The two central premier investigative agencies - Central Bureau of Investigation and Enforcement Directorate - have asked their officials to focus more on digital evidence, e-forums and social media to crack down on offenders. These are a crucial part of prosecution amid the second wave of the pandemic. The Income Tax Department is going full throttle on data analytics to issue notices in time-bound cases. Further, sleuths have been given electronic devices including laptops with secure connections, which keep data encrypted and inaccessible.
"WhatsApp is an industry leader in preventing abuse, among end-to-end encrypted messaging services. Over the years, we have consistently invested in Artificial Intelligence and other state of the art technology, data scientists and experts, and in processes, in order to keep our users safe on our platform," a WhatsApp spokesperson said.
"Actioned" content refers to the number of pieces of content (such as posts, photos, videos or comments) where action has been taken for violation of standards. Taking action could include removing a piece of content from Facebook or Instagram or covering photos or videos that may be disturbing to some audiences with a warning.
Google received 26,087 complaints from users and removed 61,114 pieces of content based on those complaints in November, the tech giant said in its monthly transparency report.
The CMS allows e-adjudication of certain lapses and paying penalties online, doing away with the need to visit an MCA office or go through a legal process.
To set up a future-ready administration geared towards the target of $2 trillion exports by 2030, the Department of Commerce has decided to set up a dedicated trade promotion body to drive overall promotion strategy, export targets, and execution as part of a restructuring exercise. The trade promotion body will formulate and drive overall trade promotion strategy; create and drive India's branding across focus markets and sectors; drive coordinated action across missions, states and export promotion councils; strategic initiatives, including advisory and buyer-seller meet; and develop digital platforms for exporters and buyers. Based on a 14-volume 'restructuring dossier' by the Boston Consulting Group, the commerce department has already implemented some of the recommendations.
He said social media companies are free to do business in India but they have to be accountable to the Indian Constitution and laws.
In addition to reports from users, Google also removed 3,84,509 pieces of content in October as a result of automated detection.
The Delhi high court Friday asked Twitter to remove certain objectionable material relating to Hindu Goddess from its platform, observing that the social media giant shall respect sentiments of general public as it was doing business for them.
The proposed e-commerce rule book issued recently by the ministry of consumer affairs does not mention foreign companies or foreign direct investment (FDI) at any place, unlike most other government guidelines for the sector so far. That is a heartening development since the latest proposals could be fine-tuned as e-commerce policy.
The faceless authority has suggested a host of changes in the assessment process following conflicts and practical difficulties raised by taxpayers since the new regime was introduced. On August 3, the National Faceless Assessment Centre issued a set of standard operating procedures (SOPs) to address several anomalies in the regime. The faceless centre, constituted by the Central Board of Direct Taxes, is the nodal authority and works as an interface for the faceless regime.
In June, Google received 36,265 complaints - the highest till now - from individual users located in India via designated mechanisms. It removed 83,613 pieces of content as a result of user complaints in the said month.
Apart from making your purchases on these platforms expensive, it will also mean sellers will have to face the brunt of reduced cash flows amid already low margins for some. Experts said the proposal, which will take effect on April 1, 2020, and will be inserted as a new section in the Income Tax Act, is expected to affect the working capital of e-commerce companies and reduce cash flows for e-sellers.
India conceding ground to bring only top 100 digital companies like Google, Facebook, and Netflix into the global taxation pact may have revenue implications. This will mean that New Delhi will have to withdraw the contentious 2 per cent equalisation levy on e-commerce operators by 2023. This may have revenue implications for India, experts pointed out, as the equalisation levy has a much lower annual revenue threshold of Rs 2 crore (euro 0.2 million) as against euro 20 billion agreed by 130 countries at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). India, along with other developing countries, was pitching for at least euro 1 billion threshold to cover at least 5,000 global entities. India collected Rs 2,057 crore from the equalisation levy in 2020-21, an 85 per cent growth over Rs 1,136 crore in the previous fiscal.
The government on Saturday issued a notice to Twitter giving it one last chance to 'immediately' comply with the new IT rules and warned that failure to adhere to the norms will lead to the platform losing exemption from liability under the IT Act.
Justice Rekha Palli noted that while the rules mandated appointment of a key managerial person or a senior employee as CCO, Twitter disclosed in its affidavit that it had appointed a 'contingent worker' through a third party contractor.
Social media needs to be made more accountable and stricter rules in this regard could be brought in if there is political consensus on the matter, Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said in Rajya Sabha on Friday.
"Reaching an international agreement on how large digital companies are taxed has been a priority for the chancellor since he took office," said a spokesperson for his UK treasury office. "The chancellor's consistent position has been that it matters where tax is paid, and any agreement must ensure digital businesses pay tax in the UK that reflects their economic activities. That is what our taxpayers would expect and is the right thing," the spokesperson said.
'India has entered an economic super-cycle driven by a housing cycle turnaround.'
E-commerce giant Amazon and Infosys co-founder N R Narayana Murthy's Catamaran Ventures have "mutually decided" to not continue their joint venture (JV) beyond the end of its current term. The JV, Prione Business Services, which has been running successfully for the past seven years, was coming up for renewal on May 19, 2022. The JV enabled over 300,000 sellers and entrepreneurs to go online. It also enabled 4 million merchants with digital payment capabilities, providing these small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) and merchants access to millions of customers across the country.
