The ‘Vivad se Vishwas’ Scheme was announced during the Union Budget, 2020, to provide for dispute resolution in respect of pending income tax litigation. Pursuant to the Budget announcement, the Direct Tax Vivad se Vishwas Bill, 2020 (hereinafter called Vivad se Vishwas) was introduced in the Lok Sabha on 5th of February, 2020 and passed by it on 4th of March, 2020.

The objective of Vivad se Vishwas is to inter alia reduce pending income tax litigation, generate timely revenue for the Government and benefit taxpayers by providing them peace of mind, certainty and savings on account of time and resources that would otherwise be spent on the long-drawn and vexatious litigation process.

Subsequently, based on the representations received from the stakeholders regarding its various provisions, official amendments to Vivad se Vishwas have been proposed. These amendments seek to widen the scope of Vivad se Vishwas and reduce the compliance burden on taxpayers.

After introduction of Vivad se Vishwas in Lok Sabha, several queries have been received from the stakeholders seeking clarifications in respect of various provisions contained in the Scheme.

After considering various queries received from stakeholders, CBDT has clarified the same in the form of answers to frequently asked questions (FAQs) vide Circular No.7/2020 dated 04.03.2020.

The FAQs contain clarifications on scope/eligibility, calculation of disputed tax, procedure related to payment of disputed tax and consequential benefits to the declarant.

NITI Aayog’s Women Entrepreneurship Platform is organising the Fourth Edition of the Women Transforming India Awards (WTI) on International Women’s Day, Sunday, 8 March 2020.The WTI will recognize 30 finalists and 15 winners will be felicitated. On this occasion, the Women Entrepreneurship Platform also completes two years since its inception.

Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singhwill be the Chief Guest and will give away the Women Transforming India Awards 2019. Shri Amitabh Kant, CEO, NITI Aayog, Ms Yasmin Al Haque, UN Resident Coordinator in India (a.i.) and MsAnna Roy, Senior Adviser, NITI Aayog, will also be present at the event.

The Women Transforming India Awards, instituted four years ago, is NITI Aayog’s endeavourto recognise and celebrate stories of exceptional women changemakers from across India.

Since 2018, the Women Transforming India Awards have been hosted under the aegis of the Women Entrepreneurship Platform on the theme of ‘Women and Entrepreneurship’. The fifteen winners were chosen from a pool of more than 2,300applicants. The Women Entrepreneurship Platform undertook an elaboratefive-month long process to identify inspiring stories of women entrepreneurs who are breaking the glass ceiling. This process included a review of applications, jury and super jury roundswith assistance from mentors and partners of Women Entrepreneurship Platform.

The Women Entrepreneurship Platform seeks to transform the entrepreneurial ecosystem for women by bringing together stakeholders to offer information and services that will resolve the existing information asymmetry. It was formulated on three pillars: Iccha Shakti,Gyan Shakti and Karma Shakti.It is an aggregator platform for established as well as aspiring entrepreneurs and provides incubator support, mentorship, funding avenues, complianceandtaxation support and peer learning.

Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana - National Urban Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NULM)under Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs today signed MoU with Amazon for e marketing of products made by Self Help Groups (SHGs) across the country in urban areas. With an underlying narrative of women empowerment, the collaboration aims to provide access to wider customer base for products made by SHGs and strengthening the mission of creating sustainable livelihoods in urban areas.

Speaking about the initiative, Secretary, MoHUA Shri D.S. Mishra shared “What better way to celebrate International Women’s Day than to provide women entrepreneurs from across the country a global platform for their products. The Government of India is focused on building sustainable public-private partnerships that positively impact every section of society. This collaboration will be instrumental in unleashing the innate entrepreneurial potential of urban women.”

Joint Secretary and Mission Director – DAY-NULM, Shri Sanjay Kumar shared “Besides providing access to national/international market, the initiative will help in standardisation of the products and capacity building of the women entrepreneurs that will go a long way”.

The Mission has also undertaken similar collaboration with Flipkart recently. These collaborations are part of the key initiatives for the 2nd edition of Shehri Samridhi Utsav to be organised from March 28 to April 12, 2020.

Sharing the details of the collaboration, Mr. Gopal Pillai, Vice President, Seller Services, Amazon Indiashared, “The presence of women entrepreneurs on the ‘Amazon.in’ marketplace has been growing substantially over the past few years, especially since the inception of our dedicated program Amazon Saheli. Through this partnership, we seek to transform the lives of women entrepreneurs from across the country. We want to enable and empower women entrepreneurs who nurture the dream of starting something of their own, and support them in achieving their dreams and becoming successful entrepreneurs.”

By promoting the products made by SHGs, the initiative will be helpful in documenting and preserving the unique traditional art and crafts of different states.

About DAY-NULM A Flagship programme of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs to reduce poverty and vulnerability of the urban poor households by enabling them to access gainful self-employment and skilled wage employment opportunities, resulting in an appreciable improvement in their livelihoods on a sustainable basis, through building strong grassroots level institutions of the poor.

