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Archives for June 2018

No danger to Kumaraswamy govt, JD(S) supremo Deve Gowda says,

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Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy will present the budget on July 5th and there would be no danger to his government, said former Prime Minister and JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda amid strains in the ruling Congress-JD(S) coalition government in Karnataka.

Speaking to reporters in New Delhi Mr. Gowda said, “Kumaraswamy will present the budget on July 5th. There is no anxiety, he will do it. The budget will get passed by July 12th; there will be no danger to the government. There is anxiety among you (the media)…now go back with satisfaction.”

Speaking on former chief minister Siddaramaiah’s opposition to budget presentation, Gowda said, “Let there be no discussion on this (topic), the budget will be presented, the matter ends.”

Gowda is in Delhi to attend the meeting of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Defence, of which he is a member. He spoke on the speculations that he may be meeting senior Congress leaders and clarified that no such meeting with any Congress leader has been scheduled.

“GAMERZ LOOP” BE THE FIRST TO EXPERIENCE

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GAMERZ LOOP is a new sports-centric immersive and interactive entertainment center. One of the largest indoor entertainments is now at the heart of the Central Bangalore (Kamaraj Road, next to Commercial Street). All elements of fun – be it food, games or celebrations – are under one roof. Offering fresh Virtual Reality experiences, glow-in-the-dark indoor paintball, indoor net cricket and so much, Gamerz Loop is now the absolute favorite fun destination for the shoppers in Commercial Street.

What’s more, there are a host of delectable treats to savour at the Café Amore, which is the only A/C food court in Commercial Street, conveniently placed inside Gamerz Loop. With brands like Kapoor’s Café, Chicking, Gelato and more, Café Amore is where hungry shoppers come to fill up their appetite.

Gamerz Loop is ideal for all ages above 6 years. Teenagers, Couples and entire families are sure to have great fun. Gamerz Loop is also ideal for Corporate get-togethers, Team Outing, Team Building, Birthday Parties etc., considering that great food and fun are just a snap-of-a-finger away. The party hall, aptly called Gala Land, is where groups thrive.

Gamerz Loop has a beautifully designed Kid’s Zone that comes with a special go-kart zone where kids can try their hands at driving. Professional care managers are available to keep an eye on the high-spirited lot!

Whether you’re a PS-4 obsessed gamer or just somebody looking for a nice play to hang out with their friends, Gamerz Loop is clearly the next place in your bucket list.

One year of GST: Long way to go for a simple, uniform tax regime

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Touted as the biggest economic reform since Independence, the Goods and Services Tax (GST) was supposed to replace the complex indirect tax system prevalent in the country with a more simplified, uniform regime.

As its roll-out completes one year on June 30, it can be argued that while India has come a long way from a complicated taxation system, with over a dozen different taxes and many more cesses, GST is still far away from an ideal taxation regime.

Also, the one year journey of the GST has not been a smooth one either with glitches and teething problems experienced from day one. While many of those glitches were addressed by a proactive government, some still remain to be resolved including simplification of return filing and further rationalisation of tax rates.

According to NITI Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar: “GST has put the economy on a completely different paradigm now because more and more pressure will be on people to register under GST and bring their economic activity into the formal sector.”

It is not enough only to analyse the one year journey, but it is important to understand the future roadmap.

While many economist would argue that an ideal GST structure should have a universal coverage and a single tax rate, most would also agree that it was not practical for a country like India with vast economic disparities. This is a stand the government has also maintained often giving the example that “a BMW car and a Hawai ‘chappal’ (flip-flops) can’t be taxed at the same rate”.

However, having six different rates — 5, 12, 18 and 28 per cent apart from some items being taxed at zero per cent and gold at 3 per cent — makes India’s GST one of the most complex in the world, something acknowledged by the World Bank in its biannual India Development Update report.

“To make things worse, petroleum products, power and real estate have been kept outside the GST ambit,” the report noted.

It added that not only India has one of the largest number of tax slabs, but at 28 per cent, it has the highest standard GST rate in Asia and the second highest in the world after Chile.

Soon after the new indirect tax system was rolled out, NITI Aayog Member Bibek Debroy — who is now also the chairman of the Prime Minister’s Economic Advisory Council — had told IANS that “India is a long way off from the ideal GST structure and it may not get there anytime in the near future”.

Favouring a maximum of three GST rates with all items covered, Debroy had said that starting with seven rates, “depending on how you count it”, has put India in a situation where it may not get to the ideal GST.

Fast forward to present. The economy is still grappling with the rather high multiplicity of tax rates while also debating bringing petroleum products, electricity and other items into the GST net with little clarity in the picture.

