NATIONAL

45^th GST council meeting was held

• The 45^th GST council meeting was chaired by Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Lucknow.

Key decissions taken by the council:

1. Concessional Tax rates on COVID-19 essential medicines like Tocilizumab extended till the end of this year.
2. Import of leased aircraft exempted from I-GST.
3. Food delivery apps to collect GST instead of restaurants.
4. Drug Keytruda used to treat cancer has been brought down from 12% to 5%.
5. Muscular atrophy drugs like Zolgensma and Viltepso are exempted from GST.
6. 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.