Union Budget 2020 India: Listing of insurance behemoth Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) may be done in the second half of the next financial year, Finance Secretary Rajiv Kumar said on Sunday. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman while presenting the Budget 2020-21 on Saturday announced stake sale in LIC through an initial public offer in the next fiscal. There are a number of processes which have to be followed for the listing and some legislative changes would also be required for the listing of LIC. “We will follow the extant procedure for listing and for other things including the legislative changes it requires in consultation with the Ministry of Law and that process we already started … listing in the second half of FY21 seems logical,” a LIC officer said.
Budget 2020 India: The Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her second budget speech announced major reforms in the education sector but the allocations for Educations and Skill development differ by a big margin. The education sector was allocated Rs 99,300 crore but the Skill development got only Rs 3,000 crore in its purse.
DDT: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 1 abolished dividend distribution tax (DDT). But the measure came with a twist, leaving a bitter taste on investors, particularly those falling in the higher income tax slabs. While the Centre abolished DDT, dividends will now be taxed in the hands of recipients at their applicable rate — which can be as high as 43 percent for the ultra-rich.
NRI Income Tax: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on February 2 announced that there is no intention to tax the global income of NRIs and only income generated in India will be taxed. “What we are doing now is that the income of an NRI generated in India will be taxed here. If he’s earning something in a jurisdiction where there is no tax, why will I include that into mine that has been generated there?” she said. “Whereas if you have a property here and you have rent out of it, but because you are living there, you carry this rent into your income there and pay no tax there, pay no tax here … since the property is in India, I have got a sovereign right to tax,” she further added.
Corona Virus: The Union Health Ministry has informed the second case of Novel Coronavirus patient, has been reported in Kerala. The patient has tested positive for Novel Coronavirus and is in isolation in the hospital. The patient, who has travelled to China. is stable and is being closely monitored, the ministry said. Kerala Health Minister K.K Shailaja said that the patient is a student returned from China and is currently in the Medical College, Alappuzha.
Protest against CAA opposer: A group of locals on Sunday staged a demonstration near the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act protest site in Delhi’s Shaheen Bagh, demanding the removal of barricades from the road connecting Noida with Kalindi Kunj.
E-VISA: India on February 2 temporarily suspended e-visa facility for Chinese travellers and foreigners residing in China due to the outbreak of the virulent coronavirus that has killed more than 300 people, infected 14,562 others and spread to 25 countries, including India, the US and the UK. “Due to certain current developments, travel to India on e-visas stands temporarily suspended with immediate effect,” the Indian Embassy announced here.
US: US officials have cited presidential privilege in withholding details of 24 emails related to President Donald Trump’s hold on military assistance to Ukraine. The revelation in a court filing around midnight on31st January came just hours after US senators holding Trump’s impeachment trial voted largely on party lines against hearing witnesses that could have shed further light on the hold.
