Stilt fishing is a method of fishing unique to the island country of Sri Lanka, located off the coast of India in the Indian Ocean. The fishermen sit on a cross bar called a petta tied to a vertical pole and driven into the sand a few meters offshore. From this high position, the fishermen casts his line, and waits until a fish comes along to be caught. Although the approach looks primitive and ancient, stilt fishing is actually a recent tradition.

The practice is believed to have started during World War II when food shortages and overcrowded fishing spots prompted some clever men to try fishing on the water. At first they started fishing from wrecks of capsized ships and downed aircraft, then some began erecting their stilts in coral reefs. The skills were then passed on to at least two generations of fishermen living along a 30 km stretch of southern shore between the towns of Unawatuna and Weligama.

RBI vide its Notification No.

RBI/2014-15/187 DGBA.CDD.No.867/15.02.005/2014-15 has enhanced the individual subscription limit under Public Provident Fund Scheme, 1968, from existing Rs 1,00,000 to  Rs 1,50,000 in a Financial Year.

The following link will take the readers to the original notification as issued by RBI.

http://www.rbi.org.in/scripts/BS_CircularIndexDisplay.aspx?Id=9181

Shopping bags make a fine fuel: Indian-origin scientist

The conversion produces significantly more energy than it requires and results in transportation fuels – diesel, for example – that can be blended with existing ultra-low-sulphur diesels and biodiesels.

Other products, such as natural gas, naphtha (a solvent), gasoline, waxes and lubricating oils such as engine oil and hydraulic oil also can be obtained from shopping bags.

“There are other advantages to the approach, which involves heating the bags in an oxygen-free chamber, a process called pyrolysis,” said research leader Brajendra Kumar Sharma, a senior research scientist at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Centre at University of Illinois.

According to Sharma, one can get only 50 to 55 percent fuel from the distillation of petroleum crude oil. But since this plastic is made from petroleum in the first place, we can recover almost 80 percent fuel from it through distillation.

Plastic bags make up a sizeable portion of the plastic debris in giant ocean garbage patches that are killing wildlife and littering beaches.

Over a period of time, this material starts breaking into tiny pieces, and is ingested along with plankton by aquatic animals,” Sharma said.

Fish, birds, ocean mammals and other creatures have been found with a lot of plastic particles in their guts.

“Turtles, for example, think that the plastic grocery bags are jellyfish and they try to eat them,” he said.

Other creatures become entangled in the bags. Sharma’s team broke the crude oil into different petroleum products and testing the diesel fractions to see if they complied with national standards for ultra-low-sulphur diesel and biodiesel fuels.

“This diesel mixture had an equivalent energy content, a higher cetane number (a measure of the combustion quality of diesel requiring compression ignition) and better lubricity than ultra-low-sulphur diesel,” he explained.

The researchers were able to blend up to 30 percent of their plastic-derived diesel into regular diesel, “and found no compatibility problems with biodiesel”, Sharma said.

Plastic shopping bags, an abundant source of litter on land and at sea, can be converted into diesel, natural gas and other useful petroleum products, researchers report.

Brajendra Kumar Sharma, center, a senior research scientist at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center at the U. of I., with research chemist Dheeptha Murali, left, and process chemist Jennifer Deluhery, converted plastic shopping bags into diesel fuel.

The conversion produces significantly more energy than it requires and results in transportation fuels – diesel, for example – that can be blended with existing ultra-low-sulfur diesels and biodiesels. Other products, such as natural gas, naphtha (a solvent), gasoline, waxes and lubricating oils such as engine oil and hydraulic oil also can be obtained from shopping bags.

A report of the new study appears in the journal Fuel Processing Technology.

There are other advantages to the approach, which involves heating the bags in an oxygen-free chamber, a process called pyrolysis, said Brajendra Kumar Sharma, a senior research scientist at the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center who led the research. The ISTC is a division of the Prairie Research Institute at the University of Illinois.

