The Delhi High Court has stayed the demand of Rs 462 crore made on Hindustan Unilever Ltd. by the National Anti-Profiteering Authority, which claimed that the consumer goods major failed to pass on the benefits of lower goods and service tax rate.

The court directed the authority that no coercive action be taken, and no penalty proceedings be continued against HUL until it makes a final determination on the matter.

Since the matter involves issues requiring detailed examination of contentions of both the parties, the court asked HUL to deposit Rs 90 crore in two installments (Rs 50 crore by March 15 and Rs 40 crore by May 15) to the Consumer Welfare Fund by May 15.

The authority ruled in December that HUL profiteered Rs 419.67 crore due to sales realisation following an increase in base prices after a GST rate cut in two slabs—from 28 percent to 18 percent and 18 percent to 12 percent.

HUL was also accused of availing transition credit of Rs 76.06 crore, which wasn’t passed to consumers by reducing prices. The company’s redistribution stockists wrongly availed input tax credit of Rs 36.19 crore at 28 percent GST, when it was cut, on several items, to 18 percent.

Nasheman News :A court-appointed auditors informed the Supreme Court that posh flats which were part of Amrapali Group were booked on sums as low as Re 1, Rs 5 and Rs 11 per sq.ft in the name of over 500 people.

The forensic auditors issued notices to 655 people on whose names “benami” flats were booked but no one was found in 122 such locations, the auditors told the top court while submitting an interim report.

Two audit forensic auditors — Pawan Kumar Agarwal and Ravi Bhatia — told a bench of Justice Arun Mishra and Justice Uday Umesh Lalit that it was found that 23 firms which were part of Amrapali consortium were floated in the name of office staff. These firms were fronts to divert home buyers’ money.

The auditors said that Chief Financial Officer Chander Wadhwa had transferred Rs 4.75 crore to “unidentified persons” on October 23, 2018.

On October 26, 2018, Wadhwa answered all questions of the bench and apologised for his early memory loss. On October 26, 2018, the top court had directed Wadhwa to extend full co-operation and directed Amrapali Group of companies to furnish details of all the bank accounts of its 46 companies.

The court warned Wadhwa of contempt proceedings for his action and said that he is putting spoke in the wheels of justice.

“You very well knew that questions will be asked by the court and hence you transferred the money. We want the entire tranche of money back in seven days’ time,” the bench said.

The auditor also told the bench that Amrapali Group had challenged the Income Tax order related to deleting of the paragraph which mentioned of Rs 200 bogus bills and vouchers for purchasing raw materials.

The court asked to present the orders of the Income Tax Department.

The agreement between JP Morgan Real Estate fund and Amrapali Group were in violation of the provisions of law, the auditors told the court.

The court warned that it may direct Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) to probe the matter.

However, JP Morgan counsel told the court that it would explain everything about the agreement.

The court has listed the matter for further hearing on January 24 and sought legal suggestions on the issue.

The court was hearing various petitions filed by home buyers seeking possession of over 40,000 flats booked in the projects of Amrapali Group.

By: Faizan Rizwan & Shaheen Raaj

What’s App Messages No Longer Need To Be Typed

What’s App user can now directly start dictating a message from within the app using a new mic icon on the keyboard. What’s App now has a mic feature that will let users   dictate messages & send to contacts. This means What’s App users will no longer need to type messages that can simply be dictated, though they will need to manually press send in order to send messages across. The dictation feature is available for What’s App for Android & iOS. The dictation feature is already available for smart voice assistants such as Google Assistant & Siri. However, the feature is now in-built in What’s App & users can directly start dictating a message from within the app using a new mic icon on the keyboard. To use the dictation feature, users will need to open What’s App & then the contact they wish to send message to, next, pull out the keyboard used for typing What’s App message. What’s App user on Android will find a black mic icon on top right, while this icon is present on bottom right for iOS users. Click on the mic icon to start dictating a message. It does seem to understand to put ‘,’ when one says “comma” & ‘?’ when “question mark” is said, but puts the “full stop” word itself instead of an actual ‘.’. Nevertheless, when done dictating a message, one will need to press the send button to finally send. What’s App user can edit the message before sending, though that will need to be done by typing. The feature might come in handy for long messages when one can just use their voice instead of fingers to frame a message. 

