The Daily Brief – 17th January, 2017

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• The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council has arrived at a consensus on contentious issues such as administrative control over tax payers. This paves the way for the GST to be introduced this year, although three months after the Centre’s original rollout deadline of April 1, 2017. As per the newly agreed upon formula for dual control of assessees, 90 per cent of those with a GST turnover of Rs. 1.5 crore or less will be assessed for the purposes of scrutiny and audit by the States, and 10 per cent by the administrative machinery of the Centre.
• The Supreme Court has revived a bunch of petitions by Telugu politicians challenging the bifurcation of the erstwhile State of Andhra Pradesh in 2014. The matter is being adjudged by a Bench of Chief Justice of India J.S. Khehar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud.
• The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is in the process of setting up an innovation fund, worth Rs. 400-500 crore, to invest in early stage startups and prod innovation.
• The Supreme Court ordered the Centre to file a comprehensive report on the status of investigation conducted by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) into the 1984 anti-Sikh riot cases.

• The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) will give its order on January 18 on contempt proceedings initiated by Cyrus Mistry against Tata Sons and others for violating the tribunal’s December 22 order by convening an extraordinary general meeting (EGM) to consider removal of Mr. Mistry from the company’s board. The former Tata Sons chairman had through two family investment firms sought directions from the NCLT including one that Tata Sons not take action to remove him from the board. In its December 22 interim order, the tribunal had said no party would “initiate any action or proceedings over this subject matter pending disposal of this company petition”.
• The Union Ministry of Commerce and Industry has launched a mobile application named “SEZ India” under its broader e-Governance initiative to help the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) Units and Developers.
• The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has tightened rules for mergers and amalgamations by Indian companies. The new rules will ensure that all classes of shareholders get an equitable treatment during mergers and acquisitions.
• The Pakistani Senate passed a unanimous resolution condemning the statements of Army chief General Bipin Rawat and Prime Minister Narendra Modi alleging Pakistan’s involvement in terrorism. The resolution, moved by Senator Sehar Kamran from the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), stated that India has committed unprecedented acts of violation along the Line of Control (LoC) and has been targeting civilians.
• The International Monetary Fund has announced that the NDA government’s demonetisation move could dampen India’s growth by one percentage point in the current fiscal year and 0.4 percentage point the next year, compared with its earlier projections. The IMF now expects India to record a growth of 6.6% for the current year, and 7.2% next year. Earlier, the IMF had projected 7.6% growth for this year and the next.
• A study by Oxfam has shown that India’s richest 1% now hold a huge 58% of the country’s total wealth – higher than the global figure of about 50%. Globally, just 8 billionaires have the same amount of wealth as the poorest 50% of the world population. The study said there are 84 billionaires in India with a collective wealth of $248 billion, led by Mukesh Ambani ($19.3 billion), Dilip Shanghvi ($16.7 billion) and Azim Premji ($15 billion). The total Indian wealth in the country stood at $ 3.1 trillion.
• US based rocket manufacturing company SpaceX successfully launched 10 satellites into orbit on board its two stage Falcon 9 Rocket from the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. SpaceX was founded in 2002 by Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Motors and former PayPal entrepreneur with the goal of creating the technologies to reduce space transportation costs and enable the colonization of Mars.