Archives for 2022

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday said the digital rupee, proposed in the union budget, could be exchanged for cash and will open new opportunities in the fintech sector.

Addressing the ‘Atmanirbha Arthavyavastha’ (self-reliant economy) symposium organised by the BJP, he said the central bank digital currency or the digital rupee will make online payments more secure and risk free and boost digital economy in the years to come.

“The digital rupee will be the digital form of our physical rupee and will regulated by the RBI. This will be such a system that will enable exchange of physical currency with digital currency,” Modi said at the virtual symposium that was attended by chief ministers of BJP-ruled states and party workers across the country.

“Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) will strengthen the digital economy… If anyone makes a payment in digital currency, you will be able to change it to cash,” he said.

Modi said the launch of CBDC will make digital payments and online transfer of funds more secure and risk free.

“This will also lead to ease in development of global digital payment systems,” he said.

He said the digital rupee will revolutionise the fintech sector by creating new opportunities and lessen the burden in handling, printing, logistics management of cash.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced that India will launch a ‘digital rupee’ in 2022-23 using blockchain and other technologies.

Sameer Wankhede

Thane: The Thane district collector has cancelled the licence granted to a Navi Mumbai-based hotel and bar owned by former NCB Mumbai zonal director Sameer Wankhede, officials said on Wednesday.

The licence was obtained by misrepresentation and fraud, Collector Rajesh Narvekar said in an order on Tuesday.

A senior Excise official told PTI that his department will now seal the bar and seize the stock.

Maharashtra cabinet minister Nawab Malik had in November last year claimed that Wankhede owned a permit room and bar at Vashi in Navi Mumbai, the licence for which was obtained in 1997 when he was a minor, and that this was illegal.

Malik had also said that despite being in a government job, Wankhede held a licence to operate the permit room which was against service rules. Wankhede had then denied the minister’s claims.

The state Excise department had subsequently issued a notice to Wankhede in connection with the bar licence obtained by him.

Following his response and examination of the matter, the district collector concluded that Wankhede had obtained the licence on October 27,1997, when he was less than 18 years old, as against the permissible age of 21, an official said.

Section 54 of the Prohibition Act has been invoked for the cancellation of the licence, as per the order.

Malik had levelled a series of allegations against Wankhede, after the latter led a raid on a cruise ship in October last year and claimed to have seized drugs onboard. Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan’s son Aryan Khan and some others were accused in the drugs-on-cruise case.

New Delhi: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday again took a digital tablet wrapped in a traditional bahi-khata style pouch as she headed for Parliament to present the Union Budget 2022-23 in a paperless format just like the last year.

She posed for the traditional ‘briefcase’ picture outside her office along with her team of officials before heading to meet the President. She, however, was holding a tablet instead of a briefcase to present the Budget in a digital format.

“#AatmanirbharBharatKaBudget | From ‘Bahi Khata’ to Made in India’ Tablet Finance Minister @nsitharaman carrying the Budget in the #paperless format in a tablet kept inside a red cover with National Emblem embossed on it instead of the briefcase or ‘Bahi Khata’,” Digital India tweeted.

With tablet carefully kept inside a red coloured cover with a golden coloured national emblem embossed on it instead of the briefcase, she went straight to Parliament after meeting the President at Rashtrapati Bhawan.

Sitharaman, India’s first full-time woman Finance Minister, had in July 2019 ditched the colonial legacy of a Budget Briefcase for the traditional Bahi-Khata to carry Union Budget Papers. She used the same in the following year, and in a pandemic-hit 2021, she swapped traditional papers with a digital tablet for carrying her speech as well as other Budget documents.

Her Budget for the fiscal year beginning April 2022 (FY2022-23) is the Modi government’s 10th straight Budget since 2014 (including one interim Budget presented ahead of general elections in 2019).

She was appointed as the Finance Minister when Narendra Modi swept to power again in the 2019 election and presented her maiden Budget on July 5, 2019. She used a red-cloth folder enclosed with a string and emblazoned with the national emblem to carry the Budget documents.

Earlier, finance ministers in different governments, including her predecessors in the Modi government – Arun Jaitley and Piyush Goyal, used the standard Budget briefcase.

Before Sitharaman, a long-standing colonial tradition in connection with the Budget presentation was broken during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government when the then Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha presented the Budget at 11 am rather than at the traditional time of 5 pm.

