Jobs World: August 2021

Tuesday, August 31, 2021

How to claim refunds under Duty Drawback Scheme | Economic Times

August 31, 2021 0

The Duty Drawback Scheme (DBK) is a key programme to help exporters offset some of the costs accrued during the export process, particularly in supply or value chain. The key benefit of the scheme is that it gives rebates on Customs and Central Excise chargeable on any imported or excisable materials used in the manufacture of goods meant for export. The scheme, administered by the Department of Revenue, has two primary components: All Industry Rate (AIR) and Brand Rate. One way to grant the duty drawback is to check the rates specified in the Schedule of All Industry Rate of Drawback, usually announced on June 1 or three months after the budget. If the product is not mentioned in the AIR schedule or the exporter claims it is inadequate, the exporter can claim duty drawback by applying for Brand Rate fixation. How the scheme worksAIRs are notified by the government in the form of a drawback schedule based on the average quantity and value of inputs and duties (both Customs & Central Excise) borne by export products. The rates are essentially an average based on the assessment of average incidence. These AIRs are recommended by a drawback committee. The AIR may be fixed as a percentage of free on board (FOB) price of export products or as specific rates. FOB is used to indicate whether the seller or the buyer is liable for goods that are damaged or destroyed during shipping. All claims of duty drawback are filed with reference to the tariff items and description of goods given in the schedule. In the case of Brand Rate fixation, an exporter is eligible to apply either where the export product has not been listed in the duty drawback schedule or if the exporter considers that AIR of duty drawback does not fully neutralise the duties suffered by his export product. Exporters are fully compensated for customs, central excise duties and service tax actually incurred by them. To use the Brand Rate route, the entity concerned has to submit an application to the Directorate of Drawback within 30 days of the first shipment, with copies to the relevant authorities. The commissioner-drawback will fix the rate after verification. The documentation requirement is high here, as the manufacturer has to show the quantity of inputs and services used, along with evidence of payment of duties. How to avail refunds under the scheme?Despite the government having simplified the DBK procedure over the years, it still remains complicated for a novice exporter.First, an exporter has to file the shipping bill in an electronic data interchange (EDI) for the export. Here, the exporter has to keep in mind that the electronic shipping bill itself will be treated as the claim for drawback and there is no need to file separate drawback claims. All ports with EDI can process these claims except in respect of DBK claims relating to cases of re-export of imported goods under Section 74 of the Customs Act, 1962.Sribash Dasmohapatra, Executive Director, Plastics Export Promotion Council, talks about a typical standard operating procedure for claiming refunds under DBK: “In the EDI system, exporters are required to open their accounts with a bank that is either nominated by a customs house or has core banking facility to transfer funds through NEFT/ RTGS. This has to be done to enable direct credit of drawback amount to their accounts, obviating the need for issue of cheques. The exporters are required to indicate their account numbers in the declaration form called Annex B, along with the details of the bank through which the export proceeds are to be realised. After the realisation of payment, proof of realisation is to be submitted to the Customs authority.”Key Points to Remember Is the process seamless or cumbersome for a novice exporter? According to Dasmohapatra, claiming a drawback is an easy process compared with other schemes.As an improper filing can lead to claim rejections, there are certain factors an exporter must keep in mind.Mentioning wrong bank details or not updating account details, for instance, can lead to an inadvertent delay of DBK. Similarly, mentioning the incorrect serial number of the drawback claim in the shipping bill will also lead to a delay in DBK. In sum, errors in filling may lead to delay in getting a DBK claim. So exporters must be careful if they want to get their refunds on time.

