DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS 18-09-21
Shankar School of Banking
September 23 , 2021
198
NATIONAL
45th GST council meeting was held
- The 45th GST council meeting was chaired by Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Lucknow.
Key decissions taken by the council:
- Concessional Tax rates on COVID-19 essential medicines like Tocilizumab extended till the end of this year.
- Import of leased aircraft exempted from I-GST.
- Food delivery apps to collect GST instead of restaurants.
- Drug Keytruda used to treat cancer has been brought down from 12% to 5%.
- Muscular atrophy drugs like Zolgensma and Viltepso are exempted from GST.
- Tax on fortified rice kernels for Integrated Child development scheme reduced from 18% to 5%.
- The council has decided to keep petroleum products out of GST regime.
- Consumers have to pay compensation cess levied on automobiles till march 2026.
- The GST levied for footwear costing less than 1000 Rs has been increased.
- The GST for readymade garments and fabrics has also been raised from 5% to 12%.
Time frame given to implement New Education Policy(NEP)
- A 10 year time frame has been given to the educational institutions to implement the New education policy.
- It also gave anothere 10 year time frame to evaluate it.
- The drafting committee to draw new education policy was chaired by Mr. Kasthurirangan
- The policy was drafted with a aim of exploiting the unique capability of students.
INTERNATIONAL
U.S pledged “Global Methane pledge”
- U.S President Joe Biden announced a Global Methane pledge which is a U.S and european union led initiative to cut methane emissions by one third by the end of this decade.
- He annouced this Pledge at Major economies forum on Energy and Climate(MEF) hosted virtually.
- Methane is a green house gas which is 80 times more potent than carbon dioxide in terms of global warming.
- 40% of methane emitted is from natural sources and remaianing 60% comes from human sources,including livestock farming, rice agriculture, biomass burning.