Aurelia Butler

Chitra Ramkrishna was arrested in New Delhi, the source at the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said, without sharing further details.The market regulator penalised Ramkrishna, among others, after an investigation that showed she had sought advice for years from an outsider she described as a Himalayan yogi. The action is the latest sign the CBI is stepping up its investigation of a 2018 case involving allegations that the NSE provided some high frequency traders unfair access to speed up algorithmic trading. The additional scrutiny risks further delaying a planned NSE listing.Sunday’s arrest follows a Feb. 11 order by the market regulator that highlighted lapses at the exchange and said Ramkrishna, who quit as CEO in 2016, was “merely a puppet” of someone she described as a yogi. More

“We have no choice but to suspend livestreaming and new content to our video service while we review the safety implications of this law,” the social media company said in a series of Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) posts https:// It said in-app messaging would not be affected by the decision.The U.S. government on Saturday condemned the new law, which threatens jail terms of up to 15 years for spreading what the Kremlin describes as “fake news”. More

“200 billion euros in funding for the transformation of the economy, society and the state,” Christian Lindner told public broadcaster ARD on Sunday, adding that this also included the removal of renewable energy levies.Lindner’s comments come as Germany is intensifying efforts to cut reliance on Russian gas by boosting infrastructure to import liquefied natural gas (LNG) and possibly relying more on coal-fired power plants.At the same time, Germany is planning to boost investment in renewables for energy production.In comments to Reuters, economy minister Robert Habeck said that agreeing on funds to boost the transition of Europe’s largest economy was a great success.”More urgently than ever, we need to invest in our energy sovereignty. And I am glad that we as members of the coalition are pulling in the same direction. Now we must make every effort to become more independent and climate-neutral.”($1 = 0.9152 euros) More

The Dutch finance minister has warned against watering down the EU’s borrowing rules by stripping out defence and other strategic investments, saying the bloc needed to keep its eyes on debt sustainability even as it confronts the economic challenges posed by the war in Ukraine. Sigrid Kaag said that the Netherlands was open to discussing reforms to the Stability and Growth Pact, which sets debt and deficit limits for member states, but that removing military spending or green investment from the SGP, as suggested by some member states, would entail “significant risks”. Shifting some investments “off the books” could damage the drive for economic convergence and debt sustainability, she told the Financial Times in an interview. Kaag spoke amid calls in France and other member states for certain kinds of strategic government spending to get preferential treatment under a reformed SGP. Brussels is signalling that the pact may not get reimposed until 2024 — a year later than previously envisaged — given the damage to growth caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The drive to reduce Europe’s reliance on Russian gas has ignited a further debate over whether the EU should undertake extra common borrowing to boost its energy investments.

Kaag, of the Dutch liberal Democrats (D66), is a former UN diplomat who served as trade minister and then foreign minister in the last government before taking up her post early this year. She is a pro-European who is expected by some officials to take a less hawkish posture on EU budgetary policy than her predecessor, Wopke Hoekstra of the Christian Democrats. Kaag will set out her approach in a speech in Maastricht on Tuesday, after meeting with German counterpart Christian Lindner on Monday in Berlin. The minister stressed that the Netherlands was open to new ideas for confronting the economic challenges posed by Russia’s war on Ukraine. While the government does not have a position yet on whether the SGP should remain suspended for another year, and it wants to go back to regular decision making, she acknowledged that “the war in Ukraine has shifted the paradigm”.When it came to excluding certain categories of investment from the SGP, Kaag said the Netherlands was not saying a definitive “no, never”. But she warned: “We think there are significant risks, because you create parallel pathways and it doesn’t do justice to the real economic situation.”A modernisation of the SGP could involve ensuring debt reduction was “viable and feasible” for countries with significant public debt burdens, she said. “But by placing investments off the books, we are not quite sure that is a solution to the serious problem of economic convergence and debt sustainability.”

