A ‘faceless’ tax process

The government has rolled out a faceless assessment and appeals process. What this essentially means:

• You will be assigned a Document Identification Number (DNI), and your case will be assigned at random to an Income Tax officer anywhere in the country.
• Assessments will be conducted not by an individual tax officer but by a team.
• And the process will be spread across teams. Initial assessment will be done in one city—which will be reviewed in another city, and then finalized in a third.
• There will be no need for in-person interaction with tax officials.
• The appeals process will be similar. Your appeal will be randomly allotted to an officer, and their identity will remain unknown.

But, but, but: The new tax process may come with a longer list of transactions that have to be declared upfront. According to the Indian Express, taxpayers may have to report:

• Hotel payments over Rs 20,000.
• Life insurance premium payment over Rs 50,000.
• Health insurance premium payment over Rs 20,000. 
• Donations and payment of school/college fees over Rs 1 lakh a year.
• Also: Foreign travel, domestic business class air travel, purchase of white goods, jewellery and paintings worth above Rs 100,000, demat accounts and even bank lockers.

Apple vs Fortnite jhagda

• Apple has pulled Fortnite from its App Store. The reason: its developer Epic offered a method of direct payment to its customers—a big no-no as per company policy. 
• More cheekily, Fortnite offered upto 20% off to encourage users to do it. 
• All of which made Apple very angry. But Epic was clearly laying the ground for an epic (what else?) battle. 
• It has now sued Apple accusing it of being a monopoly—which is exactly why Apple was hauled up in front of the US Congress last month. 
• And it’s released this video trolling Apple’s iconic ‘1984’ ad called Nineteen Eighty-Fortnite.

TikTok seeks Jio vaccine?

Little media birdies claim that Reliance is contemplating investing in the app’s India operations. The solution will both pave the way for its return, and keep it on the right side of the government. But both ByteDance and Reliance have dismissed such talk as “speculation.” The exclusive report is on ET Prime (paywall). A good read (sign up required): This bracing analysis of ‘Made in India’ TikTok clones, and their less-than-stellar performance over the past month. 

Trying to keep up with Jio: Amazon India, which unveiled its next move: Amazon Pharmacy. The service will start delivering over-the-counter and prescription medicines in Bangalore—taking advantage of a big boom in online medical services thanks to the pandemic.

No smoking gun in Rajput case

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has so far not found any “substantial direct transfers” from the actor’s bank account to his girlfriend, Rhea Chakraborty or her family. Chakraborty also does not have any joint account with Rajput. Point to note: The FIR filed against Chakraborty alleged that she siphoned out Rs 15 crore out of his accounts. Whoops! (Indian Express) 

In related news: Rajput’s army of fans/trolls are targeting the trailer of Mahesh Bhatt’s upcoming flick, ‘Sadak 2’—which also stars his daughter Alia Bhatt. It is now the most disliked trailer on YouTube with 7.9 million ‘thumbs downs’. Only 434,000 people have liked it. The reason for this rage: the nepotism argument which claims that Rajput was driven to suicide by Bollywood bigwigs who favour their kids. (Mint)

The great pandemic: a quick update

• New Zealand now has 14 new cases, all of them linked to one family. But no one knows how they became infected—which is really worrying.
• China is looking closely at an imported package of frozen chicken wings from Brazil. The surface tested positive, and it has triggered a flurry of testing. Point to note: food rarely is a source of infection.
• Closer home: international travelers to Mumbai will no longer have to undergo institutional quarantine.
• The Kerala government is tracking mobile phone records of all Covid patients. The reason: It wants to draw ‘route maps’ to trace all their contacts. Privacy advocates are outraged. Telecom companies are unhappy.
• The Ram Temple trust chief Nritya Gopal Das has tested positive. Why this matters: He came in close contact with the PM during the bhumi pujan. Modi in quarantine: to be or not to be?
• Meanwhile, the UK held its first socially distanced concert. This is what it looked like.

Two key bits of research

A clue to childhood obesity: A newborn baby’s body fat can predict whether it will be overweight between the ages of 2 and 6. ‘Overweight’ is defined as having a Body Mass Index greater than 85% of children in that age group. Point to note: The findings held true irrespective of the child's sex, race or ethnicity, mother's education or how long they were breastfed.

When birds (and reptiles) cry: Researchers in Brazil studied the tears from macaws, hawks, owls and parrots, as well as tortoises, caimans and sea turtles—and found that they are astonishingly similar to human tears. Why this matters: vision is the single most important ability for wildlife. And the more we understand, the better we can develop treatments to preserve their sight.