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The Goa Mines and Geology Department will hold its third e-auction
of iron ore on May 12, wherein six lakh tonnes of ore, lying at jetties and
the Mormugao Port Trust (MPT) would be e-auctioned.
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The State, through MSTC Ltd., has auctioned 1.62 million tonnes of iron
ore through two e-auctions in February and March, realising around Rs.260
crore, which would go to the State treasury.
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These e-auctions are held under the supervision of a Supreme
Court-appointed monitoring committee, headed by U. V. Singh.
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The Supreme Court, partially relaxing its October 5 ban on iron
ore activities in the State, in December last had permitted the Goa Mines
Department to auction about 15 million tonnes of iron ore lying at jetties,
mining leases, plots, beneficiary plants and port, all under the supervision
of its committee.
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However, on April 21, the apex court lifted its ban on mining
activities, but putting a cap of 20 million tonnes for annual production and
ruling that since the renewal of all the deemed mining leases in the State
had expired on November, 2007, and the operations carried out, thereafter,
have been termed illegal, the mining lessees will not be entitled to the
sale value of the ore sold in e-auction but to the approximate cost (not
actual cost) of the extraction of the ore.
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Making government the custodian of the money collected through
e-auction, the court directed the State to pay 50 per cent of wages of all
the workers who were laid off or were not paid salaries since the time the
mining operations were suspended.
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MukeshAmbani-led Reliance Industries leads the pack of 54 Indian companies in
Forbes' annual list of the world's 2000 largest and most powerful public
companies, with Chinese companies occupying the top three slots on the list.
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The Forbes 'Global 2000' is a comprehensive list of the world's largest, most
powerful public companies, as measured by revenues, profits, assets and market
value.
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China is home to the world's top three biggest public companies and five of
the top 10.
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The US retains its dominance as the country with the most Global 2000
companies at 564.
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Japan trails the US with 225 companies in aggregate.
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India is home to 54 of the world's biggest companies.
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Reliance Industries is ranked 135 on the list with a market value of 50.9
billion dollars and 72.8 billion dollars in sales as on May 2014.
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Reliance is followed by State Bank of India which is ranked 155 and has a 23.6
billion dollars market value.
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The other Indian companies on the list are Oil and Natural Gas ranked 176,
ICICI Bank (304), Tata Motors (332), Indian Oil (416), HDFC Bank (422), Coal
India (428), Larsen & Toubro (500), Tata Consultancy Services (543),
BhartiAirtel (625), Axis Bank (630), Infosys (727), Bank of Baroda (801),
Mahindra & Mahindra (803), ITC (830), Wipro (849), Bharat Heavy Electricals
(873), GAIL India (955), Tata Steel (983) and Power Grid of India (1011).
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Also making the list are Bharat Petroleum (1045), HCL Technologies (1153),
Hindustan Petroleum (1211), Adani Enterprises (1233), Kotak Mahindra Bank
(1255), Sun Pharma Industries (1294), Steel Authority of India (1329), Bajaj
Auto (1499), Hero Motocorp (1912), Jindal Steel & Power (1955), Grasim
Industries (1981) and JSW Steel (1990).
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As they continue their efforts to clamp down on the menace of
black money, India and other countries will have to wait at least till 2017
before the new global standard for automatic exchange of tax information
comes into effect.
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India, Switzerland and 45 other nations had agreed upon automatic
exchange of tax information, which is seen as a major step forward in global
efforts against banking secrecy practices.
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Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development
(OECD) sets the global tax standards and frames conventions against tax
frauds, among others.
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The new standard, expected to be finalised in September this year,
provides for exchange of information on bank account balances, interests,
dividends, other financial income and sales proceeds to compute possible
capital gains.
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By becoming part of the declaration, these countries have
committed to implementing automatic exchange of tax information. The
declaration also comes as a boost for India, which is making efforts to get
details from Switzerland on alleged illicit funds stashed away by Indians
there.
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Automatic exchange of information would allow for “collecting all
bank information on non-resident to pass this information on to the
countries of residence of these taxpayers so that they can no longer hide
money on offshore accounts.
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The standard was developed at the OECD and endorsed by the G20
Finance Ministers.
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The U.S. Federal Communications Commission may have jeopardised
prospects for “net neutrality,” a principle requiring non-discrimination by
Internet service providers between their client websites, when it voted in
favour of a proposal to allow ISPs to charge higher fees to those who seek
to deliver higher-quality content in the U.S.
