2014 FIFA WORLDCUP POSTAGE STAMP

KYC NORMS LINK

http://www.indiapost.gov.in/Pdf/Master_Circular_No.1_on_KYC_norms_in_POSB.pdf

DOPT REJECTED 6 DAYS WEEK

 DOPT rejects 6-day week schedule amid protests from women-TOI

The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) will soon inform Parliament that the government is not going back to a six-day week for its employees, even as a senior representative of the central government employees said that women employees were biggest opponents of any such change by the new government.

A senior DoPT official told ET on Tuesday that all individual ministries would be advised that before they ask employees to come to work on Saturdays, they were expected to first consult the Joint Consultative Machinery set up in each ministry which has representatives from the staff side before implementing the same. There was confusion among government ranks last week after the road ministry issued an order asking employees to report to work on all Saturdays except the second. The same was apparently withdrawn after women employees in the ministry took it up with transport minister Nitin Gadkari.

Employees in many other ministries have also been asked informally to report to work on Saturdays in case senior officials or the respective minister is in office. ET has learnt that DoPT will soon inform Parliament that the government would continue to work 5-days-a-week to end all speculation on this as it has received questions on the same from MPs.

Shiva Gopal Mishra, Secretary (staff side) of the National Council, JCM, told ET that “no government ministry can enforce six-day week on employees without the concurrence of the DoPT. “Not just DoPT’s concurrence, the government also needs to consult employees on the same through the JCM mechanism.

There will be no use of going back to a six-day week system as it will only raise electricity costs of the government. Also, women employees form a sizeable proportion of the workforce and they are strongly against any move to resort to a six-day week,” Mishra, who is also general secretary, All India Railwaymen’s Federation, told ET.

Most women employees use the weekend for pending household chores. The JCM, chaired by the Cabinet Secretary, is a joint group of various staff unions of central government employees supposed to act as a platform for constructive dialogue between the representatives of the staff side and the official side for peaceful resolution of all disputes.

Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Department-of-personnel-and-training-rejects-6-day-week-schedule-amid-protests-from-women/articleshow/38063908.cms

UNION BUDGET 2014-2015

 

·  Union Budget 2014 as it was presented in Parliament on July 10, 2014 (Latest first):

·  Market news @13.16 pm: As the Finance Minister concluded his Budget speech, the BSE Sensex and the NSE Nifty had recovered and were in green.

·  The Sensex was up 79.43 points or 0.31 per cent at 25,524.24 while the NSE Nifty was up 39.65 points or 0.52 per cent at 7,624.65 39.65.

·  13.12 pm: Indirect Taxes proposal will yield Rs 7,525 crore additionally

·  Extend 24X7 cargo clearance extended to 13 airports

·  Exemption for micro insurance scheme expanded

·  13.09 pm: Goods on coastal vessels to attract lower taxes

·  Service tax on loading, unloading, transportation of cotton being exempted

·  Online ads to cost more. Service tax for broadcast and online advertisements; print advertisements exempted.

·  Service Tax brought in for AC bus travel

·  Service tax exemption in some sectors withdrawn

·  Increase clean energy cess to Rs 100 per tonne for coal, lignite

·  13.06 pm: Additional duty of excise of 5% on aerated water with added sugar

·  Increase in excise duty on cigars and ciggarette and pan masala

·  Excise duty on cigarettes raised to 72%

·  13.02 pm: EVA sheets and solar black sheets to be exempted from excise duty

·  Flat copper wires for solar cells and volumes, machinery and equipment for solar energy production, compressed bio-gas plants to be exempt from excise duty

·  Excise duty relief for footwear industry

·  Excise duty on specified food processing and packaging machinery cut from 10 per cent to 6 per cent

·  Export duty on bauxite to be raised to 20 per cent from 10 per cent

·  Duty on oil products to be reduced

·  Telecom products and computer parts to be exempt from special additional duty

·  Exempt color picture tubes for basic custom duties

·  Smart card manufacturing to get cheaper

·  LCD, LED panel below 19 inches to have 0% basic customs duty

·  To boost manufacturing and address inverted duty, basic customs duty on a number of raw materials brought down

·  Indirect taxes: Manufacturing sector is under stress is due to variety of reasons

·  12.52 pm: Net effect of direct tax proposals is Rs 22,000 cr, which is the net loss due to direct tax proposals

·  Government to review the Direct Taxes Code

·  Foreign Dividend Tax to continue at 15%.

