With $21-bn networth, Mukesh Ambani India's richest for 6th yr

October 29, 2013

Mukesh_AmbaniNew York, Oct 29: With a networth of USD 21 billion, Mukesh Ambani has retained his title as India's wealthiest for sixth year in a row, while the country's 100 richest persons saw their collective wealth soar by a modest 3 per cent in a year.

NRI steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal (USD 16 billion) also continues to hold the second position, while Sun Pharma's Dilip Shanghvi has jumped to third place with about 50 per cent surge in his wealth to USD 13.9 billion, pushing IT czar Azim Premji to fourth place (USD 13.8 billion).

As per US-based business magazine Forbes' annual list of India's 100 richest, released today, their total wealth grew by a modest 3 per cent from a year ago to USD 259 billion.

"Growth in wealth was lacklustre due to India's stumbling economy, which has been hit by inflation and a falling rupee," Forbes said.

Amid the sluggishness, Reliance Industries chief Mukesh Ambani and ArcelorMittal's Lakshmi Mittal saw no change in their respective networths, but pharmaceutical industry titan Shanghi managed to buck the trend with a surge of USD 4.7 billion in his wealth to USD 13.9 billion.

Premji's wealth also rose by USD 1.6 billion, but he could not retain his third slot.

Pallonji Mistry, patriarch of construction giant Shapoorji Pallonji Group which is the biggest shareholder in Tata Sons, has moved down one place to fifth rank with a networth of USD 12.5 billion. His younger son Cyrus Mistry last year succeeded Ratan Tata as new Tata group head.

NRI businessmen Hinduja brothers have moved up to sixth place (USD 9 billion), from their 9th position last year.

Shiv Nadar (USD 8.6 billion) have moved into top-ten at the 7th place, while Sunil Mittal has also returned to this league at 10th place (USD 6.6 billion). On the other hand, Essar group's Ruia brothers and Jindal group's Savitri Jindal have moved out from the group.

Adi Godrej has slipped two places to 8th rank (USD 8.3 billion), while Aditya Birla group Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla has gained one position to 9th (USD 7.6 billion).

Anil Ambani has also retained his 11th rank, although his wealth rose to USD 6.2 billion, from USD 6 billion a year ago.

In the top-20, he is followed by Shashi and Ravi Ruia (USD 5.5 billion), Micky Jagtiani (USD 5 billion), Savitri Jindal (USD 4.9 billion), Uday Kotak (USD 4.1 billion), Cyrus Poonawalla (USD 4 billion), Anand Burman (USD 3.7 billion), Kushal Pal Singh (USD 3.4 billion), Desh Bandhu Gupta (USD 3.2 billion) and Bajaj Family (USD 3.1 billion).

There are a total of 65 billionaires on the list, four more than last year. Some of these have made their fortunes in the Middle East, including Bahrain resident Ravi Pillai (richest newcomer with USD 1.7 billion) of Saudi construction group, Nasser S Al-Hajri Corp, and retail mogul M A Yusuff Ali (USD 1.6 billion) of Abu Dhabi-based Lulu Group.

As many as 15 new members have entered the top-100 list even as more than half of last year's rich listers, including Savitri Jindal whose wealth declined by USD 3.3 billion, have seen a fall in their fortunes.

The minimum net worth to make to the list has increased to USD 635 million from USD 460 million last year.

Forbes said that the list has been compiled using shareholder and financial information obtained from families, individuals, stock exchanges, analysts and regulators.

The ranking lists family fortunes, including those shared among extended families such as the Bajaj family, while the wealth figures were calculated based on stock prices and exchange rates as of October 18, 2013.

Privately-held companies were valued based on the valuation of similar publicly-traded companies.

Others on the list include Vedanta group's Anil Agarwal at 21st position (USD 3 billion), Gautam Adani (22, USD 2.65 billion), Kalanithi Maran (23, USD 2.6 billion), Venugopal Dhoot (30, USD 1.8 billion), Ajay Piramal (41, USD 1.55 billion), Nandan Nilekani (50, USD 1.3 billion), Rakesh Jhunjhunwala (61, USD 1.15 billion) and Anu Aga (86, USD 730).

