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Any interpretation of the ESI Act should lean in favour of the beneficiaries – Supreme court

Copy of judgement is attached

The Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has notified the amended rules for calculating Composition Fee for extending Export Obligation under Advance Authorization Scheme.

According to the Ministry of Commerce & Industry, simplifying calculations for Composition Fees will help in automation and faster service delivery by making the process more efficient and easier to understand. The revised Composition Fee formula, based on a specific rate for different levels of the ‘CIF value of Authorisation’, is more straightforward to calculate. 

This will help automate the entire Export Obligation extension process with minimal human intervention, further eliminating the risk of errors and misconceptions. Automating the process will reduce the need for manual calculations and paperwork, ultimately leading to faster service delivery. This will benefit exporters, reducing the time and effort required to complete the Export Obligation extension process. 

Additionally, as per the Ministry, simplifying calculations reduces the complexity and makes the process more straightforward for exporters, leading to trade facilitation and ease of doing business. 

Trade between India and China touched an all-time high of USD 135.98 billion in 2022 while New Delhi’s trade deficit with Beijing crossed for the first time a USD 100 billion mark, according to data released by the Chinese customs on Friday.

The total India-China trade for 2022 has climbed to 135.98 billion, overtaking the USD 125 billion mark a year earlier by registering an 8.4 per cent increase, according to the annual Chinese customs data. China’s exports to India climbed to USD 118.5 billion, a year-on-year increase of 21.7 per cent. During 2022, China’s imports from India dwindled to USD 17.48 billion, a year-on-year decline of 37.9 per cent.

The trade deficit for India stood at USD 101.02 billion, crossing the 2021 figure of USD 69.38 billion.

Source: PTI

In its annual Global Economic Prospects Report, the World Bank has slashed its 2023 growth rate projection by nearly half to 1.7%, on the background of elevated inflation, higher interest rates, reduced investment, and disruptions caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

As per the report, given fragile economic conditions, any new adverse development—such as higher-than-expected inflation, abrupt rises in interest rates to contain it, a resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic, or escalating geopolitical tensions—could push the global economy into recession. This would mark the first time in more than 80 years that two global recessions have occurred within the same decade.

The global economy is projected to grow by 1.7% in 2023 and 2.7% in 2024. The sharp downturn in growth is expected to be widespread, with forecasts in 2023 revised down for 95% of advanced economies and nearly 70% of emerging market and developing economies.

Excluding China, growth in emerging markets and developing economies is expected to decelerate from 3.8% in 2022 to 2.7% in 2023, reflecting significantly weaker external demand compounded by high inflation, currency depreciation, tighter financing conditions, and other domestic headwinds.

The report says that India is projected to slow to 6.9% in FY23, with the existing uncertain global economy weighing in on export and investment growth. The South Asian region, however, is expected to be the world’s fastest growing, with India driving the growth as the fastest growing major economy.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) notified the revised list of accredited credit rating agencies for the purpose of assigning risk weight to assets for capital adequacy purposes by the banks.

On a review, banks are advised to use the ratings of the following domestic credit rating agencies for risk weighting their claims for capital adequacy purposes, including Acuite Ratings & Research Limited (Acuite), Credit Analysis and Research Limited (CARE); CRISIL Ratings Limited and ICRA Limited, RBI said in a notification.

The other two rating agencies are India Ratings and Research Private Limited (India Ratings); and INFOMERICS Valuation and Rating Pvt Ltd.

The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi, has approved the National Green Hydrogen Mission. The initial outlay for the Mission will be Rs.19,744 crore, including an outlay of Rs.17,490 crore for the Strategic Interventions for Green Hydrogen Transition Programme (SIGHT) programme, Rs.1,466 crore for pilot projects, Rs.400 crore for R&D, and Rs. 388 crore towards other mission components.

Through the Mission, India aims to develop at least 5 MMT (Million Metric Tonne) per annum of green hydrogen by 2030, with an associated renewable energy capacity addition of about 125 GW in the country, with an investment of over Rs 8 lakh crore. As per the Government, this would result in cumulative reduction in fossil fuel imports over Rs. 1 lakh crore and abatement of nearly 50 MMT of annual greenhouse gas emissions.

The Mission will facilitate demand creation, production, utilization and export of Green Hydrogen. Under SIGHT, two distinct financial incentive mechanisms – targeting domestic manufacturing of electrolysers and production of Green Hydrogen – will be provided under the Mission. The Mission will also support pilot projects in emerging end-use sectors and production pathways. Regions capable of supporting large scale production and/or utilisation of Hydrogen will be identified and developed as Green Hydrogen Hubs.

An enabling policy framework will be developed to support establishment of the Green Hydrogen ecosystem. A Standards and Regulations framework will also be developed. Further, a public-private partnership framework for R&D (Strategic Hydrogen Innovation Partnership – SHIP) will be facilitated under the Mission.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Government of India signed a $350 million loan to improve the connectivity of key economic areas in the state of Maharashtra.The project will help address intra-regional disparities by improving connectivity, facilitating access to services, and accelerating inclusive economic growth of lagging districts in the state.

