10 PM Daily Current Affairs Quiz | July 5 2021

India recently joined the OECD-G20 framework for a global minimum tax. As per the deal, India needs to withdraw the contentious 2 percent equalisation levy on e-commerce operators by 2023.

About Equalisation Levy:

In 2016 India introduced a 6% equalisation levy. But the levy was restricted to online advertisement services (commonly known as “digital advertising taxes” or DATs). In simple terms, the levy applied on the payments made to a non-resident by the Indians for advertising on their platform.

The government in 2020 introduced an amendment to the equalisation levy in the Finance Bill 2020-21. The important amendments include,

• A 2% Digital Service Tax (DST) was imposed on non-resident, digital service providers. With this amendment, the foreign digital service providers have to pay their fair share of tax on revenues generated in the Indian digital market.
• The amendment widens the tax to include a range of digital services. These services include digital platform services, software as a service, data-related services, and several other categories including e-commerce operations.
• Companies with a turnover of more than Rs. 2 crores, will pay this tax.

Source: Business Standard

Since August 1993, there is full current account convertibility in India but capital account convertibility is still a work in progress. (Statement 2 is wrong)

Current Account Convertibility gives us the freedom to convert the rupee into any internationally accepted currencies and vice versa. On the other hand, the Capital Account Convertibility allows us to carry out all investment transactions across geographies without constraints.

Source: Business Standard

Recently Jal Shakti minister said that, “India is working on exercising its rights to stop excess water flowing to Pakistan under the Indus Waters Treaty of 1960 to irrigate its own lands”.

• India is working on a plan to divert the waters of Ujh, which is one of the main tributaries of the Ravi river that flows into Pakistan.

About Indus water treaty:

• The Indus Waters Treaty,1960 is a water-distribution treaty between India and Pakistan.
• The Indus system comprises of Indus River, Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Beas and Sutlej.The basin is mainly shared by India and Pakistan with a small share for China and Afghanistan.
• Under the Indus treaty, all the waters of three eastern rivers namely Ravi,Sutlej and Beas were allocated to India for exclusive use.
• On the other hand,the waters of Western rivers namely Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab were allocated to Pakistan.

• But India can use the water in western rivers in non-consumptive needs. Here non-consumptive means we can use it for irrigation, storage and even for electricity production

Source: Livemint

The ‘Last Ice Area’ (LIA), located in the Arctic’s Ice north of Greenland, has started melting earlier than what the scientists had expected.

About the Last Ice Area:

• This region is located north of Greenland and Ellesmere Island in the Canadian territory of Nunavut.
• This area was believed to be strong enough to withstand global warming.
• The total disappearance of summer ice in the Arctic was estimated by the year 2040, however the ‘Last Ice Area’ was the exception.

Importance:

• It was thought to be able to help ice-dependent species as ice in the surrounding areas melted away.

• It is used by polar bears to hunt for seals who use ice to build dens for their offspring. Walruses too, use the surface of the ice for foraging (to search for food).

Source: The Indian Express

National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) Limited has invited Expression of Interest (EOI) for sale of fly ash from the designated plants of the Middle East and other regions.

About Fly Ash:

• It is called fly ash because it is transported from the combustion chamber by exhaust gases.
• It is collected from the exhaust gases by electrostatic precipitators or bag filters
• Composition: Fly ash includes substantial amounts of silicon dioxide (SiO2), aluminium oxide (Al2O3), ferric oxide (Fe2O3) and calcium oxide (CaO).
• Harmful Effects:

• Fly ash particles are toxic air pollutants. They can trigger heart disease, cancer, respiratory diseases and stroke.

• When combined with water they cause leaching of heavy metals in ground water.
• It also pollutes the soil, and affects the root development system of trees.

Source: PIB

• Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) institute has developed an anti-methanogenic feed supplement ‘Harit Dhara’.
• Harit Dhara is prepared using condensed and hydrolysable tannin-rich plant-based sources abundantly available in the country.

• Tropical plants containing tannins (bitter and astringent chemical compounds) are known to suppress or remove protozoa from the rumen.
• Harit Dhara acts by decreasing the population of protozoa microbes in the rumen. Which is responsible for hydrogen production and making it available to the archaea for reduction of CO2 to methane.

Source: The Indian Express

Recently, the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) launched a project named Bamboo Oasis on Lands in Drought (BOLD) from the village NichlaMandwa in Udaipur, Rajasthan.

• It is the first of its kind exercise in India. Project BOLD seeks to create bamboo-based green patches in arid and semi-arid land zones.

• 5000 saplings of special bamboo species – BambusaTulda and BambusaPolymorpha specially brought from Assam – have been planted over 25 bigha (16 acres approx) of vacant arid Gram Panchayat land. KVIC has thus created a world record of planting the highest number of bamboo saplings on a single day at one location.

Source: PIB

Death Anniversary of Swami Vivekananda – 4th July 

About Swami Vivekananda: 

• Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose had called him the “maker of modern India.” 
• He was an ardent disciple of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahansa 
• He preached ‘neo-Vedanta’, an interpretation of Hinduism through a Western lens, and believed in combining spirituality with material progress. He also established the Belur Math, which became his permanent abode. 
• He pushed for national integration in colonial India, and his famous speech remains as the one that he gave in Chicago in 1893 

Source: All India Radio 

The Members of the Goods and Services Tax Council choose one amongst themselves to be the Vice-Chairperson of the Council for such period as they may decide. 

One-half of the total number of Members of the Goods and Services Tax Council shall constitute the quorum at its meetings. 

The Goods and Services Tax Council’s mandate includes that it can make recommendations to the Union and the States on any special rate or rates for a specified period, to raise additional resources during any natural calamity or disaster 

Source: Business Standard 

India recently joined the OECD-G20 framework for a global minimum tax. But the deal will bring certain challenges to India. 

Under the agreed outline of the OECD multilateral solution, a portion of profits of companies with Euro 20 billion revenues and a profit margin above 10 percent would be taxed in jurisdictions where they have sales 

What India and other developing countries demanding? 

India and other developing countries were fighting to include companies with at least Euro 1 billion in revenues as against the final proposal of Euro 20 billion revenues and a profit margin above 10 per cent. This will cover at least 5,000 global entities. 

Source: Business Standard