Scindia seeks VAT reduction on ATF in MP | Economic Times

August 31, 2021 0

Economic News

Scindia seeks VAT reduction on ATF in MP | Economic Times

Union Civil Aviation Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Wednesday demanded a reduction in VAT on the aviation turbine fuel in Madhya Pradesh to attract more flights and improve air connectivity in the state. He was addressing a function virtually from New Delhi for the launch of IndiGo's Gwalior-Indore flight and re-starting of the Indore-Dubai flight. "I have written a letter to all chief ministers in the country to reduce the Value Added Tax (VAT) on ATF (aviation turbine fuel). There are eight-nine states where it is in the range of one to four per cent, and that has resulted in 15 per cent increase in flights from those states," the minister said. He said there are different slabs of VAT applicable on ATF in Madhya Pradesh, ranging from four per cent to 25 per cent. "I request the MP government to bring it down to one to four per cent uniformly for the entire state," Scindia said. The BJP leader further said that in Madhya Pradesh, the VAT is four per cent at Khajuraho, Jabalpur and Gwalior airports while it is 25 per cent at other airports in the state. "I request the state government to reduce it in the range of one to four per cent and make it uniform for the entire state for enhancing flight connectivity and introduction of more flights," he said. "If this happens in Madhya Pradesh and the VAT is uniformly applicable, then I will pursue with the aviation companies, whose representatives are present here (during the function), to start more flights from MP," the minister said. Scindia also requested MP Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan to speed up the allotment of over 2,000 acre land for the expansion of the Indore airport, as demanded by some locals leaders in the state's industrial hub. Union Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar and MP Chief Minister Chouhan also addressed the function.

The Taliban revelled in their victory after the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, reiterating their pledge Tuesday to bring peace and security to the country after decades of war. Their anxious citizens, meanwhile, are waiting to see what the new order looks like. Having humbled the world's most powerful military, the Taliban now face the challenge of governing a nation of 38 million people that relies heavily on international aid, and imposing some form of Islamic rule on a population that is far more educated and cosmopolitan than it was when the group last governed Afghanistan in the late 1990s. Thousands who had worked with the US and its allies, as well as up to 200 Americans, remained in the country after the massive airlift ended with the last US soldiers flying out of Kabul international airport just before midnight Monday. Hours later, turbaned Taliban leaders flanked by fighters from the group's elite Badri unit toured the abandoned airport and posed for photos. "Afghanistan is finally free," Hekmatullah Wasiq, a top Taliban official, told The Associated Press on the tarmac. "Everything is peaceful. Everything is safe." He urged people to return to work and reiterated the Taliban's offer of amnesty to all Afghans who had fought against the group over the last 20 years. "People have to be patient," he said. "Slowly we will get everything back to normal. It will take time." A long-running economic crisis has worsened since the Taliban's rapid takeover of the country in mid-August, with people crowding banks to maximize their daily withdrawal limit of about USD 200. Civil servants haven't been paid in months and the local currency is losing value. Most of Afghanistan's foreign reserves are held abroad and currently frozen. "We keep coming to work but we are not getting paid," said Abdul Maqsood, a traffic police officer on duty near the airport. He said he hasn't received his salary in four months. A major drought threatens the food supply, and thousands who fled during the Taliban's lightning advance remain in squalid camps. "Afghanistan is on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe," said Ramiz Alakbarov, the local UN humanitarian coordinator. He said USD 1.3 billion is needed for aid efforts, only 39% of which has been