Tamil Nadu gets its first biodiversity heritage site

Tamil Nadu gets its first biodiversity heritage site

• Tamil Nadu government on Tuesday notified 193.215 hectares of area spread across Arittapatti and Meenakshipuram villages in Madurai district as ‘Arittapatti Biodiversity Heritage Site’ under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002. This is the first Biodiversity Heritage Site (BHS) notified in Tamil Nadu.
• Biodiversity heritage sites are well-defined areas that are unique, ecologically fragile ecosystems with high diversity of wild and domesticated species, presence of rare and threatened species, and keystone species. 
• The village Arittapatti consists of a chain of seven barren granite hillocks. The distinctive landscape of rocky hills acts as a watershed and supports 72 lakes, 200 natural spring pools, and three check dams.

India-Australia ECTA to create 1 million jobs in next 4-5 years

• Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA) between India and Australia will create about 10 lakh jobs in the next 4-5 years. Indian students will get work visas to work in Australia.
• The newly signed trade pact with Australia is expected to take bilateral trade from the existing USD 27 billion to nearly USD 45-50 billion in the next five years and the government expects one million jobs to be created in India in the next four to five years.
• Both countries inked the India-Australia Economic Cooperation and Trade Agreement (ECTA) on April 2.
• ECTA is the first trade agreement of India with a developed country after more than a decade and provides for an institutional mechanism to improve trade between the two countries.
• India also made the highest ever export in its history this year which is USD 418 billion.

India among top 5 countries in global climate change performance index

• India is ranked among the top five countries, and the best among the G-20 nations, under the global Climate Change Performance Index.
• The top-5 rank globally reflects that India is implementing energy transition programmes such as renewable capacity installation at much faster rate than anywhere in the world.
• The latest report of CCPI, released at COP27 in November 2022, shows Denmark, Sweden, Chile and Morocco as the only four small countries that were ranked above India at fourth, fifth, sixth and seventh, respectively.
• The index is published by German Watch, New Climate Institute and Climate Action Network International based in Germany.
• Published annually since 2005, the Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) is an independent monitoring tool for tracking the climate protection performance of 59 countries and the EU.

Prof. Venu Gopal Achanta Elected as a Member of International Committee for Weight and Measures

• Prof. Venu Gopal Achanta, Director, CSIR-National Physical Laboratory (CSIR-NPL), New Delhi, has been elected as a member of the International Committee for Weights and Measures (CIPM). 
• The 27th General Conference on Weights and Measures (CGPM) meeting was held on 15-18 November, 2022 at Paris, France. Prof. Achanta is among the 18 members elected from different countries and he is the 7th Indian to be elected to the CIPM. 
• The first Indian to be elected as a member of CIPM was Dr. K.S. Krishnan, the founder Director of CSIR-NPL. The last Indian to be elected was Prof. E. S. R. Gopal, the then Director, and CSIR-NPL (1991-1997).