·  Rate of tax for long-term capital gains raised from 10 per cent to 20 per cent

·  12.48 pm: Certain changes to be made in transfer pricing to bring down litigations

·  Conducive tax regime for infrastructure and real estate investment trusts

·  10 year tax holiday for undertakings that generate and transmit power extended to 2017

·  Investment allowance at rate of 15% to manufacturing companies that invest Rs 25 crore in plant and machinery

·  12.40 pm: Tax proposals: Jaitley says had limited fiscal space change challenge

·  Propose to give some relief to individual tax payers of the economy

·  No change in tax rate, but relief to small and marginal tax payers

·  Personal income tax exemption limit raised to Rs 2.5 lakh below age of 60 lakh.

·  Exemption limit of Rs 3 lakh for senior citizens

·  Education cess will continue

·  Housing loan: Self occupied property interest deduction upped to Rs 2 lakh from Rs 1.5 lakh

·  Exemption under 80C raised to Rs 1.5 lakh

·  Increase in savings and productive use needed.

·  To encourage domestic investment in long term savings investment, limit raised to Rs 1.5 lakh

·  Direct Taxes and Indirect Taxes target same as that in interim budget

·  Fiscal Deficit will be 4.2% of GDP and Revenue Deficit will be 2.9% of GDP

·  NE region to get Rs 53,706 crore

·  Plan allocation of Rs 5,75,000 crore is 29 per cent increase over last year.

·  Total expenditure is Rs 17,94,892 crore

·  12.37 pm: Non plan expenditure Rs 12,19,849 crore

·  NCT Delhi faces in-migration every year. To make Delhi a world class city -- Rs 200 cr for power reforms. Rs 500 cr for water reforms

·  Rs 1,000 crore additional fund for rail connectivity in North East (over and above that provided in Rail Budget)

·  North East region has potential to develop organic farming, funds of Rs 100 crore for this purpose

·  New TV channel for North east to be launched

·  National Academy of Customs and Excise to be set up in AP

·  National Center of Himalayan Studies to be set up in Uttarakhand

·  Rs 990 crore for socio economic development

·  Funds of Rs 100 crore career counselling for youth

·  Displaced Kashmiri migrants : provide Rs 500 crore to support them

·  12.33 pm: Sports : Government will set up national sport academies in different parts of India

·  Lot of sporting talent, upgrading indoor and outdoor stadiums in Jammu and Kashmir valley

·  Sports University in Manipur to be developed. Will get Rs 100 crore

·  Rs 100 crore for training of women for forthcoming Asian Games

·  Major space missions planned for 2014-15 including GSLV MK3

·  12.28 pm: Integrated Ganga Conversation Mission to get Rs 2,037 crore

·  Harness NRI's support : NRI fund for ganga to be set up

·  Announces Rs 100 cr for development of archaeological sites. Gaya to be developed as world class tourism spot

·  National mission for spirituality to be launched; sets aside Rs 200 crore.

·  Rs 500 crore for setting up five tourist circuits.

·  12.25 pm: Rs 100 cr set aside for development of Technology Development Fund in Defence

·  Additional funds for development of left wing extremist affected areas

·  Capital outlay of Defence hiked by Rs 5,000 cr

·  Part of the increase will go for developing rail tracks in border areas.

·  Rs 50 crore for setting up national police memorial

·  The RBI will create framework for licenses of small banks

·  12.20 pm: PPF annual ceiling to be raised to Rs 1,50,000

·  Small saving schemes to be revitalised

·  Special small saving instrument for education and marriage of girl child will be launched

·  Pending insurance Bill to be taken up for consideration of Parliament

·  12.17 pm: Banks to be permitted to raise long term funds to lend to infrastructure with minimum regulations

·  Banks will be encouraged to give loans for long term financing of infrastructure

·  Six new debt recovery tribunals to be set up.

·  Adoption of new accounting system based on international system by companies voluntarily now and mandatoriy from 2016-17

·  12.15 pm: Uniform KYC norms across financial sector.

·  ADR/GDR regime to be liberalised.

·  Ecosystem for investing in venture capital.

·  Financial sector is at the heart of the growth engine

·  Measures to energise Capital market

·  Introduce one single operating DEMAT account

·  Impasse in mining sector to be resolved.

·  Revision of rate of royalty on minerals to be taken up on request from the States

·  12.10 pm: Rs 100 crore for preparatory work of new scheme on thermal power technology

·  Ultra modern solar projects to get Rs 500 crore in Ladakh, Rajasthan

·  In order to complete gas grid, 15,000 km of additional pipeline to be developed through PPP mode

·  Rs 4,200 cr set aside for Jal Marg Vikas project on river Ganga connecting Allahabad to Haldia over 1,620 km

·  Exercise to rationalise coal linkage underway

·  Road sector needs huge investment; NHAI addtional investment Rs 37,800 crore

·  8,000 km NH construction to be achieved

·  12.07 pm: Schemes for development of new airports in tier 1 and tier 2 will be launched through AAI and PPPs

·  Policy for promoting domestic shipbuilding

·  16 new port projects to be awarded this year. Rs 11,000 crore allocated for port development.

