Mumbai, Aug 31: As much as 99 per cent of the junked Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes have returned to the banking system, RBI said today, prompting opposition to question the efficacy of the government’s unprecedented note ban decision to curb black money and corruption.
The Reserve Bank, which has so far shied away from disclosing the actual number of junked currency deposited after November 8 last year, said in its Annual Report for 2016-17 that Rs 15.28 lakh crore of the junked currency had come back into the banking system, leaving only Rs 16,050 crore out.
As on November 8, 2016 there were 1,716.5 crore pieces of Rs 500 and 685.8 crore pieces of Rs 1,000 in circulation, totalling Rs 15.44 lakh crore.
Post-demonetisation RBI spent Rs 7,965 crore in 2016-17 on printing new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 and other denomination notes, more than double the Rs 3,421 crore spent in the previous year.
The demonetisation was hailed as a step that would curb black money, corruption and check counterfeit currency but RBI said just 7.1 pieces of Rs 500 note per million in circulation and 19.1 pieces of Rs 1,000 notes per million in circulation were found to be fake in its sample survey.
Opposition was quick to seize on the data to attack the government with former finance minister P Chidambaram saying, “RBI ‘gained’ Rs 16000 crore, but ‘lost’ Rs 21000 crore in printing new notes! The economists deserve Nobel Prize.”
“Rs 16,000 cr out of demonetised notes of Rs 15,44,000 cr did not come back to RBI. That is 1 per cent. Shame on RBI which ‘recommended’ demonetisation,” he tweeted.
Chidambaram also wondered if demonetisation was “a scheme designed to convert black money into white?”.
Samajwadi Party leader Naresh Agarwal said his party would move a privilege motion against RBI Governor Urjit Patel for misleading a parliamentary panel on the issue.
RBI said just 8.9 crore pieces of Rs 1,000 notes or 1.3 per cent of the scrapped ones have not returned. It, however, did not give a specific number for the old 500 rupee notes.
“Subject to future corrections based on verification process when completed, the estimated value of specified bank notes (SBNs) received as on June 30, 2017 is Rs 15.28 trillion,” the central bank said.
After the note ban, old notes were allowed to be deposited in banks, with unusual deposits coming under income tax scrutiny.
A collateral damage as a result of rise in printing and other cost was dividend RBI pays to the government.
RBI said its income for 2016-17 decreased by 23.56 per cent while expenditure jumped 107.84 per cent.
“The year ended with an overall surplus of Rs 306.59 billion as against Rs 658.76 billion in the previous year, representing a decline of 53.46 per cent,” it said.
The government replaced old Rs 500 notes with new ones, but no replacement for Rs 1,000 notes have been made. Instead, a new Rs 2,000 note was introduced post note ban.
RBI said there are as many 588.2 crore of Rs 500 notes, both old and new in circulation as of March 31, 2017. As of March 31, 2016, there were 1,570.7 crore Rs 500 notes in circulation.
As many as 328.5 crore pieces of new Rs 2,000 notes were in circulation as on March 31, 2017.
Besides, new Rs 500 and Rs 2,000 notes, the RBI has also circulated new Rs 200 notes last week.
Former RBI Deputy Governor R Gandhi said demonetisation will have long-term impact.
Expectations of various quarters that sizable portion of the demonetised currency won’t return has not been fulfilled.
New Delhi, Aug 30: India’s transgender community hopes that the recent Supreme Court judgement on privacy will not just strike down a law against homosexuality, but also change mindsets on gender identities and sexual choices.
Days after the court said the right to privacy was a fundamental one, community members expressed the hope it would lead to the end of Section 377, which criminalises homosexuality.
But along with that, said Rohit Khumanthem, a transgender beauty queen from Manipur, people’s attitudes needed to change.
“Acceptance by society is the first step towards the community’s empowerment. And for that, people must believe that transgenders are humans like them,” Khumanthem said.
An aspiring lawyer hoping to fight for the rights of underprivileged women and children, Khumanthem said there was need to spread awareness about the community.
“People must know who we actually are and how we live our daily lives. They have to be sensitised. Only then will they start accepting us,” she told PTI.
