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Prelim Bits 15-04-2019

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April 16, 2019

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 

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