Wholesale Price Index
- A wholesale price index (WPI) is an index that measures and tracks the changes in the price of goods in the stages before the retail level – that is, goods that are sold in bulk and traded between entities or businesses instead of consumers.
- Usually expressed as a ratio or percentage, the WPI shows the included goods average price change and is often seen as one indicator of a country's level of inflation.
- Some countries use WPI changes as a central measure of inflation, but India has adopted new CPI to measure inflation.
- WPI is published by the Economic Adviser in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, where CPI is released by CSO.
- The Wholesale Price Index focuses on the price of goods traded between corporations, rather than goods bought by consumers, which is measured by the Consumer Price Index.
DART Mission
- Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) is NASA’s first mission to demonstrate kinetic impactor technique which will strike the asteroid to shift its orbit to defend against a potential future asteroid impact.
- The target for DART is an asteroid that will have a distant approach to Earth in October 2022, and then again in 2024.
- The asteroid is called Didymos, an asteroid binary system that consists of two bodies: Didymos A, and Didymos B.
- The kinetic impact technique works by changing the speed of a threatening asteroid by a small fraction of its total velocity, which would shift the asteroid’s path away from Earth.
Nirbhay Missile
- Nirbhay is a Long Range Sub-Sonic Cruise Missile designed and developed by DRDO.
- The missile has been recently test fired from the Integrated Test Range (ITR), located in Abdul Kalam Island, Odisha.
- The missile has waypoint navigation and sea-skimming capability to cruise at very low altitudes.
Leucistic Squirrel
- For the first time, leucistic five-striped palm squirrel has been reported from north India.
- Funambulus pennanti is more frequently found in the northern part of India including Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Bihar.
- Colour abnormalities are very rare in wild mammals, these abnormalities may be governed by several factors like environmental pollution, congenital infection, low nutrition food and genetic causes.
- Leucism is a condition where there is partial loss of pigmentation in animals on the skin, however, the loss of colour does not extend to the eye.
- On the other hand, in albinism, the affected individual is totally white, with red eyes.
- The survival rate of leucistic animals is comparatively lesser than non-leucistic ones because of their distinctive features which easily gets noticed by predators.
Yangtze giant softshell turtles
- The only known female member of Yangtze giant softshell turtle has died recently in China.
- The animal was one of four known to be remaining in the world, rest three turtles are male.
- It is also known as the Red River giant softshell turtle.
- It is listed as critically endangered in the IUCN Red List.
Source: PIB, the Hindu, Down to Earth
