Gir loses 23 lions in 21 days

Gujarat’s Asiatic lions are in grave danger and on stake is the pride of the state and central governments. A deadly combination of Canine Distemper Virus and Protozoan infection has killed at least 11 of the 23 lions in Dalkhaniya range of Gir East in just 21 days. Gujarat is the only abode of these lions in Asia and it has been losing them at an alarming rate, causing even the Supreme Court and the Gujarat High Court to express their concern.

Three of the 36 lions that are currently under observation by the forest department are in critical condition, officials said.

As a precautionary measure, 300 shots of vaccine are being imported from the US to protect the lions of Gir. These are expected to arrive by October 5. On Wednesday, even the Supreme Court called the issue “extremely serious” and asked the Centre to look into the mysterious deaths of the 23 lions. On the other hand, Gujarat High Court, while rejecting a bail application filed by a man accused of running illegal lion show, questioned if feeding chicken to the big cats during the show could be the reason for the viral infection.

State Forest and Environment Minister Ganpat Vasava said Canine Distemper Virus was found in the samples of four of the 11 dead lions by Pune-based National Institute of Virology, and Protozoa in the rest seven. Canine distemper is a contagious viral disease that affects a wide variety of animal species.

Justice Ranjan Gogoi takes charge as Chief Justice of India

Justice Ranjan Gogoi, who took oath as the 46th Chief Justice of India, came out with a new roster allocating cases to various benches, and decided that the Public Interest Litigation matters will be heard by him and a bench headed by Justice Madan B Lokur, who is next in seniority to him.

President Ram Nath Kovind administered the oath to Justice Gogoi, 63, at a brief ceremony in Rashtrapati Bhavan’s historic Darbar Hall.

Justice Gogoi, who took the oath in English in the name of god, will have a tenure of a little over 13 months and will retire on November 17, 2019.

He succeeds Justice Dipak Misra who retired Tuesday on attaining the age of 65 years.

Several leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his predecessor Manmohan Singh and former premier H D Deve Gowda were present at the ceremony.

After the swearing-in, Justice Gogoi came back to the Supreme Court and presided over the bench along with Justices SK Kaul and KM Joseph in Court number 1, the CJI’s court.

The new CJI began the day by telling lawyers that fresh parameters would be worked out for mentioning the matters for hearing of cases which require hearing on priority and urgent mentioning.

Justice Gogoi said “no urgent mentioning of cases will be allowed” till certain parameters are fixed for it. “If somebody is going to be hanged tomorrow, then we can understand (the urgency)”, he added.

The CJI decided to keep with himself the PIL and the petitions based on the letters received.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Justice Gogoi on taking over as the CJI, saying his experience and wisdom would benefit the country. 

Solar Alliance could outshine Opec : PM

Pitching for clean sources of energy by reducing use of polluting fossil fuels, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the International Solar Alliance (group of solar resource rich nations) could replace Opec in the future as the principal supplier of energy.

“ISA will have same role in future what is being currently played by Opec. The role being played by oil wells now will be played by rays of sun in future,” Modi said, referring to the cartel of 15 nations, which currently meets about half of the world’s energy needs. He was inaugurating the first Assembly of the International Solar Alliance launched as a joint initiative of India and France in Paris in November 2015.

Incidentally,10 of the 15 Opec countries are in the list of ISA potential members and include the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Libya, Nigeria and Algeria among others. India also proposed that ISA membership be thrown open to all UN members apart from the 121 who are fully or partially between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn as envisaged by the ISA when it was formed.

The ISA, an organisation based on an inter-governmental treaty, was formed by solar resource-rich nations to undertake joint efforts to reduce cost of finance and technology, and mobilise more than $1 trillion investment needed by 2030 for deployment of minimum 1,000 gw of solar energy across the globe.

India’s proposal to expand membership will be welcomed by many nations, and Pakistan could also potentially come within the ISA. The proposal is, in fact, in sync with what Modi envisioned when he gave the call of ‘One World, One Sun, One Grid’ while addressing representatives of 40 countries during the ISA Assembly in the presence of UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres and French minister of state for ecological and inclusive transition Brune Poirson.

Foreign minister Sushma Swaraj told the gathering about the move to expand ISA membership to all UN member countries. She said 70 countries had signed the framework agreement on the alliance and of these, 44 had ratified it.

The first Assembly of the ISA will lay the foundation for a global solar agenda. The Assembly, as the supreme decision making body of the ISA, will steer the process to significantly harness solar energy for achieving universal energy access at affordable rates.

The occasion also saw inauguration of the Indian Ocean Rim Association renewable energy ministerial meeting and the second Global Renewable Energy Investment (Reinvest) summit.

