• The Southern Railway has bagged the number one position for cleanliness in all the 17 railway zones in the country.

• This achievement was under the category of other than Premium Category trains in the recent Trains Cleanliness Survey conducted by IRCTC on all India level.

• The survey is conducted once a year to periodically monitor the progress of ‘Swachh Rail Swachh Bharat’ mission.

• Two private companies, IRCLASS Systems and Solutions Pvt. Ltd and IPSOS Research Private Limited, were engaged to conduct the survey on behalf of IRCTC.

 

 

• Renowned Hindi writer Chitra Mudgal, Dogri writer Inderjeet Kesar, Kannada writer KG Nagarajappa and Kashmiri story writer Mushtaq Ahmad Mushtaq were among 24 writers, who were honoured with the Sahitya Akademi Award 2018.

• President of the Sahitya Akademi Chandrasekhar Kambar presented these awards at a function in New Delhi.

• The awards were given for 24 different languages.  

• The award was given to Chitra Mudgal for her book `post box no 203 Nalla Sopara`, which was based on the life of a transgender.

• Every year since its inception in 1954, the Sahitya Akademi Award prizes to the most outstanding books of literary merit published in any of the major Indian languages recognised by the Akademi.

• The awardee gets an amount of Rs.1,00,000.

• The first Awards were given in 1955.

 

• India received the Award of Excellence for ‘Best in Show’ at the recently concluded New York Times Travel Show 2019.

• It is  the largest travel show in North America, held from 25th – 27th January in New York, USA.  

• The Ministry of Tourism, Government of India participated as the ‘ Presenting Partner’ in the New York Times Travel Show (NYTTS 2019) organised at Jacob K Javits Centre, New York.

• India was honoured during the Closing Bell Ceremony at the New York Stock Exchange.