A day after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) lifted its ban on HDFC Bank on issuing new credit cards, the country's largest private sector lender on Wednesday said it had resources and plans in place to "further reinforce pole position in the credit card segment" and that it would "come back with a bang". "We will aggressively go to the market, with not just our existing suite of credit cards but also new offerings in the form of co-brands and partnerships," Sashidhar Jagdishan, managing director and chief executive officer of HDFC Bank, said in a letter to his employees. The bank's management had earlier indicated that the lender had been sourcing liability customers aggressively over the past few months.
After the massive tax evasion of GST by cryptocurrency service provider WazirX, the Directorate General of GST Intelligence has come down heavily on cryptocurrency exchanges operating in the country, said sources. "Around half a dozen offices of cryptocurrency service providers have been searched and massive Goods and Service Tax (GST) evasion has been detected by DGGI," sources told ANI. Crypto wallet and exchange are platforms where merchants and consumers can transact with digital assets like bitcoin, ethereum, ripple, etc.
As per the report released on Monday, the over 26.9 million content pieces actioned by Facebook during September included content related to spam (20.3 million), violent and graphic content (3.4 million), adult nudity and sexual activity (2.4 million), and hate speech (182,200).
Homegrown microblogging platform Koo said the new guidelines will help clarify the responsibilities of intermediaries.
The Delhi high court on Thursday extended till December 17 the interim protection from arrest granted to Newsclick editor-in-chief Prabir Purkayastha in a foreign funding case and asked the Delhi police why it needed his custodial interrogation when the RBI has given a prima facie finding in his favour.
Three firms, Vishvapradhan Commercial Pvt Ltd along with AMG Media Networks and Adani Enterprises Ltd, have offered a price of Rs 294 for the acquisition of up to 1,67,62,530 fully paid-up equity shares of NDTV having a face value of Rs 4 from the public shareholders.
The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information and Technology has called on Twitter to appear before the panel in Parliament Complex on June 18 at 4 pm and give representation on how to prevent misuse of social media and online news.
A few days ago, Reliance Retail surprised the market by acquiring the Campa brand from Delhi-based Pure Drinks Ltd for Rs 22 crore. A successful cola brand in the eighties, especially in North India, Campa Cola thrived when Coke exited India in the late seventies. When the Atlanta-based major returned and PepsiCo set base in India, it went down fighting.
Chief Economic Advisor (CEA) V Anantha Nageswaran on Tuesday said India is not defending the rupee and the Reserve Bank of India is taking necessary steps to ensure that the movement of the rupee is gradual and in line with market trends. Nageswaran further said that the rupee is being managed in a manner that reflects the fundamentals of the economy. "India is not defending the rupee... I don't think Indian fundamentals are such that we need to defend the rupee. "The rupee can take care of itself," he said at an event in New Delhi.
While she primed up spending on infrastructure to create jobs and boost economic activity, Sitharaman did not tinker with income tax slabs or tax rates. Her Budget for the fiscal year beginning April 2022 proposed a massive 35 per cent jump in capital expenditure to Rs 7.5 lakh crore, coupled with rationalisation of customs duty, an extension of time for setting up new manufacturing companies and plans for starting a digital currency and tax crypto assets.
Income tax collection, by way of advance tax and TDS, in the April-June quarter was about 80 per cent of what was collected in the same period last year.
Paytm CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma said on Wednesday that the company's share market performance has been in line with that of global peers in the sector over the past six months due to macroeconomic factors. "Macro factors like quantitative easing, free money due to US monetary policy and other parameters led to a spook in the market in terms of pricing the IPO. "Paytm's shares have received a similar response to that of global peers in the last six months...But that is not a complete reasoning.
The Reserve Bank of India has issued several warnings that the public should not fall prey to such unscrupulous activities and verify the companies offering loans online and through apps.
HDFC Bank on Monday said it aims to regain the two per cent market share in the credit card market it ceded to rivals during a recent ban, within a year by aggressively tapping into its existing depositor base. The bank will also focus on forging new partnerships to sell more cards and will not deviate from its conservative approach on taking credit risks as it goes aggressive in the market, its group head for payments and consumer finance, digital banking and IT, Parag Rao, told reporters. On August 17, RBI lifted the ban on HDFC Bank which had prevented it from issuing new credit cards from December 2020.
The panel decided to omit the reverse charge mechanism (RCM) clause from the GST law under which registered taxpayers buying from unregistered taxpayers have to deposit the GST.
The National Digital Health Mission seeks to provide a unique health ID to each citizen who wishes to have one and also on-board the healthcare service provides - hospitals, pharmacies and diagnostic labs, among others. It will have an online database of doctors and personal health records.
The Budget proposed abolishing the under-performing, authority of advance ruling, to replace it with a two-member board of advance ruling.
Software major Wipro's chairman Rishad Premji on Thursday said social media platforms have integrated the world like never before and should be allowed to practice "responsive self-governance" to tackle the menace of hate and misinformation. Premji said technological developments on the digital and social media represent an incredibly powerful opportunity for betterment and the issues arising through its misuse need to be addressed immediately. "Technology, particularly digital and social media, have integrated the world as never before. "They've fostered human connections and solidarity across distances and barriers.
The 47th GST Council meeting that is currently underway is slated to discuss a host of issues, including a mechanism for compensating states for revenue loss, tax rate tweaks in some items and relaxed registration norms for small online suppliers. Further, the meeting of the Council, chaired by the Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and comprising state counterparts, will also clear levying the highest tax of 28 per cent on online games, casinos and horse racing, besides, measures to curb tax evasion, especially devising ways to tackle high-risk taxpayers in GST. "The meeting is being chaired by Hon'ble Union Minister of Finance @nsitharaman and many important decisions are expected to be taken at the meet," PIB Chandigarh tweeted.