While there has been expression of intent by the government to merge some of the tax slabs, there has been little progress on that front so far.

Right from the first day of the roll-out on July 1 last year, there were technical glitches appearing on the GST Network portal causing a lot of hardship to taxpayers in registering on the network. There were often instances of the portal not being able to take the load of last-minute rush to file returns, forcing the government to postpone the filing deadlines several times.

The glitches also led to export refunds piling up, resulting in a grave situation of cash crunch for exporters, whose working capital was getting blocked.

However, to address this, the government initiated two special fortnight-long drives (extended by a few days later) to process pending refunds — one in March and another in June — clearing a major portion of the backlog while some still remains.

To address the GST network issues, the GST Council has set up a five-member ministerial panel headed by Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Modi to oversee its functioning and smoothen the process.

“GST is a very huge and complex exercise and one has to be honest that it could be implemented better and the details could have been (better) thought through,” the NITI Aayog’s Kumar told IANS.

While there was consensus that no reform could be undertaken without some glitches and teething problems, which could be addressed as we go along, one major concern was that GST might lead to some loss of revenue, especially for the states.

This fear almost came true when GST collections fell for two consecutive months from over Rs 92,000 crore (later revised to Rs 95,132 crore) in September to Rs 83,346 crore (later revised to Rs 85,931 crore) in October, and Rs 80,808 crore (later revised to Rs 83,716 crore) in November.

This prompted the GST Council in its December meeting to prematurely roll out the e-way bill mechanism for inter-state movement of goods from February 1 to plug gaps and check tax evasion.

The e-way bill portal crashed on Day One prompting the government to extend the trial period and eventually postponing the roll-out to April 1.

According to the NITI Aayog Vice Chairman, in a country like India, which is proud of its IT sector, there is hardly any excuse for the IT systems not to work.

However, when the system was rolled out the second time on April 1, the technical issues were sorted out and infrastructure boosted enough for a smooth implementation. The revenue collections also picked up subsequently crossing the Rs 1 lakh crore mark in March (collected in April) — which was, however, attributed to the financial year-end effect — and then again showing credible buoyancy in April when it crossed the Rs 94,000 crore.

Kumar said now that the GST has stabilised, it would give a massive fillip to economic activity.

Finance Secretary Hasmukh Adhia said earlier this week that GST had now entered a “smooth phase” with good tax compliance. He added the priority of the government would now be simplification of tax return forms.

Deloitte India Partner Prashant Deshpande said while GST has resolved the issues of multiple taxable events and double taxation, there are some concerns which still need to be addressed.

“On the legislation side, GST can be improved by extending it to petroleum products, electricity, land and building which are currently taxed under old laws… The number of tiers in tax rate structure are required to be reduced to resolve classification issues,” Deshpande told IANS.

On the execution side, he added, prime concern is the GST compliance infrastructure “which is complex and cumbersome” which needs to be replaced with “a simple and robust compliance system”.

It would a while before such a system comes into effect.

‘Instagram Lite’ is quietly here to add another billion users

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In a bid to add another billion users from emerging markets including India, Facebook-owned Instagram has quietly released a lighter version of its app called “Instagram Lite” for Android on Google Play App Store.

Although there is no official statement yet from Facebook, the launch of ‘Instagram Lite’ app appears to a pilot run among a select countries to begin with.

There are millions of smartphone users in India who still have old variants with slow 2G Internet connectivity and “Instagram Lite” can help them get in touch with friends and family.

“The ‘Instagram Lite’ app is small, allowing you to save space on your phone and download it quickly,” read the app’s description on Play Store.

“At just 573 kilobytes, ‘Instagram Lite’ is 1/55th the size of Instagram’s 32MP main app. It lets you filter and post photos to the feed or Stories, watch Stories and browse the Explore page, but currently lacks the options to share videos or Direct message friends,” TechCrunch reported on Thursday.

With this new version of the photo messaging app, users using older phones with less storage space or slower internet connections, would have access to Instagram without having to delete photos, apps or wait longer and pay more to download it.

The app would run on Android versions 5.0 and up.

“We are testing a new version of Instagram for Android that takes up less space on your device, uses less data and starts faster,” an Instagram spokesperson told TechCrunch earlier.

With over a billion users, Instagram is a very popular app from the Facebook family.

Facebook launched “Facebook Lite” in 2015 which had 200 million users by the end of last year. Facebook “Messenger Lite” came in April this year.

Aiming to take on Google-owned YouTube, Instagram this month announced it would allow users to upload videos up to one hour in length, up from the previous one-minute limit.

