world to vote to declare a climate emergency. “Thanks to pressure from Labour, the UK just became the first country to declare an environment and #climateemergency,” the party said on its Twitter page. “Now it’s time for real action to tackle climate change.” Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said he hoped the vote “will trigger a wave of action from parliaments and governments around the world”. He is demanding that the country takes action to help avoid more than 1.5 degrees Celsius of warming, requiring global emissions to be cut by almost half of 2010 levels by 2030. The vote was taken following 11 days of protests organised by climate activists Extinction Rebellion that brought several London sites to a standstill.

Putin signs controversial Internet law

Russian President Vladimir Putin on May 1 signed into law a “sovereign Internet” Bill that will allow authorities to isolate the country’s Internet, a move decried by rights groups. Lawmakers insist the new law is necessary to ensure the security of Russia’s online networks, but critics say the vaguely worded Bill gives new censorship powers to state monitors. The text of the law was published on May, 1 but it will not come into effect until November. The measures include creating technology to monitor Internet routing and to steer Russian Internet traffic away from foreign servers, ostensibly to prevent a foreign country from shutting it down. The authors of the initiative say Russia must ensure the security of its networks after the US alleged that said Russia had carried out cyber attacks.

Assange gets 50 weeks jail for jumping bail

WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange was on May 1 sentenced to 50 weeks in jail by a UK court for breaching his bail conditions. The 47-year-old had been found guilty of breaching the UK’s Bail Act by Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London last month after his arrest at the Ecuadorian embassy, where he had sought refuge in 2012 following his bail over sexual assault allegations related to Sweden. The Australian national now faces US federal conspiracy charges related to one of the largest leaks of government secrets. The UK will decide whether to extradite him to the US in response to allegations that he conspired with former US intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to download classified databases. He faces up to five years in a US prison if convicted.

Air Marshal Bhadauria is new IAF vice-chief

Air Marshal Rakesh Kumar Singh Bhadauria has assumed charge as vice-chief of the Air Staff, succeeding Air Marshal Anil Khosla. Bhadauria, an alumnus of the National Defence Academy, was commissioned in the fighter stream of the IAF on June 15, 1980. He has over 4,250 hours of flying experience on 26 types of fighters and transport aircraft. He has held a number of important positions in the IAF, which included commanding a Jaguar squadron and heading a premier Air Force station. He was extensively involved in the initial prototype flight tests on the Light Combat Aircraft Tejas. Air Marshal Bhadauria was also the Air Attache at the Indian embassy, Moscow. Prior to assuming charge as vice-chief of the IAF, he was the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief of Training Command.

Laws should be caste neutral, says SC

Laws should be uniform, the Supreme Court said on May 1 while reserving its verdict on the Centre’s petition seeking a review of its 2018 judgment that had virtually diluted provisions of arrest under the SC/ST Act. A Bench of Justices Arun Mishra and U.U. Lalit, after hearing the submissions of Attorney General K.K. Venugopal appearing for Centre, said it is reserving the verdict. Venugopal said the verdict was “problematic” and it should be reviewed by the apex court. Senior advocate Vikas Singh, appearing for the parties supporting last year’s verdict, said that the Centre’s review has become infructuous as Parliament has already passed the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act, 2018, to neutralise the judgment’s effects.

Semenya loses fight against IAAF rules

South African runner Caster Semenya lost her court challenge against IAAF rules forcing female athletes to regulate their testosterone levels, but judges voiced concern with the application of the “discriminatory” regulations. Semenya, a double Olympic champion, was fighting measures imposed by the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) that compel “hyperandrogenic” athletes - or those with “differences of sexual development” (DSD) - to lower their testosterone levels if they wish to compete as women. A three-judge panel at the Court of Arbitration for Sport said it had “some serious concerns as to the future practical application of these DSD regulations”.

Mixed bag for India in varsity rankings

India’s universities delivered a mixed performance due to significant changes at individual institutions in the 2019 Asia University Rankings. The rankings, collated annually by Times Higher Education, found that Indian Institute of Science (IISc) held on to its 29th rank as a total of 49 Indian institutions made the cut to be included in the list. The number of entries was up from 42 last year, making India the third most-represented nation after Japan and China. China emerged as the Asian rankings leader for the first time this year, with Tsinghua University pushing National University of Singapore to second place. India’s performance is mixed, with significant rises and falls for individual institutions, notes the rankings analysis.

Iraq remains India’s biggest oil supplier

For the second year in a row, Iraq has remained India’s top crude oil supplier, meeting more than a fifth of the country’s oil needs in 2018-19. According to data from the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics, Iraq sold 46.61 million tonnes of crude oil to India in 2018-19, 2 per cent more than the 45.74 million tonnes it had supplied in 2017-18. India provisionally imported 207.3 million tonnes of crude oil in 2018-19, down from 220.4 million tonnes in the previous fiscal. Saudi Arabia has traditionally been India’s top oil source, but it was for the first time dethroned by Iraq in 2017-18. In 2018-19, Saudi Arabia exported 40.33 million tonnes of crude oil, up from 36.16 million tonnes sold in the previous fiscal.

World Heritage glaciers face meltdown

Glaciers from almost half of the natural World Heritage sites - such as the Khumbu Glacier in the Himalayas - may disappear completely by 2100, if emissions continue at current rate, a study warns. The research is the first-ever global study of World Heritage glaciers - home to some of the world’s most iconic glaciers, such as the Grosser Aletschgletscher in the Swiss Alps, and Greenland’s Jakobshavn Isbrae, scientists said. The team from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) combines data from a global glacier inventory, a review of existing literature and sophisticated computer modelling to analyse the current state of World Heritage glaciers, their recent evolution and their projected mass change over the 21st century.

Newsmakers

Former Chief Justice of Madras and Kerala High Courts B. Subhashan Reddy passed away on May 1. He was 76. Reddy had held several important positions, including judge of the Andhra Pradesh High Court, chairman of State Human Rights Commission and Lokayukta.

British Prime Minister Theresa May has sacked Defence Minister Gavin Williamson after a probe into the leak of an information from a National Security Council meeting that the UK had conditionally allowed China’s Huawei to develop the UK 5G network.