·  India has emerged as largest PPP market. But we have also seen weakness of PPP framework

·  Rs 500 crore for mainstreaming PPP projects

·  12.02 pm: Six more textile clusters to be set up.

·  Rs 30 crore for handloom development

·  Trade facilitation and craft centre to be set up.

·  Rs 10,000 cr fund for helping start-ups

·  Effective steps to operationalise SEZ and revive investor interest. SMEs form backbone of our economy, bulk of service sector also SME, appoint a committee of FM, MSME to give suggestions to RBI

·  Kakinada port to be developed with special focus on manufacturing

·  Export promotion mission to bring all stakeholders including states under one umbrella

·  11.59 am: E-waste platform for all Government departments by December 31

·  National Industrial Corridor with headquarters in Pune will be given Rs 100 crore to oversee industrial corridor

·  Industrial smart cities in 7 places.

·  11.55 am: All for farmers: Propose to provide finance to farmer groups to landless farmers

·  Rs 500 crore for price stabilisation fund

·  Finance to 5 lakh landless farmers through NABARD

·  Farmer markets to be set up in states.

·  Target of Rs 8 lakh crore for agriculture credit this fiscal

·  Interest subvention scheme to continue for farmers

·  Farmers get further incentive of 3 per cent for timely repayment

·  RIDF corpus to be increased by Rs 5,000 crore

·  Agri universities in Andhra Pradesh and Rajasthan

·  Horticultural university in Telangana and Haryana

·  Government shall when required undertake open market sale of wheat and rice to keep prices under control

·  Kisan TV to be launched in current year, to disseminate real time info to farmers, Rs 100 crore set aside for this purpose

·  Increasing warehousing capacity: Rs 5,000 crore for scientific warehousing infrastructure

·  Long term rural credit fund in Nabard to be set up for refinance support

·  To have initial corpus of Rs 5,000 crore

·  Rs 5,000 crore to be allocated to STRC fund to ensure uninterrupted flow of credit to farmers

·  National Adaptation Fund for climate change with initial fund of Rs 100 crore

·  11.52 am: After a break, Jaitley starts speaking again. Gets special permission to sit and read his Budget

·  11.44 am: House adjourned for 5 minutes

·  11.42 am: Farming: contributed one-sixth to our national GDP.

·  To make farming competitive, need to set up investment in agro technology and modernisation and improving infrastructure and research centres

·  Rs 100 crore to set up agri infrastructure fund

·  Rs 100 cr provided for modernisation of madarasas

·  Minorities training to be launched in traditional arts

·  Town development to be added to CSR activity

·  For 2 million cities planning of urban metro projects should begin. Urban metro projects -- rail-based and LRT-based projects -- metro projects on PPP basis. Allocates Rs 100 cr. Programme will be in place in six months

·  Urban renewal mission -- PPP in drinking water, use of recycled water, solid waste management and digital connectivity

·  11.37 am: Market news: Sensex falls 280.64 points or 1.10 per cent to 25,164.17; Nifty down 102.10 points or 1.12 per cent to 7,500.25

·  11.37 am: National rural internet mission also proposed Rs 500 crore allocated

·  Special focus on software startups

·  Propose to set up Center of Excellence in MP named after Jai Prakash Narayan

·  600 new community radio stations

·  Rs 100 crore for setting up virtual classroom

·  Five more IITs to be set up

·  Five more IIMs to be set up

·  11.34 am: Four more AIIMS to be set up. Every State to have AIIMS in future.

·  New AIIMS to come up in Andhra Pradesh, West Bengal, Vidharbha, Purvanchal; sets aside Rs 500 crore

·  12 more additional Government colleges in other states.

·  Central assistance to Drug Regulatory and Food Regulatory Authorities.

·  15 modern research health centres to be set up in rural areas.

·  11.30 am: Backward region grant fund : to fill gap in critical infrastructe, plans to restructure

·  Rural Housing Scheme to have increased allocation of Rs 8,000 crore

·  Nilanchal-Rs 2,141 crore fund for water scheme

·  Rs 3,600 crore for water treatment plants to provide safe drinking water

·  National Rural Livelihood Mission to be extended to another 100 districts

·  Rural entrepreneurship scheme to get Rs 100 crore

·  PMGSY initititaed in NDA 1 has had a massive impact. Reaffirms commitment to PMGSY with Rs 14,389 cr

·  11.28 am: Beti bachao, beti padhao yojana scheme for increasing awareness about girl child--Rs 100 crore set aside

·  School curriculum to have separate chapter on gender mainstreaming

·  Incentive for visually challenged.

