Union Minister of Finance August 27 referred to the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic as an “act of god” after a meeting of council that decides on rates of goods and services tax (GST).
- An ‘act of god’ is usually invoked by insurers to refrain from compensating for damages that are considered to be outside human control, like natural disasters.
- The senior member of the Narendra Modi Cabinet also indicated India’s economy may contract due to the “extraordinary situation”.
- The government admitted to shortfall of Rs 2.35 lakh crore shortfall in GST collection for the year through March 2021 yet.
- States have already been pressuring the Centre to compensate for revenue shortfalls.
- Several states have reportedly struggled to clear salary dues.
- The Centre has offered two options of compensatio for the states to deliberate on.
- Economists have already been warning of COVID-19 lockdown-induced slowdown turning into a recession.
- The Reserve Bank of India has appointed veteran banker KV Kamath to head a panel to deliberate on loan restructuring and report by September 6.
- Tuberculosis patients will now be screened for COVID-19 and vice-versa, according to new central guidelines.
- Almost 1.5 billion are now out of school UNICEF said. Among 463 million students who can't access remote digital learning, two-thirds are in Africa and Asia.
- India added more than 75,000 cases August 26 and recorded more than 1,000 deaths from the outbreak.
- Despite the most number of fresh cases in the world, the Centre has continued to underscore the number of recoveries.
- The government claimed close to a million new tests though India’s testing rate continued to linger below 28,000 per million.
- Brazil’s testing rare, in comparison, was more than double. The United States rate was nearly nine times ahead of India. Those are the only two countries with more cases than India.
- The global tally was near 25 million.
- Union Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba held a video conference with chief secretaries and health secretaries of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Telangana, Gujarat, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir, along with the Union health secretary, the director-general of the Indian Council of Medical Research and member (health), NITI Aayog.
- The states were urged to limit case fatality to 1 per cent across districts.