“We launched IGTV (a button inside the Instagram home screen, as well as a standalone app) at an event featuring many of the Instagram creators who’ll make it great,” the company wrote in a blog post.

Not just celebrities, IGTV will let all users be a creator and let them upload vertical videos through Instagram’s app or the web.

Justice Anthony Kennedy to retire from US Supreme Court

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On April 10, 2017, Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., administered the Constitutional Oath to the Honorable Neil M. Gorsuch in a private ceremony attended by the Justices of the Supreme Court and members of the Gorsuch family. The oath was administered in the Justices’ Conference Room at the Supreme Court Building. Justice Anthony M. Kennedy and Judge Neil M. Gorsuch in the Justices’ Conference Room, Supreme Court Building.


Justice Anthony Kennedy, who provided key votes for same sex-marriage, abortion access and affirmative action, has announced his retirement from the US Supreme Court, a move that will give the President a chance to replace the pivotal justice and solidify a more conservative majority.

“It has been the greatest honour and privilege to serve our nation in the federal judiciary for 43 years, 30 of those years on the Supreme Court,” The Washington Post quoted the 81-year-old as saying in a statement released on Wednesday, his last day of the term.

He said his final day in office will be July 31.

Kennedy hand-delivered a short letter of resignation to President Donald Trump, shortly after a half hour meeting at the White House.

“Please permit me by this letter to express my profound gratitude for having had the privilege to seek in each case how best to know, interpret and defend the Constitution and the laws that must always conform to its mandates and promises,” Justice Kennedy wrote to Trump.

Trump said he held Kennedy in high esteem, reports CNN.

“He’s been a great justice of the Supreme Court… He is a man who’s displayed great vision, he’s displayed tremendous vision.”

Trump also announced that a search for a replacement from a list of 25 conservative jurists he had previously identified as candidates for the court’s next vacancy will begin immediately, reports The New York Times.

Potential nominees include Brett M. Kavanaugh, a federal appellate judge for the District of Columbia Circuit who clerked for Justice Kennedy at the Supreme Court.

Another possibility is Judge Thomas M. Hardiman of the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, whom Trump seriously considered last year to replace Justice Antonin Scalia, who died in 2016. The President chose Judge Neil M. Gorsuch instead.

Justice Kennedy, a Californian and graduate of Harvard Law School, was appointed to the Supreme Court by President Ronald Reagan in 1987.

He wrote some of the country’s most important gay rights decisions and helped to drastically shift the US legal treatment of gays, lesbians and transgender people.

In 2015, he wrote the court’s opinion that established the right for gay people to marry each other.

He determined how far a government may intrude on a woman’s right to an abortion; whether attempts to curtail the corrupting influence of campaign contributions violated free speech; and how and when it was appropriate for the government to exercise affirmative action, The Washington Post reported.

His decisions shielded juveniles and the intellectually disabled from death penalty.

Businessman shot dead in Bihar

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Gunmen shot dead a businessman in Bihar’s Saran district on Thursday, triggering violent protests, police said.

Shaukat Ali was targeted near the Matitar High School, barely 100 meters away from his residence.

The victim, who ran a tent and catering business and a chicken farm, was quite popular, neighbors said regretted the loss. He was returning from his chicken farm.

Angry over the killing, hundreds blocked roads in the area.

This was the second such incident in a week. Earlier, Arvind Choudhary, a businessman from Patna, in his early 40s, was shot dead in Sugauli near Motihari, the district headquarters of East Champaran.

To protect daughters from harassment, father writes letter to PM Modi

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A man from Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath seeking protection for his four young daughters.

The father’s letter came on the same day when India was declared the most dangerous country in the world to be a woman, according to a Thomson Reuters survey.

In the letter, the father has stated that his four daughters are being harassed by young men in the neighborhood.

The harassment takes place on a daily basis and has reached such a level that the girls have stopped attending madrassa and are forced to stay indoors. However, despite staying indoors the harassment does not end there.

Recently, the men barged into their home and threatened them of being attacked with acid.

Speaking to news agency ANI, one of the girls said, “We stopped going to madrasas due to it (harassment). They barged into our house, threatened us of acid attack. Even living at home has become difficult.”

Apart from reaching out to the police, the man has appealed to PM Modi and CM Yogi Aditynath to provide security and to look into the matter at the earliest.

“We have received a complaint from a man who alleged that his four daughters are being harassed by few men in the neighborhood. It is difficult for them to even get out of the house. Further investigation is underway,” said police officer Rajesh Kumar.

Iran dismisses US efforts to ban Iranian oil as ‘futile’

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The US efforts to ban Iran’s oil exports will be futile as it is not an easy task to block the country’s crude from the global market, an Iranian oil official said on Wednesday.

