·       The Railway’s plan for developing a toy train theme-based park at Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh, is all set to take off. Work will start soon for the project that is expected to give a boost to tourism in the region close to the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China.

·       Located at an altitude of about 3,048 m and nearly 450 km from state capital Itanagar, Tawang is home to India’s largest Buddhist monastery

·       According to Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR), the park would be developed at a location about 14 km towards the Bumla pass.

·       Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu had given his nod to the project at a meeting with NFR general manager Anshul Gupta in August. 

·       With a total track length of about 2500 m, the toy train will comprise of an engine and three coaches having a capacity of 12 passengers each. The track of toy train is to be built along the periphery of the picturesque Pankang Teng Tso Lake, famously known as PTSO Lake, which is ahead on a bumpy road on a peak surrounding Tawang town.

·       Once the toy train comes in operation, it will be second of its kind in the eastern region of India after Darjeeling’s Himalayan Railway.

·       The Tawang toy train project is one of the major projects of Indian Railways in Northeast India aimed at expanding the train footprint in the region. As part of its expansion plan, the national transporter has already shortlisted seven places  in NFR zone to develop them as world-class railway stations.

·       Seven places in N-E to get world-class rly stations

·       Railways has shortlisted seven places — Naharlagun (Arunachal), Dimapur (Nagaland), Kamakhya (Assam),  Imphal (Manipur), Sairang (Mizoram), Rangpo (Sikkim) and Agartala (Tripura) — in NFR zone to develop them as world-class railway stations. 

·       Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar and Health Minister Anil Vij honoured 90 doctors above the age of 75 years by presenting them with the 'Vat Vriksha' award for their dedicated service.

·       He appreciated the title "Vat Vriksha" chosen by the Haryana Medical Council to honour the elderly doctors.

·       Khattar said that at present the number of doctors in both private and government sectors in Haryana is about 13,000-14,000, whereas according to the UNO norms, there should be one doctor per 1,000 population.

·       To meet this demand, a target has been set so that 2,500 new doctors are added each year , he added.

·       In a bid to fulfil a major poll promise, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma has rolled out an ambitious microfinance loan waiver scheme, which is likely to benefit around 24 lakh, women, across the state.

·       Sarma has announced the beginning of the Assam Micro Finance Incentive and Relief Scheme 2021 (AMFIRS) and ceremonially handed over cheques to five beneficiaries from the Sonitpur district.

·       The scheme will benefit 24 lakh women in the state, and 59,468 of them in Sonitpur district will receive a one-time incentive amounting from Rs 16,000 to Rs 25,000 each.

·       The chief minister inaugurated the first phase of the scheme for those borrowers, who have been repaying their debt regularly.

·       In the next two days, beneficiaries of eight districts -- Sonitpur, Charaideo, Sivasagar, Jorhat, Majuli, Golaghat, West Karbi Anglong, and Dima Hasao -- will be provided with their due incentives through account payee cheques.

·       The Assam Cabinet had on September 30 approved Rs 1,800 crore to waive microfinance loans availed by poor women in the first phase.

·       In the second stage, benefits of the scheme will be extended to borrowers whose payments are overdue by less than 90 days and loan accounts are not classified as non-performing assets.

·       The state government will pay the overdue amounts to borrowers in these cases. Borrowers whose accounts have become NPA will be covered in the third phase. The government will consider providing partial or full relief based on the evaluation.

·       The state government had on August 24 signed an agreement with 38 microfinance institutions and banks for a Rs 12,000-crore AMFIRS.

·       Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan has announced that the name of Minto Hall, the Old Vidhan Sabha  would be changed to Kushabhau Thakre Hall after the former BJP national president and enduring stalwart of the saffron party in MP.

·       He said the state government's 'Laadli Laxmi' scheme, which seeks to provide a host of benefits to the girl child, had begun to show results as the sex ratio in MP had improved from 912 females for every 1,000 males to 956 for every 1000 as per the national health survey report.

