# NITI Index

• NITI aayog has published a Index named “NITI aayog’s 2020 sustainable development goals index”.

• According to this index, India saw a significant improvement in the SDGs related to clean energy, urban development and health in 2020.

• However, there has been a major decline in the areas of industry, innovation and infrastructure as well as decent work and economic growth.

• Kerela retained its top position at the top of the ranking in the third edition of the Index, with a score of 75, followed by Tamil nadu and Himachal pradesh both scoring 72.

• At the other end of the scale, Bihar, Jharkhand and Assam were the worst performing states.

# Vaccine procurement

• India is in talks to allow major foreign vaccine manufacturers including pfizer, moderna and J&J  to carry out local manufacturing said foreign secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla on Thursday.

• India is also working to expedite the local production of Sputnik v vaccine.

• The union health ministry has also finalised arrangements with the Hyderabad based vaccine from biological-E to resolve 30 crore covid-19 vaccine doses.

• These would be manufactured by the company from August to December. This vaccine is now undergoing phase 3 clinical trial.

# MNREGA wage benefit

• The decision to split the MNREGA wage payments by caste categories was done on the advice of the union finance ministry.

• Government has described this step as an effort to provide the benefit of MNREGA to the most vulnerable SC/ST communities.

# Services exports

• India’s services exports grew by 6.44% in may to $17.85 billion, while services import grew just 0.3% to $10 billion as per initial estimates.

• Services trade recorded a 15.4% higher surplus year-on-year last month.

• Finance secretary Anup Wardhawan also said that PLI schemes are materialising into investments.