The Evening Wrap: Switch of focus to employment-schemes and rural economy in Union Budget 2024

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s seventh Budget marked a lane shift of the sort last seen in 2016-17, when the focus shifted to to the rural economy and job creation in response to jibes of ‘suit-boot ki sarkar’ from the Opposition. This time around, too, the farmer and young jobless found priority attention, along with the middle classes. Salaried taxpayers were offered relief of ₹1,458 a month in income tax, while a five-scheme package was announced for first time jobs and skilling, including an employment incentive scheme for industries. Bihar and Andhra Pradesh figured prominently in budgetary allocations, in what are seen as signals to critical alliance partners. Key takeaways: Fiscal deficit to be kept at 4.9% of GDP Allocation for capital expenditure set at ₹Rs 11.11 lakh crore or 3.4% of GDP PM Package of five schemes with an allocation of ₹2 lakh crore to boost employment and skilling Special financial support of ₹15,000 crore for Andhra Pradesh Allocation of ₹26,000 crore for building highways in Bihar. To address the housing needs of the urban poor and middle class families, an investment of ₹10 lakh crore under the PM Awas Yojana-Urban 2.0, including Central assistance of ₹2.2 lakh crore in the next five years. Basic custom duty (BCD) cut to 15% on mobile phones, mobile printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) and mobile chargers. Currently, the BCD on them is 20%. This 5% window could impact the end pricing of smart phones. An outlay of ₹6,21,940.85 crore for defence for FY25, which is the highest among all the Union ministries. The total allocation comes out as 12.9% of the total budget of Union of India. Only ₹1,309.46 crore allocated for census. This is a sharp reduction from 2021-22, when ₹3,768 crore was allocated, and is an indication that the census may not be carried out even after a significant delay. MGNREGA allocation once again fell short of the actual expenditure on the scheme in the last financial year. In 2024-25 FY, government has allocated ₹86,000 crore, while in 2023-24, the expenditure, including the pending dues to the States, as per the Rural Development Ministry’s website, was ₹1.2 lakh crore. Sops for salaried classes: Personal income tax slabs revised, standard deductions hiked Altering the structure for taxation of income under the new regime, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday revised the tax slabs whilst retaining the erstwhile corresponding tax rates other than increasing the standard deductions. The present slab of ₹3-6 lakh, that is, the preliminary bracket liable to be taxed, would now be revised upwards to ₹3-7 lakh. However, the corresponding rate of taxation remains unchanged at 5%. No changes were however made for individuals with income of less than ₹3 lakh – who continue to draw no tax liability – the ₹12-15 lakh slab, and for incomes exceeding ₹15 lakh. Sitharaman held that because of the changes, a salaried employee now stands to save up to ₹17,500 in income taxes. The standard deduction for salaried employees, enrolled under the next tax regime, too, has been increased to ₹75,000 from the current ₹50,000. Furthermore, she announced an increase in the deduction on family pension for pensioners from ₹15,000 to ₹25,000. The two measures combined, she stated, would provide relief to “about four crore salaried individuals and pensioners.” According to Deepashree Shetty, Partner at BDO India, who follows tax and regulatory services, the rejig in slabs was aimed at providing relief to middle-class taxpayers and to further promote the new tax regime. The Finance Minister had stated in her address that more than two-thirds of the taxpayers had availed the new regime in the previous fiscal year. Poorva Prakash, Partner at Deloitte India, who follows personal taxation, explained that the revision in tax slabs combined with increase in standard deduction would be beneficial for salaried employees. It would facilitate savings of about ₹17,500 on an income of ₹15 lakh, she observed. “This is a good amount [the savings] and also serves the primary objective of the new regime to push more disposable income,” she said. Tax rates on both short and long term capital gains raised with immediate effect In what may come as somewhat of a dampener for stock market investors, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced an increase in both long-term and short-term capital gains tax. Sitharaman announced that short-term capital gains on “specified” financial assets will henceforth attract a tax rate of 20% instead of 15%. All other financial assets and non-financial assets shall continue to attract the “applicable tax rate”. Long-term gains on all financial and non-financial assets will attract a tax rate of 12.5% instead of 10%. On the positive side, for the benefit of the lower and middle-income classes, it was proposed to increase the limit of exemption of capital gains on certain listed financial assets from ₹1 lakh to ₹1.25 lakh per year. Listed financial assets held for more than a year is classified as long-term, while unlisted financial assets and all non-financial assets will have to be held for at least two years to be classified