Court to hear cops' plea over Arnab's judicial remand on Nov 9
Mumbai: The sessions court at Alibaug in Maharashtra's Raigad district will hear on November 9 the police's revision plea challenging the magistrate's order of judicial remand to Republic TV Editor-in-Chief Arnab Goswami instead of his police custody in a 2018 abetment of suicide case.
The district sessions court at Alibaug passed the order on Saturday after it was informed that the Bombay High Court is presently hearing petitions filed by Goswami and two other accused in the case - Feroze Shaikh and Nitesh Sarda - seeking interim bail and challenging their "illegal arrest".
The police had in its application sought the sessions court to quash the lower court's order and grant them custody of the three accused.
Goswami was arrested on Wednesday morning from his Lower Parel residence in Mumbai for allegedly abetting the suicide of 53-year-old interior designer Anvay Naik. He was taken to the Alibaug police station and later produced before the Chief Judicial Magistrate Sunaina Pingle.
Passing the order late on Wednesday night, the magistrate refused to remand the trio to police custody and sent them to judicial custody till November 18.
The Alibaug police had sought 14 days' custody of Goswami for interrogation.
Goswami is presently kept at a local school, which has been designated as a COVID-19 centre for the Alibaug prison.
In 2018, Anvay Naik and his mother Kumodini Naik had ended their lives over alleged non-payment of dues by the accused persons' companies.
In May this year, Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh had announced that he has ordered a fresh probe in the case after a complaint by Adnya Naik, daughter of Anvay Naik.
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India should create strategic buffers to navigate 'most difficult' energy shock: CEA Nageswaran
New Delhi (PTI): Chief Economic Advisor V Anantha Nageswaran on Saturday said India needs to create strategic buffers in the face of the "most difficult" energy shock that the country is facing amid the West Asia crisis.
Nageswaran also said the rising prices of fertiliser and petroleum products globally due to the crisis will make it challenging to achieve the 4.3 per cent fiscal deficit target for the current fiscal, while below normal monsoon and pass-through of higher energy prices could lead to "potential inflation spike".
He also said India has employment challenge emanating from AI, and there is a need to ensure that IT sector becomes more competitive and not lose jobs to AI, and instead create jobs that use AI within the IT sector or in other services.
Speaking at the ICPP Growth Conference organised by the Ashoka University, Nageswaran said the current account deficit (CAD) in the current fiscal could rise to over 2 per cent of GDP, from less than 1 per cent in FY'26.
"The ... priority for us is to create strategic buffers. This energy shock is the most difficult one compared to any other previous energy shock in terms of energy lost as a percentage of total global energy supply, not just oil, including gas.
"And we also need to use this occasion to think about other areas where we are vulnerable in terms of import dependence, nickel, tin, and copper. We need to build strategic buffers if we have to make a shot at manufacturing and becoming indispensable," Nageswaran said.
Since the beginning of the war in West Asia on February 28, crude oil prices soared to a four-year high of USD 126 per barrel on Thursday, from about USD 73 level before the war.
Stating that geopolitics will compel policymakers to be nimble and flexible and shed old model of thinking, Nageswaran said India is better prepared than many other countries to deal with the crisis because of the fiscal leeway that the country has due to lowering of fiscal deficit ratio to 4.4 per cent of GDP in FY'26.
Nageswaran said the West Asia conflict is more of a price shock than supply shock for India as the government is managing the supply side deftly.
"This particular conflict, which is going to be on a low simmer or a high flame situation, whatever it is, it is going to be there with us in some form or the other because the military conflict may be over, but the strategic conflict is well and truly alive. It will be so for some time," Nageswaran said.
He said the conflict has four channels of shock: price and supply shock, trade impact, sticky logistics costs and remittance shock.
India imports 60 per cent of its LPG usage and of that, 90 per cent flows through the now closed Strait of Hormuz.
Nageswaran said the pass-through of high global energy prices would have to be a "balancing act". He said some pass-through is already happening in commercial LPG, and the levy of export duty on diesel and ATF.
The government has cut excise duty on petrol and diesel to shield customers from the impact of the rise in petroleum prices. "We are coming around to arriving at a certain modus vivendi with respect to burden-sharing between the fiscal policy side, inflation, households and the oil marketing companies. So it has to be a balancing act," Nageswaran said.
