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Nirmala Sitharaman lands defence portfolio, Piyush Goyal gets Railway

Agencies
September 3, 2017

New Delhi, Sep 3: Nirmala Sitharaman emerged as the biggest gainer of the cabinet reshuffle today as Prime Minister Modi gave her the heavyweight Defence portfolio, while Piyush Goyal replaced Suresh Prabhu in the Railway Ministry in a major rejig, which saw nine new faces being inducted.

Sitharaman became the first woman Defence Minister of the country since Indira Gandhi held the charge.

Sitharaman, who was holding the Commerce portfolio as a Minister of State, was elevated along with Goyal, Dharmendra Pradhan and Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi to the cabinet rank.

As the Defence Minister, Sitharaman will be a member of the crucial Cabinet Committee on Security whose members include the Prime Minister, Home Minister, External Affairs Minister and the Finance Minister.

Prabhu was shifted to the commerce and industry ministry, while Pradhan and Naqvi retained their portfolios of Oil and Gas and Minority Affairs respectively. Goyal will continue to head the Coal Ministry along with Railways.

Modi stripped cabinet minister Uma Bharti of the charges of water resources, river development and Ganga rejuvenation and handed them over to Nitin Gadkari. Bharti will take care of Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation.

Pradhan was given the additional charge of Skill Development Ministry. The Prime Minister also reposed faith in the administrative capabilities of three former government officials by giving them independent charge of crucial portfolios.

Former diplomat Hardeep Puri and former IAS officer Alphons Kannanthanam have been made MoS (Independent charge) of Housing and Urban Development and Tourism respectively.

R K Singh, former Home Secretary, was given charge of Power and New and Renewable Energy portfolios. Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore replaced Vijay Goel in the Sports MInistry.

Goel, who earlier held independent charge, has been shunted as the Minister of State for Parliamentary Afairs and Statistics and Programme Implementation.

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News Network
July 15,2020

New Delhi, Jul 14: India's COVID-19 tally has reached 9,36,181 as 29,429 new coronavirus cases were reported in the last 24 hours, informed the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Wednesday.

The death toll went up to 24,309, including 582 fatalities in the last 24 hours.

Out of the total cases, 3,19,840 are currently active and 5,92,032 are cured/discharged/migrated.

As per the Ministry, Maharashtra -- the worst-affected state from the infection -- has a total of 2,67,665 COVID-19 cases and 10,695 fatalities. While Tamil Nadu has a tally of 1,47,324 cases and 2,099 deaths due to COVID-19.

Delhi has reported a total of 1,15,346 cases and 3,446 deaths due to COVID-19.

As per the information provided by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) 3,20,161 samples have been tested for COVID-19 till July 14, of these 1,24,12,664 samples were tested on Tuesday.

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Agencies
May 31,2020

New Delhi, May 31: The income tax department has notified forms for filing income tax returns for the financial year 2019-20.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has notified Sahaj (ITR-1), Form ITR-2, Form ITR-3, Form Sugam (ITR-4), Form ITR-5, Form ITR-6, Form ITR-7 and Form ITR-V for the assessment year 2020-21.

The department has revised the I-T return forms for the financial year 2019-20 to allow assessees to avail benefits of various timeline extension granted by the government following the COVID-19 outbreak.

The government has extended various timelines under the Income Tax Act, 1961, through the Taxation and Other Laws (Relaxation of Certain Provisions) Ordinance, 2020.

Accordingly, the time for making investment or payments for claiming deduction under Chapter-VIA-B of IT Act that include Section 80C (LIC, PPF, NSC etc.), 80D (Mediclaim) and 80G (Donations) for the financial year 2019-20 had been extended to June 30, 2020.

ClearTax founder and CEO Archit Gupta said, "The new forms require a separate table to disclose tax saving investment made in the first quarter of 2020 for availing them in FY 2019-20. Taxpayers must assess their tax liability for FY 2019-20 and make sure they are maximising their Section 80C benefits if not already done so."

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Agencies
July 27,2020

New Delhi, Jul 27: Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Monday said he is not going to lie about Chinese transgressions in eastern Ladakh even if it costs him politically, asserting he will say the truth as far as Indian territory is concerned.

Gandhi made these remarks in a tweet, along with an over-a-minute-long video, as part of a series launched by him on the India-China face-off along the Line of Actual Control(LAC) in eastern Ladakh.

Asked in the video how he would react to people who say his questions to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on China weakened India, the former Congress chief said, "If you want me to lie that the Chinese have not entered this country, I am not going to lie. I will simply not do it. I do not care if my whole career goes to hell. I am not going to lie."

"This disturbs me. Frankly, it makes my blood boil. How can some other nation just come into our territory?"

"Hiding the truth is anti-national. Bringing it to people's attention is patriotic," Gandhi said.

"So frankly, I do not care if it costs me politically. I do not care if I have no political career at all after that. But I am going to say the truth as far as Indian territory is concerned," he added.

Gandhi has been repeatedly attacking the prime minister and the government over Chinese transgressions on the LAC in eastern Ladakh.

"As an Indian, my number one priority is the nation and its people," he said on Monday.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has hit back at Gandhi over his attack on the government on the Ladakh face-off, alleging he is seeking to politicise defence and foreign policy matters and "wash their past sins of 1962 and weaken India".

BJP president JP Nadda has also alleged that for years, a dynasty has been trying to destroy Modi, while adding that those who want to destroy the prime minister will only end up causing further damage to their own party.

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