CURRENT AFFAIRS

The introduction of a uniform GST was a watershed moment in India since the country’s earlier regime of taxes and cesses, both at the Centre and the States, was a big barrier to free trade and economic growth and was a cesspool of corruption.

Recently, the Ukrainian Parliament passed a Bill on June 20 ratifying the Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence.

The ongoing protests against the Agnipath programme, agitations against farm laws a year before, and agitation for reservation by agriculture castes are all arguably an outcome simmering discontent due to this jobless economic growth. 

Recently, China has put on “technical hold” the proposal to list Lashkar-e-Toiba’s (LeT) deputy chief Abdul Rehman Makki as a global terrorist.

With President Ram Nath Kovind’s term set to end on July 24, the process to elect his successor has been kicked off with the Election Commission’s announcement of the schedule.

The British government on 17 June ordered the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the United States to face spying charges.

The crash in the price of cryptocurrencies is a timely reminder to retail investors to stay far away from this highly speculative asset class. 

A joint report by UNESCO, UNICEF and the World Bank, ‘The State of the Global Education Crisis: A Path to Recovery’, released in early December 2021 had estimated that in the first 21 months of the pandemic, schools in countries around the world were either partially or fully closed for an average of 224 days.

A recent study, organised by Ferns, a nature conservation society, in association with the Kerala Forest Department, revealed that the invasive species has now spread through the most iconic wildlife habitats of the Western Ghats, destroying habitats of elephants, deer, gaur and tigers by pushing out native flora.

India's Green Hydrogen Policy 2022 released recently addressed several critical challenges such as open access, waiver of inter-state transmission charges, banking, time-bound clearances, etc., and is expected to further boost India’s energy transition.