-PTI NEW DELHI: Seeking to stem the flow of black money in polls, the Election Commission has urged the government to amend laws to ban anonymous contributions of Rs 2,000 and above made to political parties. There is no constitutional or statutory prohibition on receipt of anonymous donations by political parties. But there is an "indirect partial ban" on anonymous donations through the requirement of declaration of donations under section 29C of...

-PTI Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Saturday demanded setting up of a commission to probe source of funding of political parties. He also questioned the central government’s decision to exempt political parties from paying income tax while depositing old 500 and 1,000 rupee notes. He sought to link the Centre’s tax exemption decision to the meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Friday, suggesting the announcement was...

-The Hindu Centre for Politics and Public Policy Prime Minister Narendra Modi's announcement demonetising high denomination notes on November 8, 2016, will do little to address the prime objective of flushing out black money but will adversely affect the economy in the short term, especially the informal sector, which is predominant in India, says M. Govinda Rao, a Member of the Fourteenth Finance Commission and Emeritus Professor, National Institute of Public...

-The Telegraph New Delhi: The Centre today told the Supreme Court that political parties that received donation from Indian subsidiaries of foreign companies could not be said to have flouted the Foreign Contribution Regulation Act as Parliament had amended the relevant provision in 2010. Neither the BJP nor the Congress had, therefore, violated the FCRA in receiving donations from the Vedanta Group's Indian subsidiaries between 2007 and 2009, the Centre contended. Hence,...

-The Hindu In a landmark judgment in 2013, the Central Information Commission had ruled that political parties come within the ambit of the Right to Information Act. The tug of war between the six national political parties and the Central Information Commission (CIC) continues as they continue to defy its orders three years after it had declared them as “public authorities” under the Right to Information Act, 2005 making it mandatory for...