When it came to the common EU response to the economic shock, she said it was “prudent and wise” to explore the scope within existing budgets to mitigate the effects of the crisis. But Kaag poured cold water on the idea of an immediate dash for extra EU debt issuance to battle the economic shock. “Yes, it’s an understandable reflex to want to borrow more, but our very sober position would be, ‘let’s take stock, let’s find out how bad the damage is and where, and if and under which conditions assistance or compensation could be provided’.” Kaag stressed that while EU policy had been evolving rapidly, given the current crisis, it was still important to apply “appropriate processes and decision-making” rather than rushing through decisions that would have lasting consequences. “In terms of crisis, one tends to sometimes overpromise and then underdeliver. I’m in favour of underpromising and overdelivering,” she said. “Keep calm and carry on, so to speak.”  More

Hello and welcome to the working week.Once again an anniversary gives us pause for thought. It will be two years ago this Friday since the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a global pandemic. It was not so long ago that this was the biggest story on the planet. Vladimir Putin has ensured that this is no longer the case.This newsletter only deals with events in the diary, which limits our ability to warn you about significant developments in the Russian onslaught of Ukraine. However, we do know about two significant events relating to the west’s response to the conflict.First, Boris Johnson, UK prime minister, will host the leaders of the V4 countries — Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia — in London to discuss the Ukraine crisis. Perhaps most interesting will be the British prime minister’s conversations with his Hungarian counterpart Viktor Orban. The Hungarian government has nurtured a close relationship with the Kremlin over the past decade, but it has also condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and agreed to most European sanctions. Could Johnson persuade Orban to allow weapons as well as aid to flow across its border with Ukraine?On Thursday Emmanuel Macron, French president, will host a gathering of EU leaders in Versailles for an informal European Council summit. On the agenda is a wave of applications from former Soviet states to be fast-tracked into EU membership, a move framed as a way to show solidarity with Ukraine but one that is unlikely to be fulfilled, not least because it is fraught with complexity.South Koreans go to the polls on Wednesday to decide a presidential contest that has been tainted by scandal, family drama and insinuations of corruption, criminality and nepotism, and fraud. A tragedy for an important country — it is the world’s 10th-largest economy — that has been a model in its handling of the Covid pandemic and needs good leadership to tackle real economic problems.Finally, a clarification. Last week I noted that we had entered the Christian period of Lent and was rightly corrected by Fr Andrew Bushell, a monk in the Orthodox Church, from the St Paul’s Foundation in Massachusetts. As Fr Andrew explained, very graciously, last Wednesday was only the beginning of Lent for western Christians. For the Orthodox Church, the Great Lent — one of four lents in its calendar — begins this week on Clean Monday. I am happy to set the record straight, as you will see in the full calendar of events below.Thank you for all of your emails — to [email protected] — about what you like and dislike about this newsletter. Please keep them coming.Economic dataThe unfolding tragedy of the Ukraine invasion has rendered a lot of the historic economic data of recent days irrelevant. However, the crisis will be very much on the minds of the governing council of the European Central Bank when they meet to decide its next move on interest rates on Thursday. The main UK data releases are backward looking, with January gross domestic product, trade and industrial production figures due on Friday. Expect also inflation updates from several nations including China, Japan, Germany, Italy and the US.CompaniesIt’s a week of insurance industry earnings reports. FTSE 100 insurer Prudential will reveal its annual results on Wednesday, a little more than a month after chief executive Mike Wells announced his departure and the group said the next person to lead it would do so from Asia for the first time. Prudential’s break-up in recent years has left a UK-domiciled company with primary listings in London and Hong Kong, but markets in Asia and Africa. The next global chief might be forced to be stationed outside Hong Kong in the short term, however, given the “friction” created by pandemic-related restrictions, the Financial Times recently revealed. Lego, the world’s largest toymaker, whose little plastic bricks