Chances of getting GST bill passed, getting brighter
Government
of India is planning to reform taxation in India which has been planned to be
implemented from 1st April 2016. GST
would be tax on manufacture, sale and consumption of goods and services
throughout India, It is going to replace taxes taken by the Central and State governments such as Service, excise,
VAT, Octroi etc. as combined tax. All goods and services will be taxed at a
single rate decided by Government of India till it reaches to consumer.
Government has not fixed GST rate yet.
Moreover, It would make tax collection much easier as compared
to before. Currently overall tax we pay on goods and services are around 25%-30%.
It may get reduced because of GST as per government.
Right now in India tax collection system is so complex.
Government of India and State Government are collecting taxes separately. On
the other hand upcoming GST is divided two parts – Central GST and State GST
and is going to be implemented concurrently by Central and State government.
As per government of India, it would lead to economic growth and
integration of nation. GST bill has not passed yet and has stuck in the Rajya Sabha.
Almost all the parties are ready for bill except congress who has put forward
some condition:
- - 1% additional tax on transfer of goods across states
- - Constitutional cap of 18%
Implementation of GST will be
revolutionary transformation for current taxation system of India, since
independence.
Image Source: Economic Times
Facebook
starts ‘2G Tuesdays’ so employees can see what speeds are like in India
The social network
has launched an internal program called "2G Tuesdays" to give its
workers a sense of the very slow Internet connections in developing countries
like India and elsewhere in Asia, as well as in Africa.
When Facebook
employees log in on a Tuesday, they'll be asked on their News Feed whether they
want to use the slower connection, which lasts for about an hour. That will
offer them the opportunity to give feedback to Facebook's team of
emerging-markets engineers on what works and what doesn't.
For many in the US
and other developed nations, it's easy to take for granted the faster 3G and 4G
connections that give us seamless streaming video and easy Internet access.
Facebook said people living in underdeveloped countries are coming online at
"a staggering rate" using much slower 2G connections, which can take
up to two minutes to download a single Web page.
"We need to
understand how people use Facebook on different Internet connections in all
parts of the world so we can build the best experience for them," the
social network said.
The launch of the
program comes about a month after Menlo Park, California-based Facebook renamed
its controversial Internet.org website and app as Free Basics. That platform
aims to provide Internet access to people worldwide who've never had it. In the
past year, it's gone online to more than a billion people in 19 countries.
Critics have charged
that the service favors Facebook's own offerings over those of other content
providers. An open letter aimed at CEO Mark Zuckerberg by several organizations
in May said the free service violates the concept of Net neutrality by favoring
certain content. The organizations also expressed concerns about targeted users
being unaware of privacy issues and security risks.
Zuckerberg has said
the ultimate goal is to get the two-thirds of the world that's currently
offline onto the Internet. He will likely discuss Free Basics during a town
hall meeting Wednesday in India.
Image Source: BFN
The
rumors are true: Pepsi will indeed be selling a smartphone
Rumors of a
Pepsi-branded smartphone have been floating around for a few days now, though
we weren’t really ready to believe them. Now it turns out the soft drink seller
really is getting to ready to launch its own handset in China.
A company spokeswoman said Pepsi will release its first mobile products in the coming months. However, the soft drink giant won’t actually make the devices Instead, Pepsi is working with an unnamed licensing partner.
The company didn’t reveal any specifics about the upcoming smartphone, though we may already have a pretty good idea of what to expect. Recent rumors point to a mid-range phone with some decent hardware. That includes a 5.5-inch 1080p display, an octa-core processor from MediaTek, a 13-megapixel rear camera (5-megapixels in front), 2GB of RAM and 16GB of storage.
The design actually looks pretty nice too, with thin bezels up front and what appears to be a fingerprint reader in back. That’s based of a pair of blurry renders though, and it’s possible the actual device could turn out pretty different.
Pepsi’s new smartphone will allegedly cost around $205 unlocked, though we’re not expecting it be available in the U.S.
For the
first time, 1 billion people used Facebook in a single day
For
the first time, a billion people used Facebook in a single day on Monday, 29th
September 2015. CEO Mark Zuckerberg marked the occasion with a post on his
Facebook page, saying that one out of seven people on Earth logged in to the
social network to connect with their friends and family.
The
1 billion figure is different from the daily user numbers Facebook discloses
each quarter when it reports its financial results. Those are the average
number of daily users, counted over a 30-day period. Facebook had 968 million
daily active users in June.
Overall,
Facebook has nearly 1.5 billion users who log in at least once a month. It hit
the 1 billion user milestone in October 2012. Most people on Facebook live
outside the U.S. and Canada.
Book Launch : MAKING INDIA AWESOME
The book will be
Bhagat's second non-fiction after 'What Young India Wants', which was a
collection of his speeches and essays, focusing on the Indian society. This new
book takes the message a step ahead. It is a compilation of essays, wherein the
author analyses and offers practical solutions to the country's most
frightening issues such as poverty, unemployment, corruption, violence against
women, communal violence, religious fundamentalism and illiteracy.
Using simple language
and concepts, this book will enable you to understand the most complex of
problems facing the nation today and give practical solutions on how you can do
your part to solve them.
Seven
more airports declared entry points for e-visa
Seven
more airports including Varanasi and Ahmedabad have been declared as entry
points along with the existing nine where citizens from eligible countries can
land with e-tourist visa.
The
government has also exended e-tourist visa facility to 36 more countries from
15th August, taking the total number of countries under the
scheme upto 113.
Besides
Varanasi and Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Amritsar, Gaya, Lucknow and Trichyhave been
declared as entry points with e-tourist visa, an official statement said on
Friday.
The
existing nine airports where one can land with an e-tourist visa are Bengaluru,
Chennai, Delhi, Goa, Kochi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Hyderabad and
Thiruvananthapuram.
Among the
countries that will benefit from the fresh extension of e-tourist visa are the
UK, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Malaysia, Tanzania and Argentina.
Under the
e-visa scheme, an applicant receives an email authorising him or her to travel
to India after it is approved and he or she can travel with a print-out of this
authorisation.
On
arrival, the visitor has to present the authorisation to the immigration
authorities who would then stamp the entry into the country.
Since the
launch of the scheme on 27th November 2014, more than two lakh e-tourist visas
have been issued till now.
It is
expected that this substantial addition of countries and airports will give a
big boost to tourism industry in the country, the statement said.
Scientists using NASA's powerful Kepler telescope have found
a planet beyond the solar system that is a close match to Earth.
The
planet, which is about 60 percent bigger than Earth, is located about 1,400
light years away in the constellation Cygnus.
While similarly sized planets have been found before, the latest one, known as Kepler-452b, is circling a star that is very similar but older than the sun at a distance about the same as Earth's orbit.
Based on
its size, scientists believe Kepler-452b is rocky and Earth-like and positioned
at the right distance for liquid surface water, which is believed to be
necessary for life.
