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.