The youngest on the list is 38-year old Shivinder Mohan Singh, who along with his 40-year-old brother Malvinder Mohan Singh have been ranked at 26th place (USD 2.3 billion).

Besides, 40-year old Ranjan Pai of Manipal group is at 51st place (USD 1.25 billion).

Others aged below 50 include Glenn Saldanha ranked 57 with net worth of USD 1.19 billion, Nirav Modi (64, USD 1.01 billion) and Vikas Oberoi (79, USD 780 billion) among others.

Women on the list include Savitri Jindal, Anu Aga, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and Shobhana Bhartia.

Those aged above 80 years of age include Brij Mohan Lal Munjal (90 years), Samprada Singh (87 yrs), Pallonji Mistry (84 yrs), Devendra Jain (84 yrs) and Kushal Pal Singh (82 yrs).

On Mukesh Ambani, Forbes said he plans to invest USD 25 billion in his businesses over the next 3 years.

Regarding L N Mittal, the magazine said "no turnaround yet for troubled steel baron Lakshmi Mittal whose ArcelorMittal is facing weak demand amid supply glut."

Mittal has put one of three houses he owns on London's billionaires' row up for sale, the magazine said.

Meanwhile, his son-in-law Amit Bhatia's family has partnered Air Asia's Tony Fernandes and the Tata group, for a new budget airline.

The list forms part of Forbes India edition which would hit the stands on November 7.

Shanghvi, who moved into the top five last year, is the third richest for the first time. Despite the rise, Sun reported a USD 210 million loss in the last quarter, after making a provision for settling a patent dispute over Pfizer's acid-reflux drug Protonix.

"Wipro chairman Azim Premji, whose fortune is up USD 1.6 billion in past year, got boost after spinning off its (the company's) consumer products business in March," Forbes said.

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Agencies
May 4,2020

Washington, May 4: Anxious for an economic recovery, President Donald Trump fielded Americans' questions about decisions by some states to allow nonessential businesses to reopen while other states are on virtual lockdown due to the coronavirus.

After more than a month of being cooped up at the White House, Trump returned from a weekend at the Camp David presidential retreat in Maryland and participated in a “virtual” town hall, hosted Sunday night by Fox News Channel, from inside the Lincoln Memorial.

He pushed for an economic reopening, one his advisers believe will be essential for his reelection chances this November.

“We have to get it back open safely but as quickly as possible," Trump said.

The president acknowledged fear on both sides of the issue, some Americans worried about getting sick while others are concerned about losing jobs.

Though the administration's handling of the pandemic, particularly its ability to conduct widespread testing, has come under fierce scrutiny, the president defended the response and said the nation was ready to begin reopening.

“I'll tell you one thing. We did the right thing and I really believe we saved a million and a half lives,” the president said.

But he also broke with the assessment of his senior adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner, saying it was “too soon to say" if the federal government was overseeing a “success story."

Trump's impatience also flashed. While noting that states would go at their own pace in returning to normal, with ones harder hit by the coronavirus going slower, he said that “some states frankly I think aren't going fast enough" and singled out Virginia, which has a Democratic governor and legislature.

And he urged the nation's schools and universities to return to classes this fall.

But many public health experts believe that cannot be done safely until a vaccine is developed.

Trump declared Sunday that he believed one could be available by year's end although his own pandemic task force has predicated it could be another 18 months.

Federal guidelines that encouraged people to stay at home and practice social distancing expired late last week.

Debate continued over moves by governors to start reopening state economies that tanked after shopping malls, salons and other nonessential businesses were ordered closed in attempt to slow a virus that has killed more than 66,000 Americans, according to a tally of reported deaths by Johns Hopkins University.

