Disaster Relief Contribution by bank employees aids Prime Minister's Relief Fund for Chennai victims; donation accepted by Finance Minister.
State Bank of Patiala presented a donation to the Prime Minister's Relief Fund funded by a one day salary contribution from its employees to assist victims of torrential rains in Chennai; bank leaders delivered the cheque and the Finance Minister accepted and acknowledged the contribution as part of the bank's broader corporate social responsibility efforts, which include honours for bravery awardees and ambulance donations to humanitarian and educational institutions.

Agriculture incentives and fiscal provisioning urged to boost production, reform crop insurance, taxation thresholds, and MSME support.
The Finance Minister emphasised maintaining fiscal deficit targets, meeting central liabilities from pay and pension commitments, expanding incentives to restore agricultural production after poor monsoons, and noted disbursal progress under the MUDRA loan scheme. Consultative Committee recommendations urged clearer, more comprehensive crop insurance, higher allocations for irrigation and veterinary research, incentives for environmental infrastructure, redesign of MGNREGA for productivity, enhanced skill development, CSR-directed local development, raised tax exemption and transaction thresholds, service tax relief for small providers, tax incentives for MSMEs, and accountability for assessing officers.

Buyback of inflation-indexed bonds via reverse auction requires price-based multiple bidding and electronic bid submission.
Repurchase of inflation-indexed government stock is to be undertaken through a reverse auction for premature redemption by utilising surplus cash balances; the operation is ad hoc. The auction will be price-based using the multiple price method, with bids required to be submitted electronically via the Reserve Bank of India Core Banking Solution (E-Kuber) within the prescribed bidding window and results announced the same day.

Interest on partner capital treated as expenditure, restricted against exempt income under Section 14A and applicable rules.
Interest paid to partners on capital contribution is an expenditure under Section 36 and not a statutory allowance under Section 40(b); it must satisfy deduction conditions under Section 36 before Section 40(b) can limit it. If the interest relates to income not includible in total income, it is disallowable or allowable only against that exempt income under the provision addressing expenditures in relation to exempt income and the applicable rules, thereby reducing the exempt income rather than the taxable business income, and the partners must include the interest in their individual returns.

Public information access expanded through official ministry YouTube channel to disseminate schemes, events, and press briefings.
The Ministry of Finance launched an official YouTube channel to host and disseminate videos on major schemes, events, meetings, press conferences and other Ministry-related content, with the aim of strengthening the Ministry's online presence and improving public access to official communications.

Infrastructure investment framework to mobilise commercial capital and foreign investment for nationally prioritized projects and improve project viability.
The text sets out an institutional framework to mobilise domestic and international capital for infrastructure through the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF), which will operate on the principle of commercial viability and serve as a primary vehicle for infrastructure financing. It also summarises supporting reforms-FDI liberalisation, indirect tax rationalisation including GST, improved ease of doing business, and faster dispute resolution-to enhance project bankability and attract sovereign, pension and institutional investors across transport, energy and related infrastructure sectors.

Government debt sustainability affirmed as portfolio shows improving indicators and medium term declining liabilities, favoring market linked borrowings.
The Fifth Edition of the Status Paper on Government Debt reports enhanced public debt transparency, a medium term declining trajectory in central government liabilities, and a debt portfolio characterised by a prudent risk profile; it emphasises market linked borrowings, issuance of longer maturity instruments, and improvement in conventional debt sustainability indicators such as level and cost of debt.

Government accounting leadership: appointment to head the Indian Cost Accounts Service reinforces expert cost advisory and investigation roles.
Appointment of Mrs. Aruna Sethi as head of the Indian Cost Accounts Service places a senior cost professional in the Office of Chief Adviser (Cost) to advise Ministries and Government undertakings on cost accounting and undertake cost investigation work. ICoAS is a professional cadre of qualified Cost/Chartered Accountants established in 1978, tasked with budgetary control, project appraisal, cost investigation, cost benefit and financial analysis, internal cost audit, subsidy management, tariff fixation and WTO trade remedies, and officers are deployed across departments to achieve value for money.

Beneficial ownership transparency: mandate registers, reporting and sanctions to identify ultimate shareowners and protect privacy.
Introduce statutory definitions of beneficial interest and beneficial ownership, require companies and persons to obtain and maintain beneficial ownership information in a Register of Beneficial Owners, empower companies to seek information from members and impose sanctions for non compliance, mandate periodic submission to the central registry with limited public disclosure to address privacy, and provide penalties for failure to comply.

Consolidated financial statements: clarify consolidation scope and allow foreign statutory accounts to satisfy website disclosure requirements.
Recommendations clarify consolidation under Section 129 to align statutory references with applicable Accounting Standards, allow overseas subsidiaries to submit locally prepared statutory financials on a holding company's website where foreign law mandates consolidated reporting, and state that step down subsidiaries need not separately publish standalone statements in such cases. The Committee retains auditor reporting standards for consolidated financial statements while recommending professional guidance on auditors' duties for internal financial controls, CARO style reporting, and overseas subsidiaries.