·       The Chouhan government had earlier changed the name of Habibganj station to Rani Kamalapati railway station and renamed Pataalpani railway station near Indore after tribal hero Tantya Bheel.

·       The former Congress chief minister Mukul Sangma was elected as the legislative party leader of the newly formed All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) in Meghalaya .

·       The meeting, which was attended by all the 12 MLAs who defected from the Congress to TMC , also elected Umroi legislator George B Lyngdoh as the Opposition chief whip and Mawsynram legislator Himalaya Shangpliang as secretary.

·       Since the merger of the breakaway faction of the Congress has been ruled as valid by Assembly Speaker Metbah Lyngdoh, the AITC is now the principal opposition party in the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly.

·       The Mughal Road in Agra city has been renamed as 'Maharaja Agrasen Road', Agra Mayor Naveen Jain said . The road has been renamed on demand of the followers of Maharaja Agrasen who live nearby the road in Kamla Nagar locality  in Agara , said Jain.

·       The name of the ‘Sultanganj Ki Pulia' was also changed to 'Vikal Chok', he said.

·       Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh have emerged as the poorest states in India, according to Niti Aayog's first Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) report.

·       As per the index, 51.91 per cent population of Bihar is poor, followed by 42.16 per cent in Jharkhand, 37.79 per cent in Uttar Pradesh. While Madhya Pradesh (36.65 per cent) has been placed fourth in the index, Meghalaya (32.67 per cent) is at the fifth spot.

·       Kerala (0.71 per cent), Goa (3.76 per cent), Sikkim (3.82 per cent), Tamil Nadu (4.89 per cent) and Punjab (5.59 per cent) have registered the lowest poverty across India and are at the bottom of the index.

·       Among union territories (UTs), Dadra and Nagar Haveli (27.36 per cent), Jammu & Kashmir, and Ladakh (12.58), Daman & Diu (6.82 per cent) and Chandigarh (5.97 per cent), emerged as the poorest UTs. Puducherry has 1.72 per cent of its population as poor, Lakshadweep (1.82 per cent ), Andaman & Nicobar Islands (4.30 per cent) and Delhi (4.79 per cent) have fared better.

·       Bihar has the highest number of malnourished people followed by Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

·       Bihar is also placed at the bottom when it comes to percentage of population deprived of maternal health, percentage of population deprived of years of schooling, school attendance and percentage of population deprived of cooking fuel and electricity.

·       Uttar Pradesh ranked the lowest in the child and adolescent mortality category, followed by Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, while Jharkhand performed the worst when it comes to percentage of population deprived of sanitation, followed by Bihar and Odisha.

·       According to the report, India's national MPI measure uses the globally accepted and robust methodology developed by the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

·       The report said India's MPI has three equally weighted dimensions, health, education and standard of living - which are represented by 12 indicators namely nutrition, child and adolescent mortality, antenatal care, years of schooling, school attendance, cooking fuel, sanitation, drinking water, electricity, housing, assets and bank accounts.

·       The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) framework, adopted by 193 countries in 2015, has redefined development policies, government priorities, and metrics for measuring development progress across the world.

·       The Union Tourism Ministry has embarked on a process to appoint a consultant for setting up of Central Program Management Unit (CPMU) for its ambitious National Mission on Pilgrimage Rejuvenation and Spiritual Augmentation Drive (PRASAD) scheme.

·       The PRASAD scheme was launched in 2015 to spruce up infrastructure or to upgrade a destination or city. This includes the improvement of all entry points such as railways stations, bus stands, or designated points for water transport and various other facilities including tourism information centres, ATM, money exchange counters, last-mile connectivity, eco-friendly modes of transport, light & sound show, parking facilities, toilets, craft bazaars, cafeteria, internet connectivity and wi-fi hotspots.

·      According to the ministry, since PRASAD's launch, it has sanctioned 37 projects in 24 states with an estimated expenditure of Rs 1,214.19 crore. Initially, the scheme entails completing the implementation development in nearly 50 destinations and 15 heritage cities.