By: D.K Choudhary
Suresh Prabhu flagged off the first Antyodaya clan of trains
Minister of Railways Shri Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu flagged off the fourth Humsafar clan of trains and first Antyodaya clan of trains through video conferencing from Rail Bhawan on February 27, 2017
1.Sri Ganganagar – Tiruchirappalli Humsafar Express (Weekly) (via Krishnarajapuram, Pune, Ahmedabad)
2.Ernakulam – Howrah Antyodaya Express (Weekly) (via Salem, Katpadi, Visakhapatnam)
He also launched the New Catering Policy 2017:
New partnership in Parcel Business with Department of Post and New Catering Policy 2017.
i. The new policy will replace the seven year old policy and has separated food production and food distribution. The policy has been finalised after consultation with all stakeholders.
ii. The onboard catering responsibility has been given to the IRCTC for majority of trains, including all the new ones, while the food will be prepared at state-of-the-art base kitchens.
iii. Railway catering policy-2017 also empowers the IRCTC to fix menu and tariff in consultation with Railway Board.
iv. Stringent guidelines have been incorporated in the policy to set up base kitchens at major junctions and also to restrict IRCTC from outsourcing private licensees outright.
v. According to the new policy 33 percent sub-quota would be provided for women in allotment of stalls at all stations to achieve the social objective.
vi. The new policy envisages that tenure of stalls shall be of five years only. The new policy also encourages e-catering system.
India & Ukraine to strengthen bilateral cooperation through Cinema
i. Minister for Information & Broadcasting M Venkaiah Naidu and Member of the Parliament of Ukraine and Chairman of the National Council of Television and Radio Broadcasting of Ukraine Mr. Iurii Artemenko have agreed to strengthen the bilateral cooperation between the two countries through the medium of Cinema in New Delhi on February 27, 2017
ii. The cooperation would be helpful to showcase films through the medium of Film Festivals and utilizing the Film Facilitation Office platform established by India.
iii. The possibility of translating programs and content and providing subtitles in respective 
languages of both the countries was also discussed with respect to the Public Broadcasters of both the countries.
Ukraine:
♦ Capital: Kiev
♦ Currency: Ukrainian hryvnia
♦ President: Petro Poroshenko
Goa ranks first in having lesser infant mortality rate
i. According to the recent data, infant mortality rate in the country has been registered at 42 deaths of kids per 1000 births while Puducherry was having 11 deaths of children per 1000 babies born said by Director of Health and Family Welfare Services K V Raman on February 27, 2017.
ii. Top 3 states : Goa ranked first, followed by Kerala and Puducherry
iii. Puducherry government hospitals had necessary infrastructures to address the health issues of young children including cardiac surgeries.
iv. The that Union Territory is operating a Medical Relief Society through which assistance was also available to patients to get specialist treatment for critical ailments.
Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) :
♦ The infant mortality rate (IMR) is the number of deaths of infants under one year old per 1,000 live births. This rate is often used as an indicator of the level of health in a country.
Haryana Launches Online Sex Ratio Monitoring System For Panipat
i. The state government of Haryana has set up an online system called the Sex Ratio Monitoring Dashboard to monitor the sex-ratio in Panipat district as part of the ‘Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao’ programme.
ii. The system will have the data of child sex-ratio collected from all villages by the Health 
and Women and Child Welfare Departments every month.
iii .It will also include the data about the critical villages where more attention was required regarding child sex-ratio and important steps needed to be taken to tackle the problem.
iv. The dashboard had been developed in association with National Informatics Centre (NIC) as a pilot project. It would act as an effective tool for better coordination between the Health Department and the Women and Child Welfare Departments.
Haryana
Haryana is bordered by Punjab and Himachal Pradesh to the north, Rajasthan to the west and south. The river Yamuna defines its eastern border with Uttar Pradesh. Haryana surrounds the country’s capital Delhi on three sides, forming the northern, western and southern borders of Delhi.
♦ Governor: Kaptan Singh Solanki ♦ Capital: Chandigarh
♦ Chief Minister: Manohar Lal Khattar ♦ Largest city: Faridabad
