India joins search for submarine

Indian Navy dispatched DSRV= Deep Submergence Rescue Vessel from Vizag to support Indinesian Navy.
HAs to cover 2500 Nautical miles
KRI Nanngala was participating in a torpedo firing exercise and went missing.
Indian DSRV can locate submarine 1 km depth via State-of-art side scan sonar + remote controlled vehicle.

Delhi HC dismissed plea of Whatsapp

Delhi HC dismissed plea of Whatsapp challenging decision by CCI= Competition Commission of India–> that called for investigating controversial new privacy policy.

Whatsapp –> CCI jumped the gun as it wasn’t competition issue..
Issue regarding personal data + sharing it was before SC

CCI–> access to personal data would lead to a dominant position.
New policy may lead to “Ecessive Data Collection.. which is anti-competitive in context.

Centre faces questions over how it plans to use foreign aid

France sends= 8 O2 generators for spcfc hospitals
France–> 28 tonnes of equipments to Indian Red Cross Society
US — shipment containing 1000 O2 cylinders
US was providing >$100million in assistance through USAID
Germany–> 120 ventilators + 1 mobile O2 production & filling plant + 13 technical person
Uzbekistan–> 100 O2 concentrators
Belgium–> 1000 vials of Remedesivir

MEA said enrouting of foreign funding goes to MoHFW–> Empowerd Group of Ministers + Officials–> various states

US–> asked about lack of “website or transparent system” + “accountability”

Nagpur HC tells pharma units to send figures of Remedisivir to
State Nodal Officer and Commissioner of FDA … and
upload on their website warning criminal prosecution if not followed.

April 2020–

Finance Minister of India opposed a general allocation of new Special Drawing Rights (SDR) by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) because it might not be effective in easing Covid-19 driven financial pressures.

• concerned that such a major liquidity injection could produce potentially costly side-effects if countries used the funds for irrelevant purposes.
• The new SDR allocation will provide all 189 members with new foreign exchange reserves with no conditions.

1. The SDR is neither a currency nor a claim on the IMF. Rather, it is a potential claim on the freely usable currencies of IMF members. SDRs can be exchanged for these currencies.
2. The SDR serves as the unit of account of the IMF and some other international organizations.
3. The currency value of the SDR is determined by summing the values in U.S. dollars, based on market exchange rates, of a SDR basket of currencies.
4. The SDR basket of currencies includes the U.S. dollar, Euro, Japanese yen, pound sterling and the Chinese renminbi (included in 2016).
5. The SDR currency value is calculated daily (except on IMF holidays or whenever the IMF is closed for business) and the valuation basket is reviewed and adjusted every five years.

April 2021—

Japan backs new IMF allocation, US calls for minimum corp tax.

Japan agrees as long as the IMF +WB help ensure transparency in providing the increased money for poor countries.

• Japan has backed a $650 –increase in IMF’s SDRs – which are special monetary reserves that can be turned into hard currencies by members or shared with needier countries.
• The G20 major economies are expected to extend debt relief to developing countries by another six months to the year-end.
• “There would be no point to it if SDR expansion is used for paying back debts to China,”
• proposal is a key pillar of President Joe Biden’s $2 trillion infrastructure spending plan, which proposes an increase in the U.S. corporate tax rate to 28% while eliminating some deductions associated with overseas profits.
• Japan has cut its corporate tax rates to just below 30%, while the United States lowered its own to 21% amid a global race to offer attractive corporate tax rates over the past several years.

 Govt accepted the 15^th Finance Commission’s recommendation to maintain the States’ share in the divisible pool of taxes to 41% for the 5 -year period starting 2021-22.

Finance Commission (FC) is a constitutional body, that determines the method and formula for distributing the tax proceeds between the Centre and states, and among the states as per the constitutional arrangement.
Article 280: President of India forms a Finance Commission (a quasi-judicial body)
every 5th Year or earlier, with 1 chairman and 4 members

Vertical devolution

14^th FC

• Cut the performance grant share to 10% for gram panchayats and 20% to municipalities with the conditionality that all local governments will have to show improvements in own source revenue.
• Municipalities are additionally required to publish service level benchmarks for basic services.

15th FC

• An important recommendation –> is the entry-level criterion to avail the union local grant (except health grant) by local governments which is performance-linked.
• For panchayats, the condition is online submission of annual accounts for the previous year and audited accounts for the year before.
• For urban local governments, two more conditions are specified: after 2021-22, fixation of the minimum floor for property tax rates by the relevant State followed by consistent improvement in the collection of property taxes in tandem with the State’s own Gross State Domestic Product.