Shri Bhim Sain Bassi takes over as Member of UPSC:-
Shri Bhim Sain Bassi took the Oath of Office and Secrecy as Member, Union Public Service Commission today. The Oath was administered by Shri Deepak Gupta, Chairman, UPSC.
An Officer of Indian Police Service of AGMU cadre of 1977 batch, Shri Bhim Sain Bassi during his career spanning over 38 years has held several important positions like Commissioner, Delhi Police, Special Commissioner (Traffic), Delhi Police, Special Commissioner (Vigilance), Delhi Police, Inspector General, Chandigarh police and DGP, Goa Police.
100 Smart Cities India Conference gets underway in Berlin
Amidst global interest in the initiative of development of smart cities in India, a three day ‘100 Smart Cities India’ Conference got underway in Berlin, Germany today. It was inaugurated by the Minister of Urban Development Shri M.Venkaiah Naidu and Germany’s Minister of Nature Conservation, Forests, Building and Nuclear Safety Dr.Barbara Hendrics.
Leading global companies, policy makers and experts are attending the conference being organized to highlight investment opportunities in smart city development set in motion in India.
Google tax kicks in tomorrow
The finance ministry has notified that the equalisation levy (popularly known as Google tax) introduced in this budget, will come into force from June 1.
As of now, it will apply to payments for online advertisements made by Indian business entities to non-residents (such as Google, Yahoo, Twitter, Facebook) where the aggregate payment in a financial year to a non-resident exceeds Rs 1 lakh. Only B2B transactions attract this levy.
The equalisation levy of 6% will have to be deducted by a business entity in India which makes payments exceeding Rs 1 lakh in the aggregate in a financial year to a non-resident service provider for specified services.
Hacking scare leads to norms for smartphones
It was recently come to notice that Pakistan Intelligence Agencies were spying on Indian Security Forces by sending malwares in mobile apps such as Top Gun (Game App), mpjunkie (music App), vdjunky (video app), talking frog (entertainment App).
Amid attempts of hacking and data theft by Pakistan and China, the government has come up with a smartphone policy for officials dealing with sensitive information.
To begin with, the government has put curbs on officials connecting their phones to office computers.They will not be allowed to even to charge the phone battery. Also, every such device will have to be approved by seniors.
The rules would apply to armed forces, intelligence officials and personnel of the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF).
Water sensing from the skies in pipeline
According to the estimates from India’s groundwater authority, groundwater irrigation has been expanding at a very rapid pace since 1970s and now accounts for over 60% of the total area irrigated.
About 85% of the rural drinking water supply is also met from groundwater sources. The most significant change in the groundwater scenario is that the share of bore-well irrigation went up from one per cent during 1960-61 to 60% during 2006-07, according to 2008 statistics.
The CSIR-National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI) is working on a plan to map India’s groundwater reserves by a helicopter-based electromagnetic survey.
The heliborne transient electromagnetic technique, as it is called, involves sending electromagnetic pulses to the ground — in timed bursts — and analysing the unique pattern that these waves make as they bounce off the freshwater or saline water reserves.
It would allow mapping potential water reserves nationwide and cost Rs.12,000 crore over 10 years. This approach would be less cumbersome than the manual methods now being used to map the groundwater.
India climbs to 41st slot on competitiveness ranking:
India has moved up three spots from last year to 41 on the IMD World Competitiveness Scoreboard, 2016.
The country’s ranking had fallen to 44 in 2015, from 35 in 2012. Hong Kong replaced the US as the world’s most competitive economy. Switzerland, Singapore, Sweden, Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway and Canada have got slots in the top 10.
India’s improvement is in sharp contrast to the sagging fortunes of other Asian countries.
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Petrol in India is cheaper than in countries like Hong Kong, Germany and the UK but costlier than in China, Brazil, Japan, the US, Russia, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, a Bank of Baroda Economics Research report showed.
Rising fuel prices in India have led to considerable debate on which government, state or central, should be lowering their taxes to keep prices under control.
The rise in fuel prices is mainly due to the global price of crude oil (raw material for making petrol and diesel) going up. Further, a stronger dollar has added to the cost of crude oil.
Amongst comparable countries (per capita wise), prices in India are higher than those in Vietnam, Kenya, Ukraine, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Venezuela. Countries that are major oil producers have much lower prices.
In the report, the Philippines has a comparable petrol price but has a per capita income higher than India by over 50 per cent.
Countries which have a lower per capita income like Kenya, Bangladesh, Nepal, Pakistan, and Venezuela have much lower prices of petrol and hence are impacted less than India.
“Therefore there is still a strong case for the government to consider lowering the taxes on fuel to protect the interest of the people,” the report argued.
India is the world’s third-biggest oil consuming and importing nation. It imports 85 per cent of its oil needs and so prices retail fuel at import parity rates.
With the global surge in energy prices, the cost of producing petrol, diesel and other petroleum products also went up for oil companies in India.
They raised petrol and diesel prices by Rs 10 a litre in just over a fortnight beginning March 22 but hit a pause button soon after as the move faced criticism and the opposition parties asked the government to cut taxes instead.
India imports most of its oil from a group of countries called the ‘OPEC +’ (i.e, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Russia, etc), which produces 40% of the world’s crude oil.
As they have the power to dictate fuel supply and prices, their decision of limiting the global supply reduces supply in India, thus raising prices
The government charges about 167% tax (excise) on petrol and 129% on diesel as compared to US (20%), UK (62%), Italy and Germany (65%).
The abominable excise duty is 2/3rd of the cost, and the base price, dealer commission and freight form the rest.
Here is an approximate break-up (in Rs):
a)Base Price | 39 |
b)Freight | 0.34 |
c) Price Charged to Dealers = (a+b) | 39.34 |
d) Excise Duty | 40.17 |
e) Dealer Commission | 4.68 |
f) VAT | 25.35 |
g) Retail Selling Price | 109.54 |
Looked closely, much of the cost of petrol and diesel is due to higher tax rate by govt, specifically excise duty.
So the question is why government is not reducing the prices ?
India, being a developing country, it does require gigantic amount of funding for its infrastructure projects as well as welfare schemes.
However, we as a society is yet to be tax-compliant. Many people evade the direct tax and that’s the reason why govt’s hands are tied. Govt. needs the money to fund various programs and at the same time it is not generating enough revenue from direct taxes.
That’s the reason why, govt is bumping up its revenue through higher indirect taxes such as GST or excise duty as in the case of petrol and diesel.
Direct taxes are progressive as it taxes according to an individuals’ income however indirect tax such as excise duty or GST are regressive in the sense that the poorest of the poor and richest of the rich have to pay the same amount.
Does not matter, if you are an auto-driver or owner of a Mercedes, end of the day both pay the same price for petrol/diesel-that’s why it is regressive in nature.
But unlike direct tax where tax evasion is rampant, indirect tax can not be evaded due to their very nature and as long as huge no of Indians keep evading direct taxes, indirect tax such as excise duty will be difficult for the govt to reduce, because it may reduce the revenue and hamper may programs of the govt.