The GST Council, headed by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and comprising representatives of all states and Union territories, will have its 37th meeting in Goa against the backdrop of economic growth hitting a six-year low of 5 per cent in the first quarter of the current fiscal.
Babus may now use private telecom, airline services
With services contributing around 57 per cent to the economic growth, finance ministry advisers have made a case for allowing FDI in the retail sector and selling government equity in PSUs, including telecom firms BSNL, MTNL and TCIL, to achieve high GDP expansion.
In the aviation sector, 100 per cent FDI is allowed under automatic route for MRO (maintenance, repair, overhaul), ground handling, and aircraft purchase.
Devas Multimedia has seized $87,457.47 cash that ISRO's commercial arm Antrix Corporation held in the US as it looked to enforce a $1.2 billion compensation it had won over a cancelled satellite deal, its lawyer said on Wednesday. Devas Multimedia America Inc had sought seizure of $145,000 but the actual recovery was $87,457.47 (a little less than Rs 70 lakh). This came after it secured a favourable order from the Eastern District Court of Virginia, Matthew D McGrill said.
Faced with prospect of its assets across the globe being seized just like Pakistan and Venezuela, the government decided to scrap retrospective taxation but the international embarrassment could have been avoided had 'attached' shares of Britain's Cairn Energy Plc not been sold, according to tax and legal experts. On Thursday, the government introduced a Bill in Parliament to scrap the tax rule that gave the tax department power to go 50 years back and slap capital gains levies wherever ownership had changed hands overseas but business assets were in India. The 2012 legislation was used to levy a cumulative of Rs 1.10 lakh crore of tax on 17 entities, including UK telecom giant Vodafone, but substantial punitive action was taken only in the case of Cairn.
The government on Wednesday said it has cleared Norwegian telecom firm Telenor's proposal to invest Rs 1,000 crore in a joint venture company in the telecom sector.
The government may liberalise external commercial borrowing rules in the next few days, especially for the infrastructure sector including capital-intensive ones like telecom, a Finance Ministry official said on Friday.
The Finance Ministry had written twice to the DoT to immediately auction wireless broadband spectrum.
In its letter Voda Idea has warned that it is not in a sound financial state, and added that it would be in a position to meet its liabilities only if the government initiates steps including allowing set-offs for GST credit accumulated so far, and permitting staggered mechanism for payment of balance amount of interest, penalty, and interest on penalty.
The government, under the Finance Act, 2020, had allowed tax exemption for SWFs and pension funds in the case of incomes from investment in 34 key infrastructure sectors, including hotels, cold chains, educational institutions, hospitals, and gas pipelines.
The Public Accounts Committee of Parliament has sent to the Telecom Ministry, a volley of questions including why views of the Finance Ministry, Law Ministry and even the Prime Minister were ignored when taking decisions on allocation of spectrum in 2008.
Importers will now have to provide sufficient proof to the domestic customs authorities that the goods being imported have a minimum 35 per cent value addition in the country from which it is being exported to India.
The 2G judgment suggests many bureaucrats have poor application, inadequate interest and are unwilling to be active participants in the policy process, says Babu Jacob.
Seeking to spur foreign investments, Finance Minister P Chidambaram has said the Union Cabinet will decide on raising FDI caps in different sectors in the third week of this month.
If convicted, the offences entail a maximum punishment of seven years.
Finance Minister P Chidambaram has asked UK-based Vodafone Group, which is facing a tax liability of over Rs 11,200 crore in India, to give its view on the long-pending matter in writing, a senior official said.
Tech Mahindra was the top loser in the Sensex pack, crashing over 9 per cent, followed by Kotak Bank, Axis Bank, TCS, Infosys and HUL. On the other hand, Hero MotoCorp, Bajaj Auto, Bajaj Finance and Titan were the gainers.
The admission comes as it seeks to ensure approval of the deal by Indian regulators under restrictive foreign investment laws.
The Department of Telecom gearing up for the 3G spectrum auction as per schedule on January 30 and has left it to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs to take a call on the reserve price for a pan-India 3G licence.
The government has projected to garner up to Rs 35,000 crore (Rs 350 billion) from sale of radiowaves, mainly 3G spectrum, to telecom operators in the current financial year.
A bench of justices G S Singhvi and A G Ganguly asked the CBI to apprise it of their findings on March 15.
Auctions for spectrum for 3G or third-generation telecom services could be delayed from an already rescheduled date of January 30 after the Department of Telecommunications sought legal opinion on whether it should send the finance ministry's suggestion on doubling the reserve price back to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India for its endorsement.
The defence ministry has decided to release only that 3G spectrum that is to be auctioned and that too in phases. In fact, the armed forces have not released spectrum already in use as envisaged in their agreement with department of telecommunication.
Karunanidhi was convinced that using the 2G cases against the DMK and reopening the fodder case against Lalu Prasad Yadav were products of the Congress leadership's short-sightedness. A revealing excerpt from A S Panneerselvan's Karunanidhi: A Life.
'There is a time for lowering one's expectations of the economy -- and therefore not trying to do too much in the Budget,' notes T N Ninan.
Bharti chairman Sunil Mittal MTN group president and CEO Phuthuma Nhlek had met Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Monday. The two telecom majors extended the deadline for exclusive talks for their proposed $23-billion deal to the end of next month recently.
Move aimed at strengthening Sebi's powers to investigate market-related offences.
The DoT issued the information memorandum last week, saying auction would start on January 14 and for this to happen, the blocks of spectrum to be auctioned must be identified latest by the first week of December.
G C Murmu rarely speaks in public and when he does, his statements are always in lockstep with the thinking within this government.
Spectrum auction and divestment proceeds likely to disappoint, subsidies are likely to overshoot the Budget target and there might also be some shortfall in tax collections.
By setting a single spectrum-release deadline for all bidders, the finance ministry aims to ensure a level playing field for all operators.
Sibal's predecessor Ashwani Kumar had rejected FinMin's plea for conciliation terming it illegal.
Communications Minister A Raja has shifted responsibility for holding auctions for third generation or 3G telecom services to Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee by requesting him, in a letter last week, to ensure that the defence ministry releases the spectrum it had promised on time.
While Rs 37,461.01 crore has been allocated for higher education, Rs 56,386.63 crore has been earmarked for school education.
The Enforcement Directorate has questioned former telecom minister A Raja in connection with its money laundering probe in the 2G spectrum case. This is the first time that the ED has questioned Raja in the case.
The bidding for the airwaves is scheduled to start from November 12.
Congress members in the Joint Parliamentary Committee looking into the 2G scam today sought to turn tables on the Bharatiya Janata Party by raising questions as to why the then Finance Minister Jaswant Singh approved a proposal of the Telecom Ministry in 2003 on reduction in licence fee without examining its financial implications.
Hong Kong-based Hutchison Telecom Limited is expected to submit details of loans to two Indian minority shareholders this week to the finance ministry, which is looking into alleged breach of foreign direct investment norms in Hutch-Essar.
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