July 2022
As India prepares itself to celebrate its 75th Independence Day, the country has appointed its 15th President, Droupadi Murmu. She is the first President of India who belongs to the Tribal community and is the second woman President of the country.
The war between Russia and Ukraine continues and it's been over 160 days since the start. There doesn't seem to be any clarity at this point how the war will end. It's interesting to note that Ukrainians that had left the country in the beginning of the war, have started returning to the country over the last few months. Exports of agricultural products from Ukraine have also restarted via Turkey. A lot of things are now looking more normal as commodity prices have eased and availability of products increases.
Geopolitics continues to be centre stage for a lot of news. Nancy Pelosi's visit to Taiwan has caused more questions around US-China relationships and actions that China may take. The silver lining for India in this could be that China related Geopolitical news shall continue to keep Businesses across the world focused on building a China+1 strategy for sourcing and demand for products from India will continue to remain buoyant. This is a strategic shift in thinking which should build longer term supply chains from India.
The Government has widened the GST net by a levy of 5% GSTon pre-packed and labelled food items such as cereals, pulses and flour weighing less than 25 kg. This will make some items more expensive for the common man, however, this goes towards widening of a tax base in the country to ensure that there is a contribution towards nation building activities from a broader base of people.
India is positioned well, both internally and externally - it's time for us to make sure we capture the opportunities provided and at the same time contribute towards further growth of the country.
INDIRECT TAX (GST)
