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IIT-BHU startup creates a water filtration solution that considerably reduces water wastage

Rahul Raj
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IIT-BHU startup creates a water filtration solution that considerably reduces water wastage

We all are aware about the water scarcity problems in metro cities. You may be surprised to know that most of the RO purifiers waste almost 75% of water intake to produce 25% purified output.

The rate at which water requirements are rising and water tables are depleting in metros, the future looks scary. While working for a water purifier company in Delhi, NCR in 2014, this poor water purifying ratio of RO irked Naveen so much that he decided to work and add efficiency to the process.

Naveen Kumar is a B. Tech graduate from IIT BHU. After realizing various shortcomings of modern RO purification systems, Naveen and his batchmate Rohit Kumar Mittal decided to develop a new working model in the space. Naveen told OpIndia.com that the duo decided to focus on:

1. Water Wastages

2. Cost Effectiveness

3. Electricity Consumption

In 2014, the duo presented their first prototype to Malaviya Centre for Innovation Incubation and Entrepreneurship (MCIIE), IIT-BHU.

Aquvio, under the mentor-ship of MCIIE and with the tagline पयो: रित रंतम्| (Water conserve the conservator), has been winning awards since then. Few days back, Zee News covered the work which Aquvio team is working.

As shared by Naveen during our conversation, with limited resources, Aquvio team has been doing better than existing RO players.

Comparison of Aquvio and existing RO players

In July, Aquvio was shortlisted among the top 20 semi-finalists in the Global Cleantech Innovation Programme (GCIP)-India Chapter. Aquvio also got a startup recognition from Start up India and Stand up India, Ministry of Commerce and Industry, Ministry of India.

However, Naveen also expressed his disappointment for not getting enough support from private bodies as well as from the government. As per Naveen, the rules mandates central government, state governments and the PSUs to procure at least 20% from the Micro Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME). When Aquvio team approaches government offices to talk about installation of their system, they get nothing more than another delayed dates. Despite this, Naveen and his team are optimistic about the future.

IT head of AAP maligns Lt Gen Bipin Rawat, in a bid to split Army on political lines

OpIndia Staff
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IT head of AAP maligns Lt Gen Bipin Rawat, in a bid to split Army on political lines

These days, whenever there is a big political fight, Arvind Kejriwal and his minions ensure that by hook or by crook they drag the mess to the lowest level. We had earlier shown how Arvind Kejriwal and AAP lied brazenly repeatedly on various issues. When the Supremo shows the way, how can the minions stay behind?

Ankit Lal, the social media head of AAP and close associate of Kejriwal, is well-known for his deceitful tricks.

Ankit Lal with mentor Kejriwal

As soon as news about the elevation of Lt General Bipin Rawat as India’s next Army Chief broke, Kejriwal along with social media team of AAP jumped to use lies and innuendo to muddle up the situation, as we had exposed here.

But Kejriwal and his supporters didn’t stop with caste and communal flare, they also brought regionalism to worsen the discourse:

Keeping the front of communal mudslinging open, the social-media team of AAP started pushing new sets of vicious rumours. The social media wing of AAP innovated farcical connections between Rawat’s family and BJP, so that political attacks become easy.



Lt. General Bipin Rawat, a highly decorated officer, was born in a family with strong army background. His father L S Rawat retired from the army as a Lt. General. Sadly, Aam Aadmi Party which has often been in limelight for using army for electoral gains, didn’t opt to for a fact-check before targeting the future Army chief.

Of all the MPs who have ever won from BJP, no one looks like grandfather of Lt. General Rawat, at least on the paternal side.

A rational guy doesn’t even need to look at the data. BJP was established in 1980 and Lt. Gen Rawat is already 57 years old. His grandfather winning from BJP was sarcastically countered by the twitterati too.


It is depressing to see the kind of precedents set by AAP. After their anti-Army stand post surgical strikes, the party is toeing communal and political angle against the Army. In its bid to attack the Government and Modi, AAP has not even spared the army and is trying to create all sorts of communal, regional and even political divide amongst the ranks of the army.

