# Olympic updates

• A more than four decade long wait finally ended with the Indian men’s hockey team winning bronze medal at  Tokyo olympics.

• In a thrilling match, India beat Germany 5 – 4 to secure bronze.

• In wrestling, Indian wrestler Ravi kumar Dahiya lost to Russian wrestler to settle for silver.

# Education ministry

• Nearly 63% of the under-graduate dropouts at the top seven dropouts Indian institutes of technology(IITs) over the past five years were from the reserved categories.

• This data has been submitted by the education ministry in response to a question in the Rajya sabha.

• Nearly 40% of the dropouts were from the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes.

# Retrospective tax law

• The government on Thursday took the first step towards doing away with the contentious retrospective tax law of 2012.

• This law used to raise large tax demands on foreign investors such as Vodafone and Cairn energy, and blamed for vitiating India’s investment climate.

• Union finance and corporation affairs minister Nirmala Sitharaman introduced the taxation laws (Amendment) bill in the Lok sabha on Thursday.

• This bill will nullify the relevant retrospective tax clauses that were introduced in 2012 to bring past indirect transfer of Indian assets under the ambit of taxation.

# Earth observation satellite

• The Indian space research organisation (ISRO) will launch an Earth observation satellite on August 12.

• The satellite was launched from the Satish Dhawan space centre at Sri-Harikota.

• The satellite, EOS-03, will be carried on board the 14th flight of the GSLV, the GSLV-F10 and will place the satellite in a Geosynchronous transfer orbit.

# NRC

• Assam’s decision not to let Gurkhas undergo the citizenship test through the Foreigners’ tribunals (FTs) has come as a relief for atleast 22,000 members of the community in the state.

• According to the Bhartiya gurkha parishad, at least 22000 Gurkhas in the state have been marked D-voters or Doubtful voters in the electoral rolls since 1997.