India unanimously elected to head UNHabitat, the United Nations' Human Settlements Programme

India has been unanimously elected as the President of the UN-Habitat, an organ of the United Nations' Organisation (UNO) that promotes socially and environmentally sustainable human settlements across the world, after 10 years.
❁ Minister of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation Shri M.Venkaiah Naidu chaired the four day meeting of the 26th Governing Council of UN-Habitat in Nairobi, Kenya.
❁ Shri Naidu will preside over the deliberations of the Governing Council of UN-Habitat for the next two years.
❁ Since the UN-Habitat came into being in 1978, It is only the third time that India has been elected to lead this important organization after 2007 and 1988.

SAMPADA

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, chaired by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi has
given its approval for re-structuring the schemes of the Ministry of Food Processing Industries
(MoFPI) under new Central Sector Scheme - SAMPADA (Scheme for Agro-Marine Processing and Development of Agro-Processing Clusters) for the period 2016-20 coterminous with the 14th Finance Commission cycle.

Chenab to get tallest rail bridge

Around two years from now, the Chenab river in Jammu and Kashmir will be spanned by the world's highest railway bridge that is expected to be 35 metres taller than Paris' Eiffel Tower.
★ The massive arch-shaped structure, being constructed at a cost of around Rs.1,100 crore, will use over 24,000 tonnes of steel and will rise 359 m above the river bed. Designed to withstand wind speeds of up to 260 km per hour, the 1.315-km- long ''engineering marvel'' will connect Bakkal (Katra) and Kauri (Srinagar).
★ The bridge forms a crucial link in the 111-km stretch between Katra and Banihal, which is part of the Udhampur- Srinagar-Baramulla rail link project.

Indore emerges as the Cleanest City of India

Indore, Bhopal, Visakhapatnam, Surat, Mysuru, Tiruchirapally, NDMC, Navi Mumbai,Vadodara, Chandigarh make the Top 10. Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Jharkhand,Chattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana are the Movers and Shakers, says M.Venkaiah Naidu.
★ 12 Gujarat cities, 11 from MP, 8 from AP among the top 50 Clean Cities. Varanasi ranked 32 this year as against 418 in 2014.
★ Mysuru slipped to fifth rank this year but no decline in sanitation standards, says Minister.
★ Swachh Survekshan-2017 aimed at capturing the outcomes on ground of the ongoing efforts to make urban areas Open Defecation Free and to improve door-todoor collection, processing and disposal of Municipal Solid Waste.
★ Of the total score of 2,000, 900 marks were assigned for performance in respect of ODF and solid waste management, 600 marks for Citizen Feedbak and 500 marks for Independent Observation.