Economy

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has issued refunds worth Rs 71,229 crore in more than 21.24 lakh cases upto 11th July, 2020, to help taxpayers with liquidity during COVID-19 pandemic, since the Government’s decision of 8th April, 2020 to issue pending income tax refunds at the earliest.

As on 16.07.2020, actual rainfall received in the country is 338.3 mm against normal of 308.4 mm i.e. departure of (+) 10% during the period from 01.06.2020 to 16.07.2020. As on 16.07.2020 as per report of CWC, the live water storage available in 123 reservoirs in the country is 150 % of live storage of corresponding period of last year and 133% of storage of average of last ten years.

Department of Heavy Industry (DHI), Govt of India, has embarked on a mission to promote innovation, R&D and product development in India for various sectors. A step towards this mission is the creation of technology platform e-portals where such technology development, information exchange and innovation can be facilitated. There are five portals being developed for specific sectors by different organizations viz, BHEL for power sector equipment, HMT for machine tools, CMFTI for manufacturing technology, ICAT and ARAI for automotive sector.

India has established ‘air bubbles’ with the US and France. On Friday, American carrier United Airlines will be flying 18 flights between India and the US till July 31.

The move signals Apple’s push to diversify its supply chain out of China. India is hoping to attract companies that are looking for alternative manufacturing bases and the government in April launched a slew of incentives including a Rs 41,000-crore production linked incentive (PLI) programme to incentivise large electronic manufacturers to set up production bases in the country.