as long-term. “Unlisted bonds and debentures, debt mutual funds and market-linked debentures, irrespective of the holding period, however, will attract tax on capital gains at applicable rates,” Sitharaman said in her Budget speech. All these proposals will come into force immediately. Further, to bolster the Indian start-up eco-system, boost the entrepreneurial spirit and support innovation, Sitharaman proposed to abolish the so-called angel tax for all classes of investors. Simplifying the tax regime for corporate industries, Union Finance Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday, proposed new tax structures for charities, foreign shipping companies, and rationalisation of capital gains. She also reduced corporate tax on foreign companies from 40 to 35%. Centre’s ‘no’ to special status for Bihar evokes cryptic response from Nitish Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on July 23 came out with a cryptic response to the Centre’s refusal to grant special category status to the State. Mr. Kumar, whose JD(U) is a key ally of the ruling NDA at the Centre, was asked about the Union Government’s statement in Parliament on Monday. “You will get to know all things slowly, and slowly (sab kuchh dhire dhire jaan jaaiyega),” the longest-serving CM of the State said, in reply to a volley of questions he faced from journalists at the Bihar Assembly. Flashing his trademark smile of ambiguity, the veteran leader rushed inside the House, waving at the posse of journalists that stood trying to read his impregnable mind. Notably, after the Lok Sabha polls in which the BJP fell short of majority, becoming heavily dependent on allies, the JD(U) had held a national executive meeting where a resolution was passed raising a fresh demand for special status. Leaders of the JD(U), which has two Ministers in the Union Government, insist that the resolution also spoke of a “special package and other types of help” and that Bihar could still get a lot from Narendra Modi Government. However, Opposition leaders in the State think Bihar has been taken for a ride. Kumar’s arch-rival Lalu Prasad, the RJD president, feels that the JD(U) supremo should resign. Incidentally, Kumar had junked the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan, the Bihar prototype of INDIA bloc that he had helped form, in January this year to return to the BJP-led NDA. The Union Government cited an inter-ministerial group report prepared in 2012 to assert in Lok Sabha on Monday that a case for granting special category status to Bihar is not made out. In a written reply in the Lok Sabha on the first day of the Monsoon Session, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said special category status was granted in the past by the National Development Council (NDC) to some states that were characterised by a number of features necessitating special consideration. These included hilly and difficult terrain, low population density or sizeable share of tribal population, strategic location along borders with neighbouring countries, economic and infrastructural backwardness and non-viable nature of state finances, he said in reply to a question asked by JD(U) member Rampreet Mandal. The decision was taken based on an integrated consideration of all the factors listed above and the peculiar situation of a State, the Minister said. “Earlier, the request of Bihar for Special Category Status was considered by an Inter-Ministerial Group (IMG) which submitted its Report on 30th March 2012. The IMG came to the finding that based on existing NDC criteria, the case for Special Category Status for Bihar is not made out,” the Minister said. The Congress-led UPA was in power at the time. Budget 2024 an exercise to appease allies; urgent issues like unemployment and inflation ignored, says Opposition The Opposition slammed the Union Budget, calling it an exercise in political jugglery to appease the BJP’s two key allies, Janata Dal (United) and Telugu Desam Party, while doing little to address issues such as high rate of unemployment and inflation. The Congress, which claimed that the internship programme announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was modelled on the “apprenticeship” scheme in their 2024 election manifesto, called it a copycat Budget. The other Opposition parties said States ruled by non-National Democratic Alliance parties have been ignored. In a post in Hindi on X, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge said, “The Modi government’s ‘copycat budget’ could not even copy the Congress’ Nyay Patra properly! The Modi government’s budget is distributing half-hearted ‘rewadis (freebies)‘ to dupe its coalition partners so that the NDA survives.” “This is not a budget for the ‘progress of the country’, it is a ‘save Modi government’ budget!” he said. Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi dismissed the Budget as an exercise to save the government. He said it sought to “appease allies” by making “hollow promises” to them at the cost of other States. Addressing a press conference later in the day, former Finance Minister and Rajya Sabha MP P. Chidambaram said unemployment is the “biggest challenge facing the country” and the government’s efforts are “too little and will have only little impact on the grave situation”. Chidambaram also said that nothing in the Budget speech “gives us the confidence that the government will seriously tackle the issue of inflation”. The government, he alleged, also seems to be “blissfully ignorant” of its own statistics that wages have stagnated in the last six years. Demanding the scrapping of the short-term military recruitment scheme Agnipath, he said several political parties, including the Congress, have demanded that the scheme be scrapped forthwith. However, there is no response from the government, Chidambaram said. Trinamool Congress’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee termed the Budget a “complete failure with zero warranty”. “Instead of tackling urgent issues like unemployment, rising prices and growing inflation, the BJP has crafted a budget to bribe its coalition partners and buy time before the government implodes,” he posted on X. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau said the Budget should have focused on expanding economic activities, but instead its proposals are “contractionary and regressive”. This will only impose further miseries on the people and depress the levels of investment and employment generation. “The Budget figures show that the revenue earnings of the government increased by 14.5% while the expenditures grew only by 5.94%. Instead of using these revenues for expanding economic activity, it has been used to reduce the fiscal deficit, to appease International Finance Capital, from 5.8% to 4.9% of the GDP,” the Polit Bureau stated. The party also called the government’s Employment-Linked Incentive a ruse to subsidise the corporates. CPI general secretary D. Raja termed the Budget a “deceitful exercise in hiding the failures of the last 10 years of BJP-rule”. “PM Modi promised 2 crore jobs per year a decade ago. That should have totalled 20 crore jobs till now but Budget 2024-25 has come up with new Jumlas on skilling 20 lakh youth in five years and giving internship opportunities to 1 crore youth in five years,” he said. NEET-UG 2024 hearing: Supreme Court refuses to cancel exam, says no evidence to suggest a systemic breach A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) D.Y. Chandrachud on July 23 refused to cancel the NEET-UG 2024 medical exam, saying that there is no material on record to justify cancellation. A bench comprising Chandrachud and Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra heard submissions from a battery of lawyers, including Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre and the National Testing Agency (NTA), and senior advocates Narender Hooda, Sanjay Hegde and Mathews Nedumapra for around four days. The bench dictated the operative part of the judgement keeping in mind the future of over two million students and said a detailed judgement will follow. There is an absence of material to conclude that the result of the NEET-UG 2024 exam is vitiated or there is systemic breach, the top court said. It further said that the data on record does not indicate a systemic leak of the question paper of NEET-UG 24. “Ordering cancellation of the entire NEET-UG exam is not justified by applying settled principles propounded by it,” the court said. The court also clarified that any student who has individual grievances not bearing on the issues decided in the Supreme Court shall move the jurisdictional High Court. The court last week noted that it was an admitted fact that paper leaks happened in Patna and Hazaribagh in Bihar. Both cases are being investigated by the CBI presently. However, the Centre and the NTA, have maintained that scrapping the exam would be “counterproductive” and “seriously jeopardise” lakhs of honest candidates in the absence of any proof of large-scale breach of confidentiality. The NTA and the Union Education Ministry have been at the centre of a massive political row and protests by students over alleged large-scale malpractices ranging from question paper leaks to impersonation in the test held on May 5. The National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG) is conducted by the NTA for admissions to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other related courses in government and private institutions across the country. In Brief: The Delhi High Court on July 23 directed X Corp and Google Inc to remove prima facie defamatory social media posts against Indian Railway Personnel Service (IRPS) officer and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla’s daughter Anjali Birla. Justice Navin Chawla also restrained unknown parties from directly or indirectly posting, circulating, communicating, tweeting or retweeting the alleged defamatory content mentioned by Anjali Birla in her defamation suit. The high court said the social media posts shall be removed by the intermediaries within 24 hours, and in case the plaintiff comes to know of any other similar posts, she shall inform X and Google about it. The officer has sought directions to take down social media posts which have alleged that she cleared the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) exam in her very first attempt because of her father’s influence. