The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has approved the National Rare Disease Policy 2021. 
It aims to increase focus on indigenous research and local production of medicines, to lower the cost of treatment of rare diseases, to screen and detect rare diseases early at early stages, which will in turn help in their prevention.

Major Provisions of the Policy:
Categorization:
The policy has categorized rare diseases in three groups:
Group 1: Disorders amenable to one-time curative treatment.
Group 2: Those requiring long term or lifelong treatment.
Group 3: Diseases for which definitive treatment is available but challenges are to make optimal patient selection for benefit, very high cost and lifelong therapy.

Financial Support: Those who are suffering from rare diseases listed under Group 1 will have the financial support of up to Rs. 20 lakh under the umbrella scheme of Rashtriya Arogya Nidhi.

TRIFED under Ministry of Tribal Affairs has now launched “Sankalp se Siddhi” – Village & Digital Connect Drive. Starting from April 1, 2021, this 100 day drive will entail 150 teams (10 in each region from TRIFED and State Implementation Agencies/Mentoring Agencies/Partners) visiting ten villages each. 100 villages in each region and 1500 villages in the country will be covered in the next 100 days. The main aim of this drive is to activate the Van Dhan Vikas Kendras in these villages.

Among all of TRIFED’s initiatives that have been put in place to help the disadvantaged tribal sections of the society, the Scheme, Mechanism for Marketing of Minor Forest Produce (MFP) Through Minimum Support Price (MSP) & Development of Value Chain for MFP’ that provides MSP to gatherers of forest produce and introduces value addition and marketing through tribal groups and clusters and Van Dhan Vikas Kendras has found widespread acceptance across the country. Especially during the pandemic in 2020, this scheme has emerged as a panacea for the tribals.

The objective of the MSP for MFP scheme is to establish a framework for ensuring fair prices for the tribal gatherers, primary processing, storage, transportation etc. while ensuring sustainability of the resource base addressing the problems tribals are facing such as perishable nature of the produce, lack of holding capacity, lack of marketing infrastructure, exploitation by middle men, and timely government intervention. Rs 200 crore Sales during the next 12 months is targeted as a result of this initiative once the VDVKs are activated in these 1500 villages. The visiting teams will also identify locations and shortlist potential VDVKs for clustering as TRIFOOD, and SFURTI units as larger enterprises.  They will also identify tribal artisans and other groups and empanel them as suppliers so that they can have access to larger markets through the Tribes India network – both physical outlets and TribesIndia.com.

According to the recent data from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), India’s Foreign Exchange (Forex) reserves declined by USD 2.986 billion to reach USD 579.285 billion in the week ended 26th March 2021.

The gold reserve component of the Forex Reserve increased whereas the other components – Special Drawing Rights (SDR), the Foreign Currency Assets (FCA) and the Reserve Position witnessed decline.

About the Foreign Exchange Reserves
Foreign exchange reserves are assets held on reserve by a central bank in foreign currencies, which can include bonds, treasury bills and other government securities.
It needs to be noted that most foreign exchange reserves are held in US dollars.

Motive behind Holding Forex Reserves: 
Supporting and maintaining confidence in the policies for monetary and exchange rate management.
Provides the capacity to intervene in support of the national or union currency.

Limits external vulnerability by maintaining foreign currency liquidity to absorb shocks during times of crisis or when access to borrowing is curtailed.

• India’s Forex Reserve include:
  Foreign Currency Assets
  Gold reserves
  Special Drawing Rights
  Reserve position with the IMF

Indian Railways on April 5, completed the Arch closure of the iconic Chenab Bridge.

Chenab Bridge, the world’s highest railway bridge (after completion), part of the Udhampur-Srinagar-Baramulla rail link project (USBRL), set an important construction milestone today with completion of the steel arch of the iconic Chenab Bridge. This was one of the most difficult part of the bridge over Chenab. This achievement is a major leap towards the completion of the 111 k.m. long winding stretch from Katra to Banihal. It is arguably the biggest civil-engineering challenge faced by any railway project in India in recent history. The 5.6-metre last piece of metal was fitted at the highest point today and joined  the two arms of the arch that currently stretch towards each other from both the banks of the river. This completed the shape of the arch that will then loom over the treacherous Chenab, flowing some 359 metres below

The UN is spearheading a global initiative on digital learning and skills for all, targeting marginalized children and youth and aiming to close the digital divide and drive rapid change in education systems. This initiative focuses on three of the five priorities of the2020 Global Education meeting Declaration : supporting teachers; investing in skills; and narrowing the digital divide.

