NEW DELHI: India’s finance ministry said yesterday it is probing allegations by anti-graft activists that some of India’s top businessmen illegally stashed large sums of money abroad.
“Investigations in the matter (are) under progress including with foreign tax authorities to obtain more information with regard to the reported account holders,” the ministry said in a statement.
India Against Corruption activist Arvind Kejriwal and Supreme Court lawyer Prashant Bhushan alleged Friday that the government had received the names of 700 people with Geneva bank accounts from the French government in July 2011.
They alleged India’s Income Tax Department raided some smaller businessmen but the “big fish” evaded penalties after “buying peace” with then finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, now India’s president.
The issue of so-called “black money” — funds not reported to the government for tax purposes or parked abroad to avoid tax — is one of the problems that has roiled Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s scandal-tainted administration.
India’s Supreme Court last year ordered a probe into undeclared money in foreign bank accounts, while accusing the government of “serious lapses” in handling the issue.
On Friday, Indian conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd. issued a statement saying it has dealings with global banks as part of its international business operations but denying it has “any illegitimate accounts anywhere in the world.”
India Against Corruption has accused the government of “misleading Parliament and shielding big names” and demanded that all the names on the list be raided by tax authorities.
The ruling Congress party has rejected Kejriwal’s charges and said the government has already taken a number of steps against “black money.”
India probes Swiss ‘black money’ charges
India probes Swiss ‘black money’ charges
More than 9,000 flights canceled as major winter storm bears down across much of US
- “Dangerously cold temperatures and wind chills are spreading into the area and will remain in place into Monday,” the agency said on X
DALLAS: More than 9,000 flights across the US set to take off over the weekend have been canceled as a major storm expected to wreak havoc across much of the country threatens to knock out power for days and snarl major roadways.
Roughly 140 million people were under a winter storm warning from New Mexico to New England.
The National Weather Service forecast warns of widespread heavy snow and a band of catastrophic ice stretching from east Texas to North Carolina.
Forecasters say damage, especially in areas pounded by ice, could rival that of a hurricane.
Ice and sleet that hit northern Texas overnight were moving toward the central part of the state on Saturday, the National Weather Service in Fort Worth said.
“Dangerously cold temperatures and wind chills are spreading into the area and will remain in place into Monday,” the agency said on X.
Low temperatures will be mostly in the single digits for the next few nights, with wind chills as low as minus 24 Celsius.
About 68,000 power outages were reported across the country at 8 a.m. ET, about 27,600 of them in Texas. Snow and sleet continued to fall in Oklahoma.
After sweeping through the South, the storm was expected to move into the Northeast, dumping about a foot of snow from Washington through New York and Boston, the weather service predicted.
Temperatures reached minus 34 C just before dawn in rural Lewis County and other parts of upstate New York after days of heavy snow.
Governors in more than a dozen states sounded the alarm about the turbulent weather ahead, declaring emergencies or urging people to stay home.