·  15 new Braille press to be set up. Current ones to be modernised. Currency notes to have braille printing.

·  11.26 am: FDI opened in urban construction.

·  Mandatory ceiling for PF raised to Rs 15,000 crore

·  EPFO unified account scheme

·  Minimum pension of Rs 1,000 for organised sector employees

·  For welfare of tribals, Rs 100 crore scheme

·  Welfare of senior citizens--Varishth Bima Yojana for one year

·  11.23 am: Total sanitation goals to be achieved by 2019

·  Govt committed to welfare of SC/ST; Rs 50,448 cr for for SC fund

·  Scheme for rural integrated infrastructure development

·  Rs 200 crore for Sardar Patel statue in Gujarat

·  Power is vital for economic growth.

·  Deen Dayal Upadhaya Gram Jyoti Yojana gets Rs 500 crore aimed at providing electricity to rural areas

·  Rs 1,000 crore for Pradhan Mantri Krishi Seenchaayi Yojana--Need to provide assured irrigation to farmers

·  11.21 am: Skill India : national multi skill plan to skill youth with employability and entrepreurial skills

·  e visa to be introduced in 9 airports. Countries to be identified in phased manner.

·  PSU will invest Rs 2,47,941 crore this year to create a virtue of investment cycle

·  11.17 am: Banking system needs to be strengthened further.

·  Rs 2,40,000 crore has to be infused by 2018 to meet Basel 2 norms

·  Citizens will get direct shareholding in banks which they currently hold indirectly

·  Real estate investment trusts to reduce pressure on banking.

·  Market news: The Sensex and the Nifty jumped nearly 0.6 per cent soon after the Finance Minister started presenting his maiden Union Budget for 2014-15.

·  To encourage development of smart cities, requirement of built up area for capital conditions for FDI being reduced to 20,000 sq m from 50,000 sq m. Rs 7,060 crore for development of smart cities.

·  11.13 am: Policy is to promote FDI selectively in certain sectors where India is largest buyer of defence equipment. We are buying defence requirements directly from foreign buyers. It promotes economy. India needs boost for job creation in manufacturing sector in particular.

· 

·  FDI in Defence manufacturing raised to 49% from 26% now

·  FDI in insurance sector raised to 49%. There is a need for more capital in the capital starved insurance sector: Jaitley.

·  Proposed certain changes in transfer pricing regulations.

·  Will look at subsidies rationalisation

·  All cases related to retrospective transaction will be scrutinised by a High Level Committee set up by CBDT before action is taken

·  11.12 am: We are committed to provide stable and predictable taxation regime which will be investor friendly

·  WIll not bring any retrospective changes that brings additional liability

·  Power of retrospective taxation have to be exercised with caution.

·  11.10 am: Roadmap for subsidy regime

·  New urea policy to be formulated.

·  GST debate must end. Discussed issue for many years

·  Black money is a curse on our economy

·  Expenditure management commission to be set up

·  No option but to undertake bold steps to revive economy.

·  Going forward must be watchful of CAD. Considering that we had two years of low GDP growth, a large subsidy burden, target of 4.1% fiscal burden is daunting.

·  Fiscal deficit target of 3.6 % for 2015-16

·  11.06 am: Task before me is challenging because we need to revive growth in manufacturing and infrastructure sector

·  Budget is only the beginning of journey for sustained growth of 7-8% over next three years

·  11.05 am: Arun Jaitley sets out to present his maiden Union Budget for 2014-15, with the opening line that the people of India has decisively voted for Change and that the country is in the mood for suffering unemployment and lack of basic amenitites. The FM was clear that it is not fair to expect too much from the first budget of the Government.

·  The focus is on lowering food inflation. These are the headwinds on which the Indian economy has to maneouvre aim to lay down broad policy indicator.

·  11.00 am: Arun Jaitley addresses Parliament.

·  10.55 am: India has had 25 finance ministers since Independence in 1947 who have presented and passed in Parliament 83 Budgets — both interim and annual — so far.

·  10.53 am: The budget speech and the document has two parts – Part A and B. Part A is the macroeconomic part of the budget where various schemes are announced, and allocations are made to several sectors. The priorities of the government are also announced in this part.

·