Bankers, beware! India stares at a power debacle 20 times bigger than Enron

Enron Corp. is long gone, but the scandal it left behind in India has beguiled the country’s lenders for almost two decades.

However, if the bankers who financed the US energy company’s unviable power plant in Maharashtra state aren’t ruing that 2,000-megawatt debacle any more, it’s only because they’re now staring at a mess 20 times bigger.

India’s total electricity-generation ability is 344,000 megawatts, a 72 per cent increase over six years. The country, notorious for its outages, still doesn’t have a power surplus. But coal-fired plants in the private sector that ran at 84 percent capacity utilization at the start of the decade are struggling to stay alive with load factors of 55 per cent. As much as 40,000 megawatts of capacity — equal to 20 Enron plants — has become stressed assets for the banking system.

It's illegal: Modi govt to bar cryptocurrencies from its payments system

India is planning steps to ensure cryptocurrencies are illegal within its payments system, while at the same time appointing a regulator to oversee unregulated exchanges that trade in "crypto assets," a finance ministry official said on Monday.

A panel set by the government to look into issues relating to cryptocurrencies is expected to submit its report in the current fiscal year, ending on March 31, S C Garg, Economic Affairs Secretary, told CNBC TV18 news channel.

"The government will take steps to make it illegal as a payment system," he said at a post-budget event telecast by the news channel, adding the trading of "crypto assets" at the unregulated exchanges would be regulated.

"We hope now within this financial year the committee will finalise its recommendations ... certainly there will be a regulator," Garg, who is heading the panel, said.

WTO talks collapse, no deal on India's demand for resolving food security

The talks collapsed at the WTO's 11th ministerial conference with the US reneging on its commitment to finding a permanent solution to the public food stockpile issue, resulting in disappointment to developing countries such as India.

As the US refused to engage, the 164-member World Trade Organisation (WTO) failed to reach a common ground for resolving the food security issue, a demand raised prominently by India.

Even after hectic parleys, the member nations failed to break an impasse over the public food stockholding issue on the fourth and final day of the ministerial conference.

Following the breakdown of talks, there was no ministerial declaration at the end of the meeting, though conference chair and Argentinean Minister Susana Malcorra made a statement highlighting feeble progress made in areas like e-commerce and fisheries.

For India, failure to successfully push the food security issue was a disappointment but the officials took comfort from the fact that the country did not yield any ground on other issues and kept its defensive interests in various fields intact.

The fate of the ministerial conference was sealed after Assistant US Trade Representative Sharon Bomer Lauritsen in a small group meeting said that permanent solution to the food stockholding issue was not acceptable to America.

"Unfortunately, the strong position of one member against agriculture reform based on current WTO mandates and rules led to a deadlock without any outcome on agriculture or even a work programme for the next two years," said a statement issued by India at t
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Trump promises giant tax cut as 'Christmas gift' to American families, cos

US President Donald Trump today said the Congress has reached an agreement on tax legislation that will deliver more jobs, higher wages, and "massive tax relief" for American families and domestic companies.

Trump recognised the tax reform as a campaign promise during his run-up to the 2016 presidential election, saying the "giant tax cut" will be his "Christmas gift" to fellow countrymen.

"Now we're just days away ... from keeping that promise and delivering a truly amazing victory for American families. We want to give you, the American people, a giant tax cut for Christmas," Trump told a select audience at the White House as he delivered an address to the nation making a final pitch for his massive tax reform.

"As we speak, Congress has reached an agreement on tax legislation that will deliver more jobs, higher wages, and massive tax relief for American families and for American companies," he said.

Trump cited an example to explain the impact of the tax cut: "The typical family of four earning USD 75,000 will see an income tax cut of more than USD 2,000, slashing their tax bill in half."

It nearly doubles the amount of income taxed at the rate of zero, he said, adding that the proposed tax reforms also closes special interest loopholes; and lowers tax rates for families. It cuts taxes on businesses, which is expected to raise income by an average of more than USD 4,000, he said.
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Conflicts across India as states create land banks for industry, investment

In June this year, about a hundred people from Nuagaon village near India’s east coast marched towards a wall that the Odisha government is building around a 1,700 hectare piece of land on the village’s periphery. The wall would mark the inclusion of the land–1,253 hectares of which is forest land and is under dispute–in the state government’s land bank, thereby restricting locals’ access to an area where they have traditionally harvested betel leaves, rice and fish.

Faced with heavy police deployment, the villagers turned back to consider a change of strategy. In 2011, they had successfully fought off South Korean steel giant POSCO’s plan to set up a steel plant on the same piece of land. No sooner had POSCO announced in March 2017 that it would return the land to the state government than the government announced it would put the land into a land bank–not return it to the villagers.

When the government began to wall off the contested land in May 2017, the simmering discontent erupted.

The face-off in Nuagaon village finds echoes in land conflicts brewing across the country. State governments are rushing to build land banks, using both private and common lands, in an effort to attract investment in manufacturing and infrastructure. Up to 2.68 million hectares of land–an area larger than the state of Meghalaya–have been set aside in land banks in the eight states that declare these statistics, data from state government websites show.
These are: Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.
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Govt may soon be able to seize assets of economic offenders who flee India

The law ministry has given its concurrence to a draft bill that will give powers to the government to confiscate property of economic offenders and defaulters who flee India, albeit with a new provision, official sources said.

