Current Affairs 25th December 2018

Current Affairs 25th December 2018 - Important Points

• Defence Minister inaugurates Indian Navy's Information Fusion Centre on - 22nd December 2018
• ‘Hand-in-Hand’ counter-terrorism military exercises concluded on - 22nd December 2018
• GST Council slashes rates on 23 Goods and Services on - 22nd December 2018

 Current Affairs 25th December 2018 - Details

Defence Minister inaugurates Indian Navy's Information Fusion Centre on - 22nd December 2018

Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on December 22nd, 2018 released the Information Fusion Centre – Indian Ocean Region- IFC-IOR, at Information Management and Analysis Centre, Gurugram.
The inaugural programme witnessed the participation from delegates belonging to different ministries  ambassadors and resident defence connected of partner nations.
IFC-IOR Objective
The Information Fusion Centre–Indian Ocean Region goals to engage with partner countries and multi-national maritime concepts to develop comprehensive maritime domain consciousness and share data on vessels of interest.
The important intention of this cooperative endeavour will be to protect the global commons for a peaceful, stable & prosperous region towards the well-being of all.
Important Highlights

• The Information Fusion Centre–Indian Ocean Region shall be a collective construct that will effort with partners, nations and international agencies to improve maritime security & safety.
• The centre would assist towards capability development in the region, co-ordination of incident response disaster relief, with share submarine safety data.
• It will benefit countries interface and integrate, wherein, they would help from each other’s best practices and expertise.
• It would also benefit foster bonds of trust, camaraderie & partnership, ingredients that are vivacious for relationships between countries to transcend from being merely transactional to ones that are transformational.
• The data exchange at the Information Fusion Centre–Indian Ocean Region would be primarily undertaken by virtual means, using telephone calls, faxes, emails &  video conferencing.
• Later, to enable better interaction, faster analysis of data and provide time bounded inputs, the Information Fusion Centre–Indian Ocean Region would host Liaison Officers from partner nations.
  Additionally, towards enhancing capability building, the Information Fusion Centre–Indian Ocean Region would undertake arrangement of exercises & training capsules in maritime data collation and sharing.

‘Hand-in-Hand’ counter-terrorism military exercises concluded on - 22nd December 2018

India & China settled the ‘Hand-in-Hand’ military exercise on 22nd December 2018 in China’s Chengdu city. This military exercise was the seventh edition of the “Hand-in-Hand” military exercise. The “Hand-in-Hand” military exercise did not occured last year due to dominant tensions between both sides after 73 days military standoff at Doklam.
This year’s exercise, which started on 11th December, engrossed on urban terrorism in which Indian -
Chinese armies planned the drills while living & dining together to build up a sense of camaraderie. The exercise consisted live firing and demonstration of driving skills for saving hostages detained by terrorists in an urban environment. The earlier edition of “Hand-in-Hand” that was organised in 2016 in Pune had intended on counter-terrorism drills in non-urban areas.

The exercises and the concluding service were live-streamed by China’s state-operated TV channel
CGTN highlighting their significance. The exercise pursues to improve the ties between the both
countries drills keeping in spirit of this year’s Wuhan summit.
Wuhan Summit
PM Narendra Modi and President of China Xi Jinping had detained their 1st Informal Summit in Wuhan
on April 27-28th, 2018. The motive of the meeting was to exchange ideas on overarching issues of
bilateral and global importance and to intricate their respective visions & significances for national
development in the context of present and future international condition.

GST Council slashes rates on 23 Goods and Services on - 22nd December 2018

The tax rates on 23 Goods & Services has been slashed by the Goods and Services Tax Council on 22nd  December 2018. These goods comprise movie tickets, TV & monitor screens, power banks and others.
After this reduction, only 28 goods are remaining in the highest tax slab of 28% includes cement, sin
goods (tobacco, alcohol), automobile parts and luxury goods including ACs and dishwasher. The new
Goods and Services Tax prices will be applicable from 1st January 2019.

Important Highlights

• The renewable energy devices and their spare parts will be taxed at 5 percent. The Goods and Services Tax on the accessories for carriages for specially-abled persons have been decreased to 5%.
• No tax will be applied to the services provided by the banks to Jan-Dhan account bearers. Also, Frozen &  preserved vegetables will not be taxed at all.
• The tax has been decreased to 12 percent from the earlier rate of 18 percent for the cinema tickets
  costing up to 100 rupees and to 18 percent from 28 percent for tickets priced more than Rupees 100. 
• The rate of tax for Digital cameras, Power banks, 32 inches monitors and TV up to 32 and video game consoles has also been decreased to 18 percent.
• Constitution of a 7 Member Group of Ministers has been planned by the Goods and Services Tax Council to study the revenue trend & to analyse the reasons for structural patterns influencing the revenue collection in some states.
• The Goods and Services Tax council is the chief decision-making body regarding the Goods and Services Tax that takes all the crucial decisions like setting the tax rate, tax exemption, tax laws, and tax deadlines etc.