Logistics Performance Index
- The Prime Minister Narendra Modi on April 22 expressed his happiness over over India’s spectacular climb of 16 places in World Bank’s Logistics Performance Index.
- India has climbed six places on the World Bank’s Logistic Performance Index (LPI) 2023, now ranking 38th in the 139 countries index.
- India was ranked 44th on the index in 2018.
- Two major factors for the country’s jump in the index could be modernisation and digitalisation, which the report quotes as a reason for emerging economies like India to leapfrog advanced countries.
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched the PM Gati Shakti initiative, a national master plan for multimodal connectivity, in October 2021 to reduce logistics cost and boost the economy by 2024-25.
- In 2022, the central government launched the National Logistics Policy (NLP) to ensure quick last-mile delivery, end transport-related challenges, save time and money of manufacturers, prevent wastage of agricultural products and ensure a desired speed in the logistics sector.
Global Buddhist Summit
- The Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the inaugural session of the Global Buddhist Summit in New Delhi on April 20.
- The two-day Summit was hosted by the Ministry of Culture in collaboration with International Buddhist Confederation on 20-21 April.
- The theme of the Global Buddhist Summit was “Responses to Contemporary Challenges: Philosophy to Praxis”.
- The Summit was an effort towards engaging the global Buddhist Dhamma leadership and scholars on matters of Buddhist and universal concerns, and to come up with policy inputs to address them collectively.
National Quantum Mission
- The Union Cabinet, on Apil 19, approved the National Quantum Mission (NQM) at a total cost of Rs.6003.65 crore from 2023-24 to 2030-31.
- The mission aims to seed, nurture and scale up scientific and industrial R&D and create a vibrant & innovative ecosystem in Quantum Technology (QT).
- This will accelerate QT led economic growth, nurture the ecosystem in the country and make India one of the leading nations in the development of Quantum Technologies & Applications (QTA).
- The new mission targets developing intermediate scale quantum computers with 50-1000 physical qubits in 8 years in various platforms like superconducting and photonic technology.
- The mission will help develop magnetometers with high sensitivity in atomic systems and Atomic Clocks for precision timing, communications and navigation.
International Day for Monuments and Sites (IDMS)
- World Heritage Day or International Day for Monuments and Sites (IDMS) was celebrated on April 18 with the theme Heritage Changes’.
- World Heritage Day is celebrated every year on 18 April to preserve human heritage and to recognize all the efforts of relevant organisations. The theme this year ‘offers the opportunity to respond to questions regarding learning about traditional ways of knowing and knowledge systems in relation to climate action, and how to use a cultural heritage focus to support equitable protection of vulnerable communities through climate action, while responding to the UN Decade of Action.
- The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has a total of 1,154 monuments designated as world heritage sites from all over the world.
- Apart from India only Italy, Spain, Germany, China and France have 40 or more World Heritage sites.
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