NEW YORK: India was the largest remittance-receiving country in the world, with migrant workers from the country sending home $69 billion in 2017, according to a report which said remittances to the Asia-Pacific region amounted to $256 billion last year.

The report 'RemitSCOPE - Remittance markets and opportunities - Asia and the Pacific' said India ($69 billion), China ($64 billion) and the Philippines ($33 billion) are the three largest remittance-receiving countries in the world in 2017. Pakistan ($20 billion), and Vietnam ($14 billion) are also in the top 10.

Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton said his dominant Spanish Grand Prix victory had revitalised him after a difficult start to the season.

Briton Hamilton led from pole and now has a 17-point advantage in the championship over Ferrari's Sebastian Vettel, who finished fourth.

The world champion had struggled for competitiveness in the previous three races, despite a win in Azerbaijan.

"It has been a rejuvenating experience," Hamilton said.

"It's the greatest feeling to come here and have that kind of performance and have a convincing win.

Hannover: Indian shooter Heena Sidhu clinched the gold medal while compatriot P Shri Nivetha settled for bronze in the women's 10m air pistol at the International Shooting Competitions of Hannover (ISCH) ahead of next week's ISSF Munich World Cup.

Heena was in rollicking form in the final where she was tied with France's Mathilde Lamolle on 239.8 points. She won the tie to win the gold ahead of Mathilde. While Shri Nivetha finished on 219.2.

The finish marks a strong build-up to next week's ISSF World Cup in Munich.

New Delhi: Paytm on Monday introduced automatic recurring payments, a new feature that lets users configure the payments app to pay for periodic recurring expenses automatically.

Similar to standing instructions for bank accounts, the ‘My Payments’ feature can be used for high-value payments for a variety of cases.

“Our customers make regular recurring payments such as house rent, maid/driver’s salary, milk or newspaper vendor payments online. This has led to a major surge in our bank transfer service. We have now simplified these payments with ‘My Payments’ and are expecting 6X growth owing to this rapid shift in consumer behaviour in favour of going cashless,” said Paytm’s senior vice president Deepak Abbot.

NEW DELHI: A woman can lodge a complaint under the domestic violence law against the excesses committed by her ex-husband even after the dissolution of marriage, the Supreme Court has said.

The top court refused to interfere with the order of the Rajasthan high court which held that the absence of subsisting domestic relationship in no manner prevents a court from granting relief to the aggrieved woman.

The high court had passed the order while adjudicating a matrimonial dispute.

MUMBAI: The Reserve Bank has put Dena BankNSE -6.50 % under watch by initiating prompt corrective action against it, a move that will place various restrictions on the lender, including on fresh loans and dividend distribution.

Earlier, similar action was initiated against other state-owned lenders -- IDBI Bank, Indian Overseas Bank and UCO Bank.

"The RBI has initiated 'prompt corrective action' for Dena Bank in view of high net NPA and negative ROA (return on asset)," the stat ..

A new version of SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket that could eventually take astronauts to space took flight for the first time Friday.

Liftoff occurred around 4:14 pm ET out of Kennedy Space Center in Florida -- a day later than originally planned. The Falcon 9 Block 5 rocket, as the latest version is called, carried the Bangabandhu Satellite-1 into orbit. The satellite will provide TV, internet and other telecom services to Bangladesh and the surrounding region.

After launch, the first-stage booster of the rocket detached and guided itself back to Earth, where it landed safely on a platform in the ocean so it can be flown once again on a future mission.

Gen Bipin Rawat, Chief of Army the Staff today released the book 'Across the Bench - Insight into the Indian Military Judicial System' by Lt Gen Gyan Bhushan, former Army Commander and Member 'A', Armed Forces Tribunal, Lucknow Bench.

The book deals with military judicial system vis-a-vis command and management issues within the military establishments besides the whole gamut of issues relating to veterans, their families and dependents.

On Day 38 of the Aadhaar hearings, senior counsels Gopal Subramanium, Arvind Datar, P Chidambaram, KV Viswanathan, and PV Surendranath concluded the rejoinder for the petitioners. The Supreme Court reserved its judgment. The Attorney General mentioned that this has been the second longest hearing in Indian history, with the longest being for the Kesavananda Bharati case.

Section 7 makes dignity conditional

First, senior counsel Subramanium continued his rejoinder for the petitioners. He commenced with arguing that if the purpose of Section 7 was to further the dignity of an individual, as argued by the State, this could not be done by making it conditional since dignity is an inalienable and inherent right. The Bench here, pointed to the issue of deduplication and reaching the correct beneficiary.

No evidence that Aadhaar achieved seamless delivery

The counsel next questioned if Aadhaar really was an instance of affirmative action (an action to favour those suffering from discrimination). He argued that it may be possible that there is mala fide intention behind the Aadhaar Act, but there was no evidence that the stated purpose of achieving seamless delivery through the Act, was actually being achieved. In fact, the only evidence available is that of exclusion. Aadhaar, he argued, only reinforced the asymmetry of power in favour of the State, enabling it to limit citizen rights.

Consider the true purpose of the law

A claim to a proper purpose, he argued, is not a proper purpose. The Aadhaar Act, he argued, is not an instrumentality to deliver services, but was a means of identification. He argued that the true purpose of the law must be taken into consideration. Authentication, he argued, is at the heart of the Aadhaar Act, and failure of authentication is a ground for denial of services.

Lack of oversight

On turning to the issue of lack of oversight of requesting entities, the Bench observed that an Act like Aadhaar needs a hierarchy of regulators, who are absent. The counsel further pointed out that the people’s data was being taken by the state without having a strong data protection framework backing it.

‘Subsidies, benefits and servers’

Further, under Section 7, the terms ‘grant of subsidies, benefits and services’ are expressions of condescension, instead of being treated as an entitlement. He questioned if affirmative action to rights under Article 14, 15, 16, 17, and 21 could all be made conditional. The burden to authenticate and establish identity had been imposed on the people. The Bench, here, observed that whether a subsidy is a benefit or a right is an issue to be decided.

The Bench observed here that Section 7 is only an enabling provision, questioning how the central government was guided before exercising its discretion to issue notifications under this Section. The counsel here, argued further that Section 7 had virtually been interpreted to be mandatory as opposed to discretionary, making citizens subservient to it.

Aadhaar Act should be completely struck down

The Aadhaar Act, he argued, needs to be struck down completely as it fails the tests laid down in the Puttaswamy case, there was no legitimate aim since the real aim differs from the purported one, there was no law when Aadhaar was implemented, and there is no proportionality.

With an aim to expand in the overseas market, Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba purchased leading Pakistani online retailer Daraz on Wednesday. Following the transaction, the deal would help Alibaba in its plan to capture the growing South Asian consumer market.