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The Modi government's proposed land bill is coming back in the reckoning after being in cold storage for more than a year. The parliamentary joint panel reviewing the legislation will meet on May 22 to debate its social impact assessment, a bone of contention between the government and the Opposition. "It is very much on the agenda. The goverment has never decided to withdraw the bill despite the fierce criticism against it," said a member of the joint committee on the land bill. In the UPA-era land law, evry aquisition, regardless of size, would go through a social impact assessment. The assessment was aimed to determine the possible impact and benefits of the acquisition not just on land owners but other people living nearby. The assessment forms the basis for compensation. After coming to power, the NDA offered exemptions to five types of projects from this social impact assessment and virtually took away the farmer's right of refusal to sell land for governmen

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has advised public sector banks to put in placeafair and transparent mechanism for appointment of statutory branch auditors.The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India has been raising concerns over the selection process followed by banks in this regard.The institute had proposed developing a software for fair, transparent and equitable allotment of statutory audits and to reduce manual intervention. Business Standard New Delhi, 08th May 2017

Chartered account ants' apex body ICAI has asked its members to ensure that companies have made adequate disclosures about transactions involving cancelled notes post demonetisation till December 30, 2016.Companies are required to disclose details about transactions involving scrapped notes from November 8 till December 30 in the annual financial statements and auditors are required to mention in their reports about suc details. In this regard, the Corporate Affairs Ministry has made amendments to certain provisions under the Companies Act, 2013. The Economic Times New Delhi, 08th May 2017

Rejected firms to get a second chance The Start Up India policy — first announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his second Independence Day speech in 2015 — is ready for a makeover. Even as the policy guidelines, issued in January 2016 in another mega event, promised many sops to entrepreneurs, the plan has failed to attract start-ups the way it had set out to. The government is likely to tweak the Start Up India policy within a fortnight to accommodate more innovations, an official aware of the developments told Business Standard. The definition of the policy would be changed as well, making it more liberal for the bio-technology sector in particular, he said. Also, the tweaked policy would mean a second chance for any entity that has faced rejection in the past. In the biotechnology sector, a start-up could benefit from the policy up to eight years of incorporation, up from the five-year criterion currently. This is because of the relatively long gestation period of the biot

Operation Clean Money 2.0: PAN to be key in communication with depositors, high-value buyers The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) is developing a dedicated portal for the investigation of those identified to have made deposits or large purchases not in line with declared income as a follow-up to Operation Clean Money, which was launched in the wake of demonetisation to crack down on black money. The proposal figured in discus sions at a recent review meeting of the revenue department with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. “We are working on a dedicated portal,“ a top government official aware of the deliberations told ET. “This will be for those identified as part of Operation Clean Money .“ The portal will facilitate communication between individuals and tax authorities by way of the per manent account number (PAN).The department is looking to keep the process as non-intrusive as possible with an emphasis on e-assessment to keep human interaction to the minimum. The second phase o

Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia is hopeful of a smooth transition to the Goods and Services Tax (GST) regime and says it would help local firms become more competitive, besides stream lining taxation for all business activities.“GST is a multipoint tax on value addition with seamless input tax credit,” he said. Adhia´s comments came amid calls from some experts andasection of business to defer the GST rollout to September October instead from July 1. Business Standard New Delhi, 08th May 2017

The government on Friday notified changes to the Banking Regulation Act, giving the RBI broad powers to deal with specific bad-loan cases as it tries to speed up resolution of Rs 9.64 trillion of stressed assets clogging the Indian banking system.Experts cautioned that this was just the first step in the process of putting the onus on the central bank to reduce the mountain of bad loans.The move could pose potential conflict-of-interest issues for the regulator,they said. The ordinance, which was approved by the President late on Thursday, also gives the government powers to authorise RBI to invoke the insolvency and Bankruptcy Code against defaulters. Separately, it also empowered the central banks on its own to settle bad loans with defaulters, and to form oversight commitees deal with the issue. The new rules are applicable with immediate effect and the centre has already issue a "general instruction" to RBI to take action, finance minister Arun Jaitley said. Business