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Need lower corporate tax, higher outlays on health, education: CII
New Delhi, March 10 (IANS) Making suggestions for drawing up election manifestoes for the upcoming polls, industry chamber CII on Sunday said the next government should lower the corporate tax to 18 per cent and increase the public expenditure on healthcare and education.
A statement by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) said their “suggested election manifesto” favoured the “lowering of corporate income tax to 18 per cent with no exemptions to make Indian tax rates globally competitive”.
Currently, the corporate tax for companies with turnover of up to Rs 250 crore is 25 per cent, and for those with a turnover of over Rs 250 crore it is 30 per cent.
The suggested manifesto said public expenditure on healthcare should be increased to 3 per cent of the GDP.
“The healthcare sector should be notified as an infrastructure sector. Reducing India’s maternal and infant mortality ratios must be taken up on priority basis,” the statement said.
The CII note advocates raising public expenditure on education to 6 per cent of GDP. It suggests making vocational training part of the curriculum and incentivising better performance of teachers with upgraded digital school infrastructure, especially in rural schools.
“A key measure would be to link universities with the industry and increase government funding for R&D (research and development) to 1 per cent of GDP,” it said.
The industry body also targets an average GDP growth rate of 8 per cent per annum for the next five years and called for reducing the Good and Services Tax (GST) rate slabs to 2 or 3, from the current four slabs of 5, 12, 18 and 28 per cent.
Commenting on the suggestions, Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII said: “The CII suggested manifesto envisages a continued high pace of reforms, enabling India to take a lead in a world of multiple transformations in the global and technology environment.”
According to the suggested manifesto, industrial corridors and sector-specific industrial parks need to be promoted through public-private partnership.
Micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) should be allocated 25 per cent land in industrial corridors at lenient rates, it said.
In the infrastructure sector, public-private partnerships needs to be strengthened, and the issues of delayed projects and delayed payments to project contractors must be addressed, it added.
On electoral reforms, CII suggests devising a model for simultaneous elections of Parliament and State Legislatures from 2024.
CII said it has shared the suggested election manifesto with all the major political parties, both national and regional, for their consideration and inclusion in their party manifestos.
–IANS
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International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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