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Effectively giving a green light for plans to create Internet
“fast lanes,” with paid priority accorded to relatively deep-pocketed
service providers such as NetFlix and YouTube, the FCC passed the proposal
by a 3-2 vote among its commissioners, along party lines.
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While the vote does not signal a final outcome in the
deliberations on preserving net neutrality, and the public will now be
allowed to comment on the proposal before a final ruling is enacted later
this year, the decision flies in the face of intensifying protest by 100 top
tech companies including Google, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon.
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Their concern is that smaller companies that are unable to pay for
high-speed data delivery may face “additional obstacles against bigger
rivals,” and the higher prices charged by these websites to overcome these
barriers could get passed on to individual consumers.
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United States Secretary of State John Kerry has described China’s moves
to deploy an oil rig in waters disputed by Vietnam as “provocative,”
prompting an angry rebuttal from Beijing.
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The Chinese government accused the U.S. of making “erroneous”
remarks that had “emboldened some countries’ provocations.”
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In recent days, Chinese and Vietnamese vessels have been in a
tense stand-off, sparked by China’s deployment of an oil rig in the waters
of the South China Sea off the Paracel Islands, which are claimed by
Beijing.
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Vietnam dispatched ships in response, arguing that the waters were
within its exclusive economic zone, located around 200 nautical miles from
its coastline.
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China has maintained that it was well within its rights to deploy
the $ 1 billion rig in the waters off the Paracel Islands, which it claims.
Beijing would, however, have been aware of the possibility of a backlash
from Vietnam, which disputes China’s claims.
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As more than 100 mines had been closed down in Odisha due to lack of
statutory clearances following unearthing of the illegal mining scam, a
high-level meeting recently decided to make mining activity a legitimate
economic activity by complying with all statutory requirements through
combined efforts of the State and Central governments.
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The meeting was held at the Secretariat here under the
chairmanship of Odisha Chief Secretary Jugal Kishore Mohapatra.
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Union Mines Secretary Anup Kumar Pujari, Secretary and Union Steel
Secretary G. Mohan Kumar and other officials attended the meeting.
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Mines & Minerals Development and Regulation Act, 1957 was the
governing legislation in the country and all issues relating to lease,
auction, prospecting license, renewal etc. should be decided as per the
provisions of the Act.
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Available data shows that there were about 59 operating mines in
Odisha, including 41 iron and manganese mines, six coal mines, one bauxite
mine, five chromite and six limestone mines.
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The issues relating to coal, water allocation and energy charges
of National Aluminium Company (NALCO) and Steel Authority of India Limited
(SAIL) were also discussed at the meeting. Mr. Mohapatra asked the PSUs to
settle the issues through mutual discussions without promoting further
litigation in these matters.
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Flipkart India Pvt Ltd, the country’s largest e-commerce firm, has
acquired rival Myntra.com in the largest-ever deal in the country’s
e-commerce market.
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The current policy does not allow FDI in business-to-consumer
e-commerce even as 100 per cent FDI is allowed in business-to-business
e-commerce.
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Myntra co-founder and chief executive MukeshBansal will head the
fashion business of both Myntra and Flipkart, and Myntra will operate as an
independent entity and retain its website, while Flipkart will continue
selling apparel on its site.
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The Flipkart-Myntra deal comes amid a strong revival of interest
in the Indian e-commerce market, but the trigger clearly is the need for
consolidation to fight global majors Amazon and eBay Inc.
NaMo factor and digital economy
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Most recently, Prime Ministerial candidate NarendraModi made a
bold pitch for IT becoming the face of India, and, in the process, coined
the Twitter-friendly phrase ‘India Talent (IT)’ + ‘Information Technology
(IT)’ is equal to ‘India Tomorrow (IT)’.
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The Indian political class, after the fall of the Rajiv Gandhi
administration, has certainly enjoyed talking about using technology and IT
to boost economic growth and bring about development.
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The greatest failures of the outgoing dispensation, with regard to
IT and the digital economy, were most certainly its inability to bring
broadband penetration to a respectable level, and its borderline negligent
behaviour towards the start-up ecosystem.
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Sadly, the e-commerce industry has grown only on the back of
foreign capital. Sadder still is the fact that some of the biggest e-tailers
such as Flipkart and Snapdeal cannot deliver to Congress scion Rahul
Gandhi’s constituency Amethi due to a combination of poor physical
infrastructure and concern over security.
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There is little doubt that the UPA-led government viewed
technology-aided economic growth through the narrow prisms of technological
‘solutionism’ — implementing technology for the sake of looking
technology-savvy and hoping that growth will follow — and fear.