The 22-year-old was here to participate in the recently held ‘Miss Transqueen India 2017’, the country’s first beauty pageant for transgenders.
Founded by Reena Rai, the event not only aimed at giving the community a platform to showcase talent and beauty, but also to create a forum for advocating their concerns.
Looking at the recent landmark judgement pronounced by the apex court, Rai believed a dignified life for the transgender community was no longer a distant dream.
“If one goes by the Supreme Court’s judgement, the community might soon be able to get proper education and employment and live a dignified life,” she said.
Under its verdict making privacy a fundamental right, the Supreme Court, however, clarified that since the challenge to Section 377 was pending before another bench of the apex court, it would leave the constitutional validity to be decided in an “appropriate proceeding”.
Rai added that the key to achieving the goal was “a change in mindsets”.
“Change will not come until there is acceptance from us.
No matter what the Supreme Court decides, if there is no end to the day-to-day discrimination we inflict on the community, change will not happen,” she said.
Eliza, born Abomcha Ngangom, believed the process of empowerment had begun, but social ostracism came in the way of progress.
The transgender, who also took part in the beauty pageant, recalled how her parents used to worry over her fondness for “girly things” when she was a child.
Now a beautician running a successful parlour, Eliza said she was “tortured” by her family after she visited a women’s beauty salon in class 8.
Many stressed they were hopeful about the future.
“We have had to struggle right from the time we came out about our sexuality. We have had to fight not just society, but also our parents,” said Namita, a 26-year-old transgender make-up artist.
But members of the community today were not just beggars or sex workers, she pointed out.
“They are becoming inspectors and principals,” she said, alluding to K Prithika Yashini, India’s first transgender sub-inspector, and Manabi Bandyopadhay, the first college principal from the community.
About 1500 people from the community took part in the pageant, the first of its kind here. The winner, Nitasha from Kolkata, will now represent India in the Miss International TransQueen in Thailand.
Nigerian neuroscientist Oshiorenoya Agabi may have found a way to solve one of life’s puzzling dilemmas: how to make air travel pleasant again. What if you could skip tedious airport security lines, while a special device able to sniff out explosives works silently in the background?
This is only one of the possible uses of what Agabi says is the world’s first neurotechnology device developed by his Silicon Valley-based start-up Koniku and unveiled at the TEDGlobal conference in Tanzania.
While those in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) are working furiously to create machines that can mimic the brain, or — like tech entrepreneur Elon Musk — implant computers in our brains, Agabi has found a way to merge lab-grown neurons with electronic circuitry.
As many grapple with the finite processing power of silicon, the 38-year-old said he had looked to the brain which is “the most powerful processor the universe has ever seen.”
To simulate the power of just 204 brain neurons would require a supercomputer, he said. “Instead of copying a neuron, why not just take the biological cell itself and use it as it is? That thought is radical. The consequence of this is mind-boggling,” he said.
So he and a team of geneticists, physicists, bio-engineers, molecular biologists and others set about doing just that, focusing on the problems that were particularly hard for silicon devices to solve. This includes detecting volatile chemicals and explosives or even illnesses such as cancer.
‘A world first’
Agabi said the Koniku Kore device is “a world first” and able to do just that, essentially through breathing in and smelling the air. He said “major brands”, including those in the travel industry, had signed up and the start-up’s current revenues of $8 million (7 million euros) were expected to leap to $30 million by 2018.
One of the main challenges was finding a way to keep the neurons alive, a secret Agabi did not wish to expand on, saying only they could be kept alive for two years in a lab environment and two months in the device.
As AI improves in leaps and bounds, scientists are trying to make and succeeding in making machines more like our brains, able to learn and understand their surroundings: a prospect that is terrifying for many. Musk, who has repeatedly warned about the perils of AI making humans obsolete, is working on a new project to implant “neural lace” brain-interface technology to prevent humans becoming like a “house cat” to potential machine masters.
However, Agabi, who grew up in Lagos where he helped his mother sell food on the streets, believes the future of AI lies in making machines more alive. He believes his company could build a cognitive humanoid system based on synthetic living neurons in the next five to seven years. “It’s not science fiction,” he told AFP.