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. [logo] The Evening Wrap 23 July 2024 [The Hindu logo] Welcome to the Evening Wrap newsletter, your guide to the day’s biggest stories with concise analysis from The Hindu. [View in browser]( [More newsletters]( Union Budget 2024: Switch of focus to employment-schemes and rural economy Finance Minister [Nirmala Sitharaman’s seventh Budget marked a lane shift]( of the sort last seen in 2016-17, when the focus shifted to to the rural economy and job creation in response to jibes of ‘suit-boot ki sarkar’ from the Opposition. This time around, too, the farmer and young jobless found priority attention, along with the middle classes. Salaried taxpayers were offered relief of ₹1,458 a month in income tax, while a five-scheme package was announced for first time jobs and skilling, including an employment incentive scheme for industries. Bihar and Andhra Pradesh figured prominently in budgetary allocations, in what are seen as signals to critical alliance partners. Key takeaways: - Fiscal deficit to be kept at 4.9% of GDP - Allocation for capital expenditure set at ₹Rs 11.11 lakh crore or 3.4% of GDP - PM Package of five schemes with an allocation of ₹2 lakh crore to boost employment and skilling - Special financial support of ₹15,000 crore for Andhra Pradesh - Allocation of ₹26,000 crore for building highways in Bihar. - To address the housing needs of the urban poor and middle class families, an investment of ₹10 lakh crore under the PM Awas Yojana-Urban 2.0, including Central assistance of ₹2.2 lakh crore in the next five years. - Basic custom duty (BCD) cut to 15% on mobile phones, mobile printed circuit board assembly (PCBA) and mobile chargers. Currently, the BCD on them is 20%. This 5% window could impact the end pricing of smart phones. - An outlay of ₹6,21,940.85 crore for defence for FY25, which is the highest among all the Union ministries. The total allocation comes out as 12.9% of the total budget of Union of India. - Only ₹1,309.46 crore allocated for census. This is a sharp reduction from 2021-22, when ₹3,768 crore was allocated, and is an indication that the census may not be carried out even after a significant delay. - MGNREGA allocation once again fell short of the actual expenditure on the scheme in the last financial year. In 2024-25 FY, government has allocated ₹86,000 crore, while in 2023-24, the expenditure, including the pending dues to the States, as per the Rural Development Ministry’s website, was ₹1.2 lakh crore. Sops for salaried classes: Personal income tax slabs revised, standard deductions hiked [Altering the structure for taxation of income under the new regime]( Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday revised the tax slabs whilst retaining the erstwhile corresponding tax rates other than increasing the standard deductions. The present slab of ₹3-6 lakh, that is, the preliminary bracket liable to be taxed, would now be revised upwards to ₹3-7 lakh. However, the corresponding rate of taxation remains unchanged at 5%. No changes were however made for individuals with income of less than ₹3 lakh – who continue to draw no tax liability – the ₹12-15 lakh slab, and for incomes exceeding ₹15 lakh. Sitharaman held that because of the changes, a salaried employee now stands to save up to ₹17,500 in income taxes. The standard deduction for salaried employees, enrolled under the next tax regime, too, has been increased to ₹75,000 from the current ₹50,000. Furthermore, she announced an increase in the deduction on family pension for pensioners from ₹15,000 to ₹25,000. The two measures combined, she stated, would provide relief to “about four crore salaried individuals and pensioners.” According to Deepashree Shetty, Partner at BDO India, who follows tax and regulatory services, the rejig in slabs was aimed at providing relief to middle-class taxpayers and to further promote the new tax regime. The Finance Minister had stated in her address that more than two-thirds of the taxpayers had availed the new regime in the previous fiscal year. Poorva Prakash, Partner at Deloitte India, who follows personal taxation, explained that the revision in tax slabs combined with increase in standard deduction would be beneficial for salaried employees. It would facilitate savings of about ₹17,500 on an income of ₹15 lakh, she observed. “This is a good amount [the savings] and also serves the primary objective of the new regime to push more disposable income,” she said. Tax rates on both short and long term capital gains raised with immediate effect In what may come as somewhat of a dampener for stock market investors, Finance Minister [Nirmala Sitharaman announced an increase in both long-term and short-term capital gains tax](. Sitharaman announced that short-term capital gains on “specified” financial assets will henceforth attract a tax rate of 20% instead of 15%. All other financial assets and non-financial assets shall continue to attract the “applicable tax rate”. Long-term gains on all financial and non-financial assets will attract a tax rate of 12.5% instead of 10%. On the positive side, for the benefit of the lower and middle-income classes, it was proposed to increase the limit of exemption of capital gains on certain listed financial assets from ₹1 lakh to ₹1.25 lakh per year. Listed financial assets held for more than a year is classified as long-term, while unlisted financial assets and all