Department Financial News

The shutdown is in effect from March 14 (Friday) to March 17 (Monday). The prohibitory order, issued by the Principal Secretary, Home and Hill Affairs Department, Government of West Bengal on March 14, suspending internet and call services, cited concerns over the potential spreading of «rumours for unlawful activities.» Meanwhile, police forces have been deployed in the affected areas following reports of a stone-pelting incident in Birbhum. «Any data related message or class of message to or from any person or class of persons, to or from any telecommunication equipment or class of telecommunication equipment, or relating to any particular subject, brought for transmission by, or transmitted or received by any telecommunication service or telecommunication network under the ambit of Telecommunications Act, 2023, shall temporarily not be transmitted in the interest of maintaining public order and preventing incitement to the commission of any offence,» read the order.

ITAT) in Mumbai has ruled in favour of an individual who claimed non-resident status for tax purposes as he had spent 210 days abroad for work and job search, according to a TOI report by Lubna Kably. The tribunal clarified that an individual’s tax residency status must be decided only based on the number of days spent in India. M Gulati, the taxpayer, did not disclose his overseas income of Rs 1.2 crore for the financial year 2015-16, asserting that he was a non-resident because he stayed in India for less than 182 days. The Income-tax department, however, contended that of the 210 days spent outside India, 28 days were used to search for employment and thus should not be counted. Based on this, the department treated him as a tax resident, making his global income taxable in India. The ITAT rejected this argument and held that days spent abroad for seeking employment must be considered as valid for determining non-resident status. The tribunal referred to Explanation 1 to section 6(1) of the Income-tax Act, which provides that if a person leaves India for employment purposes, they will be considered a tax resident only if they stay in India for 182 days or more in that year.

Karnataka Cabinet has given its nod for amending the Karnataka Transparency in Public Procurement (KTPP) Act aimed at providing 4 per cent reservation in tenders to Muslim contractors, official sources said. The Cabinet also approved the Karnataka Gram Swaraj and Panchayat Raj (Amendment) Bill, which seeks to provide 'B' khatas to all unauthorised rural properties, similar to the exercise being carried out in urban areas. The bill is expected to cover some 90 lakh rural properties that do not have khatas. According to the sources, the Cabinet discussed a proposal to give 4.24 acres of land belonging to the Agriculture Department in Hebbal for the International Flower Auction Bangalore (IFAB) on a rent-free basis for two years. Discussions were also held on approving financial assistance of Rs 96.77 crore for reconstruction and replacement of equipment at Bangalore Bioinnovation Centre after the January fire incident. The Cabinet discussed measures to reform the Karnataka Public Service Commission (KPSC) on Friday, the sources said.

Ranjani Srinivasan, an Indian national and a doctoral student at Columbia University, has voluntarily left the United States after her visa was revoked for allegedly «advocating violence and terrorism.» In a statement on Friday (local time), US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said that Srinivasan, a student in Urban Planning at Columbia University, self-deported using the CBP Home App. «Today, Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem announced that one of the Columbia students who had her student visa revoked for advocating for violence and terrorism self-deported using the CBP Home App and ICE arrested a Palestinian student for overstaying her expired F-1 visa,» according to a release by the the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The US Department of State revoked Srinivasan's visa on March 5, alleging her involvement in «activities supporting Hamas.» «Ranjani Srinivasan, a citizen and national of India, entered the United States on a F-1 student visa as a doctoral student in Urban Planning at Columbia University. Srinivasan was involved in activities supporting Hammas, a terrorist organization. On March 5, 2025, the Department of State revoked her visa. The Department of Homeland Security has obtained video footage of her using the CBP Home App to self-deport on March 11,» the release stated.

Donald Trump delivered what sounded like one of his typical meandering, grievance-laden campaign speeches on Friday, but it was where he did it — inside the U.S. Department of Justice — that mattered. The appearance marked Trump's clearest exertion yet of personal control over the country's federal law enforcement apparatus, which is normally run by appointees who keep at least an arm's length from the president to avoid the appearance that politics are governing prosecutorial decisions. Trump, instead, embraced the notion of the agency as his own personal tool of vengeance. «As the chief law enforcement officer in our country, I will insist upon and demand full and complete accountability for the wrongs and abuses that have occurred,» Trump told the audience, with Attorney General Pam Bondi (who is technically the country's chief law enforcement officer) and FBI Director Kash Patel in the audience. One of Trump's favorite campaign songs, «YMCA,» played after he wrapped up his nearly hourlong address inside the department's ceremonial Great Hall. Here's a look at what Trump said, what the reality is and the significance of his words.

