# International flights

• The Union Government on Wednesday cited concerns over the omicron variant of the coronavirus and indefinitely postponed the full resumption of scheduled international flights from December 15.
• This means international flights will continue to operate on a smaller scale and only with 31 countries with which India has air bubble agreements.
• Maharashtra government has said that all international passengers must undergo an RTPCR test on arrival.

# GST collections

• Goods and services tax collections hit 1,31,526 crore rupees in November, the second highest since it was implemented july 2017.
• This is the second month in a row that GST collections exceeded 1.3 lakh crore rupees.
• There revenues for November were 25℅ higher than that in the corresponding month last year and 27℅ over the pre pandemic levels of 2019-20.

# GIFT city

• Around seven km from gandhinagar, on the banks of the Sabarmati and spread over 886 acres, once a barren land along the river is now emerging as the country’s first Greenfield integrated city.
• The Gujarat international financetec city (GIFT city) is India’s first and only International financial services centre (IFSC), where banks, stock exchanges and financial services firms have set up their global operations.
• GIFT city is now operational with more than 200 entities.

# Elephants

• A whooping 1160 elephants were killed in the country for reasons other than natural causes in 10 years upto December 31,2020, according to ministry of environment, climate and forest change.
• While electrocution claimed the lives of 741 elephants, train hits led to the death of 186 elephants, followed by poaching (169), and 64 poisoning, revealed RTI.

# Manufacturing PMI

• India’s manufacturing sector recorded the second strongest expansion in nine months in November, with the survey based IHS markit India manufacturing purchasing manager’s index (PMI) climbing to 57.6 from October’s 55.9.
• The November PMI signals the strongest improvement in the health of the manufacturing sector for 10 months.