Manufacturing PMI revs up in September

The country’s manufacturing sector activity improved in September amid gains in new orders, output and employment.

The Nikkei India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index strengthened slightly in September to 52.2, up from 51.7 in August, as sales rose from both domestic as well as foreign clients.

This is the 14th 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.

Meanwhile, price pressures intensified, as input costs rose the most since June. A strong US dollar and supply shortages had exacerbated high global prices for steel and fuel, the survey noted.

Amid rising price pressures, Reserve Bank of India governor Urjit Patel-headed Monetary Policy Committee will start deliberation on the fourth bi-monthly monetary policy for 2018-19 on October 3 and announce its decision on October 5.

Gita Gopinath appointed chief economist of IMF

Indian-origin economist Gita Gopinath was appointed the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, becoming only the second Indian after Raghuram Rajan to hold the prestigious post.

Rajan held the post from 2003 to 2006 before he joined the finance ministry as chief economic adviser and later the governor of the Reserve Bank of India.

Gopinath, 46, succeeds Maurice “Maury” Obstfeld. Gopinath currently serves as the John Zwaanstra Professor of International Studies and Economics at Harvard University.

Gopinath had earlier served as the economic adviser to Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

Gopinath is co-editor of the American Economic Review and co-director of the International Finance and Macroeconomics Program at the National Bureau of Economic Research. She is co-editor of the current Handbook of International Economics with former IMF economic counsellor Kenneth Rogoff. She has authored some 40 research articles on exchange rates, trade and investment, international financial crises, monetary policy, debt, and emerging market crises.

Gopinath is a US citizen and an overseas citizen of India. She received her PhD in economics from Princeton University in 2001 after earning a BA from the University of Delhi and MA from both the Delhi School of Economics and University of Washington. She joined the University of Chicago in 2001 as an assistant professor before moving to Harvard in 2005. She became a tenured professor there in 2010.

Core sector growth slows to 4.3% in August

The eight infrastructure sectors that constitute 40.27% of the Index of Industrial Production decelerated to a three-month low at 4.2% in August as production of coal, refinery products and steel slowed down while fertilizer output contracted from its level a year ago. However, cement output continued to expand in double digits for the tenth consecutive month. A low core sector growth rate may slow down IIP growth in August, data for which will be released on 12 October.

Uday Kotak to lead new IL&FS board

The government’s choice of Uday Kotak to lift the multi-billion Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd out of bankruptcy should be no surprise. He is one of the few bankers in the country who have navigated banking crises successfully not once, but at least thrice.

Even for Uday Kotak — who witnessed the Harshad Mehta scandal in the early 1990s, the CRB scam, the bursting of the tech bubble and the post Lehman credit crisis — the job at hand is of monstrous proportion. The balance sheet size of IL&FS is ₹1,15,815 crore.

What is Kotak’s selling point? A sense of caution. When many bankers were getting carried away by the growth opportunities from infrastructure lending, Kotak saw what all could go wrong. And everything has unfolded just the way he anticipated.

Thanks to his belief that banks are not designed to lend to infrastructure, his bank managed to keep bad loans low at 2.17% of total bad loans when it was 10.69% for India’s largest lender State Bank of India.

One of Kotak’s jobs is to untangle the numerous subsidiaries and associate companies which have mushroomed over the years under IL&FS. Should he aim to revive the institution, or seek moratorium on payments, sell assets and pay as and when an asset is monetised? That’s a difficult question to answer, but the rainmaker in Kotak could make it easy for government.

His instinct for deal making is legendary — from selling the ‘Good Knight’ mosquito coil brand to Godrej, to stepping in to buy a controversial stake in Asian Paints on behalf of UK’s ICI, to the takeover of ING Vysya Bank — all testify to his ability to sell assets at a valuation that few would complain about.

A key principle that Kotak has kept as a bedrock of his business is to keep it simple. That helps him see the risks associated with complicated lending practices and instruments that could initially appear exotic but blow up during times of stress.

While his business has thrived for more than three decades during the ups and downs of the Indian economic cycle, Kotak’s desire to live through the tests could help him overcome the obstacles at IL&FS too.

“If what you create does not outlive you, then you have failed,” Kotak had told ET in an interview. “The thing that excited me then, and that excites me now, is the fun in the journey, and not the destination.”

Over a period, Kotak Mahindra Bank has become a lender with a market value of ₹2.14 lakh crore, but what has guided Kotak has been the belief that he has to fend for himself and ‘there’s no big brother’ to bail him out. The task before him now is challenging and he will need all his wits to revive IL&FS and bring down its debt.