It is happening across businesses and states, with the taxman snooping around for transaction details with organisations in financial services, hospitality, healthcare, real estate, manufacturing, and those linked to telecom and direct-to-home services. The aim is to collect evidence of tax evasion, misreporting, and racketeering by verifying various dealing records with the claims made by individuals and entities, under the scrutiny of the I-T Department. «The request for information spans multiple sectors, highlighting an increased dependence on third-party information, documents, and confirmations,» said Ashish Karundia, founder of CA firm Ashish Karundia & Co. Use of Sec 133(6) Multiplies

NASA astronauts stranded in space launched to the International Space Station on Friday evening, setting the stage for their colleagues' return after nine months. SpaceX must deliver this replacement team before Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams can depart. The new crew is expected to arrive late Saturday night. To ensure proper handover of space station operations, NASA requires an overlap period between the crews. This arrangement would enable Wilmore and Williams to depart next week and land off Florida's coast, subject to weather conditions. Astronauts who arrived on a SpaceX rescue mission in September will accompany the pair back to Earth, using two seats previously allocated for their return journey. The fresh crew, launching from NASA's Kennedy Space Center, comprises NASA astronauts Anne McClain and Nichole Ayers (both military pilots), alongside Japanese astronaut Takuya Onishi and Russian cosmonaut Kirill Peskov (both former airline pilots). They will undertake a standard six-month mission after facilitating Wilmore and Williams' departure.

Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight landed at Lahore’s Allama Iqbal International Airport with a missing rear wheel, an airline official confirmed on Friday. Fortunately, no accidents or incidents were reported following the Thursday morning landing. The domestic flight, PK-306, had departed from Karachi for Lahore when it was discovered upon landing that one of its rear wheels was missing. A PIA official told PTI that an investigation has been initiated to determine whether the aircraft took off from Karachi with the missing wheel or if it detached during takeoff. Some wheel fragments were later found at Karachi airport, suggesting possible damage before departure. “It appears that one of the rear wheels was in poor condition when the aircraft took off,” the official noted. Despite the missing wheel, a PIA spokesperson reassured that PK-306 made a “smooth and uneventful landing” as scheduled, with passengers disembarking normally.

Treasury Department releases numbers on how much money the US government took in and paid out the previous one. You can get them straight from the source, or in simplified form at the Hamilton Project’s Tracking Federal Expenditures in Real Time site. What they show so far is that, despite all the noise from Washington about layoffs and canceled programs and other cutbacks, the federal government has been spending money faster since President Trump took office on Jan.

James Fishback, CEO of Azoria, has clarified who would be eligible for the proposed $5,000 DOGE Dividend stimulus checks. Speaking on Steve Ram’s podcast, Fishback explained, «If you file a federal income tax return—if you pay federal income tax, which is to say that you worked—you would receive a DOGE dividend check. That individual and their household would benefit from this payment.» The proposal seeks to use cost savings from the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to provide direct payments to taxpayers. Backed by President Donald Trump and DOGE head Elon Musk, the initiative claims to reward working Americans by redistributing government savings.

Over the past decade, auto fares have been revised twice. The last revision was in November 2021, when the base fare was set at ₹30 for the first 1.9 km and ₹15 per kilometre thereafter. Before that, fares were last revised in 2013.

Elon Musk's budget-cutting advisers to terminate leases that they say waste money. Musk's Department of Government Efficiency maintains a list of canceled real estate leases on its website, but internal documents obtained by The Associated Press contain a crucial detail: when those cancellations are expected to take effect. The documents from inside the General Services Administration, the US government's real estate manager, list dozens of federal office and building leases expected to end by June 30, with hundreds more slated over the coming months. The rapid pace of cancellations has raised alarms, with some agencies and lawmakers appealing to DOGE to exempt specific buildings. Several agencies are facing 20 or more lease cancellations in all, including the IRS, the Social Security Administration, the US Department of Agriculture and the US Geological Survey. Many of the terminations would affect agencies that aren't as well-known but oversee services critical to many Americans. They span from a Boise, Idaho, office of the Bureau of Reclamation — which oversees water supply and deals with disputes across the often-parched American West — to a Joliet, Illinois, outpost of the Railroad Retirement Board, which provides benefits for railroad workers and their survivors.

