National
India signs $8.9 billion Rafale fighter jet deal with France – Defence minister Manohar Parrikar signed an agreement with French defence minister Jean-Yves Le Drian on Friday to procure 36 Rafale fighter jets from Dassault Aviation SA that will give India an edge over Pakistan.
No water to spare, resolves Karnataka – After a day-long special session, the two Houses of the Karnataka legislature, on Friday, unanimously passed a resolution stating that “it is imperative for the State government to ensure” that no water is drawn from the four reservoirs in the Cauvery basin “except for drinking water requirements of villages and towns in the Cauvery basin and for the entire city of Bengaluru.”
Editorials
The Hindu
Jaw-jaw at the General Assembly – In what is possibly the sharpest castigation of Pakistan on the world stage, India has asserted its right of reply to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s speech at the UN General Assembly with some rather rough words.
Pushback against civil liberties – The sense of impunity that drives discrimination against Dalits is at the heart of recent demands for the dilution, or even repeal, of the Act for prevention of atrocities against SCs and STs
Indian Express
Six wise persons – The formal constitution of a Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), which will decide on the Reserve Bank of India’s benchmark interest rates, ends an over seven-decade-long tradition that vested this power with the governor.
Under the weather – India has scored poorly in an index that ranks countries on their performance on a range of health-related indicators. It is placed 143 in a list of 188.
Economy
GST council sets exemption threshold for tax at Rs.20 lakh –The Goods & Services Tax (GST) Council has decided that businesses in the north-eastern and hill states with annual turnover below Rs.10 lakh would be out of the GST net, while the threshold for the exemption in the rest of India would be an annual turnover of Rs.20 lakh.
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