 “You can get only 50 to 55 percent fuel from the distillation of petroleum crude oil,” Sharma said. “But since this plastic is made from petroleum in the first place, we can recover almost 80 percent fuel from it through distillation.”

Americans throw away about 100 billion plastic shopping bags each year, according to the Worldwatch Institute. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports that only about 13 percent are recycled. The rest of the bags end up in landfills or escape to the wild, blowing across the landscape and entering waterways.

Plastic bags make up a sizeable portion of the plastic debris in giant ocean garbage patches that are killing wildlife and littering beaches. Plastic bags “have been detected as far north and south as the poles,” the researchers wrote.

“Over a period of time, this material starts breaking into tiny pieces, and is ingested along with plankton by aquatic animals,” Sharma said. Fish, birds, ocean mammals and other creatures have been found with a lot of plastic particles in their guts.

Whole shopping bags also threaten wildlife, Sharma said.

 “Turtles, for example, think that the plastic grocery bags are jellyfish and they try to eat them,” he said. Other creatures become entangled in the bags.

Previous studies have used pyrolysis to convert plastic bags into crude oil. Sharma’s team took the research further, however, by fractionating the crude oil into different petroleum products and testing the diesel fractions to see if they complied with national standards for ultra-low-sulfur diesel and biodiesel fuels.

“A mixture of two distillate fractions, providing an equivalent of U.S. diesel #2, met all of the specifications” required of other diesel fuels in use today – after addition of an antioxidant, Sharma said.

“This diesel mixture had an equivalent energy content, a higher cetane number (a measure of the combustion quality of diesel requiring compression ignition) and better lubricity than ultra-low-sulfur diesel,” he said.

 The researchers were able to blend up to 30 percent of their plastic-derived diesel into regular diesel, “and found no compatibility problems with biodiesel,” Sharma said.

“It’s perfect,” he said. “We can just use it as a drop-in fuel in the ultra-low-sulfur diesel without the need for any changes.”

The research team also included Bryan Moser, Karl Vermillion and Kenneth Doll, of the USDA National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research, in Peoria, Ill.; and Nandakishore Rajagopalan, of the ISTC at the U. of I.

The Illinois Hazardous Waste Research Fund and the Environmental Research and Education Foundation supported this study.
Source : http://news.illinois.edu , http://post.jagran.com

Mirrors Cause Hallucinations

A strange illusion is conjured up when you stare at your reflection in a mirror. It’s an old Halloween trick that modern science is starting to investigate. Try it for yourself. Sit in a darkened room, about a meter (3 ft) away from a mirror, and gaze at the reflection of your face for about 10 minutes. Keep the lighting as dark as you can, while still being able to see your reflection.

At first, you will find that there are small distortions in your face in the mirror. Then, gradually, after several minutes, your face will begin to change more dramatically, and look more like a waxwork, like the face doesn’t belong to you. Some people see a series of other faces, or even fantastical monsters or beings staring back, and others see animal faces. It is a dissociative state that scientists are studying, in order to try and understand our sense of self and identity. Psychologists believe it could even help patients with schizophrenia, when they are encouraged to confront their “other selves.”

Delhi HC joins dots on indirect transfer debate

In a ruling demonstrating wise judicial discipline, the Delhi High Court (HC) recently upheld non-taxability of sale of shares in an offshore company reasoning out that shares of target company didn’t derive substantial value from assets located in India.

The HC dismissing Revenue’s writs against rulings of the Authority for Advance Rulings (AAR), has upheld that share sale transaction between Copal Group shareholders (sellers) and Moody Analytics US, (buyer) were not designed to avoid tax.

A pleasing outcome of the ruling is the ‘obiter’ on ‘substantial value’ test as the court held that sale of shares of overseas holding company couldn’t be brought to tax in India, since shares derived less than 50 per cent of their value from assets located in India (i.e. shares of Copal India).

