Govt allows Aadhaar e-KYC for new mobile connections

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Forget the bulky paperwork, you can now apply, validate and activate new pre-paid and post-paid mobile connections using your Aadhaar card and fingerprint at the point of sale.

 

The government today issued e-KYC guidelines to make the online process of application and authentication faster and simpler for subscribers. In contrast to the existing document-based process, the move is intended to cut down time for SIM activation as KYC is verified instantly.

 

In e-KYC, a customer through her Aadhaar number and biometrics will online authorise UIDAI to provide demographic details such as name, address, date of birth and gender, along with the digitally-signed photograph, to the mobile operator.

 

“Digitally-signed electronic KYC data provided by UIDAI is machine readable, making it possible for licensees to directly store it as customer record in their database for the purpose of issuing a mobile connection,” a DoT notification said. COAI Director General Rajan Mathews felt that the move will be helpful for all stakeholders as it simplifies activation, eases verification process and enhances security.

 

“Earlier, the entire verification process would last 8-10 hours and it will now be greatly reduced,” he hoped. Bharti Airtel plans to start rolling out Aadhaar-based e-KYC solutions this week, MD and CEO (India and South Asia) Gopal Vittal said.

 

Vodafone India termed the e-KYC solution as “an instant, secure and green mobile subscriber verification project” and said all stakeholders will benefit from it. Customers will soon be able to walk in with their Aadhaar card in any of the Vodafone stores and walk out connected within minutes, the company statement read.

 

“For the consumer, instant activation means better experience and security of personal confidential information. For Vodafone, it will improve quality of sales as well as regulatory compliance. For the regulator, it not only means a green initiative, but hassle-free governance and accurate audit results,” said Sunil Sood, MD and CEO, Vodafone India.

 

According to Hemant Joshi, Partner, Deloitte Haskins & Sells, the move will bring down the cost of subscriber acquisition significantly as telecom companies will not have to spend on physical transportation of forms, verification, scanning and storage. “Also, it would help easier compliance and reduction in litigation on account of audit carried out by term cell,” Joshi said.

Source: http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/govt-allows-aadhaar-e-kyc-for-new-mobile-connections_7288301.html

FPI equity buys in India touch $5.4 bn this year

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Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) have bought equities worth $5.4 billion in the Indian markets in 2016 so far, according to data obtained from Bloomberg. This makes India the third biggest destination for FPIs after Taiwan and South Korea which have seen inflows of $13.6 billion and $8.1 billion, respectively, reports fe Bureau in Mumbai.

 

Thailand ranks fourth with foreign inflows of $ 3 billion followed by Indonesia which received foreign investment worth $ 2.8 billion. In 2016 so far, the Sensex gained 7.44% and Nifty50 gained 8.73%.

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Source:

http://www.financialexpress.com/markets/indian-markets/fpi-equity-buys-in-india-touch-5-4-bn-this-year/349325/

Commerce ministry eases rules to promote exports

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The commerce ministry has relaxed certain norms to promote outbound shipments and manufactured products from export-oriented units (EoUs), software technology parks of India (STPIs) and electronic hardware technology parks (EHTPs).

The norm of mandatory warehousing requirement for EoUs and software and electronic hardware technology parks has been done away with.

The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has also eased rules for the existing EHTP and STP units to avail tax exemptions in the case of conversion or merger of EoU and vice versa.

In a notification, the department said an EoU, which is into agriculture, aquaculture, horticulture and poultry, might be permitted to remove specified goods in connection with its activities for use “outside the premises of the unit”.

Earlier, it was allowed only for outside the bonded area. DGFT has said this in a notification, amending the foreign trade policy (2015-20).

The EoU scheme, which was introduced in December 1980, had allowed manufacturing units in export processing zones to enjoy 100 per cent tax exemption on profits from overseas sale and duty-free import of raw material.

As the scheme had a sunset clause, the tax benefits were stopped from March 2010. This scheme was utilised by small and medium enterprises to set up their units for the purpose of exports.

Later, a committee had suggested steps, including tax incentives, to revive these units.

The decision takes on significance as the country’s exports, after rising for the first time in 19 months in June, shrank again in July. It contracted 6.84 per cent due to the decline in shipments of engineering goods and petroleum products.

Source: http://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/commerce-min-eases-rules-to-promote-exports-116081700050_1.html

I-T returns: Top 1% earned 18% of income

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The top 1 per cent of earning individuals who filed tax returns earned about 18 per cent of the total income in financial year 2011-12, according to the latest data on income tax released by the income-tax department recently.

The bottom half of the earning individuals earned just about 21 per cent of the total income shown in the returns, the data showed, highlighting stark income inequality. However, in between there is a big chunk of middle class. It is this class, which was addressed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Independence-Day speech when he said he would further mitigate their problems with the income-tax department.  The top 1 per cent of the individuals were those who earned Rs 25 lakh and above, while the bottom 50 per cent made up of those who earned up to Rs 2.5 lakh. In between, there was a middle class, constituting about 49 per cent of the total tax payees. Their income was around 61 per cent of the total.

Three individuals filed returns showing income of more than Rs 500 crore in the financial year 2011-12. About 35,616 individuals earned more than Rs 1 crore as taxable income during that year.  These individuals  made it to the super-rich category, for which an additional surcharge of 10 per cent was introduced in the financial year 2013-14. The super-rich surcharge imposed on taxable income of more than Rs 1 crore, has since then been raised to 15 per cent.

India’s Gini Coefficient, a measure of inequality, stands at 0.38. The higher the coefficient, ranging between zero and one, the higher is inequality. However, it should be noted that agriculture income is exempted from income tax.

