India’s top court ordered Vodafone to deposit 25 billion rupees (US$554 million) within three weeks on its contested US$2.5 billion tax bill, a company spokesman said yesterday.
The court also said Vodafone must arrange a guarantee with an Indian bank for the remaining 85 billion rupees within eight weeks.
The court has not yet rendered a verdict in the case, which is being closely watched by foreign companies fearful that it could set a precedent that may make them liable for retroactive changes under Indian tax law.
Vodafone, which strongly contests the tax bill, said the US$554 million deposit would be held by the court. Should the Indian tax department withdraw the money, they will have to repay it, with interest, if the case is decided in Vodafone’s favor, the spokesman said.
The tax relates to Vodafone’s 2007 acquisition of the Indian telecom assets of Hong Kong’s Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd.
Vodafone, whose joint venture with India’s Essar group is one of India’s largest mobile operators, maintains that it does not owe tax on the US$11 billion transaction because it took place between two foreign entities.
In related news, Indian Telecommunications Minister Andimuthu Raja has resigned amid allegations that his handling of the 2008 sale of licenses for cellphone airwaves resulted in massive losses for the government.
Raja, who belongs to a southern Indian political party that is a key ally of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Congress party, came under heavy pressure to resign after a government inquiry reportedly alleged that the sale of second generation (2G) wireless spectrum had resulted in a 1.76 trillion rupees loss to the Treasury.
Critics charge that Raja’s allocation of 2G spectrum was improperly based on 2001 prices and unfairly awarded licenses on a “first come, first served” basis, rather than by auction.
He was the third senior official to step down in recent weeks. The Congress party earlier axed parliament secretary Suresh Kalmadi, who was also chief organizer of the scandal-plagued Commonwealth Games in New Delhi, and Maharashtra chief minister Ashok Chavan, who figured in a real estate scandal.
Raja came under additional pressure after a May auction of third generation spectrum garnered US$14.6 billion, highlighting the revenue shortfall from the 2G licenses. That drove the telecom regulator to propose a retroactive hike in 2G spectrum fees, based on 3G pricing, causing an outcry among Indian telecom operators.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day