received. The challenges the Taliban face in reviving the economy could give Western nations leverage as they push the group to fulfill a pledge to allow free travel, form an inclusive government and guarantee women's rights. The Taliban say they want to have good relations with other countries, including the United States. There are few signs of the draconian restrictions the Taliban imposed last time they were in power. Schools have reopened to boys and girls, though Taliban officials have said they will study separately. Women are out on the streets wearing Islamic headscarves - as they always have - rather than the all-encompassing burqa the Taliban required in the past. "I am not afraid of the Taliban," said Masooda, a fifth-grader, as she headed to school on Tuesday. When the Taliban last ruled the country, from 1996 to 2001, they banned television, music and even photography, but there's no sign of that yet. TV stations are still operating normally and the Taliban fighters themselves can be seen taking selfies around Kabul. On Tuesday, the sound of dance music trickled out of an upscale wedding hall in Kabul, where a celebration was in full swing inside. Shadab Azimi, the 26-year-old manager, said at least seven wedding parties had been held since the Taliban takeover, with festivities moved to daytime because of security concerns. He said the Taliban have yet to announce any restrictions on music, but that wedding singers have cancelled out of caution, forcing him to use tapes. Azimi said a Taliban patrol stops by a couple times a day, but only to ask if he needs help with security. Unlike the now-disbanded police of the toppled, Western-backed government, the Taliban don't ask for bribes, he said. "Former officials, including police officers, were always asking us for money and forcing us to host their friends for lunches and dinners," he said. "This is one of the positive points of the Taliban." Abdul Waseeq, 25, runs a women's clothing shop in downtown Kabul selling Western-style jeans and jackets. The Taliban have left him alone, but his clientele seems to have vanished and he's concerned about the banking crisis. "Most of our customers who were buying these kinds of clothes are gone, evacuated from Kabul," he said. For now, the Taliban appear to be less interested in imposing restrictions on daily life than on getting the country running again, a task that could prove challenging to fighters who have spent most of their lives waging an insurgency in the countryside. They are expected to focus on the Kabul airport, where scenes of desperation and horror played out for weeks as tens of thousands fled in a massive US-led airlift. Early Tuesday, the airport was littered with artifacts of the withdrawal. Inside the terminal were scattered piles of clothes, luggage and documents. Several CH-46 helicopters used by American forces were parked in a hangar. The US military says it disabled 27 Humvees and 73 aircraft before leaving. Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said a "technical team" would survey the airport and try to restore normal operations, potentially requesting help from Qatar or Turkey, which have been involved in negotiations on running the airport going forward. The Taliban have said they will allow people with legal documents to travel freely, but it remains to be seen whether any commercial airlines will be willing to offer service. "I hope you will be very cautious in dealing with the nation," Mujahid said in a speech at the airport, addressing the Taliban fighters gathered there. "Our nation has suffered war and invasion, and the people do not have more tolerance." At the end of his remarks, the fighters shouted: "God is greatest!" Despite billions of dollars in Western aid over the past two decades, more than half of Afghans survive on less than a dollar a day. For the poorest, the change from one ruling system to another hardly matters in their daily struggle to survive. Sal Mohammad, 25, collects scrap metal and sells it to support his wife and 2-year-old daughter. On a good day, he makes about $5. "I don't feel that anything has changed in my life since the Taliban took over Kabul," he said. "I don't care about any of them, neither the Taliban, nor the government, nor the U.S. I would like peace in my country, nothing more."

