India's Namaste Greeting Go Global Amid Coronavirus Outbreak

India prides itself on popularizing yoga and meditation in many parts of the world. Its looks like another practice   the traditional greeting, the "namaste", described as “virus-proof,” goes global as some world leaders adopt it amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Hand hygiene has emerged as the foremost preventive measure against the spread of coronavirus and this has sidelined the handshake, the 'namaste' is increasingly becoming popular.

"Namaste,” a combination of two Sanskrit words Namas & Te, translates into “bowing to you” and does not involve skin contact and allows people to maintain a distance.  

Here is embed video   from BBC

Mumbai Police sets up Punishing Signal to stop unnecessary honking. (watch the video)

There is a truth universally acknowledged by drivers in India: Honk your horn loud enough and the traffic lights will surely change to green. 

How many times has it happened that you are standing at a traffic signal and people waiting behind you kept honking repeatedly, even when the light was red? 

Fed up of impatient drivers, police in Mumbai have come up with a new system to punish those who cannot wait at traffic lights in silence.

The new system, said the police, was quite simple: “Honk more, wait more.”

Known as “the punishing signal”, Mumbai police installed a rigged traffic light system to tackle the problem of “reckless honkers”, which resets  the red traffic signal to a longer duration,  every time the sound of horns goes above 85 decibels and  one need  to wait more.

Great Idea!!!!! This will surely  bring discipline  and responsibility among the drivers in Mumbai.

Please  see the video  which was released by Mumbai Police.

Number of crorepati taxpayers up 20% to 97,689 in AY 2018-19: CBDT data

The Central Board of Direct Taxes  of India (CBDT) has now come out with a detailed break-up of data collected from income tax returns (ITR). 

According to the report, the number of crorepati taxpayers in India shot up 20% to 97,689 during assessment year I,e AY  2018-19 or FY 2017-18. 

The number of such individuals having taxable income of over ₹1 crore stood at 81,344 during AY 2017-18.

Here are few   important  statistics:

  India's super-rich club of those earning taxable income of above ₹500 crore has only 3 individuals.  

over 1.7 lakh people filed income tax returns with zero income.

There were at least 89,793 people in India who earned in between ₹1 crore and 5 crore. In the ₹5-10 crore income bracket, India had 5,132 taxpayers while the ₹10-25 crore range had a little more than 2,000 individuals

If the salary break-up is considered, most of the taxpayers (over 81 lakh) seem to be earning a salary in between ₹5.5 lakh and ₹9.5 lakh. The average salary income in this category is ₹7.12 lakh.

If taxpayers across categories like individuals, HUFs, companies, firms, etc are included, the number of those with taxable income of more than ₹1 crore per annum rises to about 1.67 lakh, a 19% jump from the previous year.





Over all, more than 5.87 crore income tax returns were filled, as per the statistics generated from e-filed returns (digitally signed, e-verified or where ITRV has been received) submitted up to August 15, 2019.

The data revealed that over 5.52 crore individuals, 11.3 lakh HUFs, 12.69 lakh firms and 8.41 lakh companies were among those who filed returns. 

Here is the link to the report.