Sales tax
- Sales tax is levied on the sale of a commodity which is produced or imported and sold for the first time.
- If the product is sold subsequently without being processed further, it is exempt from sales tax.
- Sales tax is levied by either the Central or the State Government.
- Exports and services are exempt from sales tax.
Crisil Ratings
- CRISIL stands for Credit Rating Information Services of India Limited and it was the first credit rating agency set up in India in 1987.
- Today, CRISIL has become a global analytical company that rates companies, researches the markets and provides risk and policy advisory services to its clients.
- The agency started operations in 1988.
- CRISIL is headquartered in Mumbai.
- CRISIL provides independent opinion and efficient solutions by performing data analysis and research.
Repo rate
- It is the rate at which the central bank of a country (Reserve Bank of India in case of India) lends money to commercial banks in the event of any shortfall of funds.
- Repo rate is used by monetary authorities to control inflation.
Core inflation
- Core inflation is the change in the costs of goods and services but does not include those from the food and energy sectors.
- Food and energy prices are exempt from this calculation because their prices can be too volatile or fluctuate wildly.
- Core inflation is important because it’s used to determine the impact of rising prices on consumer income.
NHRC
- NHRC of India is an independent statutory body established on 12 October, 1993 as per provisions of Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, later amended in 2006.
- Its headquarter is located in New Delhi.
- It is the watchdog of human rights in the country, i.e. the rights related to life, liberty, equality and dignity of the individual guaranteed by Indian Constitution or embodied in the international covenants and enforceable by courts in India.
- It was established in conformity with the Paris Principles, adopted for the promotion and protection of human rights in Paris (October, 1991) and endorsed by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 20 December, 1993.
Eighth Schedule of the Constitution
- It is the list of official languages recognised by the Constitution.
- Part XVII of the Indian constitution deals with the official languages in Articles 343 to 351.
- The Eighth Schedule to the Indian Constitution contains a list of 22 scheduled languages viz. Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Malayalam, Marathi, Odia, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Sindhi (added by 21st Amendment Act, 1967), Konkani, Manipuri, Nepali (added by 71st Amendment Act, 1992), Bodo, Dogri, Maithili, Santhal (added by 92nd Amendment 2003).
African swine fever
- It is a highly contagious and fatal animal disease that infects and leads to an acute form of hemorrhagic fever in domestic and wild pigs.
- It was first detected in Africa in the 1920s.
- The mortality is close to 100% and since the fever has no cure, the only way to stop its spread is by culling the animals.
- ASF is not a threat to human beings since it only spreads from animals to other animals.
- ASF is a disease listed in the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) Terrestrial Animal Health Code and thus, reported to the OIE.