“We want to build a brain of biological neurons — an autonomous system that has intelligence. We do not want to build a human brain.” Agabi did a bachelors degree in theoretical physics in Lagos before taking an interest in neuroscience and bio-engineering for his PhD in London.
African innovation at TED
He spoke at the opening session of the four-day TEDGlobal conference, putting African ideas, innovation and creativity in the spotlight with a variety of speakers who each get an 18-minute window to get across their message of choice.
TED — originally known as Technology, Entertainment and Design — has built a global following for its online videos of inspiring talks devoted to “ideas worth spreading.”
The annual international version is taking place in Africa for the first time in a decade with a new crop of “TED Fellows” from the continent to take to the stage.
“This gathering couldn’t come a moment too soon,” said TEDGlobal co-curator Emeka Okafor. “Africa has experienced spectacular economic, demographic and creative growth, but both opportunity and danger are rising at an exponential rate. Our conference will gather the idea catalysts, problem-solvers and change-makers already hard at work here charting Africa’s own path to modernity.”
Allahabad, Aug 30: The Allahabad High Court expressed strong dissatisfaction over the Uttar Pradesh government’s offer of “adequate compensation” to a Noida resident on whose land thousands of trees are likely to be felled for a proposed food park of Ramdev’s Patanjali Yog Sansthan.
A division bench comprising justices Tarun Agarwala and Ashok Kumar remarked “the government cannot justify its act of cutting down of trees on the basis that it will give adequate compensation to an affected individual”.
“Environment is for the whole society. The government can compensate an individual but how will it compensate the entire society,” the court asked while hearing a petition filed by Asaf of Gautam Buddh Nagar district who challenged the allotment of 4500 acres of land to the Sansthan.
The petitioner alleged that he had been granted a 30-year lease for 200 bighas of land for plantation of trees and the state government has now allotted the same for the proposed food park which was “illegal”.
The petitioner has further alleged that about 6,000 trees planted on the land leased out to him were likely to be cut down for the food park, inflicting a heavy damage to the environment.
The court has deferred further hearing on the matter till tomorrow.
New Delhi, Aug 30: India’s maiden GST revenue mop-up got off to a bumper start, with Finance Minister Arun Jaitley saying today that taxes worth Rs 92,283 crore were collected in July from just 64.42 per cent of the total taxpayer base.
Tax collections for July, the first month when a unified Goods and Services Tax (GST) was implemented across the country in place of more than a dozen central and state levies like excise duty, service tax and VAT, are likely to further go up when all the tax payers file returns.
The collections so far are in excess of the finance ministry’s internal estimate of Rs 91,000 crore.
So far, 38.38 lakh taxpayers accounting for 64.42 per cent of the total businesses, who had registered in July, filed returns. As per registration, 59.57 lakh businesses should file return for July.
“The 64.42 per cent taxpayers have paid Rs 92,283 crore in taxes for July,” Jaitley told reporters here.
Of this, as much as Rs 14,894 crore has come in from the Central GST (CGST), Rs 22,722 crore from State GST (SGST), Rs 47,469 crore from Integrated GST (IGST) and Rs 7,198 crore from compensation cess levied on demerit and luxury goods.
The minister said that if budget estimates are extrapolated to arrive at a monthly collection number, the Centre should have got Rs 48,000 crore and all states put together another Rs 43,000 crore.
The deadline for filing first monthly return and payment of taxes under the GST ended on August 25. However, businesses that availed of transitional credit were allowed to file returns till August 28 after paying taxes on self-assessment basis by August 25.
Jaitley said that late payment is allowed on payment of a nominal Rs 100 per day on Central GST and an equivalent amount on State-GST.
As per the tax sharing formula, the Centre will compensate states for any revenue loss calculated on a base year of 2015-16 and assumed revenue growth of 14 per cent.
“In sum total we seem to be comfortable, but we will have to break up the figures finally to see if any specific state has not had that 14 per cent in which event, out of this compensation cess that particular state will have to be compensated. At least the red line seems to have been crossed,” he said.
In July of last year, Rs 31,782 crore of excise duty was collected and Rs 19,600 crore of service tax. There is no estimate for the combined sales tax or VAT collection by states.