Although some European companies, such as Shell and Total, have stopped buying Iranian oil over the past few weeks, Iran is still exporting oil to Europe, Asia and elsewhere in the world, officials at the Iranian Petroleum Ministry said.

A day earlier, a senior US State Department official said told the US has been pushing its allies to stop oil imports from Iran by November 4, Xinhua reported.

“This big claim (of cutting Iran oil supply) is not feasible. Last month, Iran exported 2.8 million barrels of crude oil and condensate per day,” the Iranian official said.

“Removing this from the global market in a few months is not possible,” the Iranian official said.

However, “Iran is prepared for the worst-case scenarios” in case the US pressures take effect, he noted.

Meanwhile, “there is no surplus capacity for countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to supply oil for a long term,” the official pointed out.

Following US President Donald Trump’s decision to quit the historic Iran nuclear pact on May 8, Washington vowed to re-impose sanctions against Iran and inflict punishments including secondary sanctions on countries that have business links with the Islamic republic.

Firms doing business in Iran were given up to 180 days to terminate investments, before they risk huge fines.

The US withdrawal from the landmark nuclear deal has been widely criticized, as some of its major European allies have been working to prevent the 2015 deal from falling apart.

All-round India hammer Ireland by 76 runs in first T20I

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India rode on an all-around effort to kick off their English summer with a 76-run thrashing of minnows Ireland in the first of the two-match T20I series here on Wednesday.

Put into bat, the visitors posted a commanding 208/5, thanks to brilliant half-centuries from seasoned openers Rohit Sharma (97 off 61 balls; 4×8, 6×5) and Shikhar (74 off 45 balls; 4×5, 6×5) before the bowlers sprung into action to restrict the hosts for a meager 132/9.

Ireland’s chase surrounded around opener James Shannon’s (60 off 35; 4×5, 6×4) half-century as all the other batsmen faltered in reading India’s wrist spin twins — Yuzvendra Chahal (3/38) and Kuldeep Yadav (4/21).

Ireland batsmen’s weakness against quality spin bowling was clearly exposed as wickets started to crumble one after the other as soon as skipper Virat Kohli employed Chahal and Kuldeep.

With the powerplay yielding 43 runs for the loss of Paul Sterling’s (1) wicket, Chahal packed back Irish No.3 Andrew Balbirnie (11) stumped by Mahendra Singh Dhoni off just his third ball, before getting Kevin O’ Brien (10) and skipper Gary Wilson (5) off successive deliveries.

Kuldeep too had a similar story, getting his first wicket of Simi Singh (7) off his third ball before getting the big fish Shannon trapped in front.

The Chinaman completed his spell with two more wickets –Stuart Thompson (12) and Stuart Poynter (7) — as the hosts were left high and dry with the scoreboard reading 123/8.

Paceman Jasprit Bumrah (2/19), who drew first blood with the wicket of Sterling, came back to complete the proceedings with the wicket of George Dockrell (9) as the hosts expectedly ended on the losing side.

Earlier, Rohit and Dhawan forged the second highest opening stand of 160 runs to help India post a commanding 208/5 despite paceman Peter Chase’s heroics in the final over, where he picked three quick wickets.

The hapless Irish attack drastically failed to control the onslaught from the ruthless Indian openers as the score swelled to 150 runs by the 16th over with Dhawan bringing up his fifty off mere 27 balls and the right-hander racing to his half ton in 39 deliveries.

But the departure of Dhawan unfolded a drama that saw four more wickets — Suresh Raina (10), Rohit, Dhoni (11), Kohli (0) falling in quick succession, the later three courtesy Chase’s immaculate final over.

Brief Scores: India 208/5 (Rohit Sharma 97, Shikhar Dhawan 74; Peter Chase 4/35) beat Ireland 132/9 (James Shannon 60; Kuldeep Yadav 4/21, Yuzvendra Chahal 3/38, Jasprit Bumrah 2/19) by 76 runs.

Malaysian Open: Sindhu, Nehwal, Srikanth to play pre-quarterfinal

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In Malaysian Open Badminton, PV Sindhu, Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth will play their pre-quarterfinal matches in Kuala Lumpur today (Thursday, June 28).

While world number three Sindhu will shuttle it out against local girl Lee Ying Ying, Saina will face world number two Akane Yamaguchi of Japan.

In Men’s Singles, fourth-seeded Srikanth will take on Taiwan’s Wang Tzu-wei for a place in the quarterfinals.

Hindusthan Samachar/Shri Ram Shaw

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