Billionaire Anil Agarwal's mining group Vedanta on Monday said it has withdrawn cases in the Delhi high court as well as before an international arbitration tribunal to settle a Rs 20,495 crore retrospective tax dispute with the government. Post slapping of a Rs 10,247 crore tax demand on UK's Cairn Energy Plc for alleged capital gains made on a 2016 internal reorganisation prior to the listing of its India business, the Income Tax Department had sought Rs 20,495 crore in taxes (including penalty) from Cairn India for failing to deduct tax on capital gains made by its British parent. Cairn India was in 2011 bought by Agarwal's group and subsequently, the firm was merged with Vedanta Ltd.
The value of the vote of a member of Parliament has gone down to 700 from 708 in the presidential poll scheduled for July 18 due to the absence of a legislative assembly in Jammu and Kashmir.
The levy of retrospective tax on the UK's Cairn Energy Plc is a tale of bizarre twists and turns that saw its attached shares being sold in May 2018 amid the passing of the baton from a full-time finance minister to interim one and the talks at the highest level to resolve the dispute, to claims that levy of back taxes was a result of an investigation into Panama Papers leak. The government late last month refunded about Rs 7,900 crore it had collected from selling residual shares of the British firm in its erstwhile India unit, seizing dividend and withholding tax refunds, to settle an eight-year-old dispute that had tarred the country's reputation as an investment destination. But, this did not come about easily. For seven years, the establishment vehemently justified in courts and outside seeking of Rs 10,247 crore in back taxes plus interest and penalty from a firm that gave India its biggest onshore oil discovery.
The arson in Amalapuram, headquarters of the new district, on Tuesday allegedly by those opposed to the name change is, thus, suspected by local political observers to be a result of 'political machinations' of 'vested interests.'
With the special officer and the new commissioner taking charge, the exercise to reshuffle and reorganise the municipal staff will begin.
The proposed Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) to be issued by the Reserve Bank will play a critical role in improving the speed of transactions and reducing the cost of cash, a Deloitte report said on Wednesday. The Reserve Bank of India is planning to come out with a central bank-backed digital currency, using blockchain technology in 2022-23. As a financial services innovation, CBDCs are likely to play a pivotal role in shaping the 'future of value transfer', the report said, adding that most central banks worldwide are now in various stages of their evaluation of launching their national digital currencies.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's JD-U launched a frontal attack on ally BJP, asking it to rein in 'loudmouth leaders' whose 'arrogance' had cost it an old partner like the Shiv Sena.
We do not expect other countries, including China, to comment on the matters which are internal to India, the MEA said.
The officials said the SSG will be "right-sized" by reducing the number of the elite force to the "bare minimum".
Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma on Thursday said Union Home Minister Amit Shah has given firm assurances at a meeting held in Delhi of acting on his request for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the 'firing by Assam Police' along the states' border.
Billionaire Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd on Friday reported a 12 per cent rise in December quarter net profit on improving oil-to-chemical business, strong continued momentum in retail and steady telecom unit Jio.
In his petition, Tarigami said despite the fact that the challenge to the constitutional validity of orders by the Centre on August 5, 2019 as well as the J-K (Reorganisation) Act, 2019 is pending before the Supreme Court, the central government has taken some 'irreversible actions'.
Engineering giant Larsen & Toubro (L&T) is looking to divest its exposure to road and power concessions and incubate digital and e-commerce businesses as part of its new five-year plan ending 2025-26 (FY26). The base year for the plan is 2020-21 (FY21). The blueprint, called Lakshya 2026, is intended to help the company exit sub-scale businesses, concentrate on high-technology (tech) manufacturing, construction and green energy projects, and increase its share from information technology (IT) and digital services. The lending operations of the financial services business, meanwhile, will be reorganised, with focus on retail lending.
The counsel for Punjab told a bench headed by Justice SK Kaul that the state government is very keen to resolve the issue amicably.
'...for three hours to the seven or eight of us who spoke at the meeting.' 'Talking together and allowing us to express our thoughts on these important issues is a good beginning.'
The Centre is planning a series of political initiatives in Jammu and Kashmir which may include discussion with mainstream parties of the Union Territory and elections to the assembly in the early part of next year, officials said in New Delhi.
