Gorakhpur tragedy: Dr Kafeel Khan slams Yogi Adityanath for telling ‘blatant lies’

Those owning a single house in joint names would continue to file their income tax returns (ITRs) in much simpler ITR-1 (Sahaj) and ITR-4 forms (Sugam) for assessment year 2020-21 with the government issuing a clarification in this regard.

The clarification has come days after the government modified the eligibility for filing the returns in ITR-1 and ITR-4, stating that those owning a property jointly, spending Rs 2 lakh on foreign travel and paying electricity bill of Rs 1 lakh in a year would not be able to file returns in the simpler forms.

They would have to file their returns with much more detailed information in other specified forms.

Following the changes in the eligibility for filing returns in the two forms, concerns were raised over it with taxpayers claiming that it will cause huge hardship for them.

"The matter has been examined and it has been decided to allow a person, who jointly owns a single house property, to file his/her return of income in ITR-1 or ITR-4 Form, as may be applicable, if he/she meets the other conditions," a Finance Ministry statement said.

"It has also been decided to allow a person, who is required to file return due to fulfilment of one or more conditions specified in the seventh proviso to section 139(1) of the Act, to file his/her return in ITR-1 Form," it added.

Tax practitioners welcomed the government’s move of going back to the previous position.

"This is a welcome clarification allowing middle class taxpayers owning a single house property to file simpler ITR forms, 1 and 4, and not the detailed ITR forms even if they own house property in joint names," said Shailesh Kumar, Director, Nangia Andersen Consulting.

It may be noted that taxpayers holding multiple house properties would have to file more detailed return forms.

In the major changes notified earlier this month by the Income-Tax department, individual taxpayers were disallowed to file return either in ITR-1 or ITR 4 if he or she was a joint-owner in house property.

In another change, those who deposited more than Rs 1 crore in bank account or spent Rs 2 lakh on foreign travel or paid Rs 1 lakh on electricity bill in a financial year were also barred from using the easy-to-fill return forms.

"By today's clarification, the government has maintained status quo. Now, the taxpayers can continue filing their returns in the same fashion in which they did last year," said Naveen Wadhwa, Deputy General Manager (DGM), Taxmann.

Feb 12: China on Wednesday reported another drop in the number of new cases of a viral infection and 97 more deaths, pushing the total dead past 1,100 as postal services worldwide said delivery was being affected by the cancellation of many flights to China.

The National Health Commission said 2,015 new cases had been reported over the last 24 hours, declining for a second day. The total number of cases in mainland China reached 44,653, although many experts say a large number of others infected have gone uncounted.

The additional deaths raised the mainland toll to 1,113. Two people have died elsewhere, one in Hong Kong and one in the Philippines.

In the port city of Tianjin, just southeast of Beijing, a cluster of cases has been traced to a department store in Baodi district. One-third of Tianjin’s 104 confirmed cases are in Baodi, the Xinhua state news agency reported.

A salesperson working in the store’s small home appliance section became the first individual in the cluster to be diagnosed on Jan. 31, Xinhua said. The store was already closed at that point, then disinfected on Feb. 1. Nevertheless, several more diagnoses soon followed.

The next to have their infections confirmed were also salespeople at the store. They had not visited Wuhan recently and, with the exception of one married couple, the patients worked in different sections of the store and did not know one another, according to Xinhua.

Japan’s Health Ministry said that 39 new cases have been confirmed on a cruise ship quarantined at Yokohama, bringing the total to 174 on the Diamond Princess.

The U.S. Postal Service said that it was “experiencing significant difficulties” in dispatching letters, parcels and express mail to China, including Hong Kong and Macau.

Both the U.S. and Singapore Post said in notes to their global counterparts that they are no longer accepting items destined for China, “until sufficient transport capacity becomes available.”

The Chinese mail service, China Post, said it was disinfecting postal offices, processing centers and vehicles to ensure the virus doesn’t spread via the mail and to protect staff.

It said the crisis is also impacting mail that transits China to other destinations including North Korea, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

The World Health Organization has named the disease caused by the virus as COVID-19, avoiding any animal or geographic designation to avoid stigmatization and to show the illness comes from a new coronavirus discovered in 2019.

The illness was first reported in December and connected to a food market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, where the outbreak has largely been concentrated.

Zhong Nanshan, a leading Chinese epidemiologist, said that while the virus outbreak in China may peak this month, the situation at the center of the crisis remains more challenging.

“We still need more time of hard working in Wuhan,” he said, describing the isolation of infected patients there a priority.

“We have to stop more people from being infected,” he said. “The problem of human-to-human transmission has not yet been resolved.”

Without enough facilities to handle the number of cases, Wuhan has been building prefabricated hospitals and converting a gym and other large spaces to house patients and try to isolate them from others.

China’s official media reported Tuesday that the top health officials in Hubei province, of which Wuhan is the capital, have been relieved of their duties. No reasons were given, although the province’s initial response was deemed slow and ineffective. Speculation that higher-level officials could be sacked has simmered, but doing so could spark political infighting and be a tacit admission of responsibility.

The virus outbreak has become the latest political challenge for the party and its leader, Xi Jinping, who despite accruing more political power than any Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, has struggled to handle crises on multiple fronts. These include a sharply slowing domestic economy, the trade war with the U.S. and pushback on China’s increasingly aggressive foreign policies.

China is struggling to restart its economy after the annual Lunar New Year holiday was extended to try to curb the spread of the virus. About 60 million people are under virtual quarantine and many others are still working at home.

In Hong Kong, the diagnosis of four people living in an apartment building prompted worried comparisons with the deadly SARS pandemic of 17 years ago.

More than 100 people were evacuated from the building after a 62-year-old woman diagnosed with the virus was found living 10 floors directly below a man who was earlier confirmed with the virus.

Health officials called it a precautionary measure and sought to assuage fears of an epidemic, dismissing similarities to the SARS community outbreak at the Amoy Gardens housing estate in 2003.

New Delhi, June 16: Tensions along the Line of Control border between India and China have spiked with an Indian army officer and two soldiers killed in the Galwan area of Ladakh, the Indian army said in a statement on Tuesday.

This is the first time in decades that a clash involving casualties has taken place on the 3,488 kilometre border between India and China.

"During the de-escalation process underway in the Galwan Valley, a violent face-off took place yesterday night with casualties. The loss of lives on the Indian side includes an officer and two soldiers. Senior military officials of the two sides are currently meeting at the venue to defuse the situation," said an official statement.

The two sides had made headway in talks last week with army chief General MM Naravane saying disengagement was in progress. The development had come after weeks of tension, including an incident in which patrolling soldiers from the two sides came to blows on the banks of Pangong Lake, resulting in injuries.

The two armies have since thinned out some forces in a positive signal but soldiers, tanks and other armoured carriers remained heavily deployed in the high-altitude region, an official had said.

India and China fought a brief border war in 1962 and have not been able to settle their border despite two decades of talks. Both claim thousands of kilometres of territory and patrols along the undemarcated Line of Actual Control - the de-facto border - often run into each other, leading to tensions.