October 9: World Post Day

Every year, the World Post Day is celebrated by the United Nations on October 9. This is being celebrated on October 9 to commemorate the establishment of Universal Postal Union in October 9, 1874. The day was declared as World Post Day at the Universal Postal Union Congress held in Japan in 1969.

Highlights

The World Post Day is celebrated to create awareness of the role of posts in everyday lives of the people. More than 150 countries in the world celebrate World Post Day. India has begun the National Postal Week starting from World Post Day. The week is to be celebrated between October 9, 2020 and October 15, 2020.

UN Stamps

The United Nations is the only organization in the world which is neither a country nor a territory to issue postal stamps. The first UN Stamps were issued in 1951.

Postal System in India

The India Post that runs the postal system in India was found by Lord Clive in 1766 It works under Ministry of Communication. It is one of the widely distributed networks in the world. India Post is divided into 23 postal circles headed by Chief Post Master.

Role of posts in Indian Government Schemes

The India Posts delivers life insurance covers under Postal Life Insurance and Rural Postal Life Insurance. It provides retail services such as sale of forms and bill collection. It also acts as an agent for GoI in discharging services such as wage disbursement and old age pension payments under schemes such as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. Today this has been under taken by the India Post Payment Banks.

Universal Postal Union

India is a member of the union since 1876. It is a specialised agency of United Nations. It coordinates postal policies among member countries. The headquarters of Universal Postal Union is located in Bern, Switzerland. It was established under Treaty of Bern and was earlier known as General Postal Union. French was the sole official language of the union till 1994. English was added after 1994.

Month: Current Affairs - October, 2020