Scientists at International Advanced Research for Powder Metallurgy & New Materials (ARCI), Hyderabad, an autonomous R&D Centre of Department of Science and Technology (DST) have developed Polymer Electrolyte Membrane fuel cells (PEMFC).

The International Conference on Nano Science and Nano Technology (ICONSAT) under the aegis of Nano Mission, Department of Science and Technology (DST), started at Biswa Bangla Conventional Centre, Kolkata focusing on the recent advances in this frontier research field.

About NAA: The National Anti-Profiteering Authority (NAA) has been constituted under Section 171 of the Central Goods and Services Tax Act, 2017. It is to ensure the reduction in rate of tax or the benefit of input tax credit is passed on to the recipient by way of commensurate reduction in prices. The Authority’s core function is to ensure that the benefits of the reduction is GST rates on goods and services made by GST Council and proportional change in the Input tax credit passed on to the ultimate consumers and recipient respectively by way of reduction in the prices by the suppliers.

Composition: The National Anti-profiteering Authority shall be headed by a senior officer of the level of a Secretary to the Government of India and shall have four technical members from the Centre and/or the States.

Powers and functions of the authority: In the event the National Anti-profiteering Authority confirms the necessity of applying anti-profiteering measures, it has the power to order the business concerned to reduce its prices or return the undue benefit availed along with interest to the recipient of the goods or services.

If the undue benefit cannot be passed on to the recipient, it can be ordered to be deposited in the Consumer Welfare Fund. In extreme cases the National Anti-profiteering Authority can impose a penalty on the defaulting business entity and even order the cancellation of its registration under GST.

Background: To produce the QS World University Rankings by subject area for this year, QS analysed over 22 million papers, producing close to 200 million citations.

1,368 institutions have been ranked across 48 subjects in 5 broad categories across 159 locations, which reflects the scale behind this internationally benchmarked undertaking to produce these subject rankings.

5 categories are: Arts and humanities. Engineering and technology. Life sciences and medicine. Natural sciences. Social sciences and management.

Performance of Indian Institutions: Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay and IIT Delhi have secured 44th and 47th positions respectively in Engineering and Technology category. Top 100: Other Indian technological and engineering institutes like IIT Kharagpur (86), IIT Madras (88) and IIT Kanpur (96) found their places in top 100 of this category.

However, engineering and technology was the only major subject group where Indian institutions were able to crack the elite top 100 tier. Overall, 12 institutions from the country were ranked in the top 500 in this category alone.

In the Natural Sciences category, three Indian institutions made it to the top 200: IIT-Bombay at 108th rank, closely followed by the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore at the 111th position, while IIT-Madras scraped in at the 195th rank. Jawaharlal Nehru University remained the country’s top institution in the Arts and Humanities category, with a global ranking of 162, followed at a distance by Delhi University at 231.

Delhi University topped the Social Sciences and Management category, with a global ranking of 160, followed by IIT-Delhi at 183. There are no Indian institutions in the world’s top 200 when it comes to Life Sciences and Medicine. The top institution in the country is the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, which had a global ranking of 231.

What did the Court say? RBI has not come out with a stand that any of the entities regulated by it namely, nationalised banks/scheduled commercial banks/cooperative banks/NBFCs, have suffered any loss or adverse effect directly or indirectly, on account of virtual currencies (VCs)

Hence, the RBI circular is “disproportionate” with an otherwise consistent stand taken by the central bank that VCs were not prohibited in the country. Besides, the court found that the RBI did not consider the availability of alternatives before issuing the circular.

Besides, the court referred to the Centre’s failure to introduce an official digital rupee despite two draft Bills and several committees.

Background: The top court’s order followed a plea by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IMAI) objecting to the RBI ban. In April 2018, the central bank had tightened rules to discourage the use of virtual currencies such as Bitcoins, prohibiting banks and financial institutions from providing any related services.

Arguments by IMAI: Cryptocurrency is not strictly currency and was more in the nature of commodity, and RBI does not have powers to impose such ban in the absence of a law in that regard prohibiting cryptocurrency. India should look at most other nations that are not only allowing cryptocurrency trading, but have moved to launch their own virtual currencies.

What RBI said? The RBI contended that it had, right from 2013, been cautioning users of cryptocurrencies and that it considers cryptocurrency a digital means of payment which has to be nipped in the bud so that the payment system in the country is not jeopardized. The regulator also argued that it is empowered to take decisions banning cryptocurrencies.

That ban was aimed at “ring-fencing” the country’s financial system from the private virtual currencies, deemed illegal by the government. It had also argued that Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies cannot be treated as currencies as they are not made of metal or exist in physical form, nor were they stamped by the government.

