DAILY CURRENT
AFFAIRS: 18TH MAR 2017
(DAILY NEWS INDIA)
1. GST
COUNCIL APPROVES SGST & UTGST DRAFT BILLS AT ITS 12TH MEETING
i. The Goods
and Service Tax council headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley cleared the
State GST and Union Territory GST laws during its 12 Council meet.
ii. Now the
draft bills will need to be approved by the Cabinet and taken up in
Parliament’s ongoing budget session for final approval.
iii. The
SGST draft law will have to be approved by the legislative assemblies of
respective states including Delhi and Puducherry.
iv. The
UTGST draft law is for the union territories like Andaman and Nicobar Islands,
Lakshadweep, Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli, which do not have
legislative assemblies.
v. The GST
tax regime has 9 set of rules and regulations out of which the Council has
already approved 5 including registration, payment, refunds, invoices and
returns.
vii. The 4
other rules namely composition, valuation, input tax and credit transitions is
yet to get formal approval of the Council and will be taken up in the next
meeting on March 31. After March 31, the Council will take up the exercise of
fitment of various commodities in the GST tax slabs of 5%, 12%, 15% and 28%.
2. INDIA,
BRAZIL CONCLUDE SOCIAL SECURITY AGREEMENT
i. India and
Brazil have finalised text of the Social Security Agreement. It will be
effective from 2018.
ii. This is
the 1st SSA agreement between the BRICS Countries.
iii. India
has signed Social Security Agreements with 18 countries: Australia, Belgium,
Austria, Canada, Czech Republic, Finland, Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary,
Japan, Portugal, Norway, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland, and
South Korea.
iv. SSA will
help to promote more investment flows between the 2 countries. A detached
workers of the 2 countries are exempted from making social security
contributions in either countries so long as they were making such
contributions in their respective countries.
3.
DEMANDS FOR GRANTS OF MINISTRY OF DEFENCE FOR 2017-18 PASSED IN LOK SABHA
i. The Lok
Sabha passed the Demands for Grants of Ministry of Defence for 2017-18 after
negotiating with the opposition.
ii. In
2017-18, the Ministry of Defence has been allocated Rs 3,59,854 cr (including
pensions) for expenditure across the various services, production
establishments and research and development organisations.
iii. This
allocation is the highest from all other departments and represents 16.8% of
the central government’s budget of 2017-18 and 2.1% of India’s estimated GDP.
4. G20
MEET OF FINANCE MINISTERS & CENTRAL BANK GOVERNORS BEGAN IN GERMANY
i. The 2 day
G20 finance ministers and central bank governors meet began in Baden-Baden,
Germany.
ii. The
meeting will focus on strengthening economic resilience in finance,
digitalization and promote investment in Africa.
iii. The
meetings between finance ministers and central bank governors will provide a
preliminary discussion platform ahead the G20 Summit of heads of state and government,
which will be held in Hamburg.
iv. This is
the 1st global gather to discuss economic challenges since Donald Trump took
over as the US President. The gathering will help to set the tone for
international commerce and finance.