Batting for the worried SEZ developers who fear withdrawal of incentives in the new direct tax code, Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma on Friday said his ministry would ensure that the sops continue.
Citing "serious fiscal situation", Union Commerce Secretary Rahul Khullar said that no new incentives and sops could be provided to exporters in the next fiscal in view of significant resource crunch faced by Centre.
Announcing sops for minorities ahead of the panchayat elections next year in the state, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday said that her government has ordered a survey for ensuring job reservation for Muslims and would also bring a bill for 50 per cent reservation for women in panchayats.
Close on the heels of announcing sops for special economic zones, the government on Friday assured exporters that it will take more steps to enable them to compete globally.
'The terrorists are using better technology to secure their communication.' 'It does appear that excessive reliance on technology led to a weakening of human intelligence.'
The probe into the killing of Jammu and Kashmir Police inspector Masroor Ahmad Wani has been handed over to the National Investigation Agency (NIA), a senior police officer said in Srinagar on Friday.
Special economic zones dedicated to the infotech sector may receive a body blow if the tax exemptions provided to Software Technology Parks of India under Section 10(A) and 10(B) of the Income Tax Act are extended beyond March 31, 2009. According to a senior central government official, not more than half of the nearly 100 notified infotech SEZs will survive if the tax sops are extended.
Another instance of bridge collapse came to the fore in Bihar on Thursday, making it the 10th such incident to have been reported from the state in just over a fortnight, an official said.
There are no major announcements in the Union Budget 2014-15.
The Individual tax payer exemption limit to be raised to Rs 200,000 from Rs 180,000.
Only a fifth of foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) in breach of the market regulator-specified thresholds may need to provide enhanced disclosure on ultimate beneficiaries, thanks to exemptions being provided, according to people in the know. The ultimate beneficial ownership (UBO) disclosures, for FPIs with over 50 per cent holding in a single corporate group or over Rs 25,000 crore exposure to Indian assets, will be required from February 1. But, depending on their category, FPIs will have 10-30 working days to submit these granular details.
A bench of Justices Suresh Kumar Kait and Neena Bansal Krishna issued notice on the petition by the former wing commander, who was posted as engineering officer at the relevant time, and granted the Centre six weeks to file its response.
The government is likely to offer a slew of tax sops to telecom operators, including asking state governments not to levy sales tax on telecom services, seven years of exemption of revenue sharing on revenues from rural subscribers, etc.
In a pre-budget meeting with revenue secretary P V Bhide, a Ficci delegation asked the finance ministry to tread with caution on rolling back the stimulus measures taken to spur growth.
The government on Tuesday indicated that forthcoming Foreign Trade Policy may grant some sops for the ailing textile sector especially exporters, who were disappointed over the Budget proposals.
"After more than 12 hours of intense coercive tactical measures as per the SOPs, the pirates on board the hijacked fishing vessel were forced to surrender. The crew, comprising 23 Pakistani nationals, have been safely rescued," the Indian Navy added.
Traders and weavers in Uttar Pradesh's Bhadohi district, which is famous for hand knit carpets and hand tufted carpets, said they wanted the government to help them regain markets lost due to recession. In the wake of the global economic slowdown, small exporters are being wiped out while large exporters are striving to survive. The traders also said that the government should reconsider the taxes levied on them.
An accidental encounter between Maharashtra deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis and Shiv Sena-Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray chief Uddhav Thackeray in a lift in Vidhan Bhawan on Thursday caused ripples in state political circles.
In Bihar, where a bandh had been called, a railway station and a police vehicle were torched, an ambulance attacked and security personnel injured in stone-pelting incidents on the fourth consecutive day of the agitation, while protesters vandalised Ludhiana railway station in Punjab and blocked roads and rail tracks in West Bengal, Haryana, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh.
The move is aimed at helping them reduce the interest rate on loans for purchase of commercial vehicles and free up additional capital to meet the higher capital adequacy ratio requirement. Non-banking finance companies have to maintain a capital adequacy ratio of 12 per cent, which is to go up to 15 per cent from April, 2010.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has asked the Finance Ministry to remove a flaw in the tax laws, which would help IT/ITeS SEZs, even as the government is considering relaxing rules for tax-free enclaves across sectors on sales in the domestic market.
The biggest challenge before Chidambaram, who will be presenting his eighth budget, would be to keep every constituent happy, arrest decelerating economic growth and bring down fiscal deficit to committed level of 4.8 per cent of the gross domestic product.
The reopening of the Ratna Bhandar became a major political issue during the recently held assembly elections in the state.
Ahead of the upcoming elections, political parties have started announcing incentives to benefit women, but what do women truly seek for genuine gender parity, asks Nivedita Mookerji.
Confederation of Indian Industry has sought higher banking exposure norms for lending to steel projects and infrastructure status to the steel industry, besides tax sops on par with special economic zones to boost the sector.
The tax authorities and insurance regulator Irda are working on the possibility of removing Service Tax on first premium.
Telecom firms earning foreign exchange on incoming overseas calls, Internet services and rentals from cable networks are not entitled to duty sops under an export promotion scheme, says the government.
Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday rejected the Kelkar panel proposal for lifting tax sops on savings, housing loans and agricultural income saying it was against the interest of vulnerable sections of society.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday raised the personal income tax rebate limit, doled out sops on small savings and announced one of the biggest hikes in capital spending in the past decade as she did a tight rope walk in the Budget between staying fiscally prudent and meeting public expectations in the year before general elections.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will have to do a tight-rope walk between staying fiscally prudent and general public expectations of lower taxes and a wider social security net, while at the same time firing the engines of the economy before general elections. Sitharaman will on Wednesday present her fifth straight Budget at a time when the economy is slowing due to global headwinds and specific sectors need attention. In the run-up to the Budget presentation, expectations are rife that she may tweak income-tax slabs to provide relief to the middle class and increase spending on the poor through programmes such as the rural job scheme while ramping up financial incentives for local manufacturing.
The supplement is scheduled to be released in the first half of April this year. Exporters were disappointed with Budget 2008-09 as it does not propose any specific measures to help them tide over the situation. In the April-January period of 2007-08, exports stood at $124.19 billion, an increase of 21.62 per cent from $102.12 billion during the year-ago period.
A section of sugar industry has expressed dissatisfaction over the government's export incentives, saying a Rs 100 per tonne extra subsidy for mills in northern region as compared to those for coastal areas was not enough.
He also assuaged the honest people that the government will act as a friend to them so that their difficulties are eased.
The government on Tuesday announced incentives worth Rs 450-500 crore (Rs 4-5 bllion) for exporters encouraging them to aggressively market products in China and Japan and build on the recovery witnessed since November last year.
Four companies - Rajesh Exports, Hyundai Global Motors Company, Ola Electric Mobility and Reliance New Energy - are eligible for receiving benefits under the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme for advanced chemistry cell battery storage, the heavy industries ministry said on Thursday. The allotment was made for a total of 50 GWh of battery capacity to the four successful bidders. These firms, the ministry said, will receive incentives under India's Rs 18,100 crore programme to boost local battery cell production.
The Indian Navy's specialist team had protected them from nine armed pirates, and completed sanitization and seaworthiness checks of fishing vessel Al-Kambar.
The minister termed the killing of CRPF personnel at Pampore as an act of 'frustration' on part of Pakistani terrorists several of whom were killed by Indian forces in past one year.
"If we continue with the polices in terms of assisting exporters . . . as long as we see those numbers climbing every month in an environment around the world where output and trade is shrinking, I think this is reassuring sign," Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Jyotiraditya Scindia said on the sidelines of a CII function in New Delhi.