The U.S. economy has suffered, shrinking at a 4.8 per cent annual rate from January through March, the government estimated last week. It was the sharpest quarterly drop since the 2008 financial crisis.

Roughly 30.3 million people have filed for unemployment aid in the six weeks since the outbreak forced employers to shut down and slash their workforces. It was the worst string of layoffs on record.

Larry Kudlow, Trump's top economic adviser, on Sunday predicted a “spectacular 2021” — with “the right set of policies” — on top of a rebound from July through December of this year.

He said on CNN's "State of the Union" that the administration would "pause” to review the effectiveness of trillions in economic relief spending before making any decision on whether additional aid is needed.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Thursday that state and local governments are seeking up to USD 1 trillion for coronavirus costs, The Senate planned to reopen Monday, despite the Washington area's continued status as a virus hot spot and with the region still under stay-at-home orders.

The House remains shuttered. The pandemic is forcing big changes at the tradition-bound Supreme Court: The justices will hear arguments, beginning Monday, by telephone for the first time since Alexander Graham Bell patented his invention in 1876.

Congressional Republicans are resisting calls by Democrats for emergency spending for states and local governments whose revenue streams all but dried up in recent weeks.

The GOP is counting on the country's reopening and the rebound promised by Trump as their best hope to forestall another big round of virus aid.

The leaders of California and Michigan are among governors under public pressure over lockdowns still in effect while states such as Florida, Georgia and Ohio are reopening.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, said Sunday that the armed protesters who demonstrated inside her state's Capitol “depicted some of the worst racism” and “awful parts” of US history by showing up with Confederate flags, nooses and swastikas.

Trump had tweeted “LIBERATE” and named Michigan and other states in mid-April. In a new tweet Friday, he urged Whitmer to “make a deal” with the protesters. “These are very good people, but they are angry.

They want their lives back again, safely!” Trump said.

Despite the opposition of Michigan's Republican-controlled Legislature, Whitmer has extended a state of emergency declaration and directed most businesses statewide to remain closed.

Some people participating in other public protests across the US have not kept their distance from one another and have rallied without masks, not heeding public health recommendations.

Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force, called that behavior “devastatingly worrisome.”

She said people will feel guilty for the rest of their lives if they end up infected and unwittingly spread the virus to vulnerable family members.

“We need to protect each other at the same time we're voice our discontent,” she told CNN's “State of the Union.”

An overwhelming majority of Americans support stay-at-home orders and other efforts to slow the virus' spread, according to a recent survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Asked about states that are reopening before they meet benchmarks laid out in federal guidelines she helped write, Birx said the guidelines “are a pretty firm policy of what we think is important from a public health standpoint.”

She added that she and others have made it clear that people must continue practising social distancing, “scrupulous” hand washing and other measures to protect themselves and others.

Fox News Channel said it asked viewers to submit questions about reopening the country on the network's Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts for a chance to appear on the rare broadcast from the Lincoln Memorial. Trump spoke from the memorial's steps last July Fourth.

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News Network
March 3,2020

Mar 3: Just hours after the ending of a week-long “reduction” in violence that was crucial for Donald Trump’s peace deal in Afghanistan, the Taliban struck again: On Monday, they killed three people and injured about a dozen at a football match in Khost province. This resumption of violence will not surprise anyone actually invested in peace for that troubled country. The point of the U.S.-Taliban deal was never peace. It was to try and cover up an ignominious exit for the U.S., driven by an election-bound president who feels no responsibility toward that country or to the broader region.

Seen from South Asia, every point we know about in the agreement is a concession by Trump to the Taliban. Most importantly, it completes a long-term effort by the U.S. to delegitimize the elected government in Kabul — and, by extension, Afghanistan’s constitution. Afghanistan’s president is already balking at releasing 5,000 Taliban prisoners before intra-Afghan talks can begin — a provision that his government did not approve.