non-financial assets will have to be held for at least two years to be classified as long-term. “Unlisted bonds and debentures, debt mutual funds and market-linked debentures, irrespective of the holding period, however, will attract tax on capital gains at applicable rates,” Sitharaman said in her Budget speech. All these proposals will come into force immediately. Further, to bolster the Indian start-up eco-system, boost the entrepreneurial spirit and support innovation, Sitharaman proposed to abolish the so-called angel tax for all classes of investors. Simplifying the tax regime for corporate industries, Union Finance Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday, proposed new tax structures for charities, foreign shipping companies, and rationalisation of capital gains. She also reduced corporate tax on foreign companies from 40 to 35%. Centre’s ‘no’ to special status for Bihar evokes cryptic response from Nitish Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on July 23 came out with a cryptic response to the [Centre’s refusal to grant special category status]( to the State. Mr. Kumar, whose JD(U) is a key ally of the ruling NDA at the Centre, was asked about the Union Government’s statement in Parliament on Monday. “You will get to know all things slowly, and slowly (sab kuchh dhire dhire jaan jaaiyega),” the longest-serving CM of the State said, in reply to a volley of questions he faced from journalists at the Bihar Assembly. Flashing his trademark smile of ambiguity, the veteran leader rushed inside the House, waving at the posse of journalists that stood trying to read his impregnable mind. Notably, after the Lok Sabha polls in which the BJP fell short of majority, becoming heavily dependent on allies, the JD(U) had held a national executive meeting where a resolution was passed raising a fresh demand for special status. Leaders of the JD(U), which has two Ministers in the Union Government, insist that the resolution also spoke of a “special package and other types of help” and that Bihar could still get a lot from Narendra Modi Government. However, Opposition leaders in the State think Bihar has been taken for a ride. Kumar’s arch-rival Lalu Prasad, the RJD president, feels that the JD(U) supremo should resign. Incidentally, Kumar had junked the RJD-led Mahagathbandhan, the Bihar prototype of INDIA bloc that he had helped form, in January this year to return to the BJP-led NDA. The Union Government cited an inter-ministerial group report prepared in 2012 to assert in Lok Sabha on Monday that a case for granting special category status to Bihar is not made out. In a written reply in the Lok Sabha on the first day of the Monsoon Session, Minister of State for Finance Pankaj Chaudhary said special category status was granted in the past by the National Development Council (NDC) to some states that were characterised by a number of features necessitating special consideration. These included hilly and difficult terrain, low population density or sizeable share of tribal population, strategic location along borders with neighbouring countries, economic and infrastructural backwardness and non-viable nature of state finances, he said in reply to a question asked by JD(U) member Rampreet Mandal. The decision was taken based on an integrated consideration of all the factors listed above and the peculiar situation of a State, the Minister said. “Earlier, the request of Bihar for Special Category Status was considered by an Inter-Ministerial Group (IMG) which submitted its Report on 30th March 2012. The IMG came to the finding that based on existing NDC criteria, the case for Special Category Status for Bihar is not made out,” the Minister said. The Congress-led UPA was in power at the time. Budget 2024 an exercise to appease allies; urgent issues like unemployment and inflation ignored, says Opposition The [Opposition slammed the Union Budget]( calling it an exercise in political jugglery to appease the BJP’s two key allies, Janata Dal (United) and Telugu Desam Party, while doing little to address issues such as high rate of unemployment and inflation. The Congress, which claimed that the internship programme announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman was modelled on the “apprenticeship” scheme in their 2024 election manifesto, called it a copycat Budget. The other Opposition parties said States ruled by non-National Democratic Alliance parties have been ignored. In a post in Hindi on X, Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge said, “The Modi government’s ‘copycat budget’ could not even copy the Congress’ Nyay Patra properly! The Modi government’s budget is distributing half-hearted ‘rewadis (freebies)‘ to dupe its coalition partners so that the NDA survives.” “This is not a budget for the ‘progress of the country’, it is a ‘save Modi government’ budget!” he said. Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi dismissed the Budget as an exercise to save the government. He said it sought to “appease allies” by making “hollow promises” to them at the cost of other States. Addressing a press conference later in the day, former Finance Minister and Rajya Sabha MP P. Chidambaram said unemployment is the “biggest challenge facing the country” and the government’s efforts are “too little and will have only little impact on the grave situation”. Chidambaram also said that nothing in the Budget speech “gives us the confidence that the government will seriously tackle the issue of inflation”. The government, he alleged, also seems to be “blissfully ignorant” of its own statistics that wages have stagnated in the last six years. Demanding the scrapping of the short-term military recruitment scheme Agnipath, he said several political parties, including the Congress, have demanded that the scheme be scrapped forthwith. However, there is no response from the government, Chidambaram said. Trinamool Congress’s national general secretary Abhishek Banerjee termed the Budget a “complete failure with zero warranty”. “Instead of tackling urgent issues like unemployment, rising prices and growing inflation, the BJP has crafted a budget to bribe its coalition partners and buy time before the government implodes,” he posted on X. The Communist Party of India (Marxist) Polit Bureau said the Budget should have focused on expanding economic activities, but instead its proposals are “contractionary and regressive”. This will only impose further miseries on the people and depress the levels of investment and employment generation. “The Budget figures show that the revenue earnings of the government increased by 14.5% while the expenditures grew only by 5.94%. Instead of using these revenues for expanding economic activity, it has been used to reduce the fiscal deficit, to appease International Finance Capital, from 5.8% to 4.9% of the GDP,” the Polit Bureau stated. The party also called the government’s Employment-Linked Incentive a ruse to subsidise the corporates. CPI general secretary D. Raja termed the Budget a “deceitful exercise in hiding the failures of the last 10 years of BJP-rule”. “PM Modi promised 2 crore jobs per year a decade ago. That should have totalled 20 crore jobs till now but Budget 2024-25 has come up with new Jumlas on skilling 20 lakh youth in five years and giving internship opportunities to 1 crore youth in five years,” he said. NEET-UG 2024 hearing: Supreme Court refuses to cancel exam, says no evidence to suggest a systemic breach A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India (CJI) D.Y. Chandrachud on July 23 refused to cancel the NEET-UG 2024 medical exam, saying that there is no material on record to justify cancellation. A bench comprising Chandrachud and Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra heard submissions from a battery of lawyers, including Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre and the National Testing Agency (NTA), and senior advocates Narender Hooda, Sanjay Hegde and Mathews Nedumapra for around four days. The bench dictated the operative part of the judgement keeping in mind the future of over two million students and said a detailed judgement will follow. There is an absence of material to conclude that the result of the NEET-UG 2024 exam is vitiated or there is systemic breach, the top court said. It further said that the data on record does not indicate a systemic leak of the question paper of NEET-UG 24. “Ordering cancellation of the entire NEET-UG exam is not justified by applying settled principles propounded by it,” the court said. The court also clarified that any student who has individual grievances not bearing on the issues decided in the Supreme Court shall move the jurisdictional High Court. The court last week noted that it was an admitted fact that paper leaks happened in Patna and Hazaribagh in Bihar. Both cases are being investigated by the CBI presently. However, the Centre and the NTA, have maintained that scrapping the exam would be “counterproductive” and “seriously jeopardise” lakhs of honest candidates in the absence of any proof of large-scale breach of confidentiality. The NTA and the Union Education Ministry have been at the centre of a massive political row and protests by students over alleged large-scale malpractices ranging from question paper leaks to impersonation in the test held on May 5. The National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test-Undergraduate (NEET-UG) is conducted by the NTA for admissions to MBBS, BDS, AYUSH and other related courses in government and private institutions across the country. In Brief: The Delhi High Court on July 23 directed X Corp and Google Inc to [remove prima facie defamatory social media posts]( against Indian Railway Personnel Service (IRPS) officer and Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla’s daughter Anjali Birla. Justice Navin Chawla also restrained unknown parties from directly or indirectly posting, circulating, communicating, tweeting or retweeting the alleged defamatory content mentioned by Anjali Birla in her defamation suit. The high court said the social media posts shall be removed by the intermediaries within 24 hours, and in case the plaintiff comes to know of any other similar posts, she shall inform X and Google about it. The officer has sought directions to take down social media posts which have alleged that she cleared the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) exam in her very first attempt because of her father’s influence. Evening Wrap will return tomorrow. 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