What are Cryptocurrencies? Cryptocurrencies are digital currencies in which encryption techniques are used to regulate the generation of units of currency and verify the transfer of funds, operating independently of a central bank. Examples: Bitcoin, Ethereum etc.

How is it being regulated worldwide? While many regulators around the world have been warning against trading in Bitcoin, some have backed it. In 2017, Japan accepted Bitcoin as legal currency and even officially recognised exchanges dealing in the cryptocurrency.

What’s the issue? The Bill has introduced a new clause that sets a threshold of 100 homebuyers, or 10% of the buyers, in a residential project, whichever is less, as a requirement to jointly take the developer to an insolvency court. This means that an individual homebuyer, who is a financial creditor, cannot file an insolvency application.

Key Highlights Of Insolvency And Bankruptcy (Second Amendment) Bill, 2019: Section 11 of the Code has been amended to clarify that a corporate debtor shall not be prevented from initiating CIRP against any other corporate debtor. Section 16 of the Code has been amended to provide that an insolvency resolution professional should be appointed on the date of admission of the application for initiation of Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP).

Section 23 of the Code has been amended to enable the resolution professional to manage the affairs of the corporate debtor during interim period between the expiry of CIRP till the appointment of a liquidator; A new Section 23A has been inserted to provide that the liability of a corporate debtor for an offence committed prior to the commencement of the CIRP shall cease under certain circumstances.

Effects of the amendment: The amendment brings the much awaited changes needed in the insolvency sector. It clears the air on various aspects and provides relief to both corporate debtor as well as the creditors. The thresholds introduce will prevent admission of unnecessary cases to the insolvency court. However, even after anticipation, cross border insolvency framework has not been included in the amendment. Now, the same is expected to get cleared in the next session.

After the process is complete, India will have 12 PSBs instead of 27 back in 2017. New mergers include: Punjab National Bank, Oriental Bank of Commerce and United Bank of India will combine to form the nation’s second-largest lender. Canara Bank and Syndicate Bank will merge.

Union Bank of India will amalgamate with Andhra Bank and Corporation Bank. Indian Bank will merge with Allahabad Bank.

Why merger is good? – Benefits for various stakeholders: For Banks: Small banks can gear up to international standards with innovative products and services with the accepted level of efficiency. PSBs, which are geographically concentrated, can expand their coverage beyond their outreach.

A better and optimum size of the organization would help PSBs offer more and more products and services and help in integrated growth of the sector. Consolidation also helps in improving the professional standards. This will also end the unhealthy and intense competition going on even among public sector banks as of now. In the global market, the Indian banks will gain greater recognition and higher rating.

The volume of inter-bank transactions will come down, resulting in saving of considerable time in clearing and reconciliation of accounts. This will also reduce unnecessary interference by board members in day to day affairs of the banks. After mergers, bargaining strength of bank staff will become more and visible. Bank staff may look forward to better wages and service conditions in future. The wide disparities between the staff of various banks in their service conditions and monetary benefits will narrow down.

For economy: Reduction in the cost of doing business. Technical inefficiency reduces. The size of each business entity after merger is expected to add strength to the Indian Banking System in general and Public Sector Banks in particular. After merger, Indian Banks can manage their liquidity – short term as well as long term – position comfortably.

Synergy of operations and scale of economy in the new entity will result in savings and higher profits. A great number of posts of CMD, ED, GM and Zonal Managers will be abolished, resulting in savings of crores of Rupee. Customers will have access to fewer banks offering them wider range of products at a lower cost.

Mergers can diversify risk management. For government: The burden on the central government to recapitalize the public sector banks again and again will come down substantially. This will also help in meeting more stringent norms under BASEL III, especially capital adequacy ratio. From regulatory perspective, monitoring and control of less number of banks will be easier after mergers.

Concerns associated with merger: Problems to adjust top leadership in institutions and the unions. Mergers will result in shifting/closure of many ATMs, Branches and controlling offices, as it is not prudent and economical to keep so many banks concentrated in several pockets, notably in urban and metropolitan centres.

Mergers will result in immediate job losses on account of large number of people taking VRS on one side and slow down or stoppage of further recruitment on the other. This will worsen the unemployment situation further and may create law and order problems and social disturbances.

Mergers will result in clash of different organizational cultures. Conflicts will arise in the area of systems and processes too. When a big bank books huge loss or crumbles, there will be a big jolt in the entire banking industry. Its repercussions will be felt everywhere.

Way ahead: Merger is a good idea. However, this should be carried out with right banks for the right reasons. Merger is also tricky given the huge challenges banks face, including the bad loan problem that has plunged many public sector banks in an unprecedented crisis.

Committees in this regard: Narasimham committee (1991 and 1998) suggested merger of strong banks both in public sector and even with the developmental financial institutions and NBFCs.

Khan committee in 1997 stressed the need for harmonization of roles of commercial banks and the financial institutions. Verma committee pointed out that consolidation will lead to pooling of strengths and lead to overall reduction in cost of operations.