- GST collections up 12.54% in February
- India’s gross revenues from the goods and services tax grew at a 3 month high pace of 12.54% in February to cross rs 1.68 lakh crore.
- This lifted the total collections so far this year to rs 18.4 lakh crore which is 11.7% above the same period last year.
- The numbers demonstrate continued growth momentum and positive performance. Centre levy and collect Central Goods and Services Tax (CGST), and States would and collect the State Goods and Services Tax (SGST) on all transactions within a State.
2. Unrestrained poaching plays big role in decline of Odisha’s leopards
- Odisha has witnessed a sharp decline in its leopard population primarily due to poaching between 2018 and 2022.
- It has lost approximately one fourth of its leopard population during the period.
- The leopard population in Odisha is estimated at 568 it has significantly declined since the last countrywide estimate of 760.
- The status of leopards India report added that leopard occupancy has been reported exclusively within protected areas such as Similipal and Satkosia tiger Reserves with Hirakud and Kotagarh Wildlife Centuries and their adjoining first divisions.
- In India, the leopard is found in all forest types, from tropical rainforests to temperate deciduous and alpine coniferous forests. the highest number of 8,071 leopards are found in central India and the Eastern Ghats.
3. Findings from the genome sequencing must be shared widely
- The Genome India project that was coordinated by the Department of biotechnology announced that it had finished sequencing 10,000 Indian genomes.
- India first sequenced a human genome in 2006
- India has close to 4500 population groups and the subcontinent’s history of being ordered along caste lines through endogamy implies that rare genetic variants persist.
- The findings ought not be locked up in the ivory towers of academia and should involve imaginative collaborations with scientists and students.
- It is a scientific initiative inspired by the Human Genome Project (HGP), an international effort that successfully decoded the entire human genome between 1990 and 2003.
4. With China out, Indian firm to build Sri Lanka Power Project
- Three years after objecting to a Chinese energy project in northern Sri Lanka, India is set to implement a hybrid power project in three islands of Jaffna Peninsula with $1.11 million grant.
- The hybrid project combines various forms of energy including both solar and wind.
- The initiative is the third India backed energy project coming up in Sri Lanka’s north and East.
- The Sri Lankan Cabinet first cleared a venture in China to execute renewable energy projects in the three islands. By the prospect of a Chinese project very close to India’s coastline New Delhi offered to implement the same project with a grant instead of a loan and Sri Lanka took it up.
- In February 2024, Phase-IV of the Indian Housing Project, ‘Bharat-Lanka’, was virtually launched by Sri Lanka’s President. The project is aimed at constructing 10,000 houses with Indian grant assistance for plantation sector workers in Sri Lanka. In the same month, India introduced its Unified Payment Interface in Sri Lanka.
5. India to establish international alliance to protect big cats
- The Union Environment Ministry plans to set up and coordinate an international big Cat Alliance along the lines of the international solar alliance.
- It will be headquartered in India and India has already committed rupees 150 crore for five years.
- There is no international body addressing the conservation challenges of big cats across their range of habitats.
- The International Big Cat Alliance (IBCA) is a global initiative launched by India in April 2023 that aims to protect and conserve the world’s seven major big cat species – the tiger, lion, leopard, snow leopard, cheetah, jaguar and puma.
6. Centre’s housing scheme for tribal groups facing hurdles due to lack of accurate data
- Trying to collect data on possible beneficiaries while simultaneously implementing the project is slowing down the housing component of pm janjati adivasi nyay maha abhiyan (PM-JANMAN).
- Of the nearly 5,00,000 houses that were to be constructed only 1.59 lakh could be sanctioned by February 15.
- The scheme was announced in the union budget in 2023 and was launched by Prime Minister on November 15 with the target of rolling it out by January 15.
- PM JANMAN is a government scheme that aims to bring tribal communities into the mainstream. The scheme (comprising Central Sector and Centrally Sponsored Schemes) will be implemented by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs, in collaboration with the State governments and the PVTG communities
ONE LINER
Domestically manufactured remote sensing satellite launched successfully (PARS 1). It was developed by Iranian Space Agency. Its launch vehicle Soyuz Rocket of Russia. It purpose is Agricultural Monitoring, Natural Resources Mapping, Water Management