Dissecting the July GST collections, Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia explained that the Rs 47,469 crore IGST, which also includes Rs 20,964 crore on account of imports, would be apportioned between the Centre and states based where the taxes were due.
Adhia also said that the figure for SGST collection was higher than CGST because many businesses claimed credit for IGST paid while paying CGST. Hence, net payment of SGST was more.
With regard to collection impacting the fiscal deficit target, he said “it is too early to comment”.
Explaining the reason, he said now that the internal estimate has been breached in the first month of GST rollout, it means that many businesses that were otherwise not paying taxes were coming into the net.
“You will have to wait for few more months to study the pattern… A more efficient taxation system checks evasion, brings in non-filers into the system; (now it is) more difficult to evade (taxes) — that seems to be the initial first reaction,” Jaitley said.
He said the total GST collection is Rs 92,283 crore and the figure will increase with more compliance after late comers file returns.
With regard to registration, Jaitley said 72.33 lakh businesses have migrated to GST Network. Of this, totally migrated is 58.53 lakh and those who have not completed all the registration formality is 13.80 lakh.
Also the number of new registrations are 18.83 lakh.
The government on Monday announced email service for its 5 million personnel in English and Hindi in accordance with the email policy.
The email policy bars the government employees from using private email services due to security reasons. “As part of the mandate under the Digital India program, Government will provide a secure eMail service to all its officials for secure communication. As of now the service will be offered to 5 million users. Currently, the user base is 1.6 million,” a statement from Ministry of Electronics and IT (MEITY) said. The primary domain for English email id will (at)gov (dot)in and for Hindi email id it will be sarkar(dot)bharat in Hindi script.
“The primary trigger behind the policy was government data which resides on servers outside India and on servers beyond the control of the government of India,” the statement said. The email service will be largest service of its kind for the government with a user base of 5 million, the statement said. The announcement from MEITY comes about 10 days after Rajasthan government launched first email service for residents in the state.
The email service of the Rajasthan government has been developed by Jaipur based Data Infosys. A Rajasthan government officer involved in the project said that the state government will be operating and maintaining the entire project because of security reasons.
The new email service started under under Meity claims to provide rich user experience with a streamlined browser interface that gives natural conversation, enables drag and drop, easy-to customise filters, management and search of large in-boxes of email and voice-mail messages, multiple calendars, contacts and task lists etc. As per the statement, the new email service will have “enhanced security authentication mechanisms for users with geo-fencing and device mapping”.
In a big crackdown, the Haryana government today sealed over 30 congregation centres of the Dera Sacha Sauda across the state even as it came under attack from the high court over yesterday’s violence that claimed 36 lives.
Four rifles, including an AK-47, pistols and petrol bombs were among the weapons seized from the supporters of the sect whose chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh was convicted yesterday in a 2002 rape case that sparked violence and arson, mainly in Panchkula and Sirsa, police said. Two cases of sedition were also registered against Dera followers, it added but did not give details.
Facing flak over the violence, the Haryana government suspended Ashok Kumar, the Deputy Commissioner of Police in Panchkula, alleging that his “defective” prohibitory orders allowed the crowd build-up in the district.
The situation in Haryana remained tense but under control even as the state government said there was no report of fresh violence in the state today
State authorities are now trying to ensure that there are no untoward incidents tomorrow or on Monday when the special CBI court judge Jagdeep Singh will be flown from Panchkula to the district jail in Sunaria in Rohtak where Ram Rahim is lodged for pronouncing the quantum of sentence.
The Army, meanwhile, said it has no immediate plan of entering Dera Sacha Sauda sect headquarters in Sirsa and that it is focusing on maintaining law and order, reacting to reports that it had entered the premises.
In a related incident, the state government sacked its deputy advocate general for “accompanying” Ram Rahim after his rape conviction yesterday by a CBI special court in Panchkula.
The state government terminated the services of DAG Gurdas Salwara on the recommendations of Advocate General Baldev Raj Mahajan.
“It is found that yesterday the DAG accompanied the baba,” Mahajan said.
The action from the AG office came after a video clip surfaced purportedly showing Salwara in lawyer’s robes carrying a suitcase of the Dera head after his conviction.
At a special hearing, the Punjab and Haryana High court court minced no words in slamming Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar for “protecting” the Dera followers and extending political patronage to them.