AAP, a party which came into existence on the pretexts of clean politics, is not only spreading filth in politics, but misguiding its followers to believe into rumours and lies. Now the onus is on its supporters to either oppose the filth or blindly support the party under the illusion of clean politics.

Congress govt in Uttarakhand gives special break to Muslim employees for Friday prayers

OpIndia Staff
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Congress govt in Uttarakhand gives special break to Muslim employees for Friday prayers

The Uttarakhand government on Saturday announced its decision to provide a 90 minutes break for its Muslim employees, so that they are be able to attend the Friday prayers. This decision was taken during a cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister and Congress leader Mr Harish Rawat.

Incidentally, the announcement came a few days after the BJP government in Assam had announced that the government run Madrasas would not be allowed to observe Friday as a weekly holiday, as Sunday was the only government recognised weekly holiday.

Since Madarsas are religion specific, the Assam government’s Education Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said that a 60 min break would be given for prayers on Friday, but Madarsa teachers won’t be allowed a special holiday on Friday because the government rules have to be the same across sections.

There have been some protests by Madarsas over this, but the Assam government has made it clear that government aided Madarsas won’t be allowed to make rules for themselves superseding government rules.

This is not for the first time that a BJP government is asking Madarsas to fall in line with government rules and regulations. Last year, the Maharashtra government had de-recognized those Madarsas that imparted only religious education and did not teach formal subjects like Maths and Science.

While the BJP governments are taking steps to bring uniformity among government run or aided institutions, the Congress government in contrast has introduced a special rule that does away with uniformity among government employees by providing special treatment based on religion.

Since the state goes to polls next year, the decision by the Congress government in Uttarakhand is being seen as a ploy to garner Muslim votes – something the party thinks can be secured by pandering to religious sentiments alone.

BJP, as expected, termed it an example of appeasement policy of Congress. The party wondered if the state government will allow similar breaks for members of the Hindu community:



While it heated up politics in the state, on Twitter, people got some opportunity to make jokes:

How religion was dragged in after announcement of new Army Chief

OpIndia Staff
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How religion was dragged in after announcement of new Army Chief

Seniority has been the norm when it comes to appointments in the armed forces, though there have been occasions when this norm has been broken.

The most recent case taking place two years back in 2014, when the then UPA government decided to overlook seniority and appointed R K Dhowan as the Navy Chief, superseding Vice Admiral Shekhar Sinha. An anguished Sinha had put his papers, presumably as a mark of protest.

In case of the Indian Army, such a precedent is very old and it happened in 1983, when the then Congress government of Indira Gandhi appointed Arun Vaidya as the Army Chief superseding Lt Gen S K Sinha.

There are arguments both in favour and against this norm. As an earlier article on OpIndia.com had argued, overlooking seniority would mean subjective definitions of “merit”, which could further be impacted by politics, while others believe that seniority could be overlooked if the domain expertise is more relevant e.g. someone with counter-insurgency experience could be promoted out of turn if the Army needs such a person at the helm at particular point of time.

Yesterday, the government announced its decision to appoint Lt General Bipin Rawat as the country’s next Army Chief, superseding three officers viz. Lt Generals, Praveen Bakshi and P M Hariz and BS Negi. The decision was soon turned into a political controversy.

Manish Tewari of the Congress party, which broke the norms twice as we saw earlier, was among the first one to protest it without any sense of irony:


But thing turned absurd when assorted people with connections to the Congress and some media houses started giving religious colour to the whole issue because one of the superseded officers was a Muslim. A couple of such tweets are:

When Congress and some journalists are taking the lead, how can Arvind Kejriwal be behind? So he too jumped in with his contribution by spreading the tweet of the journalist who failed to see beyond religion in the army:

This was followed by repetition of the same charge by countless trolls and journalists affiliated to Congress and AAP.