As many as 1,33,000 individuals reported zero taxable income in 2011-12.  Maximum individuals or about 38 per cent individual return filers (10.8 million individuals) were in the taxable income bracket of Rs 1.5-2.5 lakh.

About 33 per cent of the 46.5 million taxpayers in the country paid taxes but did not file returns in assessment year 2012-13.

For individuals, salary income constituted about half the total income, while business income represented 33.4 per cent. Of the 31.2 million returns filed, 28.9 million or 92 per cent were individual taxpayers.

Amid pressure from celebrated economist Thomas Piketty and Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian, the revenue department has released the revised set of income tax data for assessment year 2012-13, omitting about 150,000 returns to bring consistency of data within various categories. In cases where more than one returns were submitted, the values of the latest returns have been considered.

Income tax deductions totalling Rs 1.35 lakh crore significantly lowered taxable income of individuals, making up for 11 per cent of total gross income for individuals. For companies, the deductions were about 7.1 per cent of total gross income.

According to a recent write up by Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia and CEA Subramanian, the total tax foregone on all income taxes amounted to 0.4 per cent of gross domestic product in 2011-12. The government had in the Budget announced a plan to phase out corporate tax deductions and exemptions, putting a sunset date in most cases. It plans to reduce corporate tax to 25 per cent from 30 per cent currently by 2019.

With the government taking efforts to encourage individuals to file returns, about 155,000 filed zero-income returns in 2011-12. Filing of returns is mandatory to avail loans.

About 3.7 per cent of the population and 9.1 per cent of the workforce were part of the individual income-tax system the assessment year 2012-13. There were 44 million individual income taxpayers and 0.65 million corporate taxpayers that year. These include those tax payers also who did not file returns but paid tax through tax deducted at source (TDS).

Source: http://www.business-standard.com/article/economy-policy/i-t-returns-top-1-earned-18-of-income-116081601347_1.html

India rises to 66th rank in innovation

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India had been faring poorly for several reasons over the years, largely related to poor infrastructure, performance in education, intellectual property and so on.

Reversing a trend of declining rankings every year, India rose by 15 positions to become the 66th most innovative nation in the world. India’s neighbour China also improved its ranking slightly and broke into the club of 25 top innovative nations in the world.

The Global Innovation Index has been created and reported every year by the Paris-based business school Insead, Cornell University and the World Intellectual Property Organisation, a United Nations agency. The Gobal Innovation Index is positioned as resource for policy makers, to identify areas of possible improvement in innovation. It is based on 82 variables across seven areas, grouped into two divisions — inputs and outputs for innovation.

India had been faring poorly for several reasons over the years, largely related to poor infrastructure, performance in education, intellectual property and so on.

This year it has done well largely based on good performances on information technology services exports and creative goods exports.

Source : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/53716047.cms

India giving World Bank all evidence of improved ease of doing business

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India is providing detailed evidence to the World Bank on ease of doing business as it seeks to break into the top 100 countries on the bank’s index from its current rank of 130.

Officials said logs of construction permits, containerised cargo movement at ports and setting up of a company are being provided to World Bank as part of the Narendra Modi government’s efforts to ensure it does not miss any point to score to improve India’s rank.

World Bank officials had a few queries for the Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion (DIPP) when they met on August 1 after completing field inspection and verification of claims over the 14 parameters on ease of doing business.

While the World Bank does not share its findings, one observation made by its team was that people were carrying paperwork to the offices of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation even as registration was made free of all physical touch-points. “We clarified that it is only for claims that one needs to file the papers,” said a senior DIPP official, who did not wish to be identified.

Besides, DIPP is now gathering its own evidence for cases where it feels respondents have not have kept in mind the assumptions made by the World Bank study.

“In case of construction permits the study is limited to warehouses or buildings on the outskirts or setting up of a company parameter is only for domestic enterprises and not how long it takes for a foreign entity,” the official said.

DIPP is taking a proactive approach to provide evidence on its part even after the field investigations have been wrapped by the World Bank team. Final rankings will be announced in October. The ranking considers business environment in Delhi and Mumbai. India compares unfavourably even with countries such as Mexico, which is ranked 38, and Russia, which is at 51. Prime Minister Modi has set a target for India to be in the top 50 in three years.

Specific areas DIPP has targeted are starting business, insolvency procedures, construction permits, ease of trade across borders and electricity connections. According to the department, total number of days required to start a business has been reduced to 12 from 29 in the past year. A team of researchers spent two weeks in Delhi and Mumbai talking to actual users and stakeholders to study and verify implementation of reforms, officials said.

Source : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/53716006.cms

Forex reserves at record high of $ 365.74 billion

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Continuing the rising trend, forex reserves increased by USD 253.6 million to touch record high of USD 365.749 billion in the week to August 5, the Reserve Bank said today.

The reserves increased despite decline in foreign currency assets (FCAs), a major component of the overall reserves.

In the previous week, the reserves had jumped by a healthy USD 2.81 billion to USD 365.49 billion.

FCAs declined by USD 765.4 million to USD 340.278 billion.

FCAs, expressed in dollar terms, include the effect of appreciation/depreciation of non-US currencies such as euro, pound and yen held in the reserves.

After remaining steady for many weeks, gold reserves shot up by USD 1.008 billion to USD 21.584 billion 20.58 billion.

The country’s special drawing rights with International Monetary Fund rose by USD 4.1 million to USD 1.488 billion, while the reserve position soared by USD 6.7 million to USD 2.397 billion.

Source : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/53672836.cms