Archives for 2018

DMK President M.K. Stalin and PMK Founder S. Ramadoss on Thursday criticised the Central government for demonetising the Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 rupee notes in 2016.

In a tweet M.K. Stalin termed the demonetisation as “one man made disaster for India”.

On November 8, 2016, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a television broadcast announced demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 rupee notes.

In his tweet Stalin said: “People were brought on streets with their money declared illegal. Indians stood in endless lines and many died outside banks, millions of jobs were lost, small industries shut and the economy hit irreversibly.”

On the other hand, Ramadoss said the day marks the second anniversary of not only demonetising Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 rupee notes but also of hurting the economy severely.

IANS

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday wished veteran Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Lal Krishna Advani on his 92nd birthday.

“Heartiest birthday greetings to L.K. Advani ji. Advani Ji, I respectfully wish you good health and happiness,” Banerjee tweeted.

Advani was born on November 8, 1927, in Karachi (now in Pakistan). He is one of the co-founders and a senior leader of the BJP.

He was the last Deputy Prime Minister from 2002 to 2004 under the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee. He was also the Minister of Home Affairs from 1998 to 2004.

IANS

 As the country completed two years of demonetisation, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday said the objective was not to get the cash deposited in banks but to move towards a more formal economy that he claimed is giving rich dividends.

“An ill-informed criticism of the demonetisation is that almost the entire cash money got deposited in the banks. Confiscation of currency was not an objective of demonetisation. Getting it into the formal economy and making the holders pay tax was the broader objective,” Jaitley said in a Facebook blog.

“The system required to be shaken in order to make India move from cash to digital transactions. This would obviously have an impact on higher tax revenue and a higher tax base,” he added.

Demonetisation was a key step in a chain of important decisions taken by the government to formalise the economy, he said.

Other major decisions include targeting the black money outside India, application of technology in filing of returns and expanding the tax base, financial inclusion to integrate weaker sections with the formal economy, Jan Dhan accounts, Aadhaar law, Direct Benefit Transfer and the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

“It is now becoming increasingly difficult to evade the tax system,” he said.

The Minister said direct tax collections in the two years prior to demonetisation had risen by 6.6 per cent and 9 per cent, which in the two years post-demonetisation rose by 14.6 per cent and 18 per cent with increases registered both in personal income tax and corporate tax.

Similarly, in the year 2017-18, the tax returns filed reached 6.86 crore, an increase of 25 per cent over the previous year. This year, as on October 31, already 5.99 crore returns have been filed which was an increase of 54.33 per cent compared to the previous year.

“In May 2014, when the present government was elected, the total number of the filers of income tax returns was 3.8 crore… By the time the first five years of this government are over, we will be close to doubling the assessee base,” he said.

Demonetisation and implementation of the GST curbed cash transactions and boosted digital transactions, the Minister said.

“This formalisation of the economy has led to the tax payer base increase from 6.4 million in the pre-GST regime to 12 million tax payers in the post-GST regime.”

The actual consumption of goods and services being recorded in tax net had now increased, giving a buoyancy to the indirect tax growth, benefiting both the Centre and the states.

In 2014-15, the indirect tax to GDP ratio was 4.4 per cent. Post-GST it has climbed to 5.4 per cent.

“Rates of taxes, both direct and indirect, have been reduced, but tax collections have gone up. The tax base has been expanded. GST rates on 334 commodities which were paying an effective 31 per cent tax pre-GST have witnessed a tax reduction,” he said.

Further, Jaitley said measures taken for digitisation including the Unified Payment Interface (UPI) and the Bharat Interface for Money (BHIM) have resulted in increased transactions.

“Today Visa and Mastercard are losing market share in India to indigenously developed payment system of UPI and RUPAY Card whose share have reached 65 per cent of the payments done through debit and credit cards,” he said.

The Minister said more formalisation of the economy will lead to more revenue and more resources for the poor, better infrastructure and a better quality of life for the citizens.

IANS

Afghan forces killed 16 Taliban militants and injured 19 others while evicting them from several villages in Dand-e-Ghori area in Baghlan province, police said Thursday.

“The security forces have recaptured several villages including the main base of Taliban rebels over the past four days,” police chief Ekramudin Sari told Xinhua news agency.

Dand-e-Ghori was captured by Taliban two years ago and since then has been regarded as a Taliban stronghold in the northern Baghlan province.

The ongoing operations against the Taliban in Dand-e-Ghori would last until the area was cleansed of the insurgents, Sari said.

Taliban militants were yet to comment on the development.

IANS

Telugu Desam Party supremo and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, who is trying to unite opposition parties to take on BJP in the Lok Sabha elections next year, will meet former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda and Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy on Thursday.
Mr Naidu will meet Mr Gowda at his residence at Padmanabha Nagar and Mr Kumaraswamy would also be present during the meeting, JD(S) said on Wednesday.

Mr Naidu’s meeting with the JD(S) supremo comes in the backdrop of Congress-JD(S) coalition resolving to contest the 2019 Lok Sabha elections together against the BJP, buoyed by the victory in the bypolls.

The Congress-JD(S) coalition in Karnataka on Tuesday won two of the three Lok Sabha seats and both assembly constituencies in the fiercely fought by-polls, giving a shot in the arm to the ruling combine that faces frequent questions about its longevity.

The electoral sweep by the ruling coalition comes as a boost to it as the by-polls were seen as a barometer of the public mood ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

Mr Naidu had called his Karnataka counterpart over the phone on Tuesday and congratulated the latter on the JD(S)-Congress combine’s “spectacular victory” in the by-elections.

JD(S) lawmaker Mr Sharavana said Mr Naidu’s meeting with HD Deve Gowda’s in continuation of the discussions the Andhra Chief Minister was holding with “secular” party leaders across the country.

“The bypoll results that have come are a good development as people of state have understood the need for secular forces. He (Naidu) is expected to seek Deve Gowda’s cooperation,” he added.

Mr Naidu had also recently met NCP chief Sharad Pawarand National Conference president Farooq Abdullah, among others.

PTI