Happy Media

The Wire, October 22, 2018 The income-tax department on Monday released a new set of data that shows an increase in the number of new crorepatis and an increase in the number of income tax returns filed over the last few years, but also other less encouraging factors on the direct tax front. The data also, in part, provides a picture of tax trends during the Modi government as it gears up for the 2019 general elections.  According to the income tax return data released, the number of individuals whose income was above Rs 1 crore was 81,344 in the year ended March 2017 — a jump of 20% from 67,783 in 2015-16. With a total of 4.67 crore taxpayers filing returns last financial year, this means that only 0.002% of India’s individual taxpayers earned over Rs 1 crore in FY’ 2016-17. On the total number of income tax returns filed, the data show an increase of 80% in the last four financial years: from 3.79 crore in 2013-14 to 6.85 crore in 2017-18. However, as Th

By S. Chandramohan The Business Line Dated: October 24, 2018 The modern era of multilateral trade negotiation was ushered in by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1947. It was based on the insight that unilateral tariff reductions, such as the repeal of the Corn Laws, are unstable. In 1995, GATT became the WTO and almost every country now belongs to it. Tariffs are cut by negotiation and agreed rates applied to all trade partners; a dispute-settlement system authorises retaliation against miscreants. It is a fact that the WTO has not succeeded in stopping China, which joined in 2001, from flouting the spirit, if not always the letter, of its rules by shaking down foreign investors for technologies it fancies and giving subsidy to its own industries. There is a reasonable case for penalising China for flouting multilateral trade rules, such as through overproduction, dumping overseas and the nation’s excessive restrictions on market access. But a poli

The Telegraph, October 23, 2018 he country’s crorepati club is growing — and the Narendra Modi government has been quick to seize on that statistic to once again drum the virtues of its egg-in-the-face demonetisation exercise and the subsequent crackdown on tax dodgers. The government claimed that the drive forced 81,000 taxpayers to disclose incomes of over Rs 1 crore in the assessment year 2017-18. But the Congress read it as evidence of widening income disparity in the country. The disclosure of big bucks by India’s 81,344 fat cats represents a 68 per cent increase over the 48,417 people who had volunteered such information in their tax filings related to the assessment year 2014-15. The Central Board of Direct Taxes’ choice of year is significant as it appears to be a way to belittle the achievements of the UPA. There were 60 with incomes of more than Rs 100 crore but less than Rs 500 crore as against 17 in the assessment year 2014-15. But only one individual file

Deccan Chronicle, October 23, 2018 Stating that there will be a change in the regime after the 2019 polls and the BJP will play a crucial role in it, party national general secretary, Ram Madhav said that the new government will help the victims of the AgriGold financial scam. Addressing a relay hunger strike launched by the BJP demanding relief for the victims of the AgriGold Scam, in the city on Monday, Mr Ram Madhav said a Hitler kind of rule was taking place in Andhra Pradesh and the state government was totally riddled with corruption. He said the TD had become the Telugu Dopidi Party. Mr Ram Madhav said that he could see a conspiracy behind the AgriGold episode involving large-scale corruption by the heads of the TD government. He pointed out that though the Essel Group had come forward to buy the properties of AgriGold that would help the victims overcome the crisis; the Andhra Pradesh government had threatened them due to which they had backed off.    He

NDTV News, October 23, 2018       A day after meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Central Bureau of Investigation chief Alok Verma has moved to suspend his deputy, Special Director Rakesh Asthana. Sources told NDTV that a letter was sent over weekend, in which Mr Verma has called for Mr Asthana's suspension, calling him "a source of demoralization". PM Modi has intervened in the massive fight within the country's main investigating agency, summoning both officers. The CBI chief met him on Sunday. The agency had filed a bribery case against Mr Asthana, who wrote to the government listing several charges against his boss. 1. In the letter to the government, CBI chief Alok Verma had called  Rakesh Asthana "a source of demoralisation, subject of probes," sources said. The CBI has refused to comment on the matter. 2. Mr Asthana, a Gujarat officer dubbed "the PM's blue-eyed boy" by Congress president Rahul Gandhi in a tweet on M

Rediff.com, October 21, 2018 For the $1.5-billion digital payments ecosystem in the country, the last few days have been quite a roller-coaster. While the Reserve Bank of India's move to remove a key roadblock for interoperability has opened new doors for fintech players, the Unique Identification Authority of India disallowing digital payments companies from offering any Aadhaar-based service on their platforms has come as a major setback. The prohibitive costs of user verification, at times about Rs 700 per customer, are set to affect smaller players who will now have to spend anywhere between Rs 5 million to Rs 2 billion to bring in the next million or so customers. Mobile wallets get fluidity of cash A Paytm wallet user can now send money to a person using a MobiKwik wallet. The central bank has finally removed the roadblock that had earlier limited transactions only between wallets of the same company. "Interoperability has turned wallets into anonymous

Rediff.com, October 21, 2018 The latest global wealth study by Credit Suisse highlights the lopsided growth in India, the world’s fastest-growing major economy. While the country ranks sixth globally in terms of ultra-rich population - those with wealth in excess of $50 million - it is also one of the highest contributors to the world’s adult population with base-tier wealth (less than $10,000, or about Rs 730,000). More than 90 per cent of India’s population belongs to the base tier when it comes to the distribution of wealth. In comparison, a third of China and only 28.4 per cent of the US’ adult population belong to this segment. “Residents of India remain heavily concentrated in the bottom half of the distribution. "However, the country's high wealth inequality and immense population mean that India also has a significant number of members in the top wealth echelons,” says Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report 2018. The mean wealth in India is estimated at

By Bhuma Shrivastava The Sydney Morning Herald Dated: October 19, 2018 Over the past year, the fortunes of the two brothers at the helm of India's wealthiest dynasty have gone in different directions - to more than $US40 billion ($56 billion) apart. Elder sibling Mukesh Ambani, 61, toppled China's Jack Ma as Asia's richest man, after driving a telecommunications revolution in India that propelled his petrochemicals conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd. into the $US100 billion club. His personal fortune has swelled to $US43.1 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, $US5.2 billion ahead of Ma and just ahead of Microsoft Corp.'s former chief, Steve Ballmer.  Meanwhile Anil Ambani, two years his junior, has had a difficult year, with some of his businesses suffering legal and liquidity challenges that roiled stocks, cutting his personal fortune by almost half to $US1.5 billion, according to the index. Neither the brothers nor their groups res

     The Hindu, October 21, 2018 Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday vowed to reveal the “naked truth” over the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, saying that he would make a new statement on the case next week. “We are looking for justice here and this will be revealed in all its naked truth, not through some ordinary steps but in all its naked truth,” Mr. Erdogan told a rally in Istanbul. Saudi authorities conceded on Saturday that Khashoggi, the Washington Post columnist and a Riyadh critic, was killed inside the kingdom's Istanbul diplomatic compound. Their admission came after a fortnight of denials with the insistence that the journalist left the consulate alive. Turkish officials have claimed they believe that 15 Saudi men who arrived in Istanbul on two flights on October 2 — the day when Khashoggi entered the consulate — were connected to his death. Riyadh said it fired five top officials and arrested 18 other Saudis as a result of the ini