Building on the established partnership of E9 countries allows Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan the opportunity to benefit from this global initiative and accelerate progress on digital learning and skills towards the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal 4 – Quality Education.

The inception meeting taking place on 6 April 2021 is a Consultation of Ministers of Education. It will discuss the co-creation of the Digital Learning initiative by the nine countries. This Consultation will highlight progress, share lessons and explore opportunities for collaboration and scale-up to expand digital learning and skills. In addition, a Marketplace segment, for public-private partnership will focus on promising local and global solutions and opportunities for digital learning to strengthen local ecosystems.

The meeting will feature the participation of the UN Deputy Secretary-General, UNESCO, UNICEF, Generation Unlimited, the Malala Fund, the World Bank and a number of stakeholder representatives including from the private sector partners of the Global Education Coalition.

Multinational Military Exercise SHANTIR OGROSHENA 2021 (Front Runner of Peace) commenced on 04 April 2021 at Bangabandhu Senanibas, Bangladesh to commemorate the birth centenary of Bangladesh’s ‘Father of the Nation’ Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman and mark glorious 50 years of liberation. Indian Army contingent of 30 personnel are participating along with contingent of Royal Bhutan Army, Sri Lankan Army and Bangladesh Army from 04 Apr to 12 Apr 2021.  Military observers from USA, UK, Turkey, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Singapore will also be in attendance throughout the exercise.

The aim of the exercise is to strengthen the procedures and enhance interoperability amongst neighbourhood countries to ensure robust peace keeping operations in the region. The armies of all the participating nations will share their valuable experiences and refine their drills & procedures in Peace keeping operations.

Indian Navy Ships INS Satpura (with an integral helicopter embarked) and INS Kiltan along with P8I Long Range Maritime Patrol Aircraft are participating, for the first time in multi-lateral maritime exercise La Pérouse, being conducted in the Eastern Indian Ocean Region from 05 to 07 Apr 2021.

The Indian Navy ships and aircraft will exercise at sea with ships and aircraft of French Navy (FN), Royal Australian Navy (RAN), Japan Maritime Self Defence Force (JMSDF) and United States Navy (USN) during the three day exercise at sea.

The World Cities Culture Forum is a network of local governments and cultural sector leaders from 40 world cities.

The World Cities Culture Forum was established in London in 2012 with eight cities (London, New York City, Tokyo, Shanghai, Paris, Istanbul, Sydney and Johannesburg) convened by the Mayor of London.

The WCCF enables the policy makers of member cities to share research and intelligence, while exploring the vital role of culture in prosperity. Forum members collaborate via a program of events including themed symposia, regional summits and workshops.

World Cities Culture Report: Delhi will also be part of the World Cities Culture Report – the most comprehensive global dataset on culture in cities.

It is published by the forum every three years, with data and details on innovative projects from cities across the world. The last report was published in 2018.

2021 Theme: The Future of Culture.

India has slipped 28 places to rank 140th among 156 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2021, becoming the third-worst performer in South Asia.

According to the report, India has closed 62.5% of its gender gap till date. The country had ranked 112th among 153 countries in the Global Gender Gap Index 2020.

Among India’s neighbours, Bangladesh ranked 65, Nepal 106, Pakistan 153, Afghanistan 156, Bhutan 130 and Sri Lanka 116.

For the 12th time, Iceland is the most gender-equal country in the world. The top 10 most gender-equal countries include Finland, Norway, New Zealand, Rwanda, Sweden, Ireland and Switzerland.

About the Global Gender Gap Report:

First published in 2006. It benchmarks 156 countries on their progress towards gender parity in four dimensions:

1. Economic Participation and Opportunity,
2. Educational Attainment,
3. Health and Survival and
4. Political Empowerment.

Over the Index, the highest possible score is 1 (equality) and the lowest possible score is 0 (inequality).

Election Commission of India today hosted International Virtual Election Visitors Programme (IEVP) 2021 for Election Management Bodies (EMBs) /Organisations from 26 countries  and three International Organisations during the ongoing elections for Legislative Assemblies of Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal.
IEVP 2021 provided the participants an overview of the large canvas of Indian electoral process, the new initiatives taken by ECI on voter facilitation, transparency and accessibility of electoral system etc and ECI’s response to the changing needs of training and capacity building and the new formats necessitated by COVID-19.