The portal is being developed by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
It is a digital platform to bring all stakeholders in the logistics sector on board to cut down transaction cost and time for businesses.
It will act as a single window online market place for trade.
Stakeholders like traders, manufacturers, logistics service providers, infrastructure providers, financial services, government departments and groups and associations will all be on one platform.
There are four main components of the portal - logistics e-market place, logistics certification platform, integrated regulatory platform and banking and financial services platform.
The portal is developed to achieve the government’s target of reducing the logistics cost from the present 14% of GDP to less than 10% by 2022.
International Buddhist Conclave 2018
The 6th International Buddhist conclave was recently inaugurated in New Delhi by the President.
The conclave aims to showcase the Buddhist heritage in India and boost tourism in the country.
Delegates from 29 countries are participating in the conclave.
It has been organised by the Ministry of Tourism in collaboration with State Governments of Maharashtra, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.
The conclave is going to be held in New Delhi, Ajanta (Maharashtra).
Site visits to Rajgir, Nalanda and Bodhgaya (Bihar) and Sarnath (Uttar Pradesh) will also be conducted.
The earlier conclaves were held biennially in Bodhgaya &
New Delhi in 2004
Nalanda in 2010
Varanasi in 2012 and 2014
Sarnath and Varanasi in 2016.
5G Panel
A steering committee headed by Paulraj was formed by the government last year to make fifth-generation (5G) telecommunication services successful in India.
Its mandate is to formulate a road map for 5G services in India.
The committee has revealed that the advent of next-generation wireless services may unleash USD 1 trillion economic opportunity for the country.
Under the spectrum policy, the committee has suggested that India’s spectrum allocation for public wireless services should be enhanced significantly.
It has also asked for setting up a Standing Committee with five-year term to advise on building spectrum technology infrastructure.
While the US is likely to deploy 5G services later this year, or in the first quarter of 2019, the India rollout may begin by 2020.
Bond-i
Bond-i, an acronym standing for Blockchain Offered New Debt Instrument is the world’s first public bond created and managed using only blockchain.
It is launched by World Bank and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia is the sole manager of the deal.
The total worth of the bond is 100 million Australian Dollars.
It is viewed as an initial step in moving bond sales away from manual processes towards faster and cheaper automation.
World Bank's bonds hold an AAA rating, creating a new bond markets and also engineers new methods to sell and trade securities.
Blockchain technology refers to the distributed ledger technology that securely records all transactions made on the chain.
This can help simplify raising capital and trading securities, improve operational efficiencies and enhance regulatory oversight,
Aeolus Satellite
Aeolus is a European wind survey satellite launched by Arianespace, world’s leading satellite launch company.
It is part of the Copernicus project, a joint initiative of the European Union and the European Space Agency (ESA) to track environmental damage and aid disaster relief operations.
It is the fifth of the ESA's planned Earth Explorer missions and Arianespace’s 50th launch for ESA.
It was recently launched from French Guiana using Vega rocket.
It will use advanced laser technology to track global winds and improve weather forecasts.