The HC verdict also underscored the important principle of ‘commercial rationale’ underlying a transaction while approving capital gains exemption for transfer or entities under the tax treaty. This will serve as reference, going forward for invoking treaty abuse provisions, in the absence of General Anti-Avoidance Rules.

The ruling entails the first-ever judicial analysis of ‘substantial value’ test in the domestic jurisprudence and assumes significance in the wake of the ongoing debate on Vodafone-controversy emerging from a favourable ruling of the apex court which led to the retrospective law change in 2012. Following amendments in Finance Act 2012, to section 9 of the Income Tax law, the tax administration has upped its ante on Vodafone-like transactions, often disregarding the most important trigger for taxability of such transaction, i.e. ‘substantial’ value test enshrined in Explanation 5 to section 9, ostensibly in the absence of definitive administrative guidance to enforce the draconian 2012 law.

The ratio of Copal ruling should please investors, as the HC didn’t hesitate from taking a bold view on definitional aspect of the statute, particularly when the lawmakers did not explicitly ascribe meaning to the term ‘substantial’ in the context of indirect transfer tax.
In doing so, the court has placed definitive reliance on the Direct Taxes Code (DTC) Bill, albeit of 2010 version, and recommendations of the Expert Committee Chaired by Dr Shome, both of whom had unequivocally advocated a 50 per cent asset value threshold. Supplementary interpretational aids drawn upon by the HC from international commentaries on tax treaties (under OECD and UN Model) is encouraging, as it reinforces the judiciary’s confidence in bilateral conventions, particularly in the matter of administering sophisticated portions of tax statutes dealing with cross- border matters.

What pleasantly surprises me is the short shrift accorded by the HC to the revised DTC Bill (of 2013) which prescribes a lower 20 per cent threshold for applying the ‘substantial value’ trigger. Now, an important question before the lawmakers is whether the court’s verdict (albeit an obiter), could assail against the lower threshold and prevail whilst the newly appointed special committee of the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) commences review of cases on taxability of indirect transfers, a step taken by the new government in 2014 budget to address the woes of foreign investors.

Legal effect of ‘obiter’
It is trite that a court judgment is a decision on the facts of the case, and would bind the parties on the principle of res judicata; however, insofar as the binding nature of any such verdict is concerned, what should bind the administration and subordinate courts is the ratio decidendi, ie the underlying legal principle pronounced by the court, and not the decision per se. Ordinarily, whilst there are certain judicial principles to suggest that an obiter dicta of the apex court ought to be binding on lower authorities /courts (though there are contrary rulings too), the same legal effect or precedence value may not be accorded to HC’s obiter. This however, does not preclude the administration from relying on the HC’s observations.

Taxability of indirect transfer hangs in balance
The hierarchy of courts’ judicial action and binding effect thereof could be a legal debate, what however intrigues me is the conundrum taxpayers will have to deal with for doing business in India in general, and for India to take the indirect transfer debate to its logical conclusion.

For one, the Revenue’s Special Leave Petition before the Supreme Court in Sanofi case is an outcome keenly anticipated by investors; on the other hand, multiple writs under Article 226 Bombay and Calcutta HC will only keep the investors conjecturing the constitutionality of retrospective amendments as much as the final contours of administrative guidance for interpreting the ‘substantial value’ test. Besides, the incumbent government’s abstinence in not withdrawing retrospective amendments and a move to address via administrative committee under the tax administration complicates matters for investors.

Since the FM in his 2014 Budget speech announced that he would instead await the judicial view on this debate, I wonder if this is his opportunity to pick cues from the logic espoused by the HC’s obiter on substantial value test, and carry out appropriate legislative amendment.

It would be certainly regressive for the administration to consider filing an appeal against the HC verdict on the pretext of the lower threshold test proposed by the DTC Bill of 2013. This is certainly an opportunity to join the dots and put a full stop to a debate which has attracted negative press for India in the past few years.

Source:http://www.business-standard.com/article/opinion/delhi-hc-joins-dots-on-indirect-transfer-debate-114090700750_1.html