Nasheman News : The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved capital infusion of Rs 6,000 crore in Export-Import Bank of India (EXIM Bank) through recapitalisation bonds to boost the bank’s capacity in export financing.

“The EXIM Bank will be infused with Rs 4,500 crore before March and Rs 1,500 crore in the next fiscal,” Union Minister Piyush Goyal told reporters after the Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Goyal said the Cabinet has further approved raising the authorised share capital of the bank from Rs 10,000 crore to Rs 20,000 crore.

“The capital infusion will improve the bank’s capacity to support the exporters and importers. This will boost export financing,” he said.

The minister said India’s textile industry has huge export potential and that the government with this step will enable EXIM Bank to better support the textile exporters with adequate lines of credit.

Goyal also said the strengthening of EXIM Bank will help in achieving the strategic interests of the country.

Nasheman News : YouTube videos that depict dangerous or emotionally distressing “pranks” have been banned from the platform.

The move comes in response to the so-called “challenges” that have sometimes resulted in death or injury, the BBC reported on Wednesday.

The Google-owned video sharing site said such material had “no place on YouTube”.

But enforcing its new rules on pranks may prove to be difficult, given ambiguity over what may or may not be considered harmful.

“YouTube is home to many beloved viral challenges and pranks,” a message added to the site’s FAQ section read.

“That said, we’ve always had policies to make sure what’s funny doesn’t cross the line into also being harmful or dangerous.

“Our Community Guidelines prohibit content that encourages dangerous activities that are likely to result in serious harm.”

From now on, the site said it would not allow videos that featured “pranks with a perceived danger of serious physical injury”.

This includes pranks where someone is tricked into thinking they are in severe danger, even if no real threat existed.

The site added: “We also don’t allow pranks that cause children to experience severe emotional distress, meaning something so bad that it could leave the child traumatized for life.”

Recently, a challenge inspired by a scene in Netflix show Birdbox involved carrying out activities – such as driving – while blindfolded. At least one person is known to have crashed as a result.

Nasheman News :  In a renewed push for Artificial Intelligence (AI)-driven Intelligent Cloud and Intelligent Edge use cases in the country, Microsoft India on Wednesday said there is highest penetration of AI skills among the workforce that will fuel digital transformation in the country sooner than thought.

“A tectonic shift is happening in AI. Nearly 85 per cent of enterprises globally will use AI in some form or the other by 2020. Indian firms are now fast catching up,” Anant Maheshwari, President, Microsoft India, told reporters at the company’s flagship Media and Analysts’ Day here.

Nearly eight per cent of GDP components in India are currently impacted by digital technologies and by 2021, 60 per cent of those will be impacted.

“Almost every sector is becoming digital and that transformation is impacting every company in India,” stressed Maheshwari.

Today, 97 per cent of the top banks, 75 per cent of the top retailers, 81 per cent of the top auto firms, 75 per cent of the top pharma players and 67 per cent of the top healthcare firms are Microsoft’s customers in India.

Wipro, Future Generali, L&T Technology Services and Apollo Hospitals are some of the key customers.

“With over 9,500 partners, nearly 3,000 Cloud partners and 88 own IP-ready partners, we are ready to unlock the full potential of AI, Cloud and data for the Indian firms,” stressed the Microsoft India President.

Over 700 AI-driven enterprises in India today are driving businesses with New Age technologies.

Driven by Intelligent Cloud, Intelligent Edge and spurt of data, AI and its growing use cases are set to change the game.

Microsoft currently has 54 Azure Cloud regions — more than AWS and Google combined.

“We will continue to work closely with the countries when it comes to data localisation. India already has three Azure regions which shows how serious we are for keeping data within the boundaries,” said Maheshwari.

Nasheman News : In a renewed push for Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its use cases in India, Microsoft India on Wednesday said there is highest penetration of AI skills among the workforce that will fuel digital transformation in the country sooner than thought.

“A techtonic shift is happening in AI. Nearly 85 per cent of enterprises globally will use AI in some form or the other by 2020. Indian firms are now fast catching up,” Anant Maheshwari, President, Microsoft India, told reporters on the company’s flagship Media and Analyst Days here.