Since then, all the governments have been presenting the Budget at 11 am.

The tradition of carrying the Budget briefcase was a British legacy. The word ‘Budget’ originated from the French word ‘bougette’, which means leather briefcase.

The “budget case” tradition started in the 18th century when the Chancellor of the Exchequer or Britain’s budget chief was asked to ‘open the budget’ while presenting his annual statement.

In 1860, the then British budget chief William E Gladstone carried his papers in a red suitcase with the Queen’s monogram in gold. Budget briefcase came into being because Gladstone’s speeches were extraordinarily long, and he needed a briefcase to carry his speech papers.

However, in India, different finance ministers carried different briefcases with colours of red, black, tan or brown.

India’s first finance minister RK Shanmukham Chetty carried a leather portfolio to present the first Budget in 1947. TT Krishnamachari in the 1950s carried something that looked like a file bag. Jawaharlal Nehru carried a black briefcase.

As the finance minister, Manmohan Singh, who delivered the iconic 1991 economic liberalisation proposals, carried a black bag. Pranab Mukherjee, as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s finance minister, used a red briefcase similar to the Gladstone case of Britain.

Piyush Goyal, who presented the interim Budget in February 2019, was the last finance minister to have carried a briefcase. He carried a red one to Parliament.

On Budget day, the Finance Minister of India poses with the Budget bag outside Parliament. In Britain, the Chancellor of the Exchequer poses with his suitcase in front of 11 Downing Street before the Budget speech.

Soon after presenting her maiden Budget in 2019, Sitharaman had said that Bahi-Khata was a break from the colonial legacy.

“Why did I not use a leather bag to carry budget documents? I thought it is high time we move on from the British hangover, to do something on our own. And well, easier for me to carry too,” she had said.

One of her predecessors, P Chidambaram of the Congress, had however scoffed at her choice in that year. “A Congress finance minister in future will bring an iPad,” the former Finance Minister had said when asked to comment on the Bahi Khata.

And Sitharaman did just that in 2021 and again this year.

New Delhi: Enforcement Directorate officer Rajeshwar Singh has been granted voluntary retirement from service (VRS) by the Union government. He is expected to join the BJP and contest the upcoming Assembly polls in Uttar Pradesh.

Singh, who was serving as the joint director of the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in Lucknow so far, tweeted to announce that he was ‘hanging up his boots’.

Today my request for voluntary retirement (VRS) from the service of Government of India has been approved. The caravan of 24 years of tireless and conscientious hard work, carried out in a relentless manner, has reached a point of transition today, he stated in a letter attached with the Twitter post on Monday night.

The officer began his civil service career with the Uttar Pradesh Police, where he served for about 10 years while the rest were in the ED, a federal probe agency that investigates money laundering and foreign exchange violation crimes.

As my professional journey of 24 years turns to a transition today, on this occasion, I express my deep seated gratitude to the Hon PM Shri @narendramodi ji, Hon HM Shri @AmitShah ji and FM Smt @nsitharaman ji, CM Shri @myogiadityanath ji, Shri S K Mishra, Director ED and Uttar Pradesh Police. I have learned a lot while working with these organizations for so many years.

I join the PM’s mission to make India a Vishwa Guru, as a participant, to contribute with conviction and integrity in this process of nation-building, he said.

The officer had applied for VRS late last year.

Sources said he may contest the Uttar Pradesh polls on a BJP ticket. A B.Tech and PhD in police, human rights and social justice, Singh joined the ED in 2007 on deputation.

He was permanently absorbed into the ED cadre in 2014 and has headed some high-profile investigations into the 2G spectrum allocation case, the 2010 Commonwealth Games, the money laundering cases against former Union finance minister P Chidambaram and his son Karti Chidambaram, Andhra Pradesh chief minister Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy and former Jharkhand chief minister Madhu Koda, the Aircel Maxis and VVIP choppers case.

Assets worth about Rs 4,000 crore were attached in his probes.

I am deeply satisfied that despite various threats and pressure tactics from unscrupulously corrupt leaders, my courage to do my job without bowing down has been appreciated time and again by the Hon’ble Supreme Court, he stated.

The officer has had a share of controversies, including an instance in June 2018, when the Finance Ministry submitted a secret report to the Supreme Court, apparently carrying details of a phone call received by the officer from Dubai.

The report is said to have been prepared by country’s external intelligence agency Research and Analysis Wing and handed over to the Department of Revenue in the Finance Ministry, under which the ED functions.

