Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Saturday announced the release of ₹33500 crores to states towards GST Compensation, which includes over ₹16500 crore to six states that have completed the paperwork to get their entire claim settled.
Almost, ₹17000 crore will go to states as the remaining compensation for June 2022, when the five year compensation period ended.
The money will flow to the states and two union territories, Delhi and Puducherry, from the centre.
During the first five years of the GST, the centre had promised to compensate states in case revenue growth was under 14% on an annual basis, by transferring money collected as cess on soft drinks, tobacco, cars and some other products.
# Kuno national park
Twelve South African cheetahs were released in the enclosures inside Kuno national park of Sheopur district in Madhya pradesh by Environment minister Bhupendra Yadav.
Kuno is now home to 20 cheetahs including eight that were brought from Namibia and released by Modi in September last year.
An Indian Airforce C-17 globe master plane flew the South African cheetahs from South Africa.
# Quad
The G20 foreign minister’s meeting next month will be followed by a meeting of the foreign ministers of Quad countries.
The three ministers will participate in the G20 meeting on March 1-2, which will be attended by their Russian and Chinese counterparts.
Australian PM Anthony Albanese will arrive in India on March 8 for a meeting with Narendra Modi.
# North Korea
North Korea fired an inter continental ballistic missile on Saturday which landed in Japan’s Exclusive economic zone.
Experts said demonstrated potential to reach the US mainland if fired as the normal trajectory.