The US on Thursday raised concerns over India's Personal Data Protection (PDP) Bill and draft non-personal data governance framework, claiming these could potentially threaten innovation and economic growth. In its latest 'Special 301' Report, the US Trade Representative (USTR) kept India on the priority watch list, maintaining the country remains one of the world's most challenging major economies with respect to protection and enforcement of intellectual property (IP). In December 2021, a joint parliamentary committee released a report recommending changes to the PDP Bill, 2019, that could undermine important IP protections in India.
Other than Snapdeal, the four markets are Tank Road in Delhi, Heera Panna in Mumbai, Kidderpore in Kolkata and Millennium Centre in Aizawl. Snapdeal, one of India's largest e-commerce platforms, is known as a place to purchase counterfeit watches and shoes.
Despite the demonetisation of 2016 and the rise in digital transactions that followed, the economy's dependence on cash has remained as high as ever. So when the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) introduced a pilot project of its version of digital cash - called the central bank digital currency (CBDC) - on December 1, many questions were asked. Can the CBDC replace physical cash, even partially? Can it match cash in terms of convenience? Are CBDC transactions truly anonymous?
Any forced attempt to achieve anything, however lofty the goal, will result in distortions and undesired outcomes, say Anshuman Gupta and Karunakar Jha.
In an online chat with readers, Investment Advisor Harsh Roongta answered their queries on the ban on Rs 500 and Rs 1000 notes.
The Jamaat-ud-Dawa not only collected funds for charity and diverted it to the Lashkar-e-Tayiba, but also helped the outfit legitimise money collected through extortion, counterfeiting, smuggling and animal skin trade. Vicky Nanjappa/Rediff.com reports
In a country like India, where counterfeit items are sold in every nook and corner, the regulation of trademark infringement poses a big challenge.
Priced at over Rs one-lakh, the detector machine is currently being imported from Swiss-based BEB Industrie Elektronki AG and can detect 1,200 notes per minute.
This mean that just Rs 10,720 crore of the junked currency did not return to the banking system.
Counterfeiting is probably as old as money itself.
The Opposition on Thursday hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi saying his note ban decision was "reckless".
Uncertainties on account of COVID-19 pandemic have increased the demand for currency notes not only in India but across the globe, official sources said, dismissing the criticism that demonetisation has failed to reduce cash in the economy. Government sources said that growth of the digital payments system post-demonetisation will ultimately curb the dependence on cash. Official data points out a jump in digital payments through different modes, including plastic cards, net banking and Unified Payments Interface (UPI).
'Once the Hon'ble Supreme Court has declared the law, we are obliged to accept it. However, it is necessary to point out that the majority has not upheld the wisdom of the decision; nor has the majority concluded that the stated objectives were achieved,' the senior Congress leader said in a tweet.
Shah claimed that BJP was sensitive to the problems being faced by people queuing up outside the banks and ATMs but said they must realise that the step had hurt 'those sleeping over hoards of black money three thousand times more than the people on the streets'.
'Those who should have been affected benefitted from demonetisation.' 'And the vast majority who should not have been affected lost out.' 'That is the ultimate result of demonetisation.'
After a dip in 2020, the number of economic offences rose 19.4 per cent to 174,013 cases in 2021, according to the Crime in India report by the National Crime Records Bureau. The data shows that there was a marginal dip in the pendency of cases in 2021 at 96.6 per cent compared with 96.8 per cent in 2020, but this was still three percentage points higher than 93.6 per cent recorded in 2019. Economic offences include all offences of criminal breach of trust, counterfeiting, forgery, cheating, and fraud.
The quantum of fake Swiss francs remained much higher.
Widening of the tax base, doing away with cess and surcharge, improvement in compliance and moderation in tax for emerging sectors are some of the suggestions submitted to the Finance Ministry ahead of the Budget by Think Change Forum (TCF). Experts are of the opinion that there is a need to grow tax revenues for the government to drive economic growth and make investments in developmental activities, TCF, the think tank said in a statement. Towards this end, poor compliance was identified as a weak link in achieving targeted collections leading to complex issues like overtaxing, complicated tax structures, rising litigation, among others.
The draft e-commerce rules released last year held e-commerce marketplace responsible if a seller on its platform failed to deliver the goods or services ordered by a consumer "due to negligent conduct, omission or commission of any act by such seller", causing loss to the consumer.
'The execution has been 100 per cent faulty.' 'The scheme is also a stupid one, a real Tuglaq Darbar scheme.' 'This way of attacking black money is the most ineffective one.'
November 8 marks 6 years after demonetisation. A K Bhattacharya reveals how the prime minister and the RBI worked together for months before Modi's 8 pm speech. A riveting excerpt from The Rise Of Goliath: Twelve Disruptions That Changed India.
The RBI has shelved its plan for polymer notes more than a decade after it invited interest from global manufacturers for one billion pieces of Rs 10 denomination polymer banknotes, reveals Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
The Financial Intelligence Unit last month marked 200 transactions in India -- running into Rs 2000 crore -- as terror-financed. Now, it has commenced its probe to trace the origin of the funds.
The ATMs will open on Friday and at many places they will open on Thursday, he said.
While some criticise the government, others, despite the inconvenience, hail demonetisation as revolutionary.
The number of Rs 2,000 currency notes in circulation has come down from 33,632 lakh pieces at end-March 2018 to 32,910 lakh pieces at end-March 2019 and further to 27,398 lakh pieces at end-March 2020.
Gandhi alleged that the Bharatiya Janata Party government has "blocked" the money of the poor through currency ban to favour a "handful of industrialists".
Plastic counterfeiting and frauds have increased at an alarming rate. So how do you protect yours from being misused?
The most important institutions have been and are being undermined with almost no resistance, warns Aakar Patel.
The economic affairs secretary said that the focus is on production and supply of Rs 500 and lower denomination notes.
The Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), the federal economic snoop agency under the Union finance ministry, sent 289 legal requests to its counterparts across the globe during 2018-19 as compared to 177 in 2017-18 and 138 in 2016-17.
'The number of STRs received in 2016-17 is 4,73,006 which is more than four times as compared to 2015-16 and this increase is attributed to demonetisaton exercise...,' the Financial Intelligence Unit's report has said.
Days after the government said the Reserve Bank will introduce a digital currency in 2022-23, Governor Shaktikanta Das on Thursday said the central bank does not want to rush and is carefully examining all aspects before introduction of the Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). He, however, declined to give any timeline for the launch of the CBDC. In her Budget 2022-23 speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced that the RBI will introduce a digital currency in the next financial year beginning April 2022 to boost the digital economy and for more efficient currency management.
'This is not only a fight against corruption and black money, this is also a fight against terrorism and counterfeit currencies.'
Urjit Patel said said the process of remonetisation was on and estimation of costs was a complex exercise.
The current limit of Rs 24,000 per week has been raised to Rs 50,000 for savings accounts.
Effective employment of the anti-money laundering mechanism by India, which vowed to fight tax havens and black-money, helped detect over 4,000 suspicious financial transactions relating to crime and terror -- more than double the numbers reported last year.
'Ultimately if your aim is that you need to be able to deal with a security situation, you need to deal with a black money situation, you need to deal with a counterfeiting situation then, to that extent, I think everyone will need to able to tolerate a little bit of inconvenience.'
While the new norms are part of the draft policy's guidelines to fight counterfeit and fake products on platforms, they might end up helping brands and e-commerce firms sign exclusive sale deals.