Fresh bill to allow proxy voting to NRIs
New Delhi: The Union cabinet will take a call Monday to introduce a fresh bill in Parliament to extend the facility of proxy voting to overseas Indians.
A similar bill had lapsed following the dissolution of the 16th Lok Sabha last month. Sources in the government said Sunday that the union cabinet will consider introducing the bill in parliament.
The bill proposes that overseas Indians, who are entitled to vote in India, can appoint a proxy voter to cast the ballot on their behalf.
As of now, overseas Indians are free to cast their votes in constituencies they are registered. The Bill seeks to give them the option of proxy voting, which is as of now available to service personnel only.
According to estimates of the Ministry of External Affairs, there are about 3.10 crore NRIs living in different countries across the world.
An expert committee of the Election Commission, working on the issue, had in 2015 forwarded the legal framework to the Law Ministry to amend the electoral laws to allow the overseas Indians to use proxy voting.
Unofficial data with the EC shows that only 10,000 to 12,000 overseas voters have exercised their franchise because they do not want to spend foreign currency to come to India and vote.
The bill said the necessary provision of coming to India to cast ballot caused hardship for overseas electors.
Another provision in the amendment bill relates to the spouses of service voters. As of now, an armyman's wife is entitled to be enrolled as a service voter, but a woman army officer's husband is not, according to the provisions in the electoral law.
The bill proposes to replace the term 'wife' with 'spouse', thus making the provision gender-neutral.
Members of the armed forces, central armed police forces, personnel of state police forces posted outside their state and employees of the Centre posted outside India are eligible to be enrolled as service voters.
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Trump says EU has until July 4 to approve last year's trade deal or it will face higher tariffs
Washington (AP): President Donald Trump has said in a social media post that goods from the European Union would face higher tariff rates if the 27-member bloc fails to approve last year's trade framework by July 4.
The announcement on Thursday appeared to be a deadline extension after the president said last Friday that EU autos would face a higher 25 per cent tariff starting this week. Trump made the updated announcement after what he described as a "great call" with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Still, the US president was displeased that the European Parliament had yet to finalize the trade arrangement reached last year, which was further complicated in February by the US Supreme Court ruling that Trump lacked the legal authority to declare an economic emergency to impose the initial tariffs used to pressure the EU into talks.
"A promise was made that the EU would deliver their side of the Deal and, as per Agreement, cut their Tariffs to ZERO!" Trump posted. "I agreed to give her until our Country's 250th Birthday or, unfortunately, their Tariffs would immediately jump to much higher levels."
It was unclear from the post whether Trump was implying that the tariff rates would jump on all EU goods or the increase would only apply to autos.
His latest statement indicates he might be backing away from his earlier threat on EU autos by giving the European Parliament several more weeks to approve the agreement.
Under the original terms of the framework, the US would charge a 15 per cent tax on most goods imported from the EU.
But since the Supreme Court ruling, the administration has levied a 10 per cent tariff while investigating trade imbalances and national security issues, aiming to put in new tariffs to make up for lost revenues.
