Atmosphere not right for a Xi-Modi Hamburg meet, says China amid stand-off

China today said the "atmosphere" was "not right" for a bilateral meeting between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G20 Summit in Hamburg, amidst a standoff between the armies of the two countries in the Sikkim section.

"The atmosphere is not right for a bilateral meeting between President Xi and Prime Minister Modi," a Chinese Foreign Ministry official said ahead of the G20 Summit in the German city of Hamburg from tomorrow.

China and India have been engaged in a standoff in the Dokalam area near the Bhutan tri-junction for past 19 days after a Chinese Army's construction party attempted to build a road. Doka La is the Indian name for the region which Bhutan recognises as Dokalam, while China claims it as part of its Donglang region.

There were reports that Modi and Xi may meet on the sidelines of the G20 Summit to resolve the standoff.

China's state-run media yesterday had quoted Chinese analysts as saying that Beijing would be forced to use a "military way" to end the standoff in the Sikkim sector if India refuses to listen to the "historical lessons" being offered by it.

(Only the headline and picture of this report may have been reworked by the Business Standard staff; the rest of the content is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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SC raps Modi govt for making Aadhaar mandatory for filing I-T returns

The Supreme Court of Friday asked Attorney General (AG) Mukul Rohatgi to justify making Aadhaar mandatory for filing Income Tax returns as it is a complete violation of the court's previous order. "Is making Aadhaar by force the only way to tackle fraud?" a furious Supreme Court asked the central government.

The apex court debated the legality of a centralized biometric-based database of India’s 1.2 billion citizens. To this, Mukul Rohatgi responded that the central government's only option was to make Aadhaar mandatory to end the black money menace.

"We found a number of pan cards being used to divert funds to shell companies, to prevent it the only option is to make Aadhaar card mandatory," said Rohatgi.

The Supreme Court had on March 27 made it clear that Aadhaar cannot be made mandatory by the government for extending benefits of social welfare schemes.

The top court, however, said that the government cannot be barred from seeking these cards, which are issued by UIDAI, for "non-benefit" purposes like filing of IT returns and opening of accounts.

"The answer is this that for giving benefits of welfare schemes, it (Aadhaar) cannot be pressed. They (government and its agencies) cannot be stopped from seeking Aadhaar for non-benefit schemes like opening of bank accounts," a bench headed by Chief Justice J S Khehar had said.

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