BIHAR
- Nalanda University team finds 11th century sculpture at Rajgir
- In a significant historical discovery, researchers from Nalanda University (NU), in collaboration with the Bihar Heritage Development Society (BHDS), found a unique and beautifully refined sculpture dating back to 11th century at Vaibharagiri hills — one of the five hills of Rajgir.
- The sculpture is of a male and a female. The male figure is holding a vajra in his left hand while the female is holding a baby in her right hand. Both are sitting above a lotus pedestal in Lalitāsana mudrā.
- The dimensions of the discovered sculpture are around 63cm in height, 35cm in width and 13cm in thickness. The sculpture is made of granite stone. The image possibly belongs to the 10th-1th century AD.
INTERNATIONAL
- ‘Aber’ – common digital currency of UAE and Saudi central banks
- It will be used in financial settlements between the two countries through Blockchains and Distributed Ledgers technologies.
- Through this digital currency, both the United Arab Emirates Central Bank (UAECB) and the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority (SAMA) are studying the impact on the improvement and reduction of remittance costs and the assessments of risks.
NATIONAL
- Govt announces Rs 6000 per year cash support to small and marginal farmers
- Under the scheme called Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi, Rs 6,000 will be transferred into bank accounts of farmers holding up to 2 hectares of land in three equal instalments.
- This scheme was announced during the Budget speech in Lok Sabha.
- Finance Minister Piyush Goyal said it will benefit 12 crore farmers.
- It will be implemented from the same fiscal.
- National Pulse Polio Immunisation Campaign to be held on 10th March
- Department of Public Health and Preventive Medicine said that the National Pulse Polio Immunisation Campaign will be held in Tamil Nadu on March 10. Nearly 72 lakh children under the age of five will be covered in Tamil Nadu. K. Kolandaswamy, Director of Public Health and Preventive Medicine, over 40,000 booths will be set up across the State, including railway stations and bus terminals.
- TRAIs New broadcasting tariffs came into effect
- The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)said that more than 170 million digital TV customers in India would not face any service disruption on account of the introduction of the new tariff regime in broadcasting from February 1, 2019.
- About62% of the over 100 million cable TV consumers and 30% of the over 70 million DTH subscribers had registered their channel choices under the new tariff guideline.
- DIPP renamed as Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade
- The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP)has been renamed as the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade with a mandate to deal with matters related to start-ups, facilitating ease of doing business among others. The order has been approved by President Ram Nath Kovind.
- It functions under the Ministry of Commerce and Industrywill look into matters related to promotion of internal trade, including retail trade, the welfare of traders and their employees, facilitating ease of doing business and start-ups.
- GST collection crosses Rs 1-lakh crore mark in January
- GST collections in January rose to Rs 1.02 lakh crore — the second highest monthly mop-up after April.
- This is the third time in current fiscal that revenues from Goods and Services Tax (GST) have crossed Rs 1 -lakh crore mark. In April and October too, the collections surpassed this milestone. The government has settled Rs 18,344 crore to CGST and Rs 14,677 crore to SGST from IGST as regular settlement.
- The total revenue earned by the central government and state governments after regular settlement in December 2018 is Rs 36,107 crore for CGST and Rs 39,503 crore for SGST.
Collection of CGST,SGST and IGST
| Applicable transactions (Goods & Services) | Intrastate (Within one state) | Intrastate (Within one state) | Inter-state (between two states or one state and one UT) and imports | Within one Union Territory (UT) |
| Collected by | Central Govt. | State Govt. | Central Govt. | UT Govt. |
| Benefitting Authority | Central Govt. | State Govt. | Central Govt. & State Govt. | UT Govt. |
| Tax Credit Use Priority | CGST IGST | SGST IGST | IGST CGST SGST | UTGST IGST |
- Indian Captain Mithali Raj becomes 1st female cricketer to play 200 ODIs
- Indian captain Mithali Raj became the first female cricketer to play 200 ODI.
- The 36-year-old is also the highest run-getter in ODIs with 6622 runs at an average of 51.33.
- Mithali made her ODI debut way back in 1999 and has featured in 200 games out of the 263 ODIs India have played.
· India’s child sex ratio to dip further in 2021 census: Experts
- Campaigns, social media awareness and general public consciousness notwithstanding, India’s sex ratio has seen an alarming decline over the past few years.
- According to the Civil Registration System Report 2016 released last week, India’s sex ratio at birth fell from 908 in 2012 to 877 in 2016.
- Calculated in terms of number of girls being born against 1000 boys, sex ratio at birth (SRB) is a crucial indicator of population sex ratio which in turn is core of gender equality. Alarmed over the report, civil society activists fear that the findings would reflect on India’s child sex ratio in the 2021 census report.
- Not just nationally, SRB has recorded a decline in a number of states including Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal. In UP, sex ratio declined from 930 in 2012 to 885 in 2016.
- The drop is SRB is a matter of great concern since it is directly linked, in addition to multiple other factors, with the misuse of technology capable of detecting the sex.