Rs 60,000 is the new Rs 1 lakh in Uttar Pradesh real estate market

BAREILLY: Manish Gupta, 33, a software developer based out of Lucknow, has been pestered by calls from real estate agents. On the offer was a chance to invest black money in the business. "The offer was 60:40 on the deal. I then learnt that one lakh rupees, comprising Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 notes, will be equivalent to Rs 60,000 in the deal," said Gupta.

Customers are getting similar deals in other cities of the state including Allahabad, Lucknow, Ghaziabad and Noida in varying degrees of commissions ranging from 30% to 50%. A developer on condition of anonymity claimed that customers are also approaching them with offers to invest their black money.

This is ironic, compared to the initial lull in the real estate market in the aftermath of demonetisation. Developers, who were initially troubled by the announcement of scrapping of currency notes which account for nearly 86% of cash in circulation, have discovered loopholes sooner than expected.

There are many small and big developers who have their projects operational in all major cities of the state. Experts say that the demonetization might delay projects, which has sent developers, especially the small ones, into panic mode.

Speaking to TOI, a chartered accountant based in Varanasi said, "I have heard about real estate agents charging commissions ranging between 30% and 50% in such cases. But this is a vicious network. The person at the end of the chain is bound to land in trouble."

Sources close to TOI revealed that these agents have managed a network of close to 100-150 bank accounts and will use it to deposit the money in smaller amounts.

Supreme Court refuses to restrain lower courts from hearing pleas on demonetisation

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to restrain various high courts and subordinate courts from hearing petitions against the Union government's demonetisation notification, saying "people are facing real problems and we cannot shut them from moving courts to register their grievances."

The SC, however, asked the Centre to file a plea seeking transfer of cases on demonetisation filed in different courts across country to one high court.

Attorney general Mukul Rohatgi listed out several measures taken by the Centre to ease the situation owing to demonetisation. He said the situation is being monitored at the highest-level everyday and things are getting sorted out. "Queues are getting shorter," he said.

The apex court said that the government had promised during the last hearing to increase the exchange limit from Rs 4,500, but, instead, it has reduced it to Rs 2,000. "Why? Is there shortage of even Rs 100 notes," the SC bench asked.

The government on Thursday reduced the exchange of old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes from Rs 4,500 a day to Rs 2,500. Justifying the move to cut the exchange limit, finance minister Arun Jatiley+ said that that the exchange window of Rs 4,500 a day was being misused and this had led to the government reducing the amount to Rs 2,000 in a bid to curb use of "currency mules" to change illegal wealth to new notes.

"The queues are becoming smaller. Deposits and withdrawals are progressing well... With this (however), the facility to exchange Rs 4,500 has been misused. The government will not accept this misuse. This amount has been reduced," Jaitley said.

Verbal spat between Mukul Rohatgi and Kapil Sibal

During the hearing, attorney general Mukul Rohatgi and senior advocate and Congress leader Kapil Sibal had a verbal spat over problems faced by people due to demonetisation. The attorney general acused Kapil Sibal of politicising the court proceedings because of his affiliation to political party's stand. Sibal, on his part, said that the government is inept and clueless about handling the situation that has arisen because of ill-planned demonetisation.

Rohatgi said Sibal was bringing politics into court room. "I have heard you in the press conference yesterday. You are speaking the same language here in court on demonetisation," he said. Sibal replied: "I have freedom of speech to criticise government policies. I am talking here about the problem faced by people not politics."

The SC asked Sibal to file documents substantiating his charges on inept handling of demonetisation and posted the matter for further hearing on November 25.

Two Kannada actors drown after 60-ft plunge during shooting near Bengaluru

TIPPAGONDANAHALLI (KARNATAKA): Two actors drowned while shooting for a Kannada movie after they jumped off a helicopter into the Tippagondanahalli reservoir, 35km west of Bengaluru, on Monday afternoon. A motorboat stationed on the banks to pull the actors out of the water developed a last-minute snag and remained ashore, resulting in the tragedy.

Duniya Vijay, hero of the movie Maasti Gudi, who also made the jump with the other two, survived as he was rescued in the nick of time by a local who rushed to his help in a coracle.

Officials of the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board, the custodian of the reservoir, said the film crew had violated the conditional approval, they had barred the crew from taking aerial shots and entering prohibited areas, including the water. Police said the three actors didn't have life jackets on. The two who died weren't even good swimmers.

According to eyewitnesses, the actors jumped into the 40-foot-deep reservoir from a height of 60 feet, at least 200 feet away from the bank. The scene required Vijay to fight Anil Kumar and Uday Venkatesh in the helicopter. Vijay had to jump while holding the two actors by their necks.

