TODAY NEWS ON July 24, 2024

News Headlines for CAT, CLAT and IPM aspirants

Source: The Hindu 

Budget 2024: FM Sitharaman revises personal income tax slabs; taxation rates remain unchanged

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in her seventh Budget speech on July 23 revised the tax slabs under the new regime. She told the House that as a result of these changes, a salaried employee would be able to save up to ₹17,500 in income taxes. Whilst the rate of taxation remains unchanged, the size of each of the slabs, excluding the initial zero to ₹3 lakh, remains unchanged. The erstwhile slab of ₹3 lakh to ₹6 lakh would now be expanded to ₹3 lakh to ₹7 lakh. However, the rate of taxation, that is 5%, remains unchanged. Similarly, the other slabs, that is, ₹6 to 9 lakhs, ₹9 to 12 lakhs, ₹12-15 lakhs and thereby beyond, would be revised to ₹7-10 lakhs, ₹10-12 lakhs, ₹12-15 lakhs and thereby beyond.

Budget 2024: Mobile phones, gold and silver jewellery to get cheaper

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on July 23 proposed a slew of cuts on the customs duties levied on various items, while presenting the 2024 Union Budget. “For customs, we reduced the number of customs duty rates in 2022-23. I propose to rationalise them after a review over next six months,” she said in the Lok Sabha today.

Budget 2024: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announces special schemes for Bihar

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on July 23 announced several schemes for Bihar in her Budget 2024 speech. The schemes are a part of a larger plan titled “Purvodaya”, which covers the all-round development of eastern States including Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha, and Andhra Pradesh. The government will support the development of an industrial node in Gaya, Bihar, on the Amritsar-Kolkata industrial corridor, Ms. Sitharaman announced. “The industrial node at Gaya will also be a good model for developing our ancient centres of cultural importance into future centres of modern economy...this model will showcase ‘vikas bhi, virasat bhi’ [development as well as culture],” she added.

Union Budget 2024-25: Nepal, Sri Lanka, Seychelles get more funds under Budget allocation for MEA

India-funded projects in the neighbourhood received the bulk of the allocation for the Ministry of External Affairs under the Union Budget presented by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on July 23. Nepal secured an allocation of ₹700 crore, which is a jump of ₹150 crore from previous year’s allocation of ₹550 crore. Sri Lanka, which has a number of India-funded projects, has received ₹245 crore, an improvement of ₹95 crore over last year’s funding of ₹150 crore. Seychelles, which had an allocation of ₹10 crore, has also received a boost in funding with the infusion of ₹30 crore.

Budget 2024 signals arrive of compulsory emission targets for industry

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman’s Budget speech has for the first time signalled that polluting industries, such as iron, steel, and aluminium will have to conform to emission targets. “A roadmap for moving the ‘hard to abate’ industries from ‘energy efficiency’ targets to ‘emission targets’ will be formulated. Appropriate regulations for transition of these industries from the current ‘Perform, Achieve, and Trade’ mode to ‘Indian Carbon Market’ mode will be put in place,” Ms. Sitharaman said in her address.

Budget 2024: Allocation for MGNREGS scheme lower than last year’s actual expenditure, despite BJP’s poll losses in rural India

Notwithstanding the BJP’s significant losses in rural constituencies in the 2024 general election, the first Budget of the new NDA government did not contain any directional shift for its flagship programme for rural India, the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act scheme (MGNREGS). For the financial year 2024-25, ₹86,000 crore has been allotted for MGNREGS. This may be ₹26,000 crore more than last year’s allocation of just ₹60,000 crore, but it is still ₹19,297 crore less than the scheme’s actual expenditure of ₹1.05 lakh crore in the last financial year 2023-24, according to data available on the website of Union Ministry of Rural Development. As per an analysis by The Hindu, this year’s allocation for MGNREGS is just 1.78% of the total budgetary allocation, which marks a ten-year low in the scheme’s funding.

Budget 2024: Nirmala Sitharaman signals shift from earlier trickle-down strategy to a slew of schemes

Presenting her seventh Union Budget and the first after this year’s Lok Sabha election, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on July 23 unveiled a flurry of measures aimed at fixing the woes of unemployed youth, small businesses, and the middle class, and sought to strengthen the ruling NDA coalition’s bonds with support for multiple investment projects in Bihar and Andhra Pradesh.

