BLOG FROM RAKESH KUMAR JHA

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has extended the due date for filing of Income Tax Returns from July 31, 2018, to August 31, 2018, for certain categories of taxpayers. The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has extended the due date for filing of Income Tax Returns to August 31, 2018, for categories of taxpayers who were to file their returns by July 31. The decision comes days ahead of the July 31 deadline, which several groups had requested the government to push to later. CBDT had notified the new income tax return forms for assessment year 2018-19 on April 5. Experts said the introduction of new forms was leading to delays in filing of returns. Further, the CBDT had said non-filing of ITR before the due date from this assessment year would lead to a penalty of Rs 1,000, 5,000 and Rs 10,000, depending on when the returns were filed after the deadline. The fine for taxpayers having income under Rs 5 lakh remained at Rs 1,000. If you are still unclear in ch

New Delhi, July 26 (IANS) Microsoft India on Thursday announced free online courses on Cloud computing, with a focus on data protection regulations, security and compliance. Launched in association with learning partner myLaw, the two-phased online course will enable students, businesses and legal professionals understand data protection, the basics of European General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), security and best practices around Cloud, the company said in a statement. "It is clear to us that equipping and empowering the right person with the right knowledge and skills is crucial to sustain the digital economy. "We are excited to partner with myLaw to provide the legal and business fraternities with a platform that will help equip them with knowledge of cloud computing, data protection and key regulations," said Keshav Dhakad, Director & Assistant General Counsel, Corporate, External & Legal Affairs (CELA), Microsoft India. The first phase of th

Three engineering students from RV College of Engineering, Bengaluru, have won a special award along with a prize money of $15,000 at the 2018  Microsoft Imagine Cup  for developing an app to spot  fake medicines . Chidroop I, Pratik Mohapatra and Srihari HS represented Team  DrugSafe from India in the championship held at  Microsoft  headquarters in Redmond. They were one of the three student teams representing India at the Imagine Cup 2018 global finals. The students encountered the issue of fake medicines when one of their friends showed no signs of recovery after weeks of taking a prescribed medication. Learning about the menace of fake medicines in the country, they decided to create an app that could authenticate medicines and trace them back to their source. The app uses Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to identify minute details in the design and packaging of medicines and compare them to the original manufacturer’s patented and trademarked attributes. After three levels of

Microsoft India on Thursday announced free online courses on  Cloud computing , with a focus on data protection regulations, security and compliance. Launched in association with learning partner myLaw, the two-phased online course will enable students, businesses and legal professionals understand data protection, the basics of European  General Data Protection Regulation  (GDPR), security and best practices around Cloud, the company said in a statement. "It is clear to us that equipping and empowering the right person with the right knowledge and skills is crucial to sustain the  digital economy . "We are excited to partner with myLaw to provide the legal and business fraternities with a platform that will help equip them with knowledge of cloud computing, data protection and key regulations," said  Keshav Dhakad , Director & Assistant General Counsel, Corporate, External & Legal Affairs (CELA), Microsoft India. The first phase of the audio-visual course

The  Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)  on Monday released the recommendations on "Privacy, Security and Ownership of Data in the Telecom Sector", where it has mentioned each user owns his/her personal information/ data collected by/stored with the entities in the digital ecosystem. "The entities, controlling and processing such data, are mere custodians and do not have primary rights over this data," it stated. The TRAI  recommended  that a study should be undertaken to formulate the standards for annonymisation/de-identification of personal data generated and collected in the digital eco-system. "All entities in the digital ecosystem, which control or process the data, should be restrained from using meta-data to identify the individual users." It mentions that the existing framework for protection of the personal information/ data of telecom consumers is not sufficient. "To protect telecom consumers against the misuse of their

Existing framework for data protection is "not sufficient" to protect consumers: Telecom Regulatory Authority of India The views of the telecom regulator have the potential to impact business conducted by companies such as Apple, Samsung, Google, Amazon and Facebook NEW DELHI: Ownership of data generated by telecom consumers should rest with the users and not internet giants and mobile device makers,  Telecom Regulatory Authority of India  ( Trai ) has recommended. It has also said that the existing framework for  data protection  is "not sufficient" to protect consumers. "One-sided user agreements which are complicated and difficult to understand" – often thrown in by various app makers and mobile device companies -- should be done away with, while collection of "unrelated or unnecessary data" should be barred, Trai has additionally recommended. "Each user owns his/her personal information/data collected by/stored with the enti

MUMBAI: Retail giant  Walmart  on Tuesday said it has entered into a five-year partnership with Microsoft to leverage its  cloud solutions  for making shopping faster for its customers globally. As part of the partnership, Walmart will tap into the full range of Microsoft's cloud solutions, including Microsoft Azure and Microsoft 365, for enterprise-wide use to help standardise across the company's family of brands, the Bentonville Arkansas-based firm said in a release. Walmart and Microsoft engineers will collaborate on the assessment, development, and support phase of moving hundreds of existing applications to cloud-native architectures, it added. "Walmart's commitment to technology is centred around creating incredibly convenient ways for customers to shop and empowering associates to do their best work," Walmart chief executive officer Doug McMillon was quoted as saying in the release. "Whether it's combined with our agile cloud platform or

One of the most dangerous cyber-frauds that is claiming victims across India is ‘SIM Swap’. Cyber cells of police departments in Kolkata, Bengaluru and Delhi have already reported several instances of SIM  Swap . This new fraudulent method is used by criminals to trick gullible smartphone users who end up losing their money in a matter of minutes. And if you thought only digitally-illiterate people fall prey to this scam, you got it wrong. Several tech-savvy urban youths too have become victims of this  fraud . Criminals have devised several ways to commit  SIM  swap frauds, here's one of the most common traps used. SIM Swap or simply SIM card exchange is basically registering a new SIM card with your phone number. Once it is done, your SIM card will become invalid and your phone will stop receiving signal. Now, once the miscreants have your phone number, they will get OTPs on their SIM card. With this they can initiate bank transfer and even opt to shop online after getting