Legal and Policies
India’s Right to Disconnect Bill: Switching off for sanity
NEW DELHI: Indian workers could soon enjoy something revolutionary: the legal right to ignore their boss after clocking off. The Right to Disconnect Bill, 2025, a private member’s bill introduced in the Lok Sabha by NCP MP Supriya Sule during the Winter Session, proposes freeing employees from the digital leash that keeps them tethered to office communications beyond working hours.
The legislation tackles what many have experienced firsthand: the relentless ping of work emails at dinner time, late-night calls about tomorrow’s meeting, and the Sunday morning message asking for “just one quick thing.” Sule’s bill proposes the creation of an Employees’ Welfare Authority, which would ensure that workers face no repercussions for switching their phones to silent after deciding their workday has ended.
Companies with more than 10 employees would be required to negotiate clear after-hours communication norms with unions or employee representatives. If work beyond fixed hours becomes unavoidable, employers must compensate employees at normal wage rates. Firms that fail to comply with the rules could face a proposed penalty amounting to 1% of their total employee remuneration.
A complementary proposal came from MP Shashi Tharoor, who introduced an amendment bill seeking stronger safeguards against overwork. In Parliament, Tharoor referenced the death of Anna Sebastian Perayil, a 26-year-old EY professional whose case reignited public debate on exploitative working hours, arguing that unchecked overwork undermines both physical and mental health.
The Bill goes beyond boundary-setting. It calls for access to counselling services and the establishment of digital detox centres to address rising workplace afflictions such as “telepressure,” the compulsion to respond instantly, and “info-obesity,” a state of constant message monitoring. Comparable protections already exist in France (law introduced in 2016), Portugal (implemented January 2022), and Australia (right-to-disconnect amendments passed in 2024 with staged rollout).
However, as a private member’s bill, its path ahead is steep. Parliament rarely passes such bills; in fact, none have become law since 1970. Most are withdrawn after the government responds or stall without debate. Still, the introduction of Sule’s bill has sparked necessary conversations about workplace well-being in an increasingly hyper-connected economy.
For now, the proposal remains just that, a proposal. But its very presence on the floor of Parliament signals a growing recognition of a simple truth: genuine rest requires genuine disconnection. Whether lawmakers choose to act on that truth remains to be seen.
Legal and Policies
India’s new income tax law and higher F&O levies take effect from 1st April
A sweeping overhaul of the tax code, stiffer securities transaction taxes and relief for travellers and tech firms all land at once
NEW DELHI: India’s tax landscape shifts gears on Tuesday. The Income-tax Act, 2025, which replaces the Income-tax Act, 1961, comes into force from April 1, 2026, alongside a clutch of budgetary measures that will be felt by traders, tourists, technology firms and ordinary taxpayers alike.
The new Act is not a reinvention of tax policy so much as a tidying up of it. Gone is the unwieldy distinction between the assessment year and the previous year; in its place comes a single “tax year” framework designed to be more logical and reader-friendly. Taxpayers will also, for the first time, be able to claim tax deducted at source refunds even when income tax returns are filed after the deadline, without incurring penal charges.
For those who trade derivatives, however, the news is less comfortable. Securities transaction tax on futures contracts rises to 0.05 per cent from 0.02 per cent, while STT on options premiums and the exercise of options is hiked to 0.15 per cent from 0.1 per cent and 0.125 per cent respectively. The government has made no secret of its intent: the higher levy is aimed squarely at curbing speculative bets in the futures and options segment and shielding retail investors from ruinous losses. The numbers tell a grim story. The number of individual investors active in the F&O segment fell from 1.06 crore in FY25 to about 75.43 lakh by December 2025. A Sebi study found that individual investors had racked up net losses of more than Rs 1.05 lakh crore in FY25 alone.
Overseas travellers and those remitting money abroad for medical and education purposes get some relief. Tax collected at source on overseas tour packages has been slashed to 2 per cent from 20 per cent, while TCS on Liberalised Remittance Scheme transfers for medical and educational purposes drops to 2 per cent from 5 per cent.
The data centre industry, too, has reason to cheer. Any foreign company procuring data centre services in India will enjoy a 20-year tax holiday stretching to 2047, shielding its global income from Indian tax authorities. Whether a global firm sets up its own facility or simply buys services from an Indian data centre, the tax treatment will be identical, ensuring a level playing field. India’s effective corporate tax rate stands at 25.17 per cent.
Software companies get a further fillip: the safe harbour threshold for IT services has been raised sharply from Rs 300 crore to Rs 2,000 crore, a move designed to reduce litigation and give the sector greater certainty.
On the transition, the income tax department has confirmed that its e-filing portal will handle compliance under both the old and new Acts during the switchover period. Taxpayers filing returns for assessment year 2026-27, which covers the period governed by the old Act, will do so in July 2026 using the old forms. Advance tax payments for tax year 2026-27, commencing from June 2026, will follow the new Act.
One sweeping law, several sharp edges, and a deadline that waits for no one.