Nearly eight per cent of GDP components in India are currently impacted by digital technologies and by 2021, 60 per cent of those will be impacted.

“Almost every sector is becoming digital and that transformation is impacting every company in India across the spectrum,” stressed Maheshwari.

Driven by Intelligent Cloud, Intelligent Edge and spurt of data, AI and its growing use cases are set to change the game.

Microsoft currently has 54 Azure Cloud regions — more than AWS and Google combined.

“We will continue to work closely with the countries when it comes to data localisation. India already has three Azure regions which shows how serious we are for keeping data within the boundaries,” said Maheshwari.

Toshiba (TEC) Singapore Inks Partnership : 

Toshiba (TEC) Singapore Pvt Ltd announced the partnership with Galtech Infosolutions Pvt Ltd for the sale & service distribution of Toshiba multi-function office peripheral systems. With Galtech’s strong business presence & network in Northern & Southern parts of India, Toshiba (TEC) & Galtech collaboration is a powerful step forward in expansion of Toshiba’s award winning MFPs penetration across India. Galtech Infosolutions Pvt Ltd. is a 1 stop solution provider for Office Automation requirements. The Company’s main products include Multifunction Printers, Projectors, Interactive Flat Panel Displays & Wireless Presentation Devices. 47 years of extensive business experience in the field, coupled with a strong core value to bring highest level of service satisfaction to its customers, founding members of Galtech have built for themselves a name in the list of top service providers in India. Toshiba (TEC) Singapore is part of Toshiba (TEC) Corporation, a leading provider of technology solutions, operating across multiple industries, ranging from retail, education & business services to hospitality & manufacturing. With headquarters in Japan & over 80 subsidiaries worldwide, Toshiba (TEC) Corporation helps organizations transform the way they create, record, share, manage & display information.

Wholesale inflation eased to an eight-month low in December, strengthening views among some economists the central bank could ease its monetary policy stance next month as the country faces a slowdown in manufacturing.

Annual wholesale price inflation edged down to 3.80 per cent last month, as food prices hardly rose and fuel cost increases almost halved, government data showed on Monday. The outcome was lower than a provisional 4.64 per cent rise in November and below a 4.42 per cent increase forecast by economists in a poll by news agency Reuters.

The Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee, which mainly monitors retail inflation data and kept interest rates unchanged at a meeting last month, will have leeway to soften its monetary stance at its February 7 meeting, say economists.

“With wholesale and retail inflation easing, we expect the RBI to soften its monetary policy stance at its next meeting,” said Devindra Kumar Pant, chief economist, India Ratings and Research, an arm of Fitch Ratings.

Retail inflation data will be released later on Monday and economists have projected prices may have eased to its lowest since June 2017.

Annual growth in the country’s industrial output in November slumped to 0.5 per cent from an upwardly revised 8.4 per cent in October, on a slowdown in auto and garment manufacturing. The economic weakness is a problem for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has already been struggling to meet ambitious job creation targets, ahead of an election, which has to be held by May.

India’s total passenger vehicle sales for December fell 0.43 per cent to 2,38,692 units from a year earlier, data released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) showed.

Wholesale food prices in December remained almost flat, up 0.07 per cent from a year earlier compared with a 1.96 per cent fall a month earlier. The figures indicate that rural incomes remain under pressure while consumers are benefitting from easing inflation.

“A deflationary trend in many food items for the last few months only shows that farmers’ incomes are not rising,” said Mr Pant.

[Nasheman news] San Francisco Video-sharing giant YouTube has announced that it will kill the feature that allows users to automatically share their YouTube Activity on micro-blogging site Twitter after January 31.

Twitter currently allow users to share their YouTube activity via options such as going to YouTube Settings, then to Connected apps and choosing “Share your public activity to Twitter”.

Instead, the platform is urging users to share videos on social networks directly from YouTube via the Share button. 

Users will see an option to Share on social platforms right after a successful new video upload, The Star reported late on Saturday.

However, users would still be able to add links from their social media to their YouTube channels and share videos from pages. 

The platform also stated that this new update will not affect items that have already been shared on Twitter prior to the removal date. Those posted activities will remain on Twitter, the report added.