Obviously it didn’t matter to them that facts were not in their favour. And the fact is, that Lt Gen. Hariz was would have retired before Lt Gen. Bakshi even if the seniority norm was followed. So essentially he would not have become the Army Chief anyway:


Indian Armed forces have always guarded themselves against such religious claptrap. They had earlier refused calls to create caste or religion based units or allow religious surveys in their ranks. But it seems that some political parties and journalists won’t rest till Army is dragged in communal politics.

Why I decided to publish my first novel all by myself

Nirwa Mehta
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Why I decided to publish my first novel all by myself

I discovered that I enjoyed writing back in 2004 when I first took to blogging. As a shy, introverted girl, Internet was my happy place. “I’ll write a book”, I promised myself.

I was pursuing Chartered Accountancy. My father, who had to struggle a lot growing up, wanted to ensure that his daughter has a secured career. You see, grandfather was also a writer, and writers never got paid as much as Chartered Accountants did.

“Who’d want to read what you write?” he told me in an attempt to discourage me from writing.

In 2013, after completing my 3 years articleship training in Deloitte, Ahmedabad, and with 4 papers in CA finals pending to clear, I gave up. I quit Chartered Accountancy and pursued financial journalism for 2 years. I worked with The Financial Express, Ahmedabad, covering the 2014 elections and 2015 Vibrant Gujarat summit. It was a learning experience. From a cringeworthy first copy that I had filed to an error free copy in two months’ time, I learnt how to file a story.

In May, 2015, I quit to write a book. I had no backup plan. And I wrote. I finished my first draft by September 2015. That’s when I reached out to agents and publishers.

You’d have thought writing the book, about 60,000 odd words, would be the hardest job. Nope. Turns out it is the easier part. Getting a response from publishers and agents is the hard part.

Somehow, the publishing industry has such iron gates, that it is difficult to breach. Most never acknowledged the receipt of proposal and sample chapters. I got countless rejections. One publishing agent even decided to go out of his way to be rude and tell me it is one of the worst. All this because I broke the golden rule of ‘do not follow up otherwise he gets pissed off’. Wow.

Another agent offered ‘editing’ and ‘rewriting’ services for a couple of thousands with ‘no guarantee’ of finding me a publisher.

“Who’d want to read what you write?” kept echoing in my head. I was slowly losing any bit of confidence I ever had.

I couldn’t possibly have written that bad a copy, right? I mean, with all due respect, some of the books of Indian authors which have been published in the last few years are terribly written, with even more awful storyline. Those found publishers willing to pay money to print it! Is my manuscript even worse than that?

I kept the manuscript aside. I was so shattered. I decided I’ll rework the entire copy and go through the ordeal again.

I sat over it for 10 months, without making a single change. There were a few typos and some errors in the finished manuscript, which, as a writer, I missed while proofreading. I didn’t even bother to change them. I had lost all heart to re-read something which got rejected from all quarters.

Then I contemplated self-publishing. But isn’t it the last resort of the brats of rich parents who pay to get their substandard stuff printed? And doesn’t that cost a lot? Should I really pay for something I may end up making eventual loss on?

I checked out various self publishing platforms. Some were reasonable, some were way too expensive. If they were reasonable, the price of your printed book would be so high, no one would buy, and if you wanted to keep a reasonable sales price of your book, you had to pay too much to get it printed. You just couldn’t win there.

I even looked up the new age app-based publishing platforms, but they didn’t excite me as much.

But most of all, I was shocked and disheartened at the sheer lack of communication from the communications professionals. I mean, this entire industry is based on communication, how can you not have proper communication channels. You have to constantly walk on eggshells around them because you could not follow up as they might get offended. Most of the people I interacted with were either rude or arrogant or appeared to just not be interested in talking to someone who doesn’t come ‘highly recommended’ by the mighty and powerful.

Suddenly the idea of going back to studies and finishing off those 4 papers in CA finals seemed like a better idea. Well, I might end up doing something I don’t love, but at least there wouldn’t be heartbreaks like these, right?

