INDIA
- Growth in India’s gross Goods and Services Tax (GST) revenues slowed to a 27-month low of 10.2% in September from around 10.8% in the previous two months. However, collections improved 2.3% over August revenues to touch ₹ 1,62,712 crore.
- Oil companies on Sunday raised the price of commercial cooking gas by a sharp ₹209 per 19-Kg cylinder. And, in the fourth straight monthly increase since July, the price of aviation turbine fuel (ATF), or jet fuel, was raised by 5%.
The price of a 14.2-Kg domestic LPG cylinder though remains unchanged.
- The Assam Police on Sunday said the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act has been extended in four districts of the State for six more months. These are Dibrugarh, Tinsukia, Sivasagar and Charaideo. The AFSPA has been withdrawn from Jorhat, Golaghat, Karbi Anglong and Dima Hasao with effect from October 1.
The AFSPA was first imposed in Assam in November 1990.
- The U.S.-based drug maker Johnson & Johnson has announced that it will not enforce patents for Sirturo – its brand name for bedaquiline, which is used in the treatment of multidrug-resistent tuberculosis – in 134 low- and middle-income countries.
About Bedaquiline :
Bedaquiline is the first drug for tuberculosis, or TB, to be globally approved in over 40 years, and is less toxic and more effective than traditional TB treatments.
- The Defence Ministry has issued new entitlement rules (ER) for grant of disability pensions to military personnel, tightening some of the provisions and introducing a new ‘impairment relief’ (IR) in lieu of the ‘disability element’ to cover lifestyle diseases such as hypertension and diabetes.
WORLD
- Indonesia is set to launch Southeast Asia’s first high- speed railway on Monday, a delayed multibillion-dollar project backed by China that will cut travel between capital Jakarta and another major city by hours.
The Chinese-made bullet train named “Whoosh” is built to take more than 600 people to and from Jakarta and the Javan city of Bandung in 45 minutes and is part of China’s Belt and Road infrastructure initiative comprising multiple countries in Asia.