Top Stories on 25th October in a capsule

Gujarat Assembly Elections will be held on December 9 and 14

The Assembly elections in Gujarat will be held in two phases, confirmed Chief Election Commissioner Achal Kumar Joti, on Wednesday. The first phase in 89 constituencies across 19 districts will be held on December 9 while the second phase in 93 constituencies across 14 districts will be held on December 14. The counting of votes in the state will take place on December 18. Voting machines with paper trails, also known as VVPAT machines, will be used in the 50,128 polling booths. Women officials will be deployed to manage 182 police stations in the state.
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Reliance Communications to shut 2G wireless business

Reliance communications has decided to shut down its second-generation wireless technology network, media reports said on Wednesday. The employees of the company have been given notice period and said that their last date of employment will be November 30. This news comes weeks after the company’s merger with Aircel was called off. Reliance communication’s 37 million customers will be shifted to its enterprise business after the restructuring, an RCom official said. The company is also planning to sell its tower assets and land bank in Navi Mumbai and Delhi, valued at 10,000 crore.

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Deadline for linking Aadhaar postponed to 31st March

The central government told the Supreme Court that it is now ready to extend the deadline to link Aadhaar with government schemes to March 31, 2018. However, it is for those who do not have an Aadhaar card. Those who already have Aadhaar will have to link it to services by December 31. On October 30, SC will hear all the pleas challenging the decision to make Aadhaar mandatory for access to various services. So far, more than 50 central schemes have been linked with Aadhaar.
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BJP to celebrate November 8 as Anti-Black Money Day’

The Bharatiya Janata Party will observe an “Anti-Black Money Day” on November 8, on the one-year mark of the Centre’s demonetisation drive. Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley on Wednesday said all major leaders of the BJP as well as Union ministers will participates in programmes countrywide to highlight the steps taken to tackle black money. “We cannot fight black money by taking baby steps, we aimed to make India an anti-corruption nation” said Jaitley. The move was announced a day after the opposition referred to November 8 as a “Black Day” in protest against the government’s demonetisation exercise.
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Madras HC bans hoardings, banners featuring living persons

The Madras High Court has now banned banners, signboards, flexes and other hoardings that depict photographs of living persons. The bench headed by Justice S Vaidyanathan, ordered the blanket ban implementation as it decided a petition against political hoardings and flags. The court has ordered that the Tamil Nadu Open Places (Prevention of Disfigurement) Act, 1959, be amended from time to time and ensure that even if permission is granted to erect hoardings, it is ensured that no living person features in any of the depictions. 
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Indian Markets reach lifetime highs

The Sensex and Nifty created new records on Wednesday as the market sentiment was positive post Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s announcement to pump in 2 lakh crores for recapitalization of public sector banks. The BSE Sensex closed 1.33% up at 33,042, while the Nifty rose 87 points to close at 10,295 .Construction stocks also gained after the Union cabinet promised 7 lakh crore in highways for a period of five years. State Bank of India gained the most on the NSE, growing as much as 27% to its highest since January 2015. ICICI and Axis bank were among the top gainers, While Kodak and HDFC banks were among the major losers.

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Bank recapitalisation will bring market discipline: Urjit Patel

Reserve Bank of India chief Urjit Patel on Wednesday appreciated the Finance Ministry’s bank recapitalization plan for Public sector banks of more than 2 lakh crore rupees. He added that the plan is a ‘monumental step forward’ in safeguarding India’s economic future and a comprehensive policy will be introduced to solve the problems in the future. Out of the 2. 11 lakh crore rupees, 1.35 lakh crore will come from the sale of ‘recapitalization bonds’, while the remaining will be through budget allocation and raising funds from the markets. Urjit Patel explains that this recapitalization will inject capital will help in reducing the fiscal impact (deficit) over a period of time.

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Bad Loans and Stressed Assets in Indian banks estimated at $153 billion

Indian bank’s bad loans and stressed assets are estimated at 10 trillion rupees ($153 billion), India’s chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian said on Wednesday. This amount is almost 75% of the {ublic sector bank’s net worth. According to the RBI, there are just 12 companies which constitute of 25% of the total amount of these stressed assets. Essar Steel, Jaypee Infratech, Alok industries are some of the most popular names. Lack of expertise in credit appraisal is one of the reasons stated for the Bad loans becoming a huge problem.

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Centre to invest 6,000 crores in improvement of ITI’s

Union Minister Anant Kumar Hegde on Wednseday announced a 6,000 crore investment in Industrial Training institutes across the country, in association with the World Bank. He said that the center was forced to de-affiliate 400 ITI’s across the country due to their poor and declining quality. The Skill Development Ministry has begun monitoring the ITIs with a view to maintaining their quality standards and also introduced voluntary self-grading by the institutes. He also plan to open these institutions in the rural areas with the help of the investment.

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ISIS threaten FIFA WORLD CUP 2017 with image featuring Messi

ISIS have set the FIFA World Cup 2017 as their next target they revealed a poster which has turned many heads. Wafa Media Foundation, a pro ISIS wing have released a poster featuring football star Lionel Messi crying blood tears. The poster features the tagline ‘Just Terrorism’ and also delivers a message which states ‘you are fighting a state that does not have failure in its dictionary’. Messi is seen behind jail bars wearing a prisoner’s jumpsuit. This isn’t the 1^st threat that the World Cup host city has recieved Russian President Vladimir Putin is known to have a tough stand against the ISIS .