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1.GST collection hits record ₹2.10 trillion in April
This is also the first time GST collection has crossed the ₹2 trillion mark, since the unified indirect tax regime was rolled out seven years ago.
“This represents a significant 12.4% year-on-year growth, driven by a strong increase in domestic transactions, up 13.4%, and imports, up 8.3%," a finance ministry statement said.
Coming after the second-highest monthly GST receipts of ₹1.78 trillion in March, the latest numbers were indicative of impressive economic growth as well as government’s efforts to improve compliance and tighten tax evasion, tax experts said.
2.Indian power plants on full steam riding crash in global coal prices
Electricity generation by Indian power plants fired by imported coal has nearly doubled in the first three weeks of April from a year earlier as global prices of the polluting fuel have declined by about 30%.
This is primarily because of an oversupply in China, the world’s largest producer, which has pushed down global coal prices, making the nonrenewable energy source more accessible to Indian power plants.
This is timely for India because the country is set to witness its highest ever power demand this year, surpassing last year’s record levels. Estimates by the Central Electricity Authority suggest peak power demand may reach 260 GW by September.
Thermal or coal-based power plants account for about 55% of the total electricity produced in India. Plants based on imported coal account for only about 8% of India’s thermal power generation, but are crucial particularly in coastal states that are far from domestic coal mines.
3.CEO pay is rising twice as fast as everyone else’s
Proxy advisor ISS found that the median S&P 500 CEO makes $15.7 million now, 9.2% higher than in 2023.
Most of this pay growth comes from the value of stock awards and options. ISS said that the typical cash pay was $1.3 million, up just 2.8% from 2023, but the typical stock payout was more than $12 million, up about 10%.
4.Indian political parties are projected to spend more than $50 million this year on ads generated by artificial intelligence.
Small AI startups are facing a crushing demand from parties across the political spectrum looking for digital avatars of their candidates and automated voice translation, Rest of World reported. India’s ongoing election, the largest in the world, is a supersized preview into AI’s impact on campaigns. Media companies said they try to weed out “unethical” requests; some creations are obviously fake, like a giant avatar of a candidate atop a building. But experts say a rash of misleading deepfakes are still reaching voters. One company told Rest of World it made an AI video of a deceased party leader making an endorsement
5.Columbia University Crackdown
Dozens of New York City police officers entered Columbia University's campus last night after student protesters overtook an administrative building earlier in the day. The students, who were arrested and led out of the building by police, are expected to face charges, including trespassing and criminal mischief. The development marks an escalation in campus tensions over the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
A group of protesters at Columbia seized Hamilton Hall early Tuesday, breaking windows and symbolically renaming the building as "Hind's Hall" for a 6-year-old Palestinian girl killed in Gaza. The blockade at Hamilton Hall, which has a history of student takeovers, came a day after Columbia began suspending student protesters for ignoring an ultimatum to disband a two-week-long encampment.
Officials also threatened to expel students blocking Hamilton Hall. The protesters' demands include the university divesting from companies with business ties to Israel—a shared demand across US campus demonstrations.
Elsewhere, Portland State University closed its campus after student protesters broke into a school library, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill canceled its classes. Arrests across universities continued; over 1,000 people have been arrested so far.
6.Researchers developed a biodegradable form of plastic that includes bacterial spores which will break it down when it is discarded.
Most plastics are not easily biodegradable, and remain in the ecosystem indefinitely. But it is difficult to make them biodegradable without having them rot while you’re using them.
The researchers took a bacterial species already found to break down one form of plastic, often used in cables among other things, and laced that plastic with the bacterium’s spores. The spores should remain in suspended animation until the plastic is disposed of somewhere they can thrive, such as a landfill, and hopefully not the carpet behind your workstation. The bacteria will only work on one kind of plastic, but, Ars Technica reported, the method may be replicable.
7.WATCH THIS VIDEO OF A SELF-DRIVING CAR NAVIGATING INDIA'S CHAOTIC TRAFFIC
As US-based robotaxi companies have already found out it's an extremely difficult task — and that's in a far more predictable environment where cars, at least generally speaking, stop at red lights and respect lane markings.
Swaayatt, however, isn't dissuaded. A video shared by the startup last month shows its sensor-laden vehicle "driving through an absolute chaos, on suburban unstructured roads in India," as the company put it in the caption.
"This is the most complex that it can get for an autonomous vehicle," Swaayatt CEO Sanjeev Sharma told IEEE Spectrum. "If you’re able to build here, this technology is universal."
Watch the video below
8.Zero luggage lost: Japan's Kansai Airport keeps 30-year record going
While Singapore and Doha’s airports compete against each other for the title of “world’s best,” another aviation hub is focusing on a different achievement. Japan’s Kansai International Airport (KIX) is marking 30 years without losing a single piece of luggage.
In a press statement, Japan’s seventh busiest airport said that it had not lost any passenger bags since opening in September 1994. The airport averages 20-30 million passengers per year.
