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No major incident yet in the country, but central bank, stock exchanges, other vital institutions told to bolster defences; companies rush to protect computer systems.The government’s cybersecurity arm has asked the central bank, stock exchanges, the National Payments Corp. of India (NPCI) and other vital institutions to safeguard their systems against the latest cyberattack that has infected thousands of systems globally and may escalate further. The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In), the central agency coordinating efforts on cyber security issues, has issued a “critical alert” and has advised the installation of relevant “patches” to protect against any data breaches. The virus dubbed Wanna Cry, a so-called ransomware, has locked up more than 100,000 computers and sent cybersecurity experts scrambling on Sunday to patch computers and restore infected ones. Experts fear that the ransomware worm that stopped car factories, hospitals, shops and schools in more than

The income tax depart ment has launched an online facility to correct errors in names and other details in permanent account number (PAN) and Aadhaar. Alongside the facility to link biometric identifier Aadhaar with PAN, the department has also put two separate hyperlinks on its e-filing website -one to update changes in existing PAN data or for application of new PAN by an Indian or a foreign citizen. The second hyperlink is for individuals who want to update Aadhaar details by logging into 'Aadhaar Self Service Update Portal' using the unique ID number. The Economic Times New Delhi, 15th May 2017

As they battle the NPA menace, banks are set to see “huge ramifications“ next fiscal with the implementation of new accounting norms that will require the lenders to make higher provisioning for loans. The Indian Accounting Standard 109, set to be effective from April 1, 2018, is likely to have an impact on the “banking numbers“, ICAI president Nilesh Shivji Vikamsey said. The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) is the apex body of chartered accountants in the country. The Economic Times New Delhi, 15th May 2017

Cos eyeing benefits under Startup India will have to declare job creation estimates Companies eyeing benefits under the Startup India programme will soon have to declare upfront how many jobs they will create in order to qualify as the government moves to make employment generation the guiding principle for all its major programmes. “We will soon notify the new definition for startups, which goes beyond innovation,“ a senior government official said. Innovation is currently the main criterion for startups to qualify for benefits such as tax holidays and fast-track patent filing under Startup India. To qualify as a startup under the new definition, an entity would have to declare its job creation target and meet certain financial standards besides having a certain level of innovation in its product or service. “We will do our own scrutiny at the time of examination of applications for giving the tax benefits,“ the official said. When PM Narendra Modi launched the Startup India ini t

The government´s move to link Permanent Account Number (PAN) with Aadhaar has got support from a large number of people, but a vast majority are concerned about their personal details getting leaked and being misused, two separate surveys show. The first survey, conducted by online citizen engagement platform Local Circles, found that close to twothirds of respondents were concerned about their Aadhaar details getting leaked during the prevailing processes of getting the ID card made and through access protocols for vendors like banks and telecom operators. About one fourth of respondents said they were not concerned, showing their satisfaction with the existing security measures, while the remaining did not express any opinion.According to Local Circles,a total of 10,729 citizens voted on this poll. In the second poll, which had 9,847 respondents, 70 per cent backed the government´s move to link Aadhaar with PAN in its bid to increase the compliance level.Another 27 per cent oppos

The international taxation arm of the income tax (I-T) department has sought details of end-beneficiary subscribers of participatory notes (P-notes) from some leading offshore derivative instrument (ODI) issuers in the country. According to a senior official, the I-T department suspects that these instruments are being used to legalise unaccounted money. The issue came up when taxmen found certain discrepancies in the disclosures made by ODI issuers. Nearly half a dozen P-note issuers could come under scrutiny. “Details mentioned in the Know Your Customer (KYC) disclosures were not tallying with the tax authority’s database. We need more information from the issuers to ascertain if any law has been violated. We will get the data in the next few weeks,” the official said. The move comes in the wake of amendments in tax treaties with Mauritius and Singapore. Till now, all the investments coming from these countries were exempt from short-term capital gains (STCG) tax. However, the ST

Fitment of contentious goods to be finalised this week Ahead of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council meeting in Srinagar from Thursday, the Centre and states seem to have arrived at a consensus on the rates for at least 6,000 items. The fitment of contentious items such as soaps, cosmetics, coconut oil and cars would be finalised in a meeting of the state and central officials on Monday and Wednesday. “The committee has looked into each and every product and their excise and VAT (value-added tax) rates across the country. Rates have been finalised for 70-75 per cent of the total items. The remaining items are still under discussion and will likely be finalised before the GST Council meeting, if the issues pertaining to categorisation are ironed out,” said a government official. The rates have been decided on the basis of the current effective tax rate of products based on the Harmonised System of Nomenclature or HSN code. The report of the sub-committee on rates will be present