One particularly cringe-worthy aspect: The agreement refers to the Taliban throughout  as “the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan that is not recognized by the United States as a state and is known as the Taliban.” This unwieldy nomenclature validates the Taliban’s claim to be a government equivalent to the one in Kabul, just not the one recognised at the moment by the U.S. When read together with the second part of the agreement, which binds the U.S. to not “intervene in [Afghanistan’s] domestic affairs,” the point is obvious: The Taliban is not interested in peace, but in ensuring that support for its rivals is forbidden, and its path to Kabul is cleared.

All that the U.S. has effectively gotten in return is the Taliban’s assurance that it will not allow the soil of Afghanistan to be used against the “U.S. and its allies.” True, the U.S. under Trump has shown a disturbing willingness to trust solemn assurances from autocrats; but its apparent belief in promises made by a murderous theocratic movement is even more ridiculous. Especially as the Taliban made much the same promise to an Assistant Secretary of State about Osama bin Laden while he was in the country plotting 9/11.

Nobody in the region is pleased with this agreement except for the Taliban and their backers in the Pakistani military. India has consistently held that the legitimate government in Kabul must be the basic anchor of any peace plan. Ordinary Afghans, unsurprisingly, long for peace — but they are, by all accounts, deeply skeptical about how this deal will get them there. The brave activists of the Afghan Women’s Network are worried that intra-Afghan talks will take place without adequate representation of the country’s women — who have, after all, the most to lose from a return to Taliban rule.

But the Pakistani military establishment is not hiding its glee. One retired general tweeted: “Big victory for Afghan Taliban as historic accord signed… Forced Americans to negotiate an accord from the position of parity. Setback for India.” Pakistan’s army, the Taliban’s biggest backer, longs to re-install a friendly Islamist regime in Kabul — and it has correctly estimated that, after being abandoned by Trump, the Afghan government will have sharply reduced bargaining power in any intra-Afghan peace talks. A deal with the Taliban that fails also to include its backers in the Pakistani military is meaningless.

India, meanwhile, will not see this deal as a positive for regional peace or its relationship with the U.S. It comes barely a week after Trump’s India visit, which made it painfully clear that shared strategic concerns are the only thing keeping the countries together. New Delhi remembers that India is not, on paper, a U.S. “ally.” In that respect, an intensification of terrorism targeting India, as happened the last time the U.S. withdrew from the region, would not even be a violation of Trump’s agreement. One possible outcome: Over time the government in New Delhi, which has resolutely sought to keep its ties with Kabul primarily political, may have to step up security cooperation. Nobody knows where that would lead.

The irresponsible concessions made by the U.S. in this agreement will likely disrupt South Asia for years to come, and endanger its own relationship with India going forward. But worst of all, this deal abandons those in Afghanistan who, under the shadow of war, tried to develop, for the first time, institutions that work for all Afghans. No amount of sanctimony about “ending America’s longest war” should obscure the danger and immorality of this sort of exit.

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News Network
April 16,2020

Islamabad, Apr 16: The number of coronavirus cases in Pakistan topped 6000 while the death toll due to the virus has reached 117, Dawn reported citing official data on Wednesday.

Over 1,446 people have recovered in the country from the deadly virus that has killed over 1.3 lakh people worldwide.

The total number of cases in the country has reached 6297 with Punjab being the worst affected province with 3,016 cases. Meanwhile, Sindh has 1,688 cases of the deadly virus.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has reported 47 new cases of the coronavirus, taking the provincial total to 912. Most of the new cases are of Tableeghi Jamaat members who have travel history.

Balochistan has reported four new cases of COVID-19, taking the provincial total to 281 according to provincial government spokesperson Liaquat Shahwani.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Imran Khan had announced the extension of the nationwide lockdown with relaxation to some sectors.

Addressing the media in Islamabad on Tuesday, Khan said, "We made the hard decision of imposing lockdown in the country which was very well implemented due to cooperation of the people."

The countrywide lockdown was imposed last month in a bid to stem the spread of coronavirus. Later, a two-week extension was announced in the restrictions until April 14.

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