April 17, 2018 (Chandigarh)

Responding to a petition seeking directions to exclude affluent farmers from the benefit of income tax exemption, the Union government has clarified that tax on agricultural income falls under purview of the state governments and only they were competent to enact any law imposing tax on the agriculture income. In its detailed reply, filed by the Centre through Vivek Vardhan, deputy commissioner of income tax, it has been stated that item "Taxes on agricultural income" falls under entry 46 in the "State List" under the Constitution, and hence only the state governments were competent to enact legislations imposing a tax on agricultural income. Therefore, taxation of agricultural income, if any, has to be considered by the state governments only.

The affidavit further stated that as regards the recommendations of Tax Administration Reforms Commission, in its third report, the tax on agricultural income can be imposed by the central government only if the states pass a resolution under Article 252 of the Constitution, authorizing the Centre to impose such tax on the agricultural income. It is further stated that as per scheme of direct taxes at present, income of agriculture is utilized for rate of tax purpose only in cases where the income from other sources exceeds the income not chargeable to tax, and net agricultural income exceeds five thousand rupees.

These submissions by the Centre were submitted before a division bench headed by Justice A K Mittal during the hearing of a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by advocate H C Arora.

According to the petitioner, the provision contained in Section 10 (1) of the Income Tax Act, 1961, providing total exemption of agricultural income from income tax is highly arbitrary, as even the rich and affluent farmers have been given benefit of this provision. He alleged that big industrialists, transporters, liquor barons are taking benefit of this provision and causing huge loss of revenue by diverting income from other business to show it as agricultural income for avoiding tax liability. He further contended that exemption under Section 10(1) is against basic principles of our Constitution which envisages India to be "a socialist republic," when very rich and affluent farmers are being given benefit of this provision by exempting their agricultural income also from tax.

The petitioner referred to affidavits filed by various political leaders of Punjab before the returning officers early this year, while submitting nomination papers for assembly elections, to show that rich political leaders, running other business empires are also availing benefit of such exemption from paying tax on their agricultural income. He specifically referred to instances of senior leaders of the region, including Prakash Singh Badal, Sukhbir Singh Badal, Manpreet Singh Badal, Rana Gurjit Singh, Kuljit Singh Nagra, and Bhupinder Singh Hooda and others to substantiate his contentions.

April 15, 2018 (Chennai)

The second March for Science was organised here on Saturday at the Elliot's Beach, with over 200 persons participating. According to the global organisers' marchforscience.com website, Chennai was among 230-odd cities that saw marches on April 14.

In Chennai, the 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. march was organised by the Tamil Nadu chapter of the Breakthrough Science Society. Organisations like the Tamil Nadu Science Forum and Newton Science Club were also part of the organising committee.

At the end of the march, the participants signed a four-point petition, to be submitted to the Prime Minister through the Governor. The demands of the march remained the same as its predecessor, organised in the city on August 9 last year: allocation of at least 3% of the GDP to scientific and technological research (currently, 0.85%) and 10% towards education; develop scientific tempter; ensure the education system does not contradict scientific evidence; and enact policies based on scientific evidence.

At a public meeting after the march, organisers read out messages from geneticist M.S. Swaminathan and former Anna University Vice-Chancellor M. Anandakrishnan.

In his message, Mr. Anandakrishnan said that he was disappointed by recent trends in education and science in India. "The last budget of the Central government doles out lavish increases for space, biotechnology and renewable energy but very little for research in other scientific areas," he said.

April 12, 2018 (N. Delhi)

A new social networking platform 'hello', set up by the founder of the once-popular Orkut, has announced its entry into the Indian market amid the controversy surrounding user data breach at Facebook.

Hello has been set up by Orkut Buyukkokten, who was the founder of Orkut that once was a leading social networking site in India and Brazil. Interestingly, Orkut shut down its services in 2014, having lost its sheen to rivals like Facebook.

"If you look at social media today, it has isolated people instead of bringing them closer. It has become more about broadcasting than sharing. We need a fresh start. Hello is built around interest-based communities where users with same interests can connect, leading to true connections," Buyukkokten said.

He added that with hello, the aim is to create positive, meaningful, authentic connections and sustained social engagement.

"We started in Brazil in July 2016... About 35,000 users were a part of our beta testing in the Indian market. Orkut was huge in India and I'm delighted to say hello to India once again," he said.

The hello app is available for download on App Store and Google Play.

Asked about the monetisation model, Buyukkokten said the company "does not have to sell user data to get revenues".

"When a user signs up, they are asked about five things that they are passionate about and then get recommendations that are non-intrusive. We also ensure that every advertiser has a profile on hello (for greater accountability)," he said adding that no user information is shared with third-party apps.

After India, the company would look at rolling out its service in its home market the US as well as in countries like France and Germany.

Social networking giant Facebook, which has over 20 crore users in India, had admitted that nearly 5.62 lakh people in the country were "potentially affected" by its global data breach involving Cambridge Analytica.

The data mining firm has been accused of harvesting personal information of over millions of Facebook users illegally to influence polls in several countries.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said his organisation was committed to ensuring integrity of elections across the world, including India, as he testified before the US Congress yesterday.

Facebook's data breach scandal had also sparked a furore in India, with IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad last month warning the firm of "stringent" action for any attempt to influence polls through data theft. He also threatened to summon Zuckerberg, if needed.

April 11, 2018(N. Delhi)

Balram Bhargava has been appointed the new Director General of the Indian Council of Medical Research and Secretary of the Department of Health Research, according to a notification by the appointments committee of the cabinet.

Bhargava, currently a senior consultant cardiologist at the All India Institute of Medical Science, will carry out this role until 2021, according to the order.

