Women politicians welcome no GST on sanitary pads
New Delhi, July 22 : Women politicians, cutting across party lines, have welcomed the government's decision on scrapping GST on sanitary napkins.
Reactions flowed in from many women politicians after Finance minister Piyush Goyal announced that sanitary pads are now 100 percent exempt from tax.
"In a remarkable move, Piyush Goyal during the 28th GST Council Meet announced to exempt Sanitary Napkins from the GST. Indeed, this will give the required thrust to our Menstrual Hygiene initiatives and will transform lives of many Women," Union Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi tweeted.
Sanitary pads, which were initially taxed at 18 per cent, were brought down to 12 per cent under GST that was launched in July 2017. Gandhi, however earlier had justified the imposed tax saying that scrapping it would kill the indigenous pad makers.
Congress MP Sushmita Dev who last year had launched an online petition with Change.org demanding total removal of taxes on pads welcomed the government's move saying that it is a victory of more than four lakh citizens who had signed it.
"Some journeys take longer than others. And so here we are bearing the victory torch a year after our campaign 'tax free wings. This is monumental in the step towards improving the accessibility, availability and affordability of the product to millions of women," Dev said.
Union Textile minister Smriti Irani too tweeted thanking the Finance Minister for exempting sanitary napkins from GST.
"A welcome step towards encouraging menstrual hygiene among young girls and women. Good and Simple GST," she wrote.
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7 held for running fake call centre in South Kolkata
Kolkata (PTI): Seven people were arrested from the Parnashree area in the southern part of the city for allegedly running a fake call centre, a police officer said on Saturday.
Acting on a tip-off, police raided a house on Netaji Subhas Road on Friday night and found the fake call centre operating from the ground floor, he said.
Preliminary investigation revealed that the accused had set up a bogus company using forged documents and posed as employees of an antivirus firm to call citizens in the US, the officer said.
"The callers would gain the trust of victims and then use remote access to take control of their phones or other digital devices. The accused allegedly siphoned off large sums of money, running into millions of dollars, from victims' accounts," he said.
Five laptops, two WiFi routers, six mobile phones and four headsets were seized from the accused, he said, adding that the seven are being questioned to ascertain the full extent of the racket and to identify others involved.