And then, one fine day, out of curiosity, I checked out Amazon Kindle’s self publishing tool. I googled it up a bit and within minutes I had made up my mind. I had put in a lot of hard work and love in writing something which I know for a fact is good. I knew I had done a good job. I just wanted more and more people to read it. I registered for Kindle Direct Publishing and within 24 hours, my book was live on Amazon to be purchased and read.

I had put it up out there. I was ready for brickbats and criticism, but secretly hoped every one who purchased the book found it worth their money and time spent on it.

And when I started getting reactions from complete strangers, I was overwhelmed. Everyone had good things to say about it. Yes, there was some constructive criticism which came with it, but every single one liked it. I never strived to write the best-ever award winning fiction. No. I just wanted to entertain people. And I think I have managed to do that.

I am now working on my second book, because, I am not going to give up.

A big shoutout to those who stood by me. And those who didn’t. Those who told me I couldn’t. Because, I did.

You could buy my debut novel, Flawed But Fabulous, by visiting this link.

Why Muslims are not allowed to keep long beard in the armed forces

Hemant Bijapurkar
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Why Muslims are not allowed to keep long beard in the armed forces

Rarely is religion in the equation when it comes to the armed forces, but in cases like sporting of facial hair on the basis of one’s religion, it has resulted into disputes and even dismissal of soldiers.

The issue came to limelight a couple of days ago when the Supreme Court dismissed the plea of Ansari Aftab Ahmed, who was sacked from the Air force in 2008 for sporting a long beard without permission. Ansari had claimed that he had the right to grow beard as per his religious beliefs and had refused to follow orders to shave it, but the apex court didn’t agree with that argument.

Court agreed with the view of Air Force, which had argued that all Muslims do not carry beard and that the practice of growing and keeping a beard was not among the central practices of Islam, hence the orders to shave off the beard was not impinging on any religious beliefs or rights.

Aftab was deemed to have violated the rules and discipline of the armed forces and hence his dismissal was upheld by the court. And this is not the first case, as we will find later in this article.

But at this point, a reader might wonder why should the armed forces be concerned about haircut or facial hair of soldiers to begin with? Isn’t that too small an issue? And shouldn’t adults be allowed to choose for themselves?

That argument might appear logical but we have to understand that we are talking about an organisation – the Indian armed forces – which is universally accepted and acknowledged as being one of the most disciplined ones. Grooming is a part of that discipline.

Armed forces have such rules for grooming – with a few exceptions for Sikhs – because they bring uniformity in appearance. The underlying belief is – a common citizen should see a solider whose appearance doesn’t reflect any religious bias.

In order to maintain this uniformity and discipline, our armed forces have some rules regarding sporting facial hair. Here are those:

Indian Air Force:

As per Defence Service Regulations, sporting a beard is not permitted except when religion prohibits shaving it off. The exact words are:

pdf source

Since Air force believes that Islam doesn’t prohibit cutting of the hair or shaving the beard, and thus the sub-section (b) was not applicable to Muslims, a directive was notified in 2003, which made things a bit clearer:

“Only those Muslim personnel, who had kept beard along with mustache at the time of commissioning /enrollment prior to 01 Jan 2002, would be allowed to keep beard and mustache… Muslims who have grown beard after joining service should shave off the beard. Under no circumstances, a Muslim person who had beard at the time of joining service before 1 Jan 2002 shall be allowed to maintain beard without mustache. Mustache would be a part of the beard.”

Indian Army:

Army too follows the Defence Service Regulation and they have similar rules that forbids sporting beards, though the mention of Sikh religion is explicit. The exact relevant portions are:

pdf source

In short, beard would not be permitted for non-Sikh soldiers, as was witnessed in the case of Maktumhusen. Maktumhusen, a 34-year-old Muslim from Dharwad, Karnataka, was a sepoy who joined the Army Medical Corps in 2001. After almost a decade of service he sought permission from his Commanding Officer to grow a beard on religious grounds. He was allowed the same but was asked to get a new ID card and was instructed not to change his look for the rest of his service tenure.