After jumping, Vijay, Anil and Uday began swimming towards the shore. However, Anil and Uday started drowning after swimming for 50 metres. A local, Ramagiri, meanwhile, rushed in a coracle to rescue them. Vijay scrambled onto the coracle.

"As the coracle could hold only one more person, I brought him to the bank and returned to the middle of the reservoir only to find Anil and Uday had drowned," 

Anil and Uday were said to be old friends of Vijay and part of his earlier ventures. Vijay said he was too disturbed to speak to the media. A fire tender was stationed at the shooting location as part of the safety arrangements, said officers of the fire control room.

Rupee recoups losses against US dollar; closes up 5 paise

MUMBI: The rupee on Friday recovered by 5 paise against the US currency to end at 66.70 on stray dollar selling by banks and exporters even as stock markets continued to decline.

In yet another day of range-bound trade, the rupee-dollar outright spot dealings remained quiet due to lack of market-moving factors.



Excess volatility and movements of the US dollar in global trade largely weighed on trade during the day, but the home currency withstood the midsession volatile momentum.



Continued selling by FIIs in equities and debt on the back of wavering global financial markets restricted the rupee gains, a forex dealer said.



The rupee today resumed marginally up at 66.73 compared with Thursday's closing value of 66.75 at the Inter-bank Foreign Exchange (forex) market and confined to narrow trading band 66.70 and 66.7650 through the session as scattered dollar demand was absorbed by the adequate supplies.



It finally settled at 66.70, revealing a gain of 5 paise, or 0.07 per cent. The home currency had lost 4 paise yesterday.



On the global front, the American currency traded little changed against all major trading partners after a failed attempt to bounce back.



The dollar Index, which measures its broader strength against a basket of currencies, was down 0.02 per cent at 97.17 in the afternoon trade.

The RBI today fixed the reference rate for the dollar at 66.7219 and euro at 74.0546.



In cross-currency trades, the rupee remained under immense pressure against the pound sterling to end at 83.30 from 82.88 and fell back against the euro to close at 74.03 from 73.87 yesterday.



It also dropped against the Japanese yen and finished at 65.21 from 64.68 per 100 yens earlier.



Meanwhile, domestic bourses plunged to their lowest levels in nearly four months as selloff deepened on growing anxiety among investors over the US presidential election next Tuesday.



Foreign investors offloaded equities worth Rs 343.30 crore on net basis today, as per the provisional exchange data. They had sold shares worth a net Rs 706.77 crore yesterday.



The benchmark BSE Sensex tumbled over 156 points to end at 27,274.15, while broder Nifty shed 51 points to 8,433.75.



In the forward market, premium for dollar declined due to fresh receiving by exporters.

The benchmark six-month premium for April moved down to 173.5-175.5 paise from 174.5-176.5 paise and the forward- October 2017 contract edged lower to 349-351 paise from 350.5-352.5 paise yesterday.

Crude prices continued to trade with high volatility and on course for their sixth straight day of falls on Friday.

Mumbai, Nov 04 (PTI) The rupee today closed up by 5 paise against the US dollar at 66.70/71 per dollar.

The domestic unit fell further against the pound sterling to finish at Rs 83.30/32 per pound at the Interbank Foreign Exchange market today.

95% of ex-servicemen happy with OROP, Manohar Parrikar says

NEW DELHI: Amid the ongoing political slugfest over the death of ex-serviceman Ram Kishan Grewal, who allegedly committed suicide over the implementation of One Rank One Pension(OROP), defence minister Manohar Parrikar said on Saturday that 95% of veterans have already got the benefits of the OROP scheme and they are happy with it.

"Rest are very old pensioners, so their records are incomplete. We are in the process of completing the records of these 5%, it will be done in the next two months," Parrikar said in a press briefing.



The government is sensitive to OROP issue as it was not implemented for the past 43 years, Parrikar had said on Friday.



"Only one lakh ex-servicemen (out of over 20 lakh) are not getting pension as per OROP scheme due to some technical difficulty or documentation problems. We will resolve these problems in coming two months," he said

The scheme, announced in September 2015, among other measures, is meant to ensure equal pension to servicemen who retired on the same rank and after the same duration of service, regardless of the year of retirement. However, retired soldiers have been alleging that the government has not addressed their concerns fully about disparity in pension payments.



The issue snowballed into a major political war after Grewal, 70, a former Rajputana Rifles subedar, demanding immediate implementation of the scheme, committed suicide by consuming poison at a Delhi park on Tuesday evening.



A combative Rahul Gandhi on Friday stepped up pressure on the government over OROP, accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of "lying" on the issue and insisting what the retired defence personnel were now getting was "enhanced pension" and that 'One Rank-One Pension' demand was yet to be fulfilled.

