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- 9 Unilateral Advance Pricing Agreements (UAPAs) has entered into by the Central Board of Direct Taxes and Indian taxpayers in July, 2017. With this, total number of APAs signed till date stands at 171 (Bilateral-12 and Unilateral-159). The APA’s cover wide sectors like Oil & Gas exploration, education, banking, pharmaceutical, manufacturing and IT.
APA’s endeavour to avoid an adversarial taxation system and to provide certainty to taxpayers in the domain of transfer pricing by specifying the methods of pricing and determining the Arm’s Length Price of international transactions in advance. - In its 4th meeting the National Mission for Cleaning Ganga(NMCG) has approved 7 Clean Ganga projects in sectors of sewage, infrastructure, ghat development and research. Three projects each were approved in sewage sector in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Central Government will provide operation and maintenance cost for 15 years to all
these six projects along with 100% central assistance Besides, a research study to understand the non-putrefying properties of river Ganga in both water and sediment was also approved.
- The Union Ministry of Minority Affairs has launched Jiyo Parsi Publicity Phase-2 in Mumbai, Maharashtra under the Jiyo Parsi scheme. The Jiyo Parsi Publicity Phase-2 aims at containing the declining trend of population of the Parsi community and reverses it to bring their population above the threshold level.
- World’s smallest spacecrafts dubbed as ‘Sprites’ ever launched are successfully travelling in low Earth orbit and communicating with systems on Earth. These six prototypes of Sprites launched in June 2017 have become the smalles spacecrafts to have managed to established contact with ground stations.
- Scientists have developed a super strong, flexible Bio-glue for wound healing without causing toxicity. It has been inspired by an adhesive material (glue) secreted by slugs that sticks to biological tissues
- The Haryana government has banned flushing/mixing of liquid nitrogen with any drink or food article. The ban was imposed under section 34 of the Food Safety and Standards Act (FSS), 2006. The ban comes after a cocktail accident (due mixing of liquid nitrogen in cocktail) at Gurgaon pub in April 2016 that burnt a hole in a man’s stomach.
- July 30th is celebrated every year by the United Nations(UN) as UN World Day against Trafficking in Persons to raise awareness of the plight of human trafficking victims, and promote and protect their rights. The 2017 theme of the day is “Act to Protect and Assist Trafficked Persons”. It highlights the large mixed migration movements of refugees and migrants.
- Scientists from the Indian Institute of Science, Education and Research (IISER), Thiruvananthapuram have developed gelator that can suck up oil and congeal it. The gelator is hydrophobic material that has property of oleilophilic (oil-loving) and takes up oil when it comes in contact with it. It can be used to recover marine oil spills with a simple, efficient and cost-effective method.
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Today’s Quiz
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