His request though was later turned down after the CO discovered the above amendment to Regulation No. 665 of the Defence Services Regulations, which stated that those other than Sikhs could not sport a permanent beard.

Maktumhusen grew a beard and was meanwhile transferred to Command Hospital, Pune. His CO there also asked him to get rid of his beard. After his refusal and a show cause notice, he was sentenced to a fortnight of detention and was later discharged from service. Later the Army Tribunal upheld the same and also noted that Sikhs were provided permission to sport a beard because:

“No one can dispute the fact that growing of hair and beard by Sikhs is an essential practice of their religion and, in fact, fundamental tenet of that religion. Recognising the religious faith, belief and practice followed by them in the case of Sikh military personnel an exception has been made allowing the Sikh military personnel to grow hair and beard.”

Indian Navy:

When it comes to the Indian Navy, it is probably the most lax when it comes to the facial hair and allows the blandishment of beards and moustaches provided they are neatly trimmed and prior permission has been granted by seniors.

Even though sporting beard is allowed, Sikhs still find a mention in the rules as officers and sailors are expected to keep their beard trimmed – something Sikhs can’t do. The relevant portion of the regulations are as follows:

pdf source

Interestingly, the last UPA government issued a few statements saying demands of devout Muslims will be considered, hinting that Army and Air Force could be asked to modify the rules. The then Defence Minister AK Antony is reported to have made that promise to a group of Muslims while blaming the previous NDA government for introducing the rules. But the UPA government backtracked in the court and didn’t force the armed forces to change their rules.

The truth behind political parties being exempt from tax scrutiny for deposit of old notes

OpIndia Staff
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The truth behind political parties being exempt from tax scrutiny for deposit of old notes

First check out the following headlines of various media outlets:

All the above news articles scream in their headlines that the Income Tax Department will not scrutinise the deposit of old Rs 500 notes and Rs 1000 notes by political parties.

Obviously, from reading just the headline, it appears that firstly, this is a new law brought into force, and secondly, that this is a gaping loophole. The headlines suggest as if political parties have a sacrosanct position under Income Tax and are hence exempt from “scrutiny”.

If so, can these media houses explain the following:

Just last year, Political parties like AAP, Congress and many others were “scrutinised” by the very same Income Tax department! The 2015 story in the Economic Times goes on to say (emphasis ours):

“According to CBDT, the taxman has taken action after suspicion that a number of bogus or ‘entry operator’ companies were converting illegal cash into legitimate money in the national capital by donating black money to parties after similar instances were detected by its sleuths in Kolkata. The notices which have been issued in Delhi include AAP and Congress for receiving donations worth Rs 2 crore and Rs 10 lakh, respectively.”

So in early 2015 itself, political parties were under the scanner for being suspected conduits to convert illegitimate money, but if we believe media reports, they suddenly became exempt from any scrutiny in late 2016? They can now safely become a conduit to convert black money into white?

The truth lies in the details. As explained in our previous article, the only exemptions afforded to the political parties are that they are exempt from Income Tax (as they are not allowed to undertake commercial activities), and that donations below 20,000 rupees are not required to be reported to the Election Commission of India. Both these rules are not new and have been existing in the statutes for many years now.

As far as accepting the old 500 and 2000 rupees notes are concerned, the government made it clear that parties are not allowed to deposit those notes that came to them as donations after November 8 – the day when the demonetisation was announced.

Hence, trying to portray them as a new rule introduced by the current government is utter lie, as the following headline does:

At no place does the Income Tax Act proclaim political parties to be exempt from tax scrutiny. Political parties are required to maintain books of accounts, file income tax returns, be open to scrutiny (as was seen in the 2015 case), and even be ready for searches and raids.

In fact, whenever an assessee returns tax-free or exempt income, his case is more likely to be taken by the IT officers, than say an assessee who is subject to normal tax rates, because the person enjoying the exemption can misuse it.