Afghanistan's arc from 9/11 to today | Economic Times

August 31, 2021 0

Economic News

Afghanistan's arc from 9/11 to today | Economic Times

The sun had just begun to rise over the Hindu Kush Mountains when the Taliban disappeared from Kabul, the battered capital of Afghanistan. The bodies of foreign Arabs who had stayed behind were mutilated and bloodied. They had been found and killed by advancing Afghans of another faction who were brought to the city by a blistering U.S.-led campaign that drove the Taliban from power. America was still reeling from the horrific terrorist attacks of two months earlier, when planes flown by al-Qaida terrorists crashed into three iconic buildings and a Pennsylvania field, killing nearly 3,000 people. The perpetrators and their leader, Osama bin Laden, were somewhere in Afghanistan, sheltered by the Taliban. The mission: Find him. Bring him to justice. Right then, Afghanistan - two decades of disorder behind it, two decades more just ahead - was suspended in an in-between moment. Nothing was certain, but much seemed possible. Against that backdrop, Afghans understood the mission against bin Laden to mean a chance to secure their future - a future as murky on that day as it is today. In those post-2001 months and years, they believed in the power of "the foreigners." From hundreds of years ago right up to the jumbled chaos of recent weeks as the United States pulled out of its air base and then the capital, the word "foreigner" has meant many things in the Afghan context, from invaders to would-be colonizers. But in November 2001, it meant hope. "I found the people relieved fresh and full on energy to start anew," says Torek Farhadi, who joined scores of educated and trained Afghan expatriates who returned to their homeland in 2002 after the Taliban were gone. He spoke from Geneva as he watched the Taliban's return to power last month. The arrival of the U.S.-led coalition weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks ended a repressive, religiously radical regime that had more in common with the sixth century than the 21st. Mullah Mohammad Omar, the reclusive one-eyed leader of the Taliban, had brought the village to the city. The strict edicts he taught at his one-room mud madrassa, or religious school, became law. Girls were denied education. Women were confined to their homes or, when in public, inside the all-encompassing burqa. Men were told to wear beards. Television was banned, as was all music but religious chants. When the Taliban fled and the new, post 9/11 leader, Hamid Karzai, entered the sprawling presidential palace, he discovered the Taliban had left their mark. Wall-to-wall hand-painted miniature murals had been defaced; Taliban who believed images of living things were a crime against Islam went to every tiny bird and blotted out its face with a black marker. The running of the country was handed to Washington's Afghan allies, many of whom had destroyed Kabul with their bitter feuding when they last ruled. Under their corruption, the country devolved into a collection of fiefdoms that enriched local warlords and led to the Taliban's rise. The Afghan military that would collapse in the wake of Taliban advances in 2021 began existence with its recruits often more loyal to a warlord than the army itself. Training was barely eight weeks for new, generally uneducated men. Building the Afghan army was often likened to repairing an aircraft midflight. So across Afghanistan, quickly and understandably, it started: The defeated Taliban began to re-emerge. And it kept getting worse. By 2012, just two years before the U.S. and NATO handed over the operational end of the war to Afghanistan's government, the Afghan army was barely competent and filled with fighters angry at what they considered poor treatment by their foreign trainers. The return last month of the Taliban has created widespread fear among young people in Afghanistan's cities - places where urban girls wearing headscarves have felt free to mingle in coffee shops and on the street. Young men wearing Western dress who dream of even greater freedoms have been part of the airport chaos that greeted the start of evacuation flights. A country of 36 million, Afghanistan is filled with conservative people, many of whom live in the countryside. But even they do not adhere to the strict interpretation of Islam that the Taliban imposed when last they ruled. The Taliban leaders, many of whom are linked to the previous regime, including the movement's co-founder Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, promise a different Taliban this time. Once camera shy and reclusive, many have made regular appearances on the diplomatic stage. And while the Taliban's original rule was marked by relentless repression that denied women a public space, they now say women can work, attend school and participate in public life. Yet even as the world watched in shock at the quick demise of the Afghan army and government over the past weeks, the signs of Afghanistan's post-9/11 decay had long been evident. Twenty years and billions of dollars in investment after 9/11, Afghanistan was considered one of the worst places in the world to be a woman in 2020 and in 2019, according to the Georgetown Institute for Women Peace and Security. In 2018, in a Gallup poll offered a scale of one to 10 to determine how respondents judged their chances for a better future five years down the road, Afghans averaged 2.3. Gallup called it a "new low for any country in any year." In the first years after 9/11, U.S. money arrived in Kabul in suitcases. There were no working banks at the time - and no oversight of the billions pouring into the country. Most of it passed through the hands of U.S.-allied warlords whose corruption had led to the Taliban's rise in the 1990s. American generals were often used by their Afghan allies to exact revenge. Mohabullah, an Afghan who had left the Taliban to return home to the central province of Ghazni, once laughed as he recounted how easily fooled the Americans were by their Afghan partners. He recalled how a gas station owner was turned in to U.S. forces as a Taliban - to settle a feud. American forces often unwittingly found themselves enmeshed in such local rivalries during those early months and years when they were utterly dependent on their warlord allies. In 2002, one U.S. general had to rely entirely on former warlords for information about prominent al-Qaida figures who were on the move. For those who have watched Afghanistan for years, the scenes of throngs of mostly young men hanging from departing aircraft at Kabul's airport in recent days seemed an indictment of the two decades of efforts and the billions of dollars spent. For many of those men, the desperation to depart was less about fear for their life - and more about finding a new one. And, say some Afghans, no wonder.

