New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a plea of Jammu and Kashmir Awami National Conference (ANC) seeking postponement of assembly polls in the flood-ravaged state. A bench comprising chief justice H.L. Dattu and justice A.K. Sikri refused to direct the Election Commission to postpone the polls in the state on the ground that relief and rehabilitation work was still on.

During the brief hearing, senior advocate Rajeev Dhawan, appearing for the political outfit, said that free and fair election, in which all voters can participate, is not possible in the state which has a large population of internally displaced persons. Earlier a separate bench, before which the plea was mentioned, had referred it to the court of the chief justice of India (CJI). It was said the bench of CJI has been hearing a batch of petitions relating to relief and rehabilitation work in Jammu and Kashmir.

The plea, while seeking quashing of the election schedule till the situation becomes congenial for polls, had said that around 2,600 villages were hit by the floods and around 390 villages were submerged.
It had submitted that the rehabilitation work was still not complete, which posed a question if the EC would be able to ensure a free and fair election.

Investors haven’t been this bullish on India since 2003.  But all of that took a turn for the worse with the financial market crash of 2008. While other countries in the emerging markets recovered quite well starting in 2010, thanks to stimulus packages and robust China demand for commodities, India became a “gasping elephant” as an HSBC analyst famously called it in 2012.  GDP growth went from 10% in 2010 to 5% in 2013. Foreign direct investment in the country declined by 30% from its 2008 levels.

Two years later, the pendulum has swung.

Optimism for doing business in India is rising.  Sentiment improved when Narendra Modi was elected prime minister on a business-friendly reform agenda in May 2014, though positive signs were evident before the election. Even under the ruling Indian National Congress at the time, mired in a political quagmire that  made the last two years of its rule hobbled by policy paralysis, the INC managed to permit greater foreign investment in airlines. United Arab Emirates’ Etihad Airwas was the first to bite, acquiring a stake in Jet Airways.  Other policies were hamstrung by politics, primarily retail ownership by foreigners.

A survey conducted last summer by Ernst & Young found that 53% of more than 500 business leaders around the world planned to enter or expand their operations in India within the following 12 months. The list of multinationals that are making long-term investments in India includes U.K. liquor company Diageo , which acquired majority ownership of United Breweries, once run by Indian billionaire Vijay Mallya; French energy company GDF SUEZ ; pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline; Sweden’s IKEA; Singapore Airlines; Starbucks, which partner with the Tata Group; U.K. retailer Tesco; Unilever, Vodafone and Volkswagen all upped the ante on Modi.

India is loved for its domestic market. Young, relatively poor, and with a long way to grow. GDP per capital is under $2,000 annually and expected to double by 2021 to $2,700.

Still, the challenge of doing business in India is greater than any of the big emerging markets. The World Bank ranks India last in terms of ability to enforce contracts and in ease of doing business, which includes regulatory approval and permits.

Persistent corruption also compounds the challenges.  Sixty-nine percent of respondents to the 2013 Ernst & Young survey said fraud is an inevitable cost of doing business in India.  Many foreign investors may be motivated as much by fear as by optimism—compelled by the belief that they must invest in India to achieve their ambitions, even though they know the risks are great and the outcome is highly uncertain, said White & Case corporate lawyers in a 14 page white paper titled “Navigating India: Lessons for Foreign Investors”

The financial capital of the country has emerged as the most vacation-deprived city among the five surveyed towns, as most Mumbaikars enjoy working more than relaxing at vacations, says a recent study.

“Vacations play an important role in maintaining the work-life balance, and general well-being of the employees while re-energising them to be more focused at work. However, Mumbaikars lead in enjoying work more than relaxing at vacations as a majority of them take lesser vacation days than they are awarded,” Expedia Managing Director, Asia, Vikram Malhi said.

This, he said, makes Mumbaikars top the vacation-deprived city among the other surveyed towns in the country.

According to online travel agency Expedia.com’s 2014 Vacation Deprivation report, 97 per cent Mumbaikars’ vacation are deprived, 96 per cent are willing to make sacrifices for extra vacation days and 42 per cent feel guilty for taking a vacation.

However, the capital city of Delhi is the least vacation-deprived, the report said.

In Delhi, people start planning for next vacation within a week of coming back and most (99 per cent) are willing to make sacrifices like giving up on television and junk food for an additional vacation day.

“Delhiites are least vacation-deprived as compared to other metro cities in India. About 60 per cent of people in Delhi would prefer more vacation days instead of money. They are also ready to sacrifice on things like junk food, Internet and television, but find it relatively difficult to part with their booze for an extra day of vacation. About 7 per cent of them actually book it before landing back from their current vacation,” Malhi said.

The Expedia survey was conducted in five cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore and Hyderabad by Northstar from August 25 to September 17, 2014.

Puneites, despite having the most supportive bosses, feel they are vacation-deprived, because most of them feel they do not get enough vacation days, the survey said.

Almost half of Puneites start to relax as soon as they start their vacation and three-fourth of them associate overall happiness with vacation, it added.

It further said that Puneites are ready to give up dessert, social media, sex, taking a shower and Internet for one extra day of vacation.