As per the Government, at least 319 km of state highways and 149 km of district roads will be upgraded, incorporating climate and disaster-resilient features to strengthen the state’s core road network in 10 districts of Ahmednagar, Hingoli, Jalna, Kohalpur, Nagur, Nanded, Nashik, Pune, Sangli, and Satara. This will help connect underdeveloped rural communities with off-farm opportunities and markets, improve access to health and social services and improve agricultural value chains by reducing transport costs for small and medium-sized enterprises.

In addition, the project will construct 5 km of major district roads connecting Nanded and neighboring Telangana. The project will promote gender equality and social inclusion in highway programs, schools, health, and social services and set up integrated service centers to provide basic sanitation, education, and other services. Plans are on to conduct skills training for enterprises led by poor women and disadvantaged groups to provide livelihood opportunities.

The project will also demonstrate the private sector’s effectiveness in undertaking long-term road maintenance for greater life-cycle quality and operational efficiency and develop a good practice handbook for climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction in road design and maintenance.

State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, and HDFC Bank have been named as Domestic Systemically Important Banks (D-SIBs), under the same bucketing structure as in the 2021 list of D-SIBs, as per a circular from the Reserve Bank of India. The central bank has said that the additional Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) requirement for D-SIBs was phased-in from April 1, 2016 and became fully effective from April 1, 2019. The additional CET1 requirement will be in addition to the capital conservation buffer.

As per the report, while SBI, which is placed in bucket 3, needs to make a provision of 0.20% towards additional Common Equity Tier 1 requirement as percentage of Risk Weighted Assets, ICICI and HDFC, placed in bucket 1, need to make a provision of 0.60%.

RBI had issued the Framework for dealing with Domestic Systemically Important Banks (D-SIBs) on July 22, 2014. The D-SIB framework requires the Reserve Bank to disclose the names of banks designated as D-SIBs starting from 2015 and place these banks in appropriate buckets depending upon their Systemic Importance Scores (SISs).

Based on the bucket in which a D-SIB is placed, an additional common equity requirement has to be applied to it. In case a foreign bank having branch presence in India is a Global Systemically Important Bank (G-SIB), it has to maintain additional CET1 capital surcharge in India as applicable to it as a G-SIB, proportionate to its Risk Weighted Assets (RWAs) in India, i.e., additional CET1 buffer prescribed by the home regulator (amount) multiplied by India RWA as per consolidated global Group books divided by total consolidated global Group RWA.

The Reserve Bank had announced SBI and ICICI Bank as D-SIBs in 2015 and 2016. Based on data collected from banks as on March 31, 2017, HDFC Bank was also classified as a D-SIB, along with SBI and ICICI Bank. The current update is based on the data collected from banks as on March 31, 2022.

The gross GST revenue collections grew 15% year-on-year to Rs 1,49,507 crore in December 2022. As per the Government, CGST was Rs 26,711 crore, SGST, Rs 33,357 crore, IGST was Rs 78,434 crore (including Rs 40,263 crore collected on import of goods) and Cess was Rs 11,005 crore (including Rs 850 crore collected on import of goods).

The Government has settled Rs 36,669 crore to CGST and Rs 31,094 crore to SGST from IGST as regular settlement. The total revenue of Centre and the States after regular settlements in the month of December 2022 is Rs 63,380 crore for CGST and Rs 64,451 crore for the SGST.

The statement said that in December, revenues from import of goods were 8% higher and revenues from domestic transactions (including import of services) were 18% higher than the revenues from these sources during the same month last year. During the month of November, 2022, 7.9 crore e-way bills were generated, which was significantly higher than 7.6 crore e-way bills generated in October, 2022.

Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) Science & Technology; Minister of State (Independent Charge) Earth Sciences; MoS PMO, Personnel, Public Grievances, Pensions, Atomic Energy and Space, Dr Jitendra Singh said that effective 1st January, 2023, the National Research Development Corporation (NRDC) will undertake Technology Commercialisation for benefit of Start-Ups.

According to Dr Jitendra Singh, since inception, NRDC has concluded more than 5000 license agreements representing technologies in almost all industry sectors. Further, NRDC has also entered into an MoU with The Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (APEDA) for mentoring and monitoring export oriented Agri-based startups.

NRDC assists the Inter-Ministerial Board (IMB) of DPIIT for technically evaluating startups for their ability to avail benefits extended by Government of India. Till date over 7500 applications from startups have been assessed.

Dr Jitendra Singh said NRDC has also associated with Indian Oil Corporation Limited (IOCL) for implementation of their start-up scheme from identification of start-ups and hand-holding to product launch.

The Technology Development, Validation and Commercialisation Program (TDVC) program is a grant-in-aid scheme for providing financial support to start-ups, incubatees and MSMEs who focus on problem statements of the Indian society and manufacturing industry in the brick & mortar economy.