As we had explained in another article, any sort of jugglery to convert old notes eventually leads the person to a bank. And once you deposit such notes in the bank, it is very easy for the Tax department to scrutinise the person’s data.

In case of political parties, surely they can try to launder money, but as soon as they deposit the money in the bank, they leave a trail. From thereon, it is a simple case of adding two plus two. A party which shows a sudden spike in donations and deposits is most likely to be indulging in some nefarious activities. This can be detected by some of the most rudimentary analytical tools.

So will a political party actually take such a risk? The consequences can be lethal. Even a news report (leave alone conviction by any authority) can do irreparable damage to the party’s public image. A conviction can jeopardise the whole party and their recognition can be cancelled by the ECI.

And funding of political parties has always been a hot-topic for scrutiny by not only Income Tax Departments, but also by courts. Just recently both Congress and BJP were seen battling a Delhi High Court verdict holding them prima facie guilty of violating the law on foreign funding. Although the term “foreign funding” sounds ominous, in the instant case, both the parties had only accepted donations from subsidiary companies of the Vedanta group (owned by Anil Aggarwal). Due to technical reasons, these subsidiaries were found to be “foreign companies” by the Court, and hence the parties were in a soup.

In such a situation, where political parties across the spectrum have always been facing heat over their donations, either from the Income Tax Department or from the Courts, it is highly misleading when news reports’ headlines scream that they will be exempt from tax scrutiny. A few reports did mention the truth in the main body, but the headlines are enough to fool anyone.

Having said so, tax reforms in the sphere of political parties are long overdue. The rule that donations below 20,000 rupees are not required to be reported to ECI needs to be scrapped as soon as possible. Parties should be made to declare granular data of each donation received by them. The fight against black money must be extended to all.

Demonetisation and the miraculous rise of Humanity

Divya
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Demonetisation and the miraculous rise of Humanity

The most path-changing inventions and discoveries in our world have often been unintentional.

Like Christopher Columbus set off to discover India and ended up finding the land of abundance, the United States of America. Wilhelm Roentgen was fiddling around with inconsequential cathode rays when he ended up inventing the X-ray. Even Cornflakes were invented only because Will Kellogs was too lazy to put the boiled wheat dough into the refrigerator!

Similarly, something magical happened on the night of November 8th 2016 as Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced his grandiose demonetisation drive. What set off as a purely financial exercise, mainly with the intention of cleaning up a huge chunk of parallel economy, ended up awakening the collective conscience of our nation.

With demonetisation, a hitherto sleeping giant was awoken from its deep slumber. This giant is called Humanity.

Humanity suddenly woke up to the misery of India’s wretched millions. Countless nameless people who had fallen through the cracks of our society and had lost all hopes of ever being heard, magically found a voice. All of a sudden Humanity was curious. Is there someone standing in a line who I must look out for? A poor farmer, a pregnant woman, or a retired army man?

The poor farmer, who had lost his land to land sharks close to the established ecosystem and had all along been exploited by corrupt governments, has finally found a saviour. Never mind that the water meant for irrigation of his fields was diverted to sugar mills run by crafty politicians. Humanity will now be his voice. His tears will be given a platform as soon as humanity is able to connect their source to demonetisation.

The army man also has found his benefactor. The brave soldier who has been struggling to fight for his dues off field and is managing to fight with substandard equipment on it. His misery of 60 years is finally about to end. Humanity will find him standing in a bank queue and rush to his rescue. His face, streaming with tears will be splashed across and heart rending headlines will call out to his plight.

The poorest of poor children, who have all along been denied medical treatment, education and even basic rights like food can now rejoice. Because humanity is now awake. All it needs to figure out is a way to connect their plight to the evil demonetisation.