He will succeed former ICMR DG Soumya Swaminathan, appointed the deputy director general for the World Health Organisation in October 2017.

April 10, 2018 (Chandigarh)

Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani today approved setting up a 5,000 MW capacity solar park at the Dholera Special Investment Region (SIR), which would be the largest such entity in the world after its completion.

The proposed solar power generation project would be set up in 11,000 hectares of land with an investment of Rs 25,000 crore, said an official release.

The project will contribute significantly in achieving Prime Minister Narendra Modi's target of producing 175 gigawatt of electricity through renewable energy sources by 2022, said Rupani.

The chief minister exuded confidence that the solar park would not only provide employment to over 20,000 people, but also open new manufacturing avenues for the entire supply chain in and around the Dholera International City.

April 04, 2018 (Hyderabad)

India and Sweden are working on a partnership targeted at infusing seed money to finance start-ups in certain sectors, Sweden's Ambassador to India, Klas Molin said today.

"We are working on creating Sweden-India partnership on innovation. We hope to refine and come (out) with a couple of concrete flagship programmes. They are not quite finalised," he told reporters here.

"Ideally, we would like to have some seed money from both government and private sector (which can be) put into funds that can help finance startups in certain sectors, he said.

"Ideally, we would like to have some seed money from both government and private sector (which can be) put into funds that can help finance startups in certain sectors, he said.

Molin said negotiations were in progress, and hoped that the partnership would get a concrete shape in the coming weeks.

"We are exploring different opportunities. We are looking at seed money for a couple of good and appropriate projects which after a while could continue to attract more funding from the private sector and other sources," he said.

"We also hope to have some high-level visits in coming weeks that might put the focus on this (innovation partnership)," he said.

April 04, 2018 (New Delhi)

The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was apprised of an agreement between India and Canada to promote collaboration in research and innovation through talent mobility.

"The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) aims at fostering cross-border partnerships focused on research excellence and industry-academic collaboration between India and Canada that brings robust innovation gains to both countries," said an official statement.

The core of the MoU, signed on February 21, is to ignite collaboration through talent mobility. It would enable Indian and Canadian researchers to undertake graduate level academic research mobility and cross-border industry-academic cooperation.

"Under the graduate level academic research mobility programme, both sides intend to support up to 110 Master's and PhD student researchers in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields," it said.

The students from eligible universities in India would participate in 12 to 24 weeks' research with Canadian university research laboratories in a three-year period. The same number of researchers from Canadian universities will also participate for the same period in India.

"Under the cross-border Industry-Academic Cooperation, up to 40 Master's and PhD student researchers in three years from each side would participate in 16 to 24 weeks' research with industry partners located in the counterpart country," the Cabinet said.

The collaboration is expected to lead to new knowledge creation, joint scientific publications, industrial exposure, IP generation and others.

"This MoU will further strengthen the long-standing relationship in Science, Technology and Innovation Cooperation with Canada," it said.

April 03, 2018 (New Delhi)

The Indian Institute of Science (IISC) in Bengaluru was adjudged the overall best institution in the country by the HRD Ministry's national ranking framework.

Announcing the rankings at an event at the Vigyan Bhavan here today, HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar said the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) has been adjudged the best engineering college and the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) the best management institution.

In the university category, IISc stood first, followed by Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and Banaras Hindu University (BHU). The Indian Institute of Science was established in 1909 by a visionary partnership of industrialist Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, the Maharaja of Mysore and the government of India, according to its official website.

Since its inception, the institute has laid a balanced emphasis on the pursuit of basic knowledge in science and engineering, as well as on the application of its research findings for industrial and social benefit.

In the words of its founder, J N Tata, the objectives of the institute are "to provide for advanced instruction and to conduct original investigations in all branches of knowledge as are likely to promote the material and industrial welfare of India."

April 04, 2018

Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru has for the third consecutive year, bagged the top rank in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) which was announced by the Minister of Human Resource Development, Shri. Prakash Javadekar on 03 March 2018.

The institutions are ranked by NIRF based on five broad parameters, namely; Teaching, Learning and Resources (TLR), Research and Professional Practices (RPC), Graduation Outcomes (GO), Outreach and Inclusivity (OI) and Perception (PR). The five parameters with a ranking weightage given to each are then used to arrive at an overall ranking for the institutions.

Of the 100 institutions that were ranked, IISc secured an overall top score of 82.16 to bag first rank, while Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai with a score of 81.39 bagged second rank and Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Mumbai ranked third with an overall score of 79.20. Indian Institute of Technology Delhi, New Delhi, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur, Kharagpur, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur, Kanpur, Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, Roorkee, and Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi were the other universities to make it to the top 10.

While the ranks of many top universities remained unchanged, Anna University, Chennai which was ranked 13 last year climbed three spots to rank 10 this year, while IIT Guwahati which held the 8th rank last year slipped to rank 12 in 2018.

While IISc topped the scoring in three of the five parameters, namely; TLR, RPC and PR, Jawahralal Nehru University scored the highest in the GO and OI parameters. Goa University, Goa, Cochin University of Science and Technology, Cochin and Delhi Technological University, New Delhi scored the lowest to rank 98, 99 and 100 respectively.

Four Institutions, namely: ICAR - National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, Indian Agricultural Research Institute, New Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research, Bengaluru and Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai were also given special mention by NIRF for the year 2018.

NIRF was approved and launched by the Minister of Human Resource Development (MHRD) in 2015 and outlines a methodology to rank institutions across the country. A core committee set up by the MHRD identifies broad parameters for ranking the various universities and institutions in the country.