China has used big data to trace and control the outbreak of COVID-19. This has involved a significant endeavour to build new technologies and expand its already extensive surveillance infrastructure across the country. In our recent study, we show how the State Council, the highest administrative government unit in China, plans to retain some of those new capabilities and incorporate them into the broader scheme of mass surveillance at a national level. This is likely to lead to tighter citizen monitoring in the long term. This phenomenon of adopting a system of surveillance for one purpose and using it past the originally intended aims is known as "function creep". In China, this involves the use of big data initially collected to monitor people's COVID status and movements around the country to keep the pandemic under control. The Chinese government has been quite successful at this, despite recent spikes in infections in eastern China. But this big data exercise has also served as an opportunity for authorities to patch gaps in the country's overall surveillance infrastructure and make it more cohesive, using the COVID crisis as cover to avoid citizen backlash. How China's COVID surveillance system worked Two key shifts have occurred to enable more comprehensive surveillance during the pandemic. First, a more robust system was constructed to collect and monitor big data related to pandemic control. Second, these data were then collated at the provincial levels and transferred to a national, unified platform where they were analysed. This analysis focused on calculated levels of risk for every individual related to possible exposure to COVID. This is how it worked. Every night, Chinese citizens received a QR code to their mobile phone called a "health code". The code required users to upload their personal information to a special app to verify their identity (such as their national ID number and a biometric selfie), along with their body temperature, any COVID symptoms, and their recent travel history. The system then assessed whether they had been in close contact with an infected person. If users received a green code to their phone, they were good to go. But an orange code mandated a seven-day home isolation, and a red code was 14-day isolation. The system was not perfect. Some people suspected their codes remained red because they were from the hotspot province of Hubei, or questioned why their codes unexpectedly turned red for just one day. Others reported the codes incorrectly identified their exposure risk. How Chinese people feel about this data collection Multiple studies suggest that although the system was intrusive, this state-controlled, big data monitoring was supported by the public because of how effective it was in containing the epidemic. A recent study found the public viewed this comprehensive data collection as positive and that it helped strengthen the legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party. The Chinese public also viewed the initial criticism from Western countries as unfair and hypocritical, given many subsequently adopted varying forms of big data collection systems themselves. One scholar, Chuncheng Liu, canvassed Chinese social media and observed a notable social backlash against this type of criticism. After the state of South Australia released a new QR code system, for example, one comment read: China QR code - 'invasion of privacy, invasion of human rights'. Australian QR Code - 'Fantastic new tool'. On the flip side, there has been some public resistance in China over the potential for health codes to be re-engineered and used for other purposes. The city of Hangzhou was the first to implement the health codes in February 2020. However, in May 2020 when the municipal government proposed re-purposing the app for other uses after the pandemic (such as mapping people's lifestyle habits), it was met with strong citizen backlash. Concerns were further exacerbated when health code data was hacked in Beijing in December 2020. The hackers published the selfies that celebrities had used for biometric identity verification, as well as their COVID testing data. How these systems can be used for other purposes When big data systems become as expansive as they are now in China, they can shape, direct and even coerce behaviours en masse. The implications of this in a surveillance state are concerning. In the Guangxi autonomous region in March 2020, for example, one party member suggested using pandemic surveillance to "search for people that couldn't previously be found", effectively turning a health service into a security tool. Another example is how China's notorious "social credit system" was revamped during the pandemic. The system was originally set up before the pandemic to rate myriad "trustworthy" and "untrustworthy" behaviours among individuals and businesses. Good scores came with benefits such as cheaper transportation. During the pandemic, this system was expanded to reward people for "good pandemic behaviour" and punish "bad pandemic behaviour". Two academics in the Netherlands found punishments were imposed for selling medical supplies at an inflated price or counterfeit supplies, or for violating quarantine. Such behaviour could get a person blacklisted, which might deny them the ability to travel or even serve as a civil servant, among other restrictions. As we argue, it is crucial these surveillance systems embed principles of transparency and accountability within their design. If these systems aren't thoroughly tested or their potential future uses questioned, people can become habituated to top-down surveillance and function creep. To what extent these new surveillance systems will direct the behaviours of people in China remains to be seen. A lot depends on how the public reacts to them, especially as they are used for non-health purposes after the pandemic. (This article is syndicated by PTI from The Conversation)

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