Indians with undisclosed foreign assets and offshore bank accounts will be in for a shock this Budget if the finance ministry clears a proposal empowering income tax authorities to reopen assessments up to 16 years as against 6 years now. The proposed amendment, the ministry feels, may not only act as a deterrent, but also put pressure on people to declare their wealth stashed away in Swiss banks and tax havens. In...
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Time to end West's farm subsidy as a condition for funding European bailouts: Swaminathan A Aiyar
-The Economic Times The IMF wants to increase its lending capacity by $1 trillion, to rescue distressed countries in the eurozone plus those hit by aftershocks from the eurozone. But US is struggling with fiscal problems of its own, Japan now has the highest debt/GDP ratio in the world (over 200%), and Europe is moving into an austerity phase. Clearly, a significant chunk of the new trillion will have to come from...
More »From food security to food justice by Ananya Mukherjee
If the malnourished in India formed a country, it would be the world's fifth largest — almost the size of Indonesia. According to Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), 237.7 million Indians are currently undernourished (up from 224.6 million in 2008). And it is far worse if we use the minimal calorie intake norms accepted officially in India. By those counts (2200 rural/2100 urban), the number of Indians who cannot afford...
More »West Bengal Governor counters Mamata on farmers' suicide by Priyanka Gupta
West Bengal Governor MK Naryanan has refuted Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's claim that no farmers have committed suicides. He said the matter needs to be addressed urgently. "There is no denying the fact that farmers have committed suicide and that they are in debt. We need to do something about it," Narayanan said. He was outspoken on the issue of crib deaths too, calling them a matter of great concern. "Baby deaths...
More »Rural retail sees fall in demand by Ajay Modi
Hariyali Kisaan Bazaar, India’s biggest rural retail chain by sales, which operates 230 stores across eight states and had seen good growth in the past two years, said it had seen a fall in rural demand in the past two to three months. A drop in prices of potatoes, onions and some other vegetables, leading to low realisation for farmers, and an increase in cost of fertiliser, are reasons for these...
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