NEW DELHI
At 23 pc, India has Highest Number of TB Cases: WHO
India recorded the largest number of tuberculosis cases in the world last year. The World Health Organisation’s Global Tuberculosis Report, 2015, said that India, Indonesia and China had the largest number of TB cases with 23 per cent and 10 per cent each of the total respectively. In 2014, 1.5 million people died of the disease. Since last year, there has been a marked increase in global TB notifications, for the first time since 2007. The annual total of new TB cases rose 6 per cent to more than 6 million in 2014. This was mostly due to a 29 percent rise in notifications in India, mandatory since 2012, and the creation of a web-based reporting system in 2012 and efforts to engage the private sector. Of the 9.6 million new TB cases, 58 per cent were in the South-East Asia and Western Pacific regions.
Railways expands station-based E-catering to 1,561 Trains
The railways has extended station-based e-catering services to 1,516 trains and decided to provide the facility in 45 stations across the country. The service, christened ‘Food on Track’, can be booked online or over the phone. South Indian railway stations covered under the scheme include Secunderabad, Tirupati, Vijayawada, Chennai Central, Chennai Egmore, Ernakulam Jn, Calicut, Madurai Jn, Thrissur, Tiruvananthapuram Central, Bangalore City and Yeshwantpur. Passengers will be allowed to order food from leading private caterers to be delivered at stations. Both the advance online payment and cash on delivery options are available. E-catering business is growing at a good pace, having generated an average booking of over 400 meals in October itself.
SC Refuses to Stay Guj Municipal Corp Elections
The Supreme Court on Thursday refused to order a stay on the Gujarat civic polls and allowed the state election commission’s submission that the counting of votes for elections to six municipal corporations would take place along with that for the polls to talukas and district panchayats. It was alleged that the counting of votes from the municipal corporation polls on November 26 might influence the voters of other civic bodies going to the polls three days later. Attorney-General Mukul Rohatgi and Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta appeared for Gujarat and the poll panel respectively. The court had stayed a High Court order dismissing a plea against holding the polls under a provision which increased the number of councillors in a particular ward to four.
CBI Takes over Haryana Dalit Kids Killing Case
The CBI has registered a case of murder against 11 persons in connection with the killing of two infants of a Dalit family in an arson attack in Haryana’s Sunped village on October 20. A CBI team, headed by a DIG-level officer, reached the crime scene on Thursday and collected forensic evidence. In the wee hours of the fateful day, some members of the upper-caste Rajput community allegedly set ablaze the house of Jitender, killing his children Vaibhav, who was two-and-a-half years old, and his sister, 11-month-old Divya. While Jitender, 31, survived the attack with injuries, his wife, Rekha, is still in hospital in a critical condition. Local police had said the attack was an act of vengeance that stemmed from a year-long feud between two communities. The local police’s FIR named Sunped resident Balwant, his son Dharm Singh and nine others, all of whom have been booked under under various Sections of the Indian Penal Code.
Panel to Monitor Schemes for Tribals in Real Time
The NDA government has decided to set up National Tribal Advisory Council under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister for the real- time monitoring of various tribal development programmes in the country. This was announced by Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram while addressing a conference of senior tribal welfare officers from states here on Thursday. The minister also stressed the need for effective community participation for the success of various tribal welfare schemes. He said though there had been significant improvement in terms of infrastructure in the education sector for tribals, the quality of education had not improved in the same way. Oram said the same was true of primary healthcare for tribals as well. Referring to the problems of the sixth scheduled states of the Northeast, he said that their problems were quite different in nature and that the Centre would hold a regional conference for these states in Guwahati.
KOLKATA
CBI, ED Action Leads to ‘Exodus’ of Industrialists: Didi
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday charged the Centre with misusing the CBI and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) against film stars and industrialists, who she said were therefore leaving the country. Among the film stars the ED has interrogated over their association with the alleged chit fund scamsters are Trinamool Congress MPs Mithun Chakraborty and Tapas Pal. The ED has summoned Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan, who owns Kolkata Knight Riders, over alleged FEMA violations. He is also the brand ambassador of the state government.