QWrap: How GST Will Affect You, and Are You a Social Media Addict?

Here are the day’s biggest stories.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced demonetisation on 8 November. 

(Photo: Reuters)

1. How Will GST Affect Your Daily Life?

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) has dominated headlines for over a year now, and through all the confusing economic jargon (and the ‘will they, won’t they’ in Parliament), here’s how India’s biggest tax reform is actually going to affect you by the end of the month.

Your daily caffeine kicks are expected to become slightly more expensive. Tea and coffee will be taxed at 5 percent under GST. Currently, these products are taxed at around 3-4 percent. Masala will also be taxed at 5 percent.

Aerated drinks like Coca-Cola and the like are going to become expensive, with taxes at 28 percent. Tobacco and luxury goods will all be taxed at 28 percent too.

Read the full story here.

2. Changing Status Quo Between India and China

Amid escalating tensions between India and China in India’s northeastern state of Sikkim, the Kailash Mansarovar yatra through Nathu La pass in Sikkim has been cancelled.

This comes days after China accused Indian troops of “crossing the boundary” in the Sikkim section and demanded their immediate withdrawal, while asserting that it has shut down the Nathu La pass entry for Indian pilgrims travelling to Kailash Mansarovar because of the border standoff. The Chinese foreign ministry had further said that the re-opening of the Nathu La pass depends on whether the Indian side would “correct mistakes in time”.

Read the full story here.

3. Happy Birthday Micheal Phelps

Twenty-eight medals in five Olympics spanning 20 years – Michael Phelps is, and will remain for a while, the greatest Olympian of all time.

His tally of 23 Olympic gold medals is more than what 66 countries have won in 120 years and is twice as many as any other Olympian in the world. However, Phelps hasn’t always been winning at life.

After getting arrested twice for drunk driving and being suspended from swimming for using drugs in 2009, Phelps had announced his retirement after the 2012 Games.

Read the full story here.

4. Are You a Social Media Addict?

How obsessed are you with social media?

Do you take selfies all the time? Do you wish you could “swipe” on things IRL?

Or do you want to throw away your phone every time you see an Insta-story?

Read the full story here.

5. ‘The Big Sick’ Subverts Yet Subscribes to Clichés Galore

The film is based on the real-life story of how Nanjiani and Gordon fell in love – he, a struggling comedian based in Chicago, helped take care of her when she fell ill and was put in a medically induced coma – but there’s something about The Big Sick that feels a little too familiar, kind of like the Joseph Gordon-Levitt starrer 50/50 (2011) with lower stakes, a role-reversal, and a brown protagonist.

Perhaps this explains its success at Sundance earlier this year. There’s a certain kind of movie that seems to work at the festival – narratives about life, death, and identity suffused with often deadpan humour.

American critics have been enchanted by The Big Sick, and it’s easy to see why — its lead actor is a man of Pakistani origin, while white cast members play a distant second fiddle, which is definitely significant in the prevailing political climate.

Read the full story here.

Video Producer: Sonal Gupta
Video Editor: Mohd Irshad Alam