View Articles

If the union government’s direct tax collection showed a 24 per cent jump and indirect tax by 30 per cent in just first four months of the current fiscal, which normally represents the lean season of the economy, the national exchequer should be more than pleased. The huge jump in tax collection coupled with the government’s continuous push for higher non-tax revenues should have made the management of public finances extremely comfortable. In addition, the government provided a very rosy picture of unearthing large domestic black money through an attractive ‘voluntary disclosure’ scheme valid till September 30 under which it will have an additional 45 per cent tax collected on ‘disclosed’ assets, thereto held ‘unaccounted’ by our good citizens. However, the scheme result fell much short of the government expectation. The income declaration scheme 2016 unearthed only a gross of Rs. 65,250 crore of undisclosed income and assets, filed under 64,275 declarations till the midnight of September 30, making it just a little over a crore per declaration. Even then, the centre will collect an additional tax of nearly Rs. 30,000 crore on the amount of ‘concealed wealth’ voluntarily declared.

Questions can be raised about India’s decision to boycott the SAARC summit scheduled at Islamabad in November this year. This is the first time that India has cancelled participation in regional group summit because of actions that it blames on Pakistan. The summit is supposed to discuss a large number of issues of interest to the South Asian region and it was just incidental that this time, the summit will be held in Islamabad. The decision on cancelling India’s participation was taken even before the discussions started about steps on reviewing MFN status for Pakistan following Uri attack.

The Congress Government in Karnataka arrived at its moment of truth on October 1 - whether to abide by the Supreme Court's 'last chance' for it to release 6,000 cusecs of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu for six days (October 1-6) or 'face the wrath of law'.

NEW DELHI: The Communist Party of India has urged the Indian Government to continue with the diplomatic and political moves to defuse tension and to open all possible channels to initiate dialogue with Pakistan to stop cross border terrorism.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Political mercury has soared with the Opposition United Democratic Front (UDF) deciding to step up the agitation over the hike in fee in self-financing private medical colleges.

The Scorpene data leak is a major strategic blow for the Indian navy. Already facing an acute shortage of capable submarines the Indian navy has suffered a significant harangue with the data of the characteristics and war details of the submarine being compromised. It is not yet clear who accessed and leaked the information. Was it a hackers’ game or powers inimical to India conspiring to derail the project?

The flavour of the season is the demand for quotas from Haryana Jats to Gujarat’s Patidars to Kapus of Andhra Pradesh .The Marathas are the latest to go on a war path in Maharashtra demanding reservation. They have resorted to peaceful silent marches but have threatened to escalate it soon. Even as the Fadnavis led BJP government in Maharashtra is struggling to face the unprecedented silent marches, there is unrest in other castes like OBCs, Muslims and Dalits.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The Sree Narayana Dharma Paripalana Yogam (SNDP), the powerful organization of Ezhavas, who constitute around 27 per cent of the state’s population, has spoiled the BJP’s euphoria over the ‘phenomenal success’ of the party’s national council session held in Kozhikode, Kerala.

When Narendra Modi Government began the second innings of the NDA in May, 2014, it plumped for “Make in India’, “zero- defect zero-effect” policy of low-carbon growth pattern and to provide policy ballast to the country’s merchandise exports. As the government is in its mid-term, things have not radically changed with industrial growth continuing to plod on with tepid growth withal no tangible employment generation from the secondary sector in the absence of consistent and continuous policy support for skill upgradation from legions of job-seekers across the country.

An innocuous announcement made by the union finance ministry last week went largely unnoticed. The ministry had announced that the issue of securities for the Sovereign Gold Bond scheme has been pushed back from September 23 to September 30. As such, what significance does it have, one can ask.