Sensex ends above 61 thousand mark for first time

Over two crore Income Tax Returns have been filed on the e-Filing portal of the Income Tax Department. The portal has marked receipt of more than 2 crore IT returns as on October 17. The new portal was launched on June 7 this year and in the initial period, taxpayers had reported glitches and difficulties in the functioning of the portal. Finance Ministry has said a number of technical issues have since been resolved and the performance of the portal has substantially stabilized. Over 13.44 crore unique taxpayers have logged in till October 13. Approximately 54.70 lakh taxpayers have availed of ‘forgot password’ facility to obtain their passwords.All Income Tax Returns have been made available for e-filing. More than 1.70 crore returns have been e-verified, out of which 1.49 crore are through Aadhaar based OTP. The process of e-verification through Aadhaar OTP and other methods is important for the Department to commence processing of the ITR and to issue refunds.Of the verified ITRs 1 and 4, over 1.06 crore ITRs have been processed and over 36.22 lakh refunds for AY 2021-22 have been issued. Processing of ITRs 2 and 3 will be taken up shortly. The Digital Signature registration of non-residents has been enabled and overall 4.87 lakh DSCs have been registered.

-In Manipur, Chief Minister N. Biren Singh on Thursday launched the “Chief Minister’s Health for All”. The scheme was already announced by him on the 71st Birthday of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 17th September this year. Door-to-door health screening will be conducted across the State and Jan Aushadhi medicines will be provided to patients free of cost for primary health care under the scheme. The Chief Minister Gi Hakchel Gi Tengbal (CM Health Care Scheme) and Ayushman Bharat health cards will also be issued to the patients having severe and chronic illness, if eligible. The Chief Minister also distributed ASHA Plus devices, smartphones and tablets to CHOs, Nurses and ASHA workers for the newly launched campaign.During the campaign Screening will be done using a hand-held device known as ASHA Plus for 10 non-communicable diseases, viz. Hypertension, Diabetes, Heart Disease, Kidney Ailments, Respiratory Disease like COPD, three common Cancers (Oral, Breast and Cervical), Mental Health problems and Stroke/Post Stroke.

-Union Minister of Coal Mines and Parliamentary Affairs Prahlad Joshi has assured that no power plants in the country will be hindered due to shortage of coal supply. Union Coal Minister today inspected the Ashok Coal Project of Central Coalfields Limited (CCL) in Chatra district of Jharkhand to take stock of coal production from CIL subsidiaries. On his visit, Joshi said that the situation is being reviewed to speed up coal production. Further he said that the demand raised by Ministry of Power has been fulfilled. Mr Joshi said that they have supplied two million tonne coal and the necessity has been stabilised since then. Coal production is further increased to meet the requirements and ensure smooth supply of coal to power plants across the country.

-Mahanavami was celebrated across Uttar Pradesh with full religious fervour on Thursday. Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath performed kanya poojan at Gorakhnath temple in Gorakhpur. He said that Mahanavami is the occasion to worship girl child as an embodiment of Maa Durga and Navratri festival showcases the respect Indian culture holds towards women. He said that if this regard is implemented into practicality, the secluded incidences of abuse against the girls and women could be successfully arrested. He said that we need to change our mindset towards women. The women today are excelling in every field and they are equally capable as leaders too.

-At the stock markets, rising for the sixth straight session, the Sensex at the Bombay Stock Exchange climbed 569 points, or 0.9 percent, to end at a fresh all time high of 61,306, on Thursday.The Nifty at the National Stock Exchange advanced 177 points, or 1 percent, to 18,339. In the broader market, the BSE Midcap index and the Smallcap index added about 0.5 percent, each. Sectorally, on the BSE, the Bankex was the leading gainer, climbing 1.7 percent. The Metal and the Finance index advanced 1.4 percent, each; the Capital Goods and the Realty index added 1.2 percent, each; the Power and the Basic Material index rose 1.1 percent, each; the Industrials index moved up 1 percent, the Utilities index gained 0.9 percent; the IT index ended higher 0.7 percent and the FMCG, the Tech and the Consumer Discretionary index rose 0.5 percent, each. The Auto index was the only loser, falling 0.7 percent.