"What PM says is One Rank-One Pension is actually pension enhancement and not OROP. PM should stop lying on the issue. "OROP is the right of armed forces personnel and government will have to give it," Rahul, who was detained thrice over two days during protests over the suicide by army veteran Ram Kishan Grewal, told reporters on Friday.

Finance minister Arun Jaitley accused Rahul Gandhi of trying "exploit the tragedy" of the suicide of a former soldier and termed it an "irresponsible behaviour" by a national leader.

"No one should try to change a personal tragedy into political gain, especially a party whose fortune is already sinking," Jaitley said.

He said that for 10 years, when the Congress-led UPA was in power, it did not initiate any meaningful step to implement the OROP scheme.

BSF’s women take fight to the enemy’s gate

Pooja Sharma, Anubala & Rabinder Kaur.

ABDULLIYAN (RS PURA, JAMMU): Shortly after sunrise, constables Rabinder Kaur and Anubala sling their 5.56mm INSAS rifles across their shoulders, and march towards one of the border outposts in Jammu.



Once there, the young BSF personnel, both women, quickly get into position at the morcha, from where they can draw a bead on Pakistan Rangers personnel. Trained to handle medium machine guns (MMGs) and 51mm mortars, the two are merciless in their retaliation if firing from across the border injures locals or their colleagues.

Rabinder and Anubala are among more than 90 women personnel of the BSF posted along the 192km stretch of the international border in Jammu. "We're the new woman power," Rabinder, a Jammu local whose husband works in Australia, told TOI.



" Hum log bhi jawaab denge, aur aisa jawaab denge ki 100 saal tak yaad rakhenge ki women constables ki taqaat kya hoti hai (We, too, will retaliate, and in a manner that they will remember the might of women constables for 100 years)," she added.

Most of the BSF's women soldiers are aged between 23 and 30 years. Some stay with their families at the battalion headquarters, while others have left their children with their husbands' families to fight at the border.

Most say that their choice of career evokes not derision, but pride at home, even among the men of their villages "The elderly men and women at my village in Pathankot bless us and say 'Humari bahu aur betiyo ne humara naam roshan kiya hai (Our daughters-in-law and daughters have done us proud)'," says Anubala, who has been in the BSF since 2008.

Some of them are also deployed in the more sensitive forward areas of Akhnoor, Arnia and R S Pura, which had to bear the brunt of Pakistani shellinglast year.

From standing for six to eight hours inside a watch tower with their heavy rifles, to seizing contraband from villagers, BSF's women personnel walk shoulder-to-shoulder with their male counterparts in the combat zone. Constable Lakshmi of Samba summed it up: "We are ready for any action."

Stumped Tata camp rethinks strategy

MUMBAI: The decision of the independent directors at Indian Hotels (IHCL) to wholeheartedly back Cyrus Mistry came as a shock for the Tata camp. As the impact sunk in, there was growing acceptance at Tata Sons that they needed a more proactive strategy to convince independent directors, investors, and the public at large to back them in their boardroom battles.



The Tata brand, valued at $13.7 billion by the UK-based Brand Finance in July, has for decades stood for trust and reliability. Tata insiders fear the current uncertainty over leadership is going to rob the brand of some of its sheen, in addition to eroding the market cap of group companies.



The holding company is becoming aware of the need to build a more convincing narrative for change in leadership among independent directors and other stakeholders, with whom Mistry seems to enjoy support. On Friday, all six independent directors on the IHCL board backed Mistry for his leadership and strategic acumen.



As the board meeting was on, the IHCL stock rallied nearly 3% to close at Rs 112.


Since October 24, the day Mistry was forced out of Tata Sons board, observers see some amount of reluctance within the company to elaborate on the sequence of events and reasons leading to the sudden change in leadership at the helm of Tata Sons.

"It was terrible management on the part of Tatas, especially when we knew half the IHCL board were Mistry sympathisers," said a Tata insider on condition of anonymity. "We somewhere didn't realise that there is a Mistry-appointed CEO who would present a compelling case for the ousted chairman," the source added. In 2014, Mistry had brought in veteran hotelier Rakesh Sarna as its MD & CEO to run IHCL.


Now the Tata camp is planning to go on a communication overdrive to build a strong case in favour of their decision to sack Mistry as Tata Sons chief. Tatas are connecting with old hands at communications, corporate affairs and brands who have served the group well.

There will be an immediate stock-taking of the likely support Mistry might enjoy in the boards of other group companies. "We know this is going to be a long-drawn battle, and it would probably take up to three years to get Mistry out of all the boards," said a source.