BJP drops...

Hindustan Times first reported that the party would fight anti-incumbency in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, and Rajasthan, the three major states were elections are being held, by dropping some of its sitting MLAS. The Chouhan government has been embroiled in controversies such as the Vyapam scam (for admission to professional colleges and for government jobs), and the party feared that this, combined with a sense of fatigue among people, could work to its disadvantage.

“The challenge from the Congress is tougher this time. We could not afford to take a chance. We had to be ruthless in distributing tickets,” the first leader said. The Congress has tried to put an end to factionalism in Madhya Pradesh by appointing its veteran leader from Chhindwara and former Union minister, Kamal Nath, as the state president. The MP from Guna, Jyotiraditya Scindia, was named chief of the campaign committee.

Voting for the 230-member Madhya Pradesh assembly takes place on November 28, and November 9 is the last day to file nominations. The results will be announced on December 11. At least 50 million people are eligible to vote across 65,341 polling stations in the state which has 35 seats reserved for the Scheduled Castes and 47 for the Scheduled Tribes. The BJP won 165 seats with 45.7% vote share in the 2013 assembly election, while its nearest rival, the Congress, won 58 seats with a vote share of 37.1%. The assembly elections, and their results, will set the tone for the coming Lok Sabha elections in 2019. In three of the five states going to polls before the end of the year -- Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh -- the Congress and the BJP are in straight fights (although in Chattisgarh, Ajit Jogi’s Janta Congress Chattisgarh, in alliance with the BSP, creates a triangular contest). fraudulent transactions to withdraw ₹80.5 crore — ₹78 crore through 12,000 transactions in 28 countries, the rest in India.

India’s top IT security official said that the cyber threats faced by India are no different than those faced by other countries. “The attacks, penetration on the ICT infrastructure are increasing across the country in line with the trend across the world. The Indian situation in line with the world,” National Cyber Security Coordinator Gulshan Rai said. According to Rai, who used to be the chief of CERT, it isn’t surprising that there has been an increase in the number of cyberattacks because of “the very nature of technology where no product comes with a secure hard/software”. Increasing consumer usage of IT is one reason, he added, because “the home sector does not follow safe practices”. Still, says Rai, India is better off than “many advanced countries” and several attacks have been prevented. was the signing last month of the $5.4-billion deal with Russia for S-400 air defence systems despite US threats of sanctions under Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). India and the US are also working to resolve a host of trade issues, including tariffs on steel and aluminium, medical devices, on which India is veering around to the US view of capping trade margins for some products, IT products, for which India has insisted US goods meet Indian standards, and dairy, where matters are stuck because the US dairy industry uses bonemeal in cattle feed and products are classified as “non-vegetarian”. Before the report of the waiver on Iranian oil, the Indian side also worked with Iran to come up with an effective method of payments that would be insulated from the effects of possible sanctions, including payments in a mix of euros and rupees. The Iranian side had insisted on a higher percentage in euros, instead of the current figure of 55% in euros and 45% in rupees that is deposited with UCO Bank, which is expected to continue. During negotiations with the US, the Indian side pointed out the rupee deposits would primarily be used for barter trade and could not be accessed by entities such as the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, which has the particular target of most US sanctions for its alleged terror links, the people said. “The sanctions are unlikely to affect shipping as Iran uses only vessels flying its flag and handles the insurance by itself,” one of the people said.

Two of the eight “jurisdictions” are already at zero, or will be there shortly, but Pompeo underlined US expectations from the other six — they “will import at greatly reduced levels”. Neither Pompeo nor treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin, who was on the conference call, elaborated how the US will measure those reduced levels. Pompeo said the purpose of these exemptions is to “give them a little bit longer to wind down. Weeks. Weeks longer to wind down.”

More than 700 individuals, entities, vessels and aircraft are going on the US sanctions list. They include major Iranian banks, oil exporters and shipping companies, the White House said in a factsheet.