Morning Digest: Tax break will give a fillip to slowing economy, says Centre; India slashes peak tariffs to ‘correct bad optics’ amidst Trump’s tariff war, and more

The Hindu Morning Digest gives a select list of stories to start the day. Read the top news today on February 3, 2025

The Centre’s decision to significantly slash the income tax payer’s burden was aimed at addressing some “angst” that the government had noticed in recent months as well as to give a fillip to the economy’s weakening growth impulses with a broad-based boost to demand, savings, and investments, Finance Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey told The Hindu on Sunday (February 2, 2025).

The latest round of import tariff revisions announced in the Budget have done away with the peak rates of 150%, 125%, and 100% which applied to just five items, but had created “bad optics” about India’s tariff structure, top officials told The Hindu. Such high tariffs have led to criticism of the sort levelled by U.S. President Donald Trump, who has often clubbed India with China as a “tariff abuser”.

Riding on Abhishek Sharma’s 135 (54b, 7x4, 13x6), India’s highest individual score in T20Is, the Men in Blue piled on 247 for nine in 20 overs after Engaldn sent them in to bat in the fifth and final T20I of the series. As it happens most often while chasing gargantuan targets, England wilted under pressure to be bowled out for a paltry 97 in the 11th over to hand India a 150-run win. The victory meant Suryakumar Yadav laid his hands on the trophy, with the series ending 4-1 in the host’s favour.

As civil war rages in Myanmar, security agencies are verifying the reports of death of a Manipuri youth in the neighbouring country and keeping a close watch on its impact on ethnic-strife hit Manipur. From January 27, 2025, around 260 Myanmar refugees have taken shelter in India along the Moreh border in Manipur, a defence source said on Sunday (February 2, 2025).

An Additional Director General of Police in Tamil Nadu has alleged that an attempt was made on her life after she exposed serious irregularities in police recruitment. In a complaint addressed to Tamil Nadu Director General of Police and Head of Police Force Shankar Jiwal, Kalpana Nayak, a senior IPS officer, called for an “unbiased” investigation into a fire that gutted her chamber in Chennai on July 29, 2024. The incident, she said, occurred days after she flagged discrepancies by the Tamil Nadu Uniformed Services Recruitment Board (TNUSRB) in implementing communal reservation in the recruitment of Sub-Inspectors, constables, prison warders, and firemen.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has been unable to perform the intended orbit raising operations for the NVS-02 satellite due to a valve malfunction. The NVS-02, the second satellite in the NVS series, was launched by the ISRO on January 29 as part of its landmark 100th launch from Sriharikota. The space agency on Sunday said that the orbit raising operations towards positioning the satellite to the designated orbital slot could not be carried out as the valves for admitting the oxidiser to fire the thrusters for orbit raising did not open.

Falling short of the 100 days of work guaranteed under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, average workdays per household under the scheme had come down to just 44.62 days in 2024-25 from 52.08 days in 2023-24, a consortium of non-profit organisations said on Sunday (February 2, 2025). A fall in person days from 312.37 crore in financial year 2023-24 to 239.67 crore in 2024-25 was also recorded. The term “person days” refers to the total number of workdays by a person registered under MGNREGA in a financial year.