Humanity has some pet peeves. Long queues outside banks are on the top of the list. If humanity had been awake when millions of people spent half their lives queueing up outside ration shops for basic food items, it would have been very angry. It would have also lost its cool at the ghastly divide of the poor and the rich. It would have taken strong exception to the fact that so many in our country went hungry and malnourished as they had no “cash” to buy food.

Humanity would have certainly hated the fact that people were classified as rich if they earned more than 29 rupees a day while the rich stashed their lockers, mattresses and hidden lofts with currency.

But we can all now heave a sigh of relief. For demonetisation may or may not succeed with its original objectives but our nation should be thankful that the unintended consequences of this diabolic scheme have had far reaching noble effects.

Humanity is finally awake after 65 years. An achievement that no other government has succeeded with in the past.

Political parties and ‘income tax’ on donations – all you need to know

Ashutosh Muglikar
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Political parties and ‘income tax’ on donations – all you need to know

Elections and the conduct of the legislature in India is governed under the Representation of the People Act, 1951, which empowers the Election Commission of India (ECI) to form rules for elections and political parties.

As per current rules, political parties in India are barred from undertaking any commercial activity and thus they are not deemed to be engaged in acts that make them liable to pay any income tax. But it doesn’t mean that parties are not under the radar of the tax authorities.

Yesterday, this misleading tweet by news agency Reuters created a lot of confusion on social media (the agency then tweeted a rejoinder to make things clearer):


To help you understand things better, here are a list of issues – in FAQs format- that you should know:

Q1. Were political parties always exempted from paying income tax?

Ans: Yes. Under Section 13A of the IT Act, political parties are exempt from paying Income Tax. But they are required to file their Income Tax Returns (ITR). This is a very old provision.

Q2. So we can know from where their income i.e. their donations are coming from?

Ans: Technically yes, but there is one loophole.

Q3. What is that loophole?

Ans: Donations below 20,000 rupees are not required to be reported to the ECI (Sec 29C, sub-section 3) but they have to be reported in the ITR. Political parties are essentially not required to disclose details of those donating below 20,000 rupees.

Q4. How is it misused?

Ans: Simple study of IT returns of any political party will show that maximum donations to them are from such ‘unknown’ sources.

Q5. Does it mean that Income Tax Department cannot scrutinise political parties?

Ans: Not really. Parties are exempted from income tax, but they still have to: a. maintain books of accounts, b. file returns, c. be open to scrutiny, even raids, etc.

Q6. Have political parties ever been raided or questioned over their source of funds?

Ans: I haven’t come across cases of raids. However, their returns are scrutinised just like any other assesses, and Income Tax department takes note of complaints against them too. As recent as last year, Congress and AAP had received notices from the department. Question here is how far the department will go in pursuing such cases.

Q7. Can I access the ITR of these political parties? If yes, how?

Ans: Although most parties are disputing the ruling, they were deemed to be under the RTI act by the CIC. Thus one could file an RTI and get information like their balance sheet, income statement and even the donors list (information in donors list can be incomplete based on record keeping of the party and because of that aforementioned loophole). However, since the matter is currently disputed and sub-judice, right now you may not get any response.

Q8. Can donation details given in ITR be different number from donation report submitted to the ECI?

Ans: Donations given in ITR is the sum of total donations received (including below the 20k threshold) by the party, while the donations report submitted to the EC are those of above Rs. 20,000, listing the details of the donors, their addresses and their mode of payments; so information contained in both the documents will be different.

Q9. Can a Party convert black money to white?

Ans: Technically, yes. Parties can take money and show them as donations below 20,000 rupees (making backdated entries showing that donations were taken before demonetisation was announced) and try to convert it into white money for a ‘cut’. But do remember that they have to furnish expenditure details to the ECI too, thus there is always a way to catch this scam. Strong political willpower will be needed to nail such parties.

Q10. Do you think Narendra Modi will do it?

Ans: I hope he does! I am sure he knows about this possibility. Wasn’t that the reason he asked all his MPs to submit their bank statements by 31st December? I hope he will check bank statements of not only the BJP but of all political parties.

