09-03-21 Daily-Karnataka-KPSC Current Affairs

Chief ministerBS Yediyurappais under pressure to fill a large revenue gap in the states finances, but he is unlikely to raise taxes in the forthcoming budget.

The government, experts say, should instead focus on generating more revenue from non-tax sources such as asset monetisation and leverage an additional borrowing window provided by the Centre.

The government had expected tax revenues of more than Rs 1.1 lakh crore in 2020-21, but it is likely to miss the target by at least Rs 5,000 crore because of the economic disruption triggered by the pandemic. Revenue from commercial taxes and duties on liquor sales has improved strongly, but stamp & registration duty and motor vehicle tax collections have lagged.

Karnataka has limited scope to alter taxes in the GST regime. It can propose rates for only commodities such as petroleum products and liquor, apart from property and vehicle registration.

Municipal Performance Index 2020 has been released by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) Highlights:

The 2020 Municipal Performance Index (MPI): MPI reviewed the sectoral performance of 111 cities in five verticals (Delhi was evaluated by NDMC and three municipal companies).

These verticals consist of 20 industries and a total of 100 indicators. The five vertical areas under MPI are service, finance, policy, technology and Governance.

City ranking:

According to the assessment framework of MPI 2020, cities are classified according to their populations of “million+” (cities with a Population of more than one million) and “population of less than one million”.

In the “Millionaire” category: Indore has become the highest-ranked , followed by Surat and Bhopal. In the “less than a million” category: The New Delhi Municipal Council has become the leader, followed by Tirupati and Gandhinagar.

For about 600 years, Mleiha was the political centre of southeast Arabia before it was abandoned in the 3rd century CE. And for decades, the emergence of the tropical plant in the arid Arabian peninsula has been aquestion archaeologistshave tried to answer. Oman, they had concluded, was the source of the ancient Arab cotton trade. But now, scientists from the Museum of Natural HISTORY in Paris have found evidence in Mleiha that the earliest cotton in the Arab region came fromnorthwest India.

The irony, however, is that a fire which ravaged one of its most important buildings of Mleiha is also what preserved it for posterity. Within this Unesco World Heritage Site in the United Arab Emirates lies a tableaux frozen in fire. Its a mud brick building with 15 rooms around a central courtyard with signs of a life hastily abandoned in forgotten objects and prized possessions carelessly thrown around, and, the evidence of an ancient Indian trade route, cotton specifically, 31 whole seeds, 79 fragments and 7 raw fibre clusters.

Maharashtra, Naduand Uttar Pradesh remained the top three states with the highest employable talent, according to the India Skills Report 2021.Karnatakatakes the fourth spot followed byAndhra Pradesh. Bangalore is among the most preferred cities to work for aspiring professionals, the report said.

Rajasthan and West Bengal come in the top 10 states with employable talent, yet remain below Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi,Telanganaand Gujarat respectively. Haryana could not make it to this list again, despite the massive push from numerous Skill development measures.

The report, prepared by Wheebox in PARTNERSHIP with Taggd, CII, AICTE, AIU and UNDP, showed that 46% of the youth were considered highly employable Resources. This is far less than the previous years, indicating a skill gap in Education, it said, adding that this is still an encouraging statistic considering that the Average age of India is 26.8 years old.

More Women were found employable than men. In fact, the number of women enrolled in colleges and degree programs have increased over the past, the report said. The report is based on the assessment of 65,000 candidates.