It wants a "Saving Clause" to be incorporated in the Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill 2017 before it is introduced in the Lok Sabha in the ensuing winter session of Parliament, they said.

A saving clause provides for certain exception(s) in a statute. It enables the repealed law to be in force with respect to some existing rights.

The proposed law will be applicable in cases where the value of offences is over Rs 100 crore.

The bill flows from Finance Minister Arun Jaitley's 2017 -18 Budget speech promising legislative changes or even a new law to confiscate the assets of such fugitives. It seeks to deter economic offenders from evading the process of Indian law by fleeing the country.

The bill proposes to allow the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), the premier technical snoop wing under the finance ministry, to file an application for the declaration of fugitive economic offender for confiscation of their assets.

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Income-tax department identifies 30,000 cases for scrutiny

The government will scrutinise 30,000 cases among taxpayers, individual and non-individual, who tried regularising their unaccounted incomes by filing returns in response to the note ban in November last year.

Meanwhile, there has been 21 per cent growth in the online filing of tax returns as of August 1, with 23.3 million individuals filing returns for the financial year 2016-17, against 19.2 million in the corresponding period last year, when growth was 10 per cent.

The jump could be owing to demonetisation, the introduction of the goods and services tax (GST), and other back money-deterrent measures announced by the government.

“We have selected 30,000 cases for partial scrutiny and full scrutiny of entities and individuals who tried to regularise their unaccounted income during demonetisation,” said a senior official in the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT).

The income-tax (I-T) department has identified people who either showed a significant jump in ‘cash in hand’, or filed a return for the first time, reporting a big sum.
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BSNL-MTNL merger plan to be placed before Cabinet by June

The Department of Telecom is planning to place merger proposal of loss-making public sector firms BSNL and MTNL before the Cabinet by June, according to a parliamentary panel report.

"On the plan for merger of BSNL and MTNL, the same would taken to Cabinet before June," the Standing Committee on Information Technology chaired by BJP MP Anurag Thakur said in its report.

The former telecom secretary J S Deepak has informed the panel that the Department of Telecom is working on a plan but "would not say that we have a plan of integrating these two companies in phases".

Deepak said that merger of PSU like Air India and Indian Airlines has not been a happy experience.

"...But we realised that there would be some synergy in merger. We may have to do it in stages and we are working to develop a plan. I would want to take it to Cabinet before the end of June," he said.

Deepak was last month shifted with "immediate effect" from the telecom ministry and made officer on special duty in the commerce department.

The panel was informed that both the state-run telecom firms are dogged by various issues like poor quality service, lack of investment, continuous loss and MTNL is even borrowing money to meet its day to day expenses.

Deepak informed the panel that there are 3 lakh employees without required skill in BSNL and MTNL that incur liability of Rs 1,000 crore per month wage bills.

The panel recommended to the DoT that it should look into possibility of skilling the unskilled employees and should come out with a revised VRS proposal for those who cannot be skilled.

"With regard to merger of BSNL and MTNL , the Committee recommends that the case of merger of Air India and Indian Airlines should be carefully examined while developing a merger plan and the same should be implemented with the objective to make them strong," the panel said. (READ MORE)

Gender pay gap: Men earn 67% more than women in India, says Report

Latest News - The gender pay gap in India is as high as 67 per cent as a man on an average earns USD 167 compared with $100 by a woman, says a report.

According to Accenture Research, much of this gap is caused by the fact that there are more men than women in high paying functional and leadership roles, in addition to factors such as education levels, industry segment and hours worked.

"Despite recent successes such as improvement in education, and more work opportunities, socio-cultural issues often force women to step back at important stages in their careers making the gap harder to close," said Rekha Menon, Chairman and Sr Managing Director, Accenture in India.(Read More)

Cash crackdown a fight for the poor, says Modi as Oppn attacks on note ban

Latest News - Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday defended his decision to abolish high denomination bank notes that has left the economy reeling, calling it a "fight" for the poor.

Modi's comments came days before the start of a regional assembly election in Uttar Pradesh, a battleground state that is home to one in six Indians and will help in determining his chances of winning a second term in 2019.

While the decision to outlaw 500- and 1,000-rupee bank notes late last year was part of a broader crackdown on corruption, the sudden withdrawal of 86 percent of currency in circulation had left businesses, farmers and households all suffering.

The chaos caused by the (Read More)

Operation clean money: 1 cr accounts scanned; 18 lakh clarifications sought

Latest News - In a bid to clamp down on unaccounted money funnelled into bank accounts post demonetisation, the tax department has scrutinised and matched as many as one crore accounts and asked 18 lakh people to explain the source of their funds.

The tax department has run big data analytics through more than one crore accounts in its data bank and done matching with the taxpayer profile of the holder, a top source said.

As per I-T records, there are 3.65 crore individuals who filed income tax returns. Besides, there are over seven lakh companies, 9.40 lakh Hindu Undivided Families and 9.18 lakh firms who filed ITRs during Assessment Year 2014-15.

Also, over 25 crore zero-balance Jan Dhan accounts were opened as part of the (Read More)