Q11. Are you sure political parties are indulging in such scam?

Ans: Believe me it’s not that easy. If caught, it can jeopardise the whole party and their recognition can be cancelled by the ECI. Surely a party should think twice before indulging in such deeds.

Q12. What should be the way forward?

Ans: There should be more transparency in political funding. Donations below 20k should have the same rules as applicable to donations above 20k i.e. Name, Address, and PAN details of donors must be recorded, and finally the ITR details should be made public. This will need an amendment to the Representation of Peoples act and the IT act.

When journalists joined Kejriwal in attacking Paytm without any valid reason

OpIndia Staff
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When journalists joined Kejriwal in attacking Paytm without any valid reason

In popular belief, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) comes into the picture only when the courts or the government thinks a serious crime has been committed and the local police or administration may not have enough resources or skill-set to investigate that. Most of the talked about cases handled by the CBI are indeed of such nature, however, this doesn’t mean that all cases handled by the CBI are of this nature only.

The fact is that private parties can approach the CBI, and also that the bureau does register cases more often than commonly believed. Just go through the Press Releases issued by the CBI on their website and you can see the frequency of new cases being registered following complaint by various parties that are neither governments nor courts.

There are many examples one can find if one makes a little effort. A recent one being of Anand Rai, better known as the whistleblower of the Vyapam scam of Madhya Pradesh, who filed a complaint directly with the CBI in in July 2015. Rai could file a complaint when BJP was in power both in the state and at centre. Basically, you don’t need to be in favour of the ruling party to approach the CBI. The case was finally handed over to the CBI with courts monitoring it.

When Prashant Bhushan was in AAP, he too had filed complaint with the CBI against a then union minister Praful Patel back in 2013. And as recent as three months ago, a businessman had filed a complaint with the CBI against former union minister P Chidambaram.

On its website under the Frequently Asked Questions and Contact Us pages, CBI makes it amply clear that people can file a complaint with it for Cyber Crimes, Economic Crimes, Human Trafficking, etc. though it tells people not to approach it for conventional crimes like murder, theft, robbery etc., because they are taken up by the CBI only after being directed by the Supreme Court / High Courts or referred by the State Governments.

Now the common man may not be aware of all this, but a journalist should be. Or at least the journalist should make an effort to find out about these before making comments and passing judgments. But when it comes to pushing propaganda, these things don’t matter.

And that’s what happened today when a news report was shared informing that CBI has registered a case following a complaint filed by Paytm – the digital wallet provider – for a suspected economic fraud.

The news was reported by news agency PTI – and thus was blindly copied and shared by all news organisations – and its reporter had this additional comment to pass:


Not Delhi Police because a cyber fraud can take place from anywhere? Better to approach the CBI if the rules allow so that there is no quarrel of “jurisdiction”? But to realise this, you either need to know the rules or be not driven by propaganda.

Nonetheless, once the doubt was seeded, it was followed up and amplified by senior and “respected” journalists like Shekhar Gupta, who too outraged without considering the facts we put in in the beginning in this article. Is he not aware of those facts?


Once the outrage was given credibility by “respected” journalists, the not-so-respected ones jumped in adding a dash of conspiracy theory aligned with Kejriwal’s politics:


And when the incumbent union government is involved, how can Arvind Kejriwal be far away?



This was followed by all AAP aligned journalists and trolls showering hate on Paytm again, which has replaced Ambani-Adani for the duration of demonetisation.

With this manufactured outrage growing, the CBI clarified (which it would not have needed to, if the journalists had done some basic google search) that it had the rights to register such cases. Not just Paytm, the CBI had registered cases following complaints by companies like Snapdeal, Google, ICICI pockets, etc. So there was no special treatment given to Paytm as the AAP journalists tried to suggest.

The CBI further informed that a similar complaint by Paytm was registered by it in August this year too. But then no demonetisation drive was in place, so it didn’t cause any outrage by Arvind Kejriwal and the assorted knowledgeable journalists.

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