Priority measures included expanded intra-SCO trade, lower trade costs, resilient and diversified supply chains, trusted multimodal connectivity, greater market access, simplified customs processes, paperless trade and electronic document exchange. Digital and cross-border payments and accessible trade finance were identified to enable MSMEs and start-ups to participate in trade and value chains. Ministers agreed an Action Plan for 2026-2030 for further approval and approved regulations for a special working group on creative-economy development.

Registration and renewal of registration for an Insurance Web Aggregator (IWA) are conditional upon carrying on only the registered business, complying with applicable legal requirements, observing Know Your Customer and Anti-Money Laundering guidelines, and maintaining prescribed records. An IWA must address policyholder grievances within the stipulated period, avoid multi-level marketing, maintain policy-wise and authorised-verifier-wise records accessible to the Authority, and report false, misleading, or materially changed information.

Customs cooperation and trade facilitation measures included pre-arrival information exchange, electronic verification of Certificates of Origin, and Customs automation and digitalisation. These measures are directed at facilitating legitimate trade while ensuring compliance with applicable rules and preventing misuse of preferential trade arrangements. Rail and road connectivity, freight movement, Integrated Check Posts and land-port infrastructure were reviewed to improve infrastructure utilisation and address operational bottlenecks affecting bilateral and transit trade.

Registration applications for an Insurance Web Aggregator operating in an IFSC must be submitted in the prescribed format with the specified application fee and supporting documents. Applicants proposing insurance outsourcing or insurance telemarketing must identify those activities in the application. The Authority may require additional information, clarifications, or documents for processing, and applicants must promptly disclose further information or clarification that may affect consideration of the application.

OnEMI Technology Solutions Limited has approved a preferential issue of equity shares to identified investors, subject to shareholder and requisite regulatory and statutory approvals. The issuance is proposed under the Companies Act, 2013, the SEBI capital-issue and disclosure framework, other applicable SEBI regulations, and applicable law. Seventy-five per cent of the additional capital raised is proposed for infusion into its wholly owned subsidiary to support lending, technology, digital capabilities and product expansion, while the remaining twenty-five per cent is proposed for general corporate purposes.

Registration as an Insurance Web Aggregator is contingent on specified eligibility criteria, including freedom from statutory disqualifications, a principal corporate object of insurance web aggregation, restricted business activities, qualified authorized verifiers, and adequate operational infrastructure. Specified management, ownership, and controlling persons must meet fit and proper requirements, while investors must have sound financial standing and be from FATF-compliant jurisdictions. Applicants must also undertake conflict safeguards, maintain prescribed capital and net worth, operate an India-hosted website, and appoint a responsible principal officer.

Alleged fraudulent availment, utilisation and passing on of inadmissible input tax credit involved invoices from purported suppliers found to be non-existent, non-functional, suspended or cancelled. Input tax credit was allegedly claimed without actual receipt of goods and passed on through invoices unsupported by corresponding supplies. Following investigation and recorded statements, the proprietor of an iron and steel trading firm was arrested under statutory arrest powers, while further investigation remains in progress.

Insurance Web Aggregator operations are conducted through an exclusive designated website and include distance marketing, solicitation, lead generation and lead management. Distance marketing permits solicitation or sale without the consumer being physically present through telephone, SMS, email, internet or web services. A lead is created when a website user submits contact information while seeking insurance product information, and the Lead Management System records, validates, grades, distributes, follows up and closes those enquiries. Accountability rests with authorized verifiers, principal officers and key management personnel.

Registration and operational framework for Insurance Web Aggregators in an International Financial Services Centre is established under the regulatory oversight of the International Financial Services Centres Authority. The Regulations regulate the process by which such aggregators are registered and conduct operations within the Centre.

International Financial Services Centres Authority (Insurance Web Aggregator) Regulations, 2022 are made under powers conferred by the International Financial Services Centres Authority Act, 2019, read with relevant enabling provisions of the Insurance Act, 1938. Commencement is linked to publication in the Official Gazette, which operates as the trigger for their entry into force.

