-The Economic Times While there are ripples in political circles over the estimated black money stashed by Indians in tax havens abroad - as quoted by the Central Bureau of Investigation chief Amar Pratap Singh on Monday - sources say that the agency has arrived at the figure following cross-checking several sources, reports and a rough estimation.  "Most of the illegal money abroad forms part of tax evasion by individuals and companies,"...

A committee on social security, set up at the 44th Indian Labour Conference (ILC) that concluded its session here on Wednesday, has suggested that maternity leave to women employees, now provided under the Maternity Benefit Act, be raised to 24 weeks from the present 12 weeks. This has come even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, while speaking at the conference on Tuesday, stressed the need to understand the constraints women staff...

-The Business Standard   Having enrolled 200 million Indian citizens for Aadhaar, the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) is now taking the initial steps to the services route. UIDAI chairperson Nandan Nilekani said that they have started two pilots that will allow the oil industry to bring in transparency in LPG transfer and the use of Aadhaar for getting mobile connectivity. UIDAI is running a pilot in Mysore using the Aadhaar platform for...

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...

-The Indian Express CBI director Amar Pratap Singh declared today that “if the king is immoral, so will be his subjects”, and sought “ethics in governance” while addressing an Interpol anti-corruption programme. In a hint at scams involving ministers, Singh said: “I am prompted to recall a famous verse from ancient Indian scriptures, which says ‘Yatha raja tatha praja’.” Singh said $ 500 billion (nearly Rs 24 lakh crore) had been stashed away...