Nivedita Mookerji goes in search of the elusive war room to track and respond to the coronavirus threat.
A Supreme Court-constituted panel has asked the Union environment ministry to amend or withdraw the guidelines related to setting up zoos and safaris within tiger reserves and wildlife sanctuaries to discourage the use of wildlife habitats for tourism activities which are non-site specific.
Sushil Kumar Modi, who ceased to be Bihar Finance Minister following the JD (U)-BJP split, on Monday resigned as Chairman of the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers looking into the implementation of the proposed new indirect tax regime - Goods and Services Tax (GST).
The central government, in its revised draft of the constitution amendment bill, had proposed that fuel and liquor should be brought under the ambit of GST.
The Tamil Nadu government has told the Supreme Court that "repeated assertion" by Kerala to seek decommissioning of the 126-year-old Mullaperiyar dam is "wholly impermissible" as the dam has been found to be hydrologically, structurally and seismically safe.
'Has the BJP not announced its candidates in Raebareli?'
It will help to lower their costs by 7-8 per cent.
Radha Timblo, a Goa-based miner whose name figures in the black money list submitted in the Supreme Court, on Monday said she needs to study the government's affidavit before commenting on the issue.
In the Union Budget for Financial Year 2023-24 (FY24), Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had held forth on the need for better governance and investor protection in the banking sector. She had proposed certain amendments to the Reserve Bank of India Act (RBI Act), 1934; the Banking Regulation Act (BR Act), 1949; and the Banking Companies (Acquisition and Transfer of Undertakings) Act, 1970.
In his letters to Union environment minister Prakash Javadekar and Railway Minister Piyush Goyal, Thackeray said it would be appropriate to opt for alternative alignment of Akola-Khandwa line considering the long-term irreversible impact the work will have on endangered species like tigers.
The empowered committee delegation, including state finance ministers participated in two round table conferences sponsored by the Indo-Canada Chamber of Commerce and the Canada-India Business Council. Tax experts from Couzon Taylor, Brian Wurts, HST Consulting etc, made presentations at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce event.
Sources said Rahul Gandhi is likely to contest from Rae Bareli, but a final call is yet to be taken by the first family of the Congress.
The meeting has been called as the Finance Minister P Chidambaram did not extend a March 31 deadline for the trusts to get regular tax exemption through the Employees' Provident Fund Organisation.
The Union finance ministry has rejected a proposal sent by the labour ministry to double the monthly minimum pension amount to Rs 2,000 under the Employee Pension Scheme (EPS). The Central Board of Trustees (CBT), the apex decision-making body of the Employee Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO), was apprised of the proposal's rejection during a meeting on Saturday. "According to the recommendations made by a highly-empowered monitoring committee constituted by the government, a proposal to increase the minimum pension under EPS from Rs 1,000 to Rs 2,000 per month, by providing additional budgetary support, was sent to the ministry of finance.
The announcement of a deferral is expected to be part of Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's Budget speech on February 29.
The bench asked senior advocate Vikas Singh, appearing for Congress leader Jaya Thakur, who sought a stay on the new law, to serve a copy of the petition to the Centre's counsel.
Besides central cess, the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers has also recommended to keep purchase tax and octroi, which are collected at state and local levels, outside the GST framework.
Even though the NIA claims that more than 90 per cent of cases charge-sheeted have ended in conviction, the figure is likely misleading. To date, very few cases investigated by the NIA have resulted in a completed trial, points out former CBI joint director Navneet Rajan Wasan.
The apex court raised the ceiling limit of iron ore mining from 28 MMT to 35 MMT for Ballari district, and from 7 MMT to 15 MMT for Chitradurga and Tumkur districts.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday said the Centre would soon form a committee which would adopt all possible ways for empowering Madigas (a SC community) with regard to their demand of categorisation of Scheduled Castes.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said 'yes' in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha when asked whether the chairman of the Empowered Committee of the State Finance Minister has expressed the opinion that it was not feasibile to implement GST from April 1, 2010.
There is a proposal to term forests as areas so notified and not include plantations on private land.
The empowered committee of state fnance ministers had recommended to the finance ministry that the Centre should provide direct budgetary support and transfer more services to states on account of the rate cut, sources said. States have refused to hike the value-added tax rate on more than 250 items like drugs, agricultural and industrial inputs from 4 per cent to 5 per cent to make up for revenue loss.
In a move that will significantly reduce paperwork for producers of goods and services, the draft recommendations submitted by the all-states joint working group on goods and services tax (GST) have said one document will have to be filed.
Petroleum products such as crude, motor spirit and diesel, and alcohol beverages will be kept outside the dual goods and service tax (GST) structure, which will be implemented from April 2010.
Modi can abandon the path of Hindutva only at risk to his position within his own fraternity. But if he pursues a hard line, he faces the risk of being hauled up by his coalition-partners. For the first time in a decade, Modi is not in enviable situation, observes Nilanjan Mukhopadhyay.
At present, the EPF subscribers are exempted from paying income tax on deposits.
If states are to levy service tax, a combined GST will become a nightmare since a host of tax departments in each state will also have to be dealt with.
At least 11 states accounting for two-third of the country's trade and industrial output are ready to introduce value-added tax from June
The Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha in December.
An official panel on Tuesday ruled out any increase in value added tax (VAT) rates as part of a package to compensate states on account of revenue loss due to a one per cent cut in Central Sales Tax that was to have happened in the beginning of this fiscal.
The Centre is planning to establish a Taxation Information Exchange System to track inter-state trade of all commodities after the phase-out of Central Sales Tax.
The official panel on value added tax decided on Thursday to ask the Centre to cut Central Sales Tax, imposed on inter-state movement in goods, to three per cent from the current four per cent from October.
Six more states are set to join the value added tax regime from April
At a meeting of the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers, the Centre's plan to bring petroleum goods under GST regime was opposed.
Maharashtra is likely to incur a revenue loss of Rs 1,500-2,000 crore (Rs 15-20 billion) in the current fiscal due to implementation of value added tax.
