Based on the recommendations of Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) in its meeting held on March 11, 2011, Government of India has approved 14 Proposals of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) amounting to Rs. 1289.85 crore approximately.
The Lok Sabha passed the budget proposals minus the 5% service tax on healthcare and diagnostic services provided by high-end hospitals that was withdrawn following widespread criticism. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee , however, indicated the levy, dubbed as ‘misery tax’, may be back once the comprehensive goods & services tax is rolled out.
After almost two years of planning, the National Payments Corporation has at last finalised the proposed unique India Card which once commercially launched would be an domestic alternative to the global real-time payment processing firms like Visa and MasterCard . “We have finalised name of the proposed card as Rupay at our board meeting here today. We have also finalised the logo for the same,” a senior official of the RBI-set up National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI), told media this evening. The official sought not to be named.
Legislation passed Wednesday by Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Cabinet aims to making it easier for foreign professionals to get their qualifications recognized and use their skills in Germany. Germany estimates some 300,000 immigrants already living in the country have no right to work because their professional qualifications or degrees from foreign institutions are not recognized. At the same time, Germany faces a severe shortage of skilled labor, it’s unemployment rate dipped to 7.9 percent last month, one of the lowest in Europe.
The following are the texts of the Exposure Drafts of the proposed limited revisions to ‘Secretarial Standard on Meetings of the Board of Directors (SS-1)’, ‘Secretarial Standard on General Meetings (SS-2)’ and ‘Secretarial Standard on Minutes (SS-5)’, issued by the Secretarial Standards Board of the Institute of Company Secretaries of India, for comments. The comments and suggestions on the Exposure Drafts may be sent to Mr. Gopal Chalam, Dean, ICSI-CCGRT at Plot No-101, Sector – 15, Institutional Area, CBD Belapur, Navi Mumbai-400 614 (E-mail: ccgrt@icsi.edu) with a copy to alka.kapoor@icsi.edu so as to reach by April 30, 2011.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) today fixed the reference rate for the US dollar at Rs 44.96 per dollar and the euro at Rs 63.68 per euro, as against Rs 44.97 per dollar and Rs 63.98 per euro yesterday. In a press release issued by the RBI, the exchange rates for the pound and yen against the rupee were quoted at Rs 73.5658 per pound and Rs 55.60 per 100 yen, based on the reference rates for the US dollar and cross-currency quotes at noon.
The Enforcement Directorate on Wednseday carried out searches at the Pune residence of Sunil Shinde, the chartered account of businessman Hasan Ali Khan, who is facing charges of money laundering and tax evasion.
India’s government introduced a wide-ranging tax bill into parliament on Tuesday, but opposition to the move threatened to derail one what is one of the coalition’s most ambitious reforms of its second term. In a sign of how corruption scandals are hindering the government, opposition lawmakers immediately forced an adjournment by demanding a debate on accusations Prime Minister Manmohan Singh lied to parliament about a cash-for-votes scandal.
Mumbai: A special court on Monday convicted a former I-T commissioner and his wife for amassing assets disproportionate to their known source of income. Finding Vishwanath Shrivastava guilty of the charges against him, special judge N P Dhote sentenced him to three years’ rigourous imprisonment and fined him Rs 5 lakh. His wife, Nisha, was sentenced for one year and fined Rs 50,000. They were on bail since 2001.
Despite repeated appeals made to all the members of the income tax family, & despite the hard work put in by most of them, processing of refund cases is depressingly behind schedule. At the moment around 1.35 lac Returns are processed every day, out of which only 26% are refund cases. CBDT is conscious of the manpower constraints as also the huge pendency; it is accordingly advised that all refund Returns should be segregated, processed out of turn & all refunds of AY 09-10 & 10-11 be necessarily cleared by March 31 2011.