Bangalore is at the top for several short vacations or long weekend instead of one long vacation.

The survey said Bangaloreans are workaholics as they are the highest to start enjoying their vacation when almost more than half of it is over.

Almost half of them blame it on their spouse or partner, work demand or other family members for not taking vacations.

They make up by taking multiple short vacations, it said.

It added that even as Hyderabadis are the highest to travel for weddings or family obligations, about 52 per cent never take all vacation days that they are entitled to and 67 per cent prefer a pay raise over more vacation days.

The survey found that for Hyderabadis, vacation planning is the number one priority and they plan their next vacation within more than a month of returning from holiday.

A quarter of these vacations are related with weddings or family obligations, highest amongst the cities surveyed, it added.

PM says ‘red warning lights are flashing’ against a backdrop of instability and uncertainty, as G20 summit draws to a close

David Cameron has issued a stark message that “red warning lights are flashing on the dashboard of the global economy” in the same way as when the financial crash brought the world to its knees six years ago.

Writing in the Guardian at the close of the G20 summit in Brisbane, Cameron says there is now “a dangerous backdrop of instability and uncertainty” that presents a real risk to the UK recovery, adding that the eurozone slowdown is already having an impact on British exports and manufacturing.

His warning comes days after the Bank of England governor, Mark Carney, claimed a spectre of stagnation was haunting Europe. The International Monetary Fund managing director, Christine Lagarde, expressed fears in Brisbane that a diet of high debt, low growth and unemployment may yet become “the new normal in Europe”.

Cameron has adopted the more sombre tone in the runup to the chancellor’s autumn statement on 3 December, when the Office of Budget Responsibility will produce new growth forecasts and spell out the impact on public finances.

“The eurozone is teetering on the brink of a possible third recession, with high unemployment, falling growth and the real risk of falling prices too,” Cameron writes. “Emerging market economies which were the driver of growth in the early stages of the recovery are now slowing down. Despite the progress in Bali [trade talks in 2013], global trade talks have stalled while the epidemic of Ebola, conflict in the Middle East and Russia’s illegal actions in Ukraine are all adding a dangerous backdrop of instability and uncertainty.”

The emphasis on potential dangers, balancing some more hubristic ministerial accounts of the state of the UK economy, reflects Cameron’s concern – underlined by conversations at the G20 – about the extent to which Britain can detach itself from gathering economic storms.

Politically, Conservatives believe an emphasis on the risks still facing the UK will make anxious voters recoil from handing stewardship of a fragile economy to a relatively untried Labour team.

Some recent polling has seen the economy decline as an issue for voters, partly because there is a belief that the recovery is secured, leading to issues such as the health service and living standards, which have been seized upon by Labour, to rise in importance.

But with Germany, Europe’s manufacturing powerhouse, growing by just 0.1% in the third quarter, the eurozone economy appears to be faltering.

A European Central Bank (ECB) survey showed that inflation would remain at worryingly low levels before picking up slightly next year. The annual inflation rate in the eurozone was near a five-year low of 0.4% in October and the ECB expects a rate of 0.5% for 2014 – well below the target of close to 2%.

The EU may also be only one or two new rounds of sanctions away from pushing Russia into a deep recession as punishment for its interference in Ukraine, a point made in Brisbane by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

Cameron stresses that retreating from the world or imposing extra tax and borrowing may seem easy solutions but they would instead prove only to be a repeat of the mistakes of the past.

He claims that the G20 communique hammered out over the past few days endorsed Britain’s determination to use monetary policy to support growth and he would not waver on his policy of paying down government debt.

The summit, dogged by controversies over Ukraine, extra aid to fight Ebola and climate change, was hailed as “a weekend of achievement” by the Australian prime minister, Tony Abbott. He said the group of leading nations had managed to “shift a gear”, by moving from a responsive to a proactive stance on world events.

World leaders pledged 800 separate measures designed to lift their combined economic growth by an additional 2.1% above the current trajectory by 2018 compared with 2013 – a measure the IMFIMFand OECD have calculated would add more than US$2tn (£1.3tn) and millions of jobs to the global economy.

Much of the growth would come from infrastructure investment and getting an extra 100 million women into the labour force.

None of the commitments are binding on national governments, so there is some scepticism that the Brisbane action plan will be able to have the transformative effect it promises, but Cameron said if the pledges were kept, it would mean “an extra Australia and New Zealand” added to the world economy. The G20 had credibility, he argued, since it had shown its effectiveness by pushing through reforms to achieve bank stability in the past.

He said the G20 had taken fresh steps to clamp down on corporate tax avoidance, pointing out that 92 tax authorities were now cooperating by sharing information which would enable G20 countries to raise an extra $32bn in tax revenues.

“This is not some arcane dry and dusty subject,” Cameron said at his closing press conference. “The more we can make sure big corporations pay their taxes properly, the less we have to tax hardworking people who I want to make sure can keep more of their own money so they can spend as they choose.”

But the TUC general secretary, Frances O’Grady, said: “Too many world leaders seem to think any jobs will do when they should be thinking about the security and quality of those jobs. The same story of casualisation, part-time work and insecurity in the labour market is spreading across the world.”