The reorganisation bill provides for formation of Union territory of Ladakh without legislature and a separate one for Jammu and Kashmir with legislature.
From a comedian to Punjab chief minister, Bhagwant Mann has seen a phenomenal rise in a political career of just over a decade.
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The government is likely to file an appeal against the Cairn arbitration award contesting its sovereign rights to tax, sources said.
After the party's drubbing in the just-concluded assembly polls in five states, Congress president Sonia Gandhi has asked its state unit chiefs in Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Goa, Punjab and Manipur to put in their papers.
'The government is plucking leaves and not destroying the plant.'
'They forget that denial of basic rights has helped create a big political void which is adding to a deepening alienation.' 'This creates a fertile ground for extremist elements and targeted killings which we are witness to once again.'
In the early part of the Kargil operations, the army opted to more or less go it alone, sacrificing large numbers of men and officers in almost superhuman struggles against an enemy on higher ground. Some generals seem to think their predecessors would have succeeded better if they had had air resources at their disposal, points out David Devadas.
Last week, China's national legislature adopted the new law on the protection and exploitation of the land border areas, which could have bearing on Beijing's border dispute with India.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the nation at 8 pm on Thursday in an apparent outreach to people of Kashmir after the recent measures taken by his government in Jammu and Kashmir. Modi's address comes two days after the Parliament passed a resolution repealing the special status of Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Constitution and a Bill reorganising the state into two Union Territories -- Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh.
Union home minister Amit Shah said the UT in Ladakh will have no legislature like Chandigarh while the other UT of Jammu and Kashmir will have a legislature like Delhi and Puducherry.
With the total number of municipal wards set to be revised following the passage of the Delhi Municipal Corporation (Amendment) Bill-2022 in Rajya Sabha on Tuesday, experts have said that the civic polls in New Delhi is unlikely to take place before a year from now as a fresh delimitation exercise will be required.
The Andhra Pradech CM asked party MPs to meet the President after Parliament is adjourned sine die.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a $1 million ad-hoc grant for the operational budget for the BIMSTEC secretariat and another $3 million assistance to revive the grouping's centre for weather and climate.
A change in the name of the Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS) magazine 'suggests a refocusing' of the terror group from Afghanistan to Kashmir, a United Nations report has said.
The English cricketers should not miss international duty at the expense of playing in the IPL, former England captain Michael Atherton has said in the wake of the team's disastrous Ashes campaign in Australia.
Britain's Cairn Energy has secured a French court order to seize 20 Indian govt properties to recover arbitration award, it is learnt.
"I am not talking about reorganisation of just Maharashtra but of all the states of the Indian Union based on the basis of population."
The NCLAT's order is offensive because it goes against every tenet of bankruptcy reorganisation. If Justice Sudhansu Mukhopadhyay's tenets are accepted by the Supreme Court, we will not only regress in modern bankruptcy reorganisation but also slide back in the Doing Business rankings, says Omkar Goswami.
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.
Sangma said finding the solution was not an easy decision, but for the political will of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah.
There is no reason for keeping an entire ministry with a total staff strength of 2,300, just for the oversight of a few aviation sector laws and regulatory bodies, notes A K Bhattacharya.
After Islamic evangelist and preacher Zakir Naik showed the inability to go to the Indian embassy in Malaysia for authentication of his credentials for vakalatnama, the UAPA tribunal said, "He is bound to file a vakalatnama in proper format with proper authentication or he may remain physically present on the next date of hearing."
The manifesto claims that while the BJP has unified the country by abrogating provisions of Article 370 and Article 35A that provided special status to the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir, the People's Alliance for Gupkar Declaration -- an amalgam of several mainstream political parties, including the Ntional Conference and the People's Democratic Party -- was working against the national interest for vote bank politics.
After Air India, Britain's Cairn Energy PLC plans to target assets of state-owned firms and banks in countries from the US to Singapore as it looks to ramp up efforts to recover the amount due from the Indian government after winning an arbitration against levy of retrospective taxes. A lawyer representing the company said Cairn will bring lawsuits in several countries to make state-owned firms liable to pay the $1.2 billion plus interest and penalties that are due from the Indian government. Last month, Cairn brought a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York pleading that Air India is controlled by the Indian government so much that they are 'alter egos' and the airline should be held liable for the arbitration award.