Budget 2024: States ruled by non-NDA parties ignored, says Opposition; four CMs to boycott Niti Aayog meet

The Opposition slammed the Union Budget calling it an exercise in political jugglery to appease the BJP’s two key allies, Janata Dal (United) and Telugu Desam Party, while doing little to address issues such as high rate of unemployment and inflation. States ruled by non-National Democratic Alliance (NDA) parties, the Opposition said, have been ignored.

Budget 2024: Stocks wobble on capital gain tax plan

The stock markets reacted negatively to the Budgetary provisions concerning additional tax burden on investors and closed in the negative territory led by losses in banking stocks after undergoing high volatility. The key benchmark indices recovered most of the lost ground in the second half of trading.

NEET-UG 2024: Supreme Court rules out cancellation and retest of exam

A Bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud on July 23 refused to cancel the NEET-UG 2024 medical exam, saying that there is no material on record to justify cancellation. A bench comprising Mr. Chandrachud and Justices J.B. Pardiwala and Manoj Misra heard submissions from a battery of lawyers, including Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for the Centre and the National Testing Agency, and senior advocates Narender Hooda, Sanjay Hegde and Mathews Nedumapra for around four days.

NTA will release final NEET results within two days: Dharmendra Pradhan

Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan on July 23 hailed the Supreme Court’s decision on the NEET-UG issue and announced that the final results of the medical entrance exam would be declared within two days. The merit list would be revised according to the observations made by the Supreme Court, he said.

Trump assassination attempt: U.S. Secret Service director Kimberly Cheatle steps down

The director of the U.S. Secret Service said on July 23 she is resigning following the assassination attempt against former President Donald Trump that unleashed intensifying outcry about how the agency tasked with protecting current and former Presidents could fail in its core mission.

Y.S. Jagan approaches A.P. High Court seeking Leader of Opposition status

Former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister and YSR Congress Party (YSRCP) president Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy filed a writ petition in the High Court (HC) praying for a direction to the A.P. government to designate him as the Leader of the Opposition (LoP) in the Legislative Assembly, in accordance with Section 12-B of the A.P. Payment of Salaries and Pension and Removal Of Disqualifications Act, 1953.

Nehru Planetarium set for revamp, India’s space achievements to take centre stage

Nehru Planetarium is getting ready for a revamp by the year end, with its gallery set to feature by 2025 new interactive screens focusing on India’s latest space missions and developments in the field of astronomy. The planetarium has now teamed up with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to incorporate the country’s latest space missions into its shows.

Bombay High Court puts temporary hold on Indrani Mukerjea’s Europe trip

The Bombay High Court on Tuesday passed an ad interim stay on a special court order that permitted Indrani Mukerjea to travel to Spain and United Kingdom until July 29. Ms. Mukerjea who is the prime accused in the alleged murder of her own daughter Sheena Bora, is currently out on bail. 

Sri Lanka apologises for forced cremations policy during pandemic

Sri Lanka on Tuesday apologised for enforcing a “cremations only” policy during the Covid-19 pandemic, going against the religious sentiments of Muslims, as well as expert views that burials were safe. The government said the Cabinet approved a joint proposal from a group of ministers “to plead an apology on behalf of the government”, from all communities affected by the compulsory cremation policy during the pandemic, when President Gotabaya Rajapaksa was in office.

U.N. says nearly 40 million people had HIV in 2023, lack of treatment means someone died every minute

Nearly 40 million people were living with the HIV virus that causes AIDS last year, over 9 million weren’t getting any treatment, and the result was that every minute someone died of AIDS-related causes, the United Nations (UN) said in a new report launched Monday, July 22, 2024. While advances are being made to end the global AIDS pandemic, the report said progress has slowed, funding is shrinking, and new infections are rising in three regions: the Middle East and North Africa, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and Latin America.

Death toll in southern Ethiopia mudslides rises to at least 157 as search operations continue

At least 157 people were killed in mudslides in a remote part of Ethiopia that has been hit with heavy rainfall, many of them as they tried to rescue survivors of an earlier mudslide, local authorities said on July 23. Young children and pregnant women were among the victims of the mudslides in the Kencho Shacha Gozdi district of southern Ethiopia, said Dagmawi Ayele, a local administrator.