Chris Leslie, shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said: “David Cameron claims his policies are working, but as even Sir John Major admits, most people still aren’t feeling the recovery.

“Working people are £1,600 a year worse off under his government, borrowing is going up so far this year and exports have fallen behind our competitors. David Cameron should be trying to strengthen growth and make sure working people finally benefit from it, not making excuses for slower growth.”

Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray’s 2nd death anniversary on Monday saw BJP reaching out to Sena with a promise to construct a memorial befitting the leader’s stature as it brought together the squabbling claimants to his legacy-son and successor Uddhav and nephew Raj of MNS.

After initial reports that only a state minister will pay tributes at the makeshift memorial of Thackeray at Shivaji Park, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis reached the venue with several of his cabinet colleagues in tow.

Fadnavis, while effusively praising Thackeray, one of the architects of the saffron alliance that lasted 25 years before coming apart ahead of the Assembly poll, announced setting up a committee to go into the issue of construction of a memorial, a long-standing demand of the Sena.

“Bal Thackeray was like a father figure to us. We have gained a lot from his blessings. There can be no person like him in Maharashtra,” he told reporters
Fadnavis had on Sunday said the door for talks with Sena had not been closed. “The doors for talks with Sena are not closed. In politics such a thing never happens. Talks are possible,” he had said in Nagpur yesterday.

He said a committee under the Chief Secretary will be constituted to discuss construction of a memorial “suitable to Thackeray’s status”. Uddhav Thackeray and leaders of other political parties will be on the panel.

Fadnavis had won a controversial confidence vote last Wednesday after NCP declared outside support to his minority government. As the confidence motion was passed by a voice vote, there was an uproar by Sena and Congress, with the two parties petitioning Governor C Vidyasar Rao to direct the government to seek a fresh vote in which its strength be determined through a division of votes.

NCP Legislature Party leader and former Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar too disapproved of the manner in which the motion was passed by voice vote. NCP chief Sharad Pawar had earlier said he cannot guarantee the survival of the BJP government for its full five-year term.

{mosimage}After comments from the Pawars, there have been talks of the possibility of BJP and Sena coming together to form a stable government but no clear signals from the two parties have come yet.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi too appeared to reach out to Shiv Sena when he took to microblogging website Twitter to pay tributes to Thackeray and “salute the great man”.

Modi, who is in Australia, tweeted: “On Pujya Balasaheb Thackeray’s Punya Tithi, I salute the great man who always lived for the people & stood for their well-being.”

“The life of Pujya Balasaheb Thackeray continues to inspire us. He lives in the hearts of millions,” Modi, whom Thackeray had solidly backed amid vociferous demands for his resignation as Chief Minister in the aftermath of post-Godhra riots in Gujarat, tweeted.

Amid the continuing confusion over a reconciliation between BJP and Sena, MNS leader Raj Thackeray shared the stage with Uddhav after a long time with their body language setting off speculation about a detente.

The bonhomie was evident when a smiling Raj walked up to the dais and shook hands with Uddhav, his younger son Tejas and Sena MP and spokesman Sanjay Raut. The MNS leader was motioned by senior Sena leader Ramdas Kadam to a vacant chair between Uddhav and Raut which he occupied.

The two leaders were seen chatting and laughing in public after a long time before Raj exited the venue with other MNS leaders in tow. He was also seen chatting with several women Shiv Sena leaders including city Mayor Snehal Ambekar.

The bonhomie between the two cousins, who had been sparring ever since Raj walked out of the family home and floated Maharashtra Navnirman Sena in 2006, comes in the backdrop of their political isolation in Maharashtra.

Contesting Lok Sabha and state Assembly elections for the first time in the absence of Bal Thackeray, Uddhav led Sena to plausible performances in both. The party won 18 of state’s 48 seats in alliance with BJP in LS poll, while it secured 63 of 288 seats in Assembly election after the split to emerge as the second largest party in the House.

Though Sena performed reasonably well in the Assembly poll, it is now friendless in Maharashtra politics and needs to fortify its position with the help of other parties.

Raj Thackeray, whose MNS had 13 MLAs in the previous House, was badly mauled in both Lok Sabha and Assembly elections. It could not open its account in LS poll, while in Assembly election it could manage to win just one seat.

Raj had publicly admitted he had sought an alliance with Shiv Sena after its bitter split with BJP “but there was no response from the other side”.

His presence at Bal Thackeray’s death anniversary event is being seen as another attempt by him to warm up to the estranged cousin, whose party is now occupying the main opposition’s space after splitting with BJP.

Senior MNS leader Bala Nandgaonkar, who accompanied Raj to the event, said that it was the wish of every Shiv Sainik and MNS worker that the two cousins reunite.

“This is a very sad day for us. It is difficult to cope with the absence of Balasaheb. But, if the two decide to become one force this day, it will turn out to be a memorable day for all of us.

“It is the wish of not only every citizen of our state, but also of every Shiv Sainik and MNS worker. Both should join hands and fight for the welfare of the state as a single force,” Nandgaonkar told reporters.

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