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The Hindu, T.C.A. Sharad Raghavan, August 09, 2019 In a bid to ease the concerns of foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) over the increased surcharge announced in the Budget, the Finance Ministry is considering “grandfathering” the income earned by them up to the Budget (July), a Ministry official said. Under the proposal, FPIs that are so far structured as trusts will not have to pay the increased surcharge. But if they don’t change their structure, they will have to pay the surcharge from the set date. “There is a proposal being considered where the government is considering grandfathering the income earned by FPIs that are trusts up to the date of the Budget,” the official told The Hindu. “But no decision has been taken as yet on this.” Markets reacted favourably to the news that the surcharge would be tweaked, with the Sensex and the Nifty posting their biggest single-day gains since May. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, in her Budget speech on July 5, had annou

Financial Express, Sumit Jha, August 08, 2019 GST-registered businesses that have reported decline in annual revenue by 20% or more over the previous year have received a flurry of notices over the last few weeks from the tax department, sources in the know told FE. While notices related to mismatch in declaration between GSTR-3B (summary return) and GSTR-1 (outward supplies detail) were common earlier, the department is now comparing firms’ earning under GST with that of erstwhile service and excise regime. The notices have asked businesses to produce relevant documents and explain the reasons for decline in sales. The department believes that many such cases could point to possible evasion under the new indirect tax regime. Sources said that the government is sitting on a pile of data that wasn’t available to them before GST. This is further aided by integration of information from Customs and direct tax department. The GST IT system is now throwing up many red flags when t

The Hindu, Sriram Lakshman, August 08, 2019 Expressing concern for the “shrinking space” in India for civil society, a group of 15 U.S. lawmakers has urged Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to raise the issue of CBI raids against prominent human rights lawyers Indira Jaising and Anand Grover. ‘Weaponisation’ of FCRA In a letter dated August 7, the lawmakers, led by Jamie Raskin, a Maryland Democrat, also asked the U.S. to prioritise human rights in its relationship with India and expressed concern over the Modi government’s “weaponization” of the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA). “Because we value the U.S.-India strategic partnership, we are deeply troubled by recent actions by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government that threaten civil society and the critical advocacy of human rights lawyers and other non-governmental organizations,” the letter reads. “Of special concern, both Mr. Grover and Ms. Jaising have held important positions at the United Nations (UN). The

Scroll.in, August 08, 2019 The Special Investigation Team looking into the multi-crore-rupee IMA Jewels scam on Wednesday seized 303 kg of fake gold bars hidden under the swimming pool of a building in Bengaluru belonging to the company’s owner. The officials claimed that  Mansoor Khan  used to entice people to invest into his company after showing the gold to them, PTI reported. The company’s owner had allegedly hidden the fake gold bars under the swimming pool on the sixth floor of his building before he fled the country, but they were discovered during raids by the SIT, who seized the 5,880 bars. Khan was  arrested  on July 19 after he came back to India. Khan has been accused of running a ponzi scheme in Karnataka that has allegedly duped more than 30,000 people of Rs 5,000 crore. People from Bengaluru, Hyderabad, New Delhi, and Tamil Nadu are said to have invested into the company. The Bengaluru-based company had been collecting investments for several years, assuring

Scroll.in, August 08, 2019 Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said on Thursday that Islamabad is ready to review its decisions against New Delhi if it reviews its decisions on Kashmir, PTI reported. The Indian government had on Monday scrapped special status for Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Constitution. In response, Pakistan downgraded diplomatic ties with India, expelled High Commissioner Ajay Bisaria and suspended trade. “Are they ready to review their decisions?” Qureshi asked. “If they do, we can also review our decisions. Review will be on both sides. That is what Simla [agreement] says.” India had earlier on Thursday asked Pakistan to review its move to downgrade diplomatic relations. Qureshi said Pakistan will take India’s move to the United Nations Security Council, Dawn reported. He also rejected India’s claim that the decisions were taken to improve the welfare of the Kashmiri people, and that Jammu and Kashmir was its internal mat

Moneycontrol, Kamalika Ghosh, August 08, 2019 The government, on August 8, assured the corporate sector that no punitive actions would be taken against corporates if corporate social responsibility (CSR) norms are not met, Sajjan Jindal, chairman and MD of JSW group said. Jindal was speaking after representatives from India Inc met finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman, who is conducting a series of sectoral meetings to come up with ways to revive a slowing economy. “Government will soon take steps to revive the economy. We discussed issues of NBFCs (non-banking financial companies), steel, finance sectors,” Jindal said. Rajiv Memani, Chairman EY India said that the industry asked for stimulating demand and investments in various sectors. “This weak and asymmetric monetary transmission process has constrained the economic recovery process by impeding the fall in lending rates which could stoke consumption demand,” Narendran said. He also said that government nee