The court said the Khattar government had “surrendered” before the followers of the dera head for “political considerations”.
“Thirty-six people have died, out of which six casualties are in Sirsa and remaining are in Panchkula,” DGP B S Sandhu said this evening. Earlier, the death toll was put at 32.
Four rifles, including an AK-47, pistols and petrol bombs were among the weapons seized from the Dera supporters.
“Over thirty ‘Naam Charcha Ghars'(congregation centres) in various districts have been sealed,” Haryana’s Additional Director General of Police, R C Mishra said.
Giving more details, he said among the centres which have been locked included 13 in Ambala, 10 in Kurukshetra and 8 in Yamunanagar.
He said over 3,000 ‘lathis’ (wooden staffs), were recovered along with diesel and petrol which have been seized from Kurukshetra alone.
Punjab police also said that ‘lathis’, rods, axes etc were also recovered from 98 Dera centres spread across the state.
“We have recovered one AK 47 rifle and one Mauser (rifle) from the vehicle of a Dera follower and two rifles and five pistols from another vehicle during the operations,” Sandhu said. As many as 552 persons have been arrested in connection with the violence and further investigations are underway, he added.
Sandhu was addressing a joint press conference in Chandigarh along with Haryana Chief Secretary D S Dhesi and Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Ram Niwas.
Dhesi disclosed that two cases of sedition had been registered against Dera followers.
Haryana government conducted searches and checking at several Dera centres “suspecting weapons could have been hidden,” Niwas said.
At the press conference, Niwas was asked if searches were also being carried out at the Dera headquarters in Sirsa to which he replied in the negative.
“Security personnel are patrolling the outer area of the sect headquarters and keeping a close vigil,” he said.
Baldev Raj Mahajan, Haryana’s Advocate General, told the high court that arrests of as many as 524 persons have been made in Panchkula.
At least 30 people were killed and 250 injured in Panchkula and other parts of Haryana on Friday after supporters of the Dera Sacha Sauda sect went on the rampage as news broke that their chief Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh had been convicted of rape by a CBI special court.
All hell broke loose after Ram Rahim’s followers pelted stones on security forces and set ablaze several parked vehicles and public property. They also damaged OB vans belonging to TV channels and attacked members of the public. Security personnel fired teargas shells, used water cannons and batons and opened fire in an attempt to bring the situation under control. The Army has taken over in Panchkula, and over 600 personnel have been deployed across the city.
Earlier tens of thousands of the godman’s supporters had converged on Panchkula in anticipation of the court verdict over the past few days, leading to widespread apprehension of trouble and violence. Ram Rahim, who drove from his Sirsa headquarters to Panchkula in the morning, was taken into custody immediately after the verdict.
Washington, Aug 25 : Two influential US lawmakers will hold a hearing into the “blatant acts of thievery” of technology and systems designed in America, amid concern over alleged corporate espionage and questionable trade practices by China and its entities.
The hearing ‘Wanton Loot: How China Is Stealing Ideas from American Entrepreneurs’ will be held in Florida on Wednesday.
“There are too many signs to ignore the likelihood that the Chinese government is behind the blatant acts of thievery of technology and systems designed in the US,” said Congressman Matt Gaetz.
“One glaring example took place right in Tallahassee, and we’re going to hear the details so we can fight back to protect our ideas as much as our people, communities, businesses and borders in the future,” he said.
Gaetz, who is convening the hearing, said the experience of Tallahassee-based Bing Energy will be a high-profile component of the hearing.
The company suffered the intellectual property (IP) theft of advanced energy technology by Chinese nationals who then established a separate company in their native country, based on that technology.
Local investors and company officials are seeking justice through legal channels.
“We in Congress cannot sit by and watch our biggest global competitor try to get an edge by stealing from our creative, inventive and entrepreneurial society to profit from the work being done in the US,” said Congressman Neal Dunn.
It is estimated that intellectual property theft in the form of stolen trade secrets, pirated software, counterfeiting and other nefarious schemes costs the US more than USD 225 billion every year and China is one of the main offenders.
“These crimes stifle American entrepreneurs and diminish economic growth in our country,” Dunn said in a statement.