Independent director materiality test adopted to limit disqualifying pecuniary relationships and protect board independence.
Residence requirement should refer to the financial year, effective after six months from incorporation. Introduce a materiality test for pecuniary relationships when determining independence of independent directors and clarify relative transaction categories. Define nominee director; prohibit appointing a director as an alternate in the same company; allow private company boards to fill casual vacancies; exempt dormant company directorships from the directorship ceiling. Limit vacancy trigger to personal disqualifications, allow six months to cure continuing company non compliance, make director resignation filing to registrar optional, and permit future flexibility on DIN/identification.

Server location requirement: backup accounting data must be hosted domestically unless free regulatory access exists under specific treaties.
The rules maintain a data residency requirement for electronic books with an exception where bilateral or multilateral treaties permit free regulatory access abroad; they reject extension of the transitional exemption from mandatory consolidation of accounts for companies with foreign subsidiaries, require capturing unhedged foreign-exchange exposure in filings, clarify that an "entity" may serve as internal auditor, streamline certain Board's Report disclosures while retaining energy and technology disclosures, recommend omission of Form AOC-2 if financial statements disclose related-party transactions, harmonise remuneration disclosure thresholds, uphold directors' duty to ensure compliance systems, and propose targeted amendments to CSR spending and administrative limits.

Advance Pricing Agreements secure prolonged transfer pricing certainty after bilateral MAP resolution and inclusion of rollback provisions.
Two bilateral Advance Pricing Agreements (APAs) were executed with the United Kingdom following Mutual Agreement Procedure (MAP) resolutions, formalising pricing methods for intra-group transactions-including management and service charges and royalty payments-and incorporating a Rollback provision for earlier years to extend the period of applicability and stabilise transfer pricing positions for the named Indian entities.

Tariff value revision: customs notification updates import valuation for specified oils, metals, scrap, seeds and nuts.
The Central Board of Excise & Customs, invoking section 14(2) of the Customs Act, 1962, substitutes TABLE-1, TABLE-2 and TABLE-3 of Notification No. 36/2001-Customs (N.T.) to set updated tariff values in US dollars for specified imported goods including crude palm oil and derivatives, crude soybean oil, brass scrap, poppy seeds, areca nuts, and unit values for gold and silver where certain concessional notification entries are availed.

Loan agreement formalises tranche financing to improve urban services and institutional capacity in Agartala and Aizawl.
A signed loan agreement provides an $80 million third tranche under the North Eastern Region Capital Cities Development Investment Program to fund water supply, solid waste management, sanitation, and urban reforms in Agartala and Aizawl, strengthen service institutions, and expand sustainable urban services. The tranche, financed from ordinary capital resources with a 20-year term, is to be implemented and overseen by the Ministry of Urban Development, with tranche activities and the overall program due for completion by the program end date.

Mutual Agreement Procedure enabling resolution of cross-border transfer pricing disputes and renewed bilateral APA cooperation for tax certainty.
The Framework Agreement invoking the Mutual Agreement Procedure under the India-USA DTAC targets historical transfer pricing disputes in the IT and ITeS sectors, resolving a substantial portion of pending cases and addressing arm's-length pricing controversies. Its success led to renewed bilateral Advance Pricing Agreement cooperation from the US and complements ongoing MAP engagement with other jurisdictions to enhance tax certainty for multinational enterprises.

Alternate Investment Fund structure: NIIF enables government and strategic partners' equity for long term infrastructure investment.
A central operative feature is the Government backed National Investment and Infrastructure Fund, established as a Category II Alternate Investment Fund, to be financed through government contribution alongside equity from foreign and domestic strategic anchor partners with the Government retaining a specified minority share; NIIF's mandate is to maximise economic impact by investing in commercially viable greenfield and brownfield infrastructure projects, rehabilitating stalled projects and supporting nationally important initiatives, offering long term opportunities to sovereign wealth funds, pension funds and other long term investors.

Exchange of information expands tax information sharing between India and Armenia to address tax evasion and banking secrecy.
Amendment revises the Exchange of Information provision in the India-Armenia Double Taxation Avoidance Convention to align the treaty's information sharing framework with updated OECD Model standards, broadening scope to include financial and banking transaction data and establishing standardized mechanisms, confidentiality protections and use limitations for administrative exchange of information to address cross border tax evasion.

Advance Pricing Agreements expand programme to strengthen transfer pricing certainty and reduce dispute risk for international transactions.
Advance Pricing Agreements provide transfer pricing certainty by specifying pricing methods and fixing prices for international transactions. The tax authority has executed additional unilateral APAs across service and manufacturing sectors, expanding the programme and signalling continued taxpayer uptake. The APA regime, introduced in 2012 with rollback provisions added in 2014, permits extended retrospective certainty and is promoted as a measure to reduce transfer pricing disputes and enhance tax policy stability.

Second appellate authority: ITAT highlights tax jurisprudence, cross-border issues and technology in justice delivery celebration.
Recognition of the Income tax Appellate Tribunal as a Second Appellate Authority established in 1941, mandated to provide impartial, accessible and speedy adjudication in tax disputes with further appeals to the High Court; and a programme focusing on tax jurisprudence in cross border transactions, technology in justice delivery, and the interaction between tax litigation and ease of doing business.