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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Bribing of voters to be made a cognisable offence by J Balaji
The Law Ministry has reportedly accepted a proposal of the Election Commission to amend the law to make bribing of voters, either in Cash or kind, a cognisable offence. It has written to the Home Ministry seeking issue of an ordinance to amend IPC Section 171(B), under which the bribe giver is now booked, to make it a cognisable offence. It would also apply to those who take bribes. With the...
More »Long on Aspiration, Short on Detail by Sujatha Rao
The recommendations of the Planning Commission’s High Level Expert Group on Access to Universal Healthcare are significant because they make explicit the need to contextualise health within the rights. However, the problem with the report is that it does not ask why many of the same recommendations that were made by previous committees have not been implemented. The HLEG neither recognises the problems, constraints and compulsions at the national, state...
More »Patel families welcome tribal bahus by Bharat Yagnik
Seventy nine couples tied the knot in a rather unique mass marriage ceremony organized by Nana Baar Gaam Kadva Patidar Samaj at Thaltej on Sunday. What was special about the ceremony was that at least seven brides were tribal girls who were being accepted in the Patidar fold with blessings of parents of both brides and grooms. Sangeeta Babubhai from Bharuch was the bride of Gajendra Patel, a boy from Kalol....
More »Aadhaar brings pension home by Santosh K Kiro
For a change, Mangal Bedia did not board a crammed bus today and travel 15km to withdraw his old-age pension from a bank. The 70-year-old from Dohakatu village in Ramgarh district, along with 100-odd fellow elders, became the first citizens to access old-age pension by using their Aadhaar numbers with handheld ATMs on the doorstep. The banking service reached their village, thanks to the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI). Until today,...
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