15 March 2019: UPSC Exam PIB Summary & Analysis

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March 15^th 2019 PIB:-Download PDF Here

ECI convenes a meeting of Multi-Departmental Committee on Election Intelligence

Context:

The Election Commission of India headed by Chief Election Commissioner along with other two Election Commissioners held a meeting of Multi Departmental Committee on Election Intelligence.  Heads of Tax Boards, Law enforcement agencies, Central Paramilitary Forces and representatives of Financial Institutions attended the meeting.

Details:

• It is the constitutional mandate of the Election Commission of India to conduct free and fair elections.
• Conducting clean elections is now one of the biggest challenges in our democracy given the prevalent abuse of money power, particularly when it manifests in inducement of voters.

What are the measures taken to ensure free and fair elections?

• The Commission is determined to curb this menace and has issued detailed guidelines to monitor election expenditure incurred by candidates and political parties.
• The expenditure monitoring mechanism has got stronger over a period of time and larger seizures have been made by the ECI’s enforcement teams in successive elections.
• Individually and collectively the Heads of Tax Boards, Law enforcement agencies, Central Paramilitary Forces and representatives of Financial Institutions are the bulwarks of clean elections.

Way forward:

• Implementation on the field, of instructions of the Commission requires co-ordination among the various expenditure monitoring teams and the agencies tasked with enforcement.
• Sharing of Intelligence amongst the agencies should ensure that there is concerted attack on problems faced.
• Multidimensional, multi-fanged crime needs to be tackled with coordinated action.
• The agencies that due follow-up action on seizures done in previous Model Code of Conduct phase should see demonstrative action against antisocial elements enough to feel deterred next time.
• Election expenditure monitoring mechanism with its two thrust areas of keeping track of the legal expenditure incurred by candidates and political parties for election campaigns, and more importantly, ensuring that there is no illegal use of money and other items for buying of votes, is vital to ensure clean elections.
• Use of money during the elections has increased by leaps and bounds in recent times and therefore there is greater need to have synergy amongst various enforcement agencies so that a collective strategy is developed to fight this menace.  The Commission desires that all enforcement agencies should have proper sharing of information for taki ng coordinated action rather than working in silos.

Registration of political parties under Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951

Context:

The Election Commission has announced the elections for the Lok Sabha and Assemblies to Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Arunachal Pradesh on 10th March, 2019.

Details:

• In view of the current elections, the Commission has given one time relaxation and has reduced the notice period  from 30 days to 7 days for the parties who have published their public notice by 10th March, 2019 i.e. date of announcement of election.
• Now, therefore, if any body has any objection with regard to the registration of any political party who have published their public notice by 10th march, 2019 may file their objection against that party by 17th March, 2019.

Procedure for registration:

• Registration of Political parties is governed by the provisions of Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.
• A party seeking registration under the said Section with the Commission has to submit an application to the Commission within a period of 30 days following the date of its formation  as per guidelines prescribed by the Election Commission of India in exercise of the powers conferred by Article 324 of the Commission of India and Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.
• As per existing guidelines, the applicant association  is  inter-alia asked to publish proposed Name of the party in two national daily news papers and two local daily newspapers, on two days in same news papers, for inviting objections, if any, with regard to the proposed registration of the party before the Commission within  a 30 days from such publication.

Signing of Bilateral Agreement for Exchange of Country-by-Country (CbC) Reports between India and the USA

Sub-section (4) of Section 286 of the Income-tax Act, 1961 requires that a constituent entity of an international group, resident in India, other than a parent entity or an alternate reporting entity of an international group, resident in India, shall furnish the Country-by-Country (CbC) Report in respect of the said international Group for a reporting accounting year within the period as may be prescribed, if the parent entity of the said International Group is resident of a country or territory,—

• where the parent entity is not obligated to file the CbC Report;
• with which India does not have an agreement providing for exchange of the CbC Report; or
• where there has been a systemic failure of the country or territory and the said failure has been intimated by the prescribed authority to such constituent entity.

What is CbC report?

The Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) Action 13 report (Transfer Pricing Documentation and Country-by-Country Reporting) provides a template for multinational enterprises (MNEs) to report annually and for each tax jurisdiction in which they do business the information set out therein. This report is called the Country-by-Country (CbC) Report.

What is a constituent entity?

A constituent entity is a separate business unit of the MNE group that is included in the consolidated group for financial reporting purposes. This includes a permanent establishment if a separate income statement is prepared for regulatory, financial, internal management or tax purposes.

Bilateral agreement between India and USA:

• The absence of an Agreement between India and USA till now entailed a possibility of local filing of CbC Reports in India.
• However, a Bilateral Competent Authority Arrangement, along with an underlying Inter-Governmental Agreement, for exchange of CbC Reports between India and the USA has now been finalized and will be signed on or before 31^stMarch, 2019.
• This would enable both the countries to exchange CbC Reports filed by the ultimate parent entities of International Groups in the respective jurisdictions, pertaining to the financial years commencing on or after 1^stJanuary, 2016.
• As a result, Indian constituent entities of international groups headquartered in USA, who have already filed CbC Reports in the USA, would not be required to do local filing of the CbC Reports of their international groups in India.

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March 15^th 2019 PIB:-Download PDF Here

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