# SCO summit

• PM Narendra Modi arrived in Samarkand late Thursday evening for the SCO summit.
• Modi’s late arrival allowed him to skip a welcome dinner hosted by Uzbekistan president Shavkat Mirziyoyev where he would have been joined by among others the PM of Pakistan Shehbaj Sharif.
• PM Modi will have bilateral meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Mirziyoyev and Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi.
• PM Modi said that he will exchange views on Topical, regional and international issues, expansion of SCO and on further deepening cooperation within the organization.

# United States

• The wait for a visitor visa to the US has now stretched beyond two years, with the Covid time pent up demand for travel quickly leading to the queues getting longer.
• Less than a month back, the waiting period in Delhi and Mumbai was 581 and 517 days respectively.
• Now this has gone up to 758 and 752 days respectively, according to the US state Department website.
• This means, first time visitor visa applicant will get opportunity only around October 2024 in the two cities.

# FITCH

• Global ratings agency Fitch on Thursday cut India’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth forecast for 2022-23 to 7% from the earlier 7.8%.
• The reasons for the cut are global economic slowdown, elevated inflation and tighter monetary policy.
• Growth is expected to slow to 6.7% in 2023-24 from the previous estimate of 7.4%.

# National logistics policy

• The government on Thursday said that PM Gati shakti and helped identify critical gaps, speed up implementation of the critical projects and the proposed national logistics policy to be unveiled by PM Narendra Modi on Saturday.
• The current logistics cost has been estimated at around 13% in India.