Direct tax collections grew through September 17, supported principally by increased advance tax payments from corporate and non-corporate taxpayers. Gross collections exceeded Rs 14.32 lakh crore, while net collections, after refunds, exceeded Rs 12.12 lakh crore. Corporate tax collections grew more strongly than non-corporate tax collections, and Securities Transactions Tax receipts recorded significant growth. The trend indicated broad-based tax buoyancy, supported by underlying economic activity, taxpayer confidence and business performance.

Section 80P(2)(a)(i) permits a primary agricultural credit co-operative society to deduct income from credit facilities provided to nominal and associate members recognised under State law; section 80P(4) does not exclude such a society merely for lending to those members. Interest and dividend from investments with co-operative societies may qualify for deduction under section 80P(2)(d), subject to verification of the investee entities and the nature of invested funds. Bank interest is taxable as income from other sources, with eligible funding costs and proportionate expenses allowable under section 57. Unascertained provisions for audit fees, gratuity, leave encashment and service tax are non-deductible, but increase business profits eligible for proportionate deduction.

Central KYC-based onboarding enables regulated financial institutions to reuse a customer's existing verified identity record through the Central KYC Registry with customer consent. The integrated solution supports onboarding, KYC reporting, unsolicited notifications and re-KYC. It retrieves consented KYC records through CKYC APIs, uses facial matching or video-based customer identification for authentication, and applies AI-based duplicate detection. Reporting automates validation, image correction and real-time registry submission, while record updates and simplified periodic re-verification support the currency of institutional KYC information.

Preferential-rate duty claims under trade agreements require item-wise Bill of Entry declarations, including Certificate of Origin particulars, origin criteria, and accumulation or cumulation status. Each preferential item must be supported by electronic upload of the relevant Certificate of Origin through eSanchit and entry of its IRN in the supporting-document table. Importers must make the CUF02 self-declaration that goods qualify as originating goods. Each uploaded Certificate of Origin must be marked as defaced before Out of Charge can be granted.

Relocation of a private limited company's operations from Delhi to Haryana, following closure of Delhi operations and proposed acquisition of a new GST registration, raises the compliance issue whether any change or filing is required with the Registrar of Companies. The enquiry does not state a concluded compliance position.

GST clarification issued under the central GST framework is adopted, mutatis mutandis, for implementation under the Goa GST Act, 2017. This adoption seeks uniform application of the clarified GST issues within the State regime. The clarification is administrative and clarificatory in nature.

Regulated Entities must undertake Customer Due Diligence after assigning risk ratings, identify and verify customers and beneficial owners, understand the purpose of business relations, and conduct ongoing transaction scrutiny. High-risk relationships require enhanced measures, including source-of-wealth and source-of-funds examination, Senior Management approval and closer monitoring; simplified measures may apply only to low-risk relationships and never where ML/TF is suspected. Verification may be deferred only in low-risk cases with safeguards, but must be completed within the prescribed period; otherwise relationships must be suspended or terminated. CDD information requires risk-based periodic updating.

GST treatment distinguishes renting of passenger or freight vehicles with an operator, where the recipient controls routes and schedules, from passenger or goods transport. Mining vehicles hired with drivers are rental services rather than exempt road transport. A body corporate hiring passenger vehicles from a non-body corporate for a period is subject to reverse charge, whereas specific passenger journeys are not. Non-air-conditioned contract-carriage exemption applies only to predetermined-route and predetermined-schedule passenger transport, not to vehicles placed at the recipient's disposal.

Royalty on bought-out components subjected to further processing, and on technology-supported development, installation and commissioning activities, cannot be assigned a nil arm's length price merely under a benefit test where TNMM benchmarks closely linked transactions and no basis exists to disregard or recharacterise the arrangement. Management-fee costs require verification of services actually received and the allocation basis; the related entity-level TNMM analysis consequently requires recomputation. Employees' PF and ESI contributions paid after the statutory due date remain non-deductible despite payment before the income-tax return due date. No disallowance for expenditure relating to exempt income arises without exempt income, subject to verification of sufficient interest-free funds, and such disallowance does not increase book profit.

Preferential-duty claims under trade agreements are subject to CAROTAR, 2020, effective from 21 September 2020, requiring an importer or agent to file certain mandatory declarations with the bill of entry. The declarations include accurate identification of the certificate of origin (COO) issuing authority, alongside country-of-origin information, when seeking a preferential rate of duty.