Hindustan Times, Shishir Gupta, August 08, 2019 A Kerala man who went missing last year and joined the Islamic State has been killed in an operation by Afghan-US forces in Afghanistan, a senior intelligence official said on Wednesday. Saifuddin is the second resident from the state to have been killed fighting for the IS in Afghanistan over the last fortnight, a fact that underlines the deepening influence of the extreme Salafi ideology in the state. Security agencies have been able to track 98 cases of men, women and children from Kerala joining IS terrorists. By June this year, 38 of them had died. Malappuram, 350 km from state capital Thiruvananthapuram that was home to Saifuddin, is among the top three districts that have accounted for the largest number of people who joined the uber radical group comprising IS remnants from Syria and Iraq that are trying to expand their footprint towards Kabul. Kannur and Kasargod are the other two. Saifuddin had turned t

The Guardian, August 06, 2019 The warning signs were there. Hindu nationalists have long desired to end the semi-autonomous status of Kashmir, India’s only Muslim-majority state; the ruling Bharatiya Janata party has long said it would do so. Suspicions rose when thousands more security forces poured in around a week ago, and when pilgrims and tourists were ordered out, supposedly due to fears of a terrorist attack. Yet the revocation and decision to split the state in two – creating two centrally administered territories in its place – is shocking and perilous. Several legal experts believe it unconstitutional too. Its abrupt and ruthless manner, with the house arrest of well-known politicians, imposition of a curfew and blackout of the internet and phone lines, will likely lead to protests and inflame the resentment which has underpinned an insurgency which has cost tens of thousands of lives. Though it has ebbed since its horrific peak two decades ago, the violence has cre

Hindustan Times, August 08, 2019 On the ground, climate change is hitting us where it counts: the stomach — not to mention the forests, plants and animals. A new United Nations scientific report examines how global warming and land interact in a vicious cycle. Human caused climate change is dramatically degrading the land, while the way people use the land is making global warming worse. Thursday’s science laden report says the combination is already making food more expensive, scarcer and even less nutritious. “The cycle is accelerating,” said NASA climate scientist Cynthia Rosenzweig, a report co-author. “The threat of climate change affecting people’s food on their dinner table is increasing.” But if people change the way they eat, grow food and manage forests, it could help save the planet from a far warmer future, scientists said Earth’s land masses, which are only 30% of the globe, are warming twice as fast as the planet as a whole. While heat-trapping gases are c

Firstpost, August 08, 2019 Tata Steel’s European business dragged down its performance, underlining the impact on its performance of the failed JV with Thyssenkrupp. Its shares are falling as the going will be tough, as external factors notably the US-China trade war are affecting the global economy and demand for steel. That’s why Tata Steel has embarked on a restructuring program in India and abroad. Read here  to see how it plans to ride out this rough weather and what good that can do. Link: https://www.firstpost.com/business/tata-steels-recast-programme-hcl-technologies-bid-to-improve-operating-margin-read-all-this-and-more-on-

Financial Express, Samrat Sharma, August 08, 2019 The newly minted Union territories of Jammu & Kashmir and Ladakh have fared poorly in generating jobs for its young population. The unemployment rate in the erstwhile state stood at 15.89 per cent in the first four months of 2019, making it one of the worst performers on the job generation front. The figure for the entire country was 6.87 per cent during the period. The educated youth bore the brunt of the lack of employment opportunities in the state. The unemployment rate among graduate job seekers in the Valley stood at 25.2 per cent in the same period, according to the ‘Unemployment in India’ report by CMIE.   The national average for the unemployment rate among male remained 5.6 per cent, whereas it stood at 9.4 per cent for J&K. Similarly, the national average for the female jobless rate was 15.8 per cent, which stood at 59.5 per cent in the Valley.  While the labour participation rate for Jammu & Kashmir was a

Financial Express, August 08, 2019 The government is finally mulling withdrawing the surcharge on Foreign Portfolio Investors imposed by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her maiden Budget 2019 in July, news reports said citing Reuters, sending benchmark indices Sensex and Nifty soaring. The new levy on FPIs had become the scourge of Indian stock markets, with the foreign investors withdrawing money in droves, with the Sensex and Nifty in continuous downfall since the announcement. The government is now considering withdrawing by way of a notification the proposal to levy the surcharge, ET Now reported, adding that the revenue forgone for the government will amount to only about Rs 400 crore. The surcharge, levied on super rich individuals with an annual income of Rs 2 crore or more, also applied to the FPIs registered in India as trusts.  In the month of July, the stock markets saw the highest outflow since October 2018 with FPIs selling nearly Rs 12,000 crore worth of eq