have been valued more highly than gold, reports full-year results on Tuesday. Expectations will be higher than a child with the Millennium Falcon set on their birthday wish list. Lego’s growth has accelerated throughout the coronavirus pandemic. The question is whether the company can maintain its impressive performance.Key economic and company reportsHere is a more complete list of what to expect in terms of company reports and economic data this week.MondayChina, February trade balance figuresGermany, January factory order statisticsJapan, January current account and trade balance figuresUK, Halifax monthly house price indexUS, January consumer instalment credit figuresTuesdayApple stages spring product launch eventEurozone, Q4 GDP dataGermany, January industrial production figuresItaly, January retail sales figuresJapan, Q4 GDP dataOECD publishes interim economic outlookUK, Q4 Mortgage Lenders and Administrators Return statisticsResults: Ashtead Group Q3, Direct Line Insurance FY, Domino’s Pizza FY, Fresnillo FY, Greggs FY, Lego FY, Wood Group FYWednesdayChina, February consumer price index (CPI) and producer price index (PPI) figuresItaly, January industrial production dataJapan, February PPI figuresMexico, February CPI figuresUK, family and households data, revealing trends in living arrangementsResults: 888 Holdings FY, Adidas FY, Cathay Pacific FY, Continental FY, Deutsche Post FY, Kier FY, Legal and General FY, Prudential FY, Vivendi FYThursdayEU, European Central Bank governing council meeting in FrankfurtFrance, January balance of trade figures and industrial production dataIsrael, Q4 GDP dataItaly, January PPI figuresUK, Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors February residential market survey plus Recruitment & Employment Confederation & KPMG monthly jobs reportUS, February CPI data and weekly jobless claims Results: Boohoo FY trading update, Brunello Cucinelli FY, Forterra FY, Hapag-Lloyd FY, Hugo Boss FY, Leonardo FY, National Express FY, TCS Group FY, Tod’s FYFridayCanada, February employment dataGermany, February CPI dataIndia, January industrial production figuresUK, January GDP estimate plus monthly production figuresResults: Standard Bank FYWorld eventsFinally, here is a rundown of other events and milestones this week. MondayAustria, the board of governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency meet in ViennaClean Monday, also known as Pure Monday, Ash Monday, Monday of Lent or Green Monday, is marked in the Eastern Orthodox ChurchFrance, deadline for candidates to collect enough sponsors to participate in the country’s presidential electionIndia, Voting ends in the last of the seven-phase election in India’s most populous state of Uttar PradeshUS, trial begins for three former Minneapolis police officers charged with aiding and abetting unintentional second-degree murder and aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter in relation to the death of George Floyd in May 2020.TuesdayInternational Women’s DayUK, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orban meets his counterpart Boris Johnson for talks in LondonWednesdaySouth Korea, presidential electionSpain, Madrid Fashion Week beginsThursdayFrance, EU leaders gather for an informal summit in VersaillesUK, longlist for the Booker Prize for literature is announced, plus Crufts, the largest dog show in the world, opens in BirminghamWorld Bagpipe Day, celebrating the idiosyncratic instrumentFridaySecond anniversary of the World Health Organization declaring Covid-19 a pandemicDjibouti, municipal electionsNorway, start of Finnmarkslopet, Europe’s longest and toughest dog-sledge raceUS, the South By Southwest Conferences and Festivals for music and film begin in Austin, TexasSaturdaySir Tim Berners-Lee publishes annual letter marking the world wide web’s 33rd birthday, on the state of his invention and his vision for its futureTurkmenistan, early presidential election after incumbent Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov resignedSundayColombia, parliamentary electionsMali, first round of parliamentary and presidential electionsUK, EE British Academy Film Awards take place at the Royal Albert Hall, LondonUS daylight savings starts, clocks go forward one hourVatican City, Pope Francis marks the ninth anniversary of his appointment More

VTB has an investment banking operation in London and a retail bank in Germany with 160,000 customers but has decided it is unable to operate outside Russia after its assets were frozen by Western allies, the FT said, citing people with knowledge of internal discussions.Reuters had reported on Wednesday that regulators are preparing for a possible closure of the European arm of VTB, Russia’s second-largest bank, amid growing concerns about the impact of Western sanctions on the bank after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. More