The then ED director Karnal Singh had issued a press statement saying the overseas call received by Rajeshwar Singh pertained to an ongoing investigation and that he was a responsible officer with outstanding career records.

The government had also launched an investigation against Rajeshwar Singh for his letter in which he had made a scathing attack on the then revenue secretary Hasmukh Adhia questioning him if the latter had developed animosity against him by siding with scamsters and their affiliates ?

Rajeshwar Singh was subsequently issued a notice seeking an explanation for alleged insubordination in the context of this letter by the revenue department, to which he has replied with a regret and had explained his side of the story.

That letter, sources had said, was sent through official channels to the agency’s chief Karnal Singh but it was never forwarded to Adhia.

Accusations of certain other alleged irregularities made against Singh were probed by the ED, the CBI and the Central Vigilance Commission, and a report was sent to the court and the government stating that there was no merit in the allegations and hence the inquiry was closed.

Singh, who carried out numerous encounters during his stint in the uniform, is married to IPS officer Laxmi Singh, who is currently serving as the Inspector General of Lucknow police range.

Dubai: The United Arab Emirates announced Monday it is introducing for the first time a federal corporate tax on business earnings. It’s the latest measure to bring the country in line with many governments worldwide but one that also chips away at its competitive advantage.

The UAE home to Abu Dhabi, Dubai and five other emirates has been steadily introducing new taxes as it seeks to diversify revenue from its mainstay of oil. It is unclear how the new 9% corporate tax on earnings will impact consumers as some businesses could raise their prices as a result.

Businesses across various sectors in the UAE are still reeling from the effects of the coronavirus pandemic. Untold numbers of foreigners, who comprise around 90% of the UAE’s population, lost their jobs amid the pandemic and salaries were slashed in key industries such as tourism, real estate and the construction sector.

The UAE has recently taken steps to try and retain foreign investors, including loosening restrictions on business ownership rules and granting longer-term visas for some. It has also liberalised some of its Islamic laws around alcohol and unmarried couples, and moved to a Monday-Friday workweek.

Still, the UAE faces steep competition from neighbouring Saudi Arabia, which is working overtime to attract businesses and families to relocate to the kingdom.

The UAE’s Ministry of Finance said the new federal tax of 9% on profits would be effective starting June 1, 2023. The corporate tax will not apply to personal income from employment, real estate and other investments, or to income earned from a business licensed outside the UAE.

The UAE has long positioned itself as a place where foreign investors are welcome and where incomes are tax free. Low taxes and a friendly business environment helped to transform the 50-year-old nation over the years.

The new corporate tax also does not apply to companies in Emirati free zones unless they conduct their business onshore. Another exception are oil and gas companies, which are subject to their own tax schemes.

Business profits of up to roughly 102,000 will not be taxed, the ministry said, in order to support small businesses and startups. Furthermore, foreign taxes can be credited against the UAE’s corporate tax to avoid double taxation. The tax scheme will allow UAE business groups to be taxed as a single entity or apply for relief amid losses or restructuring.

Various emirates in the UAE have been steadily introducing fees and taxes in past years. After oil prices dipped dramatically in mid-2015, the government reduced some subsidies and imposed a 5% value added tax on most goods and services, a standard tax that is still lower than in many countries around the world.

Mangaluru: Senior leader C M Ibrahim will never leave the Congress, newly appointed deputy leader of the Congress legislature party in Karnataka U T Khader said on Monday.

Addressing reporters here, Khader said there is no question of the senior leader quitting the party. The party has always recognised Ibrahim’s contributions and will continue to do so in future, Khader said.

Khader also said there is no link between his appointment as CLP deputy leader and the disgruntlement of Ibrahim.

Journalist Rana Ayyub

Mumbai: Mumbai Police registered an FIR against unidentified persons for posting obscene comments and issuing death threats to journalist Rana Ayyub on her social media accounts, a police official said on Monday.

The FIR was registered by the west region cyber police station on Sunday under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) including 354-A (Sexual harassment), and the Information Technology Act on a complaint filed by Rana Ayyub, he said, adding that further investigation is underway.

“Mumbai Police has registered an FIR against those who disseminated fake news, morphed tweets and death and rape threats against me. About time these brazen and consolidated acts of online violence are stopped and the perpetrators brought to book, Rana Ayyub tweeted.