Goa Bench of Bombay High Court has struck down a section of the Town and Country Planning Act, 1974, that allowed the creation of zones within zones, holding that it was concerned with private land owners' interests. Three citizen organisations had filed a public interest litigation (PIL) in the HC contending that section 17 (2) of the Act was «mutilating» the Regional Plan. Notified in March 2023, the section was aimed at allowing the authorities to correct inadvertent errors or rectify inconsistent or incoherent zoning. The Regional Plan is a long-term land-use development blueprint prepared by the Town and Country Planning Department of Goa to guide infrastructure, zoning, and environmental conservation in the state. A division Bench of Justices Nivedita P Mehta and M S Karnik on Thursday struck down section 17 (2), holding that it was not in «furtherance of development in the public interest by maintaining a balance between sustainable development vis-a-vis environmental issues», but was concerned with private land owners' interests. The petitioners had argued that the section was being misused to change the status of large tracts of land for commercial purposes. According to the state, between March 2023 and January 2 of this year, there have been 353 approvals under section 17(2) which affect an area of about 26,54,286 square metres, noted the bench.

Thangam Thenarasu is set to present the state budget for the financial year 2025-26 today in the Assembly Hall at Fort St. George. The budget, expected to outline key financial policies and welfare measures, has, however, been overshadowed by a controversy surrounding the removal of the Indian rupee symbol (₹) from the budget’s official logo. In a move that has sparked a political storm, Chief Minister M.K. Stalin’s government replaced the Devanagari-scripted rupee symbol with the Tamil letter ‘Roo’ (‘ரூ’), representing ‘Roobai’—the Tamil term for rupee. The new logo, accompanied by the slogan “Ellarkum Ellam” (Everything for Everyone), was unveiled on Thursday, drawing sharp reactions from opposition leaders and Union Ministers.

tariff threats. On Thursday, for the first time, the benchmark S&P 500 finished more than 10% below its most recent record high close, achieved on February 19.

federal workers who lost their jobs as part of mass firings carried out across multiple agencies. The back-to-back rulings were the most significant blow yet to the effort by Trump and top adviser Elon Musk to drastically shrink the federal bureaucracy. Government agencies face a Thursday deadline to submit plans for a second wave of mass layoffs and to slash their budgets. U.S. District Judge James Bredar in Baltimore agreed with 20 Democratic-led states that 18 agencies which had fired probationary employees en masse in recent weeks violated regulations governing the laying off of federal workers. His decision came hours after U.S. District Judge William Alsup during a hearing in San Francisco ordered the reinstatement of probationary employees terminated at the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Agriculture, Department of Energy, Department of Interior and the Treasury Department. Alsup said the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the human resources department for federal agencies, had improperly ordered those agencies to fire workers en masse even though it lacked the power to do so.

Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), launching a venture to address tech gaps left by mass layoffs and dissolved federal teams. Cuban, a vocal Trump critic, is funding startups led by former staffers from the General Services Administration (GSA) and White House tech units like 18F and the US Digital Service (USDS). These teams, once tasked with modernizing critical systems like Login.gov (used for Medicare and Social Security access), were gutted after being labeled “non-critical” by the Trump administration.

New York Attorney General Letitia James on Thursday announced a bill to protect the state's consumers and small businesses from scams and deceptive practices from lenders, debt collectors and health care firms.

Telecom operators are resisting the Department of Telecommunications' (DoT) decision to migrate to an authorisation regime, asking for the current practice of entering into contractual agreements with licensed entities to be kept in place. They said the current approach is vital in maintaining regulatory certainty, protecting existing investments and ensuring sustained investment growth in the sector. The telecom operators, through a letter from the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) to the telecom secretary Neeraj Mittal, cited examples of the ministries of coal and petroleum and natural gas which grants licenses to successful bidders in their respective fields that are contractual in nature.

Parliamentary Standing Committee on Health and Family Welfare, in its latest report, has expressed concerns over the functioning of India's drug regulatory authority-Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO)-saying that the current licensing process is plagued by delays, inconsistent timelines, and a lack of transparency, hindering the growth of the medical device industry. «The Committee expresses serious concern that due to rigid process and inordinate delays by CDSCO, a large number of manufacturing units have gone to Vietnam and Malaysia. Rather, several medical devices manufacturers are scared to set up a unit in India due to delaying tactics of the CDSCO,» it said.

The department store chain's problems reflected the broader struggle faced by American retailers in the light of reduced consumer spending coupled with the uncertainty around President Donald Trump's tariff policy.