Antyodaya Express

• Indian Railways introduced the first Antyodaya Express between Ernakulam and Howrah viz. 22877/22878 Ernakulam-Howrah Antyodaya Express (Weekly).
• The train service was inaugurated on 27.02.2017 by Minister of Railways through video conferencing from Rail Bhawan, New Delhi. As announced in Railway Budget 2016-17, Antyodaya Express are long-distance, fully unreserved, super fast train service, for the common man to be operated on dense routes.

Days of run:

• Ex-ERS – Tuesday
• Ex-HWH – Saturday

One way distance: 2307 Kms.

• Composition of regular service: General Coach-20, Power car-2= 22 coaches
• Primary Maintenance: Santragachi on RBPC (SER)
• Nature of Service: Antyodaya Express

PG medical seats up by 4,000

• The Health Ministry, increased the number of postgraduate (PG) medical seats in India by 4,000.
• Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda informed that 2,046 seats were increased in medical colleges.
• Union Health Minister J.P. Nadda informed that 2,046 seats were increased in medical colleges. “Considering the need for more PG seats in clinical subjects, the government had decided to amend the teacher-student ratio in clinical subjects in government medical colleges,” Mr. Nadda said in the press statement. This change alone had resulted in the creation of 1,137 extra seats in 71 colleges.
• Mr. Nadda said there had been a total addition of 4,193 PG seats in the country so far. The Budget announcement of adding 5,000 PG medical seats was likely to be achieved soon, he said.

Pakistan govt approved the merger of FATA with Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa

• Pakistan government approved the merger of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) with the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province to bring the impoverished and politically deprived tribal region at par with the rest of the country.
• The FATA is a semi-autonomous tribal region in northwest Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan. It consist of seven tribal agencies (districts) and six frontier regions, and are directly governed by Pakistan"s federal government.
• The proposed merger would be carried out over a period of five years and a 10-year development package would be introduced for all of FATA.

Andhra Pradesh plans hi-tech war on mosquitoes

A hi-tech war against mosquitoes is being proposed using optical sensors to capture their density, species and gender before moving in to exterminate them.
Three cities in Andhra Pradesh — Vijayawada, Vishakhapatnam and Tirupati — want to use modern technology to detect mosquito breeding before malaria and other vector-borne diseases such as dengue, chikungunya and zika become an epidemic.

The Andhra government has sent a "Smart Mosquito Density System" proposal to the Union urban development ministry for approval.
In this system, smart phones and web application will be used to report sprays by location. Moreover, there will be analytics to monitor the effectiveness of sprays. At present, agencies spray several pesticides simultaneously since they are not aware of the specific specie breeding at a spot.

Australian Open: Surprise upsets of week one

• Defending champion Novak Djokovic was knocked out in four hours and 48 minutes by world No 116 Denis Istomin in the second round, losing 7-6 (10-8), 5-7, 2-6, 7-6 (7-5), 6-4.
• It was the first time that Djokovic had been beaten in the second round of a Grand Slam since Wimbledon 2008.
• Andy Murray"s hopes of winning a first Australian Open title ended with a shock defeat to world number 50 Misha Zverev. Murray, the world No 1, dropped serve eight times as his German opponent won 7-5, 5-7, 6-2, 6-4 in the upset of the season.

Sudeep Lakhtakia

Retirement of superannuation of Shri K.Durga Prasad, IPS (TG:81) DG,CRPF ON 28-02- 2017, the Competent Authority in this Ministry has approved that Shri Sudeep Lakhtakia, IPS (TG:84), Additional DG, CRPF will hold the additional charge of the post of Director General, Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) .