TVS Motor Company has bagged the International Sustainability Award-'Green Era Award for Sustainability' in Lisbon, Portugal, and has bagged this award for the second time.

The company also won the 'Quality and Business Excellence Award' in acknowledgment of its endeavor to create new benchmarks in product quality. 

The 'Green Era Award for Sustainability' was set up to recognize the true global exemplars who have been innovative and creative in pursuing the sustainable imperative.

TVS Motor company bagged the award because of its sincere commitment towards being a responsible manufacturer.

Important points

TVS Motor Company

Headquarters - Chennai

Director & CEO - K.N. Radhakrishnan

The National Annual Rural Sanitation Survey (NARSS) has found that 96.5% of Indian rural households have access to toilets.

The NARSS survey was conducted by an Independent Verification Agency under the World Bank support project to the Swachh Bharat Mission (Grameen).

The survey was conducted between November 2018 and February 2019 and covered over 92 thousand households in over six thousand villages across States and Union Territories.

The survey also re-confirmed the Open Defecation Free (ODF) status of 90.7% of villages which previously declared and verified as ODF by various districts and states.

Since the launch of Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) programme, over 9 crore toilets have been built across rural India and over 5.5 lakh villages and 615 districts have been declared ODF, along with 30 ODF States and Union Territories.

The world will provide a $250 million loan for the National Rural Economic Transformation Project to boost Rural Incomes across 13 states in India.

The loan aims to help women in rural households develop viable enterprises for farm and non-farm products.

The agreement was signed between the World Bank and the Government of India.

The National Rural Livelihoods Project (NRLP), which is currently being implemented across 113 states, 162 districts, and 575 blocks, has so far mobilized more than 8.8 million women from poor rural households into 7.5 lakh self-help groups (SHGs).

 Important points

World Bank

Headquarters - Washington, D.C., US

State Bank of India and Hitachi Payment Services Pvt. Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Hitachi Ltd. launched their merchant-acquiring joint venture, SBI Payment Services Pvt Ltd (SBIPSPL), for establishing a digital payments platform for India and other countries in the region, in Mumbai.

It will facilitate the expansion of the digital payments landscape in India via its digital payments platform and offer innovative products to suit the requirements of all segments of merchants by leveraging the brand value and vast distribution network of SBI and bring Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other technological capabilities of Hitachi to SBI Payment Services.

About SBI

Tagline - With you all the way

Headquarters - Mumbai

Founded - 1 July 1955

Chairperson - Rajnish Kumar

SWAGAT- the Automatic Fare Collecting Gating System launched by  Prime Minister Narendra Modi while inaugurating Phase I of the Ahmedabad Metro train service.

Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL), a defense public sector undertaking, presented SWAGAT- the Automatic Fare Collecting Gating System.

It is an initiative by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) in collaboration with BEL and Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) with the support of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) and State Bank of India (SBI).

President Ram Nath Kovind has presented Swachh Survekhshan-2019 Awards in New Delhi.

Indore bagged the award for the cleanest city for third straight year in Swachh Survekshan.

New Delhi Municipal Council area gests cleanest small city award while Uttarakhand's Gauchar was abjudged Best Ganga Town in the survey.

Top-ranked cities received a status of Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi as the award for their work towards cleanliness.

Swachh Survekshan 2019 covered all Urban Local Bodies in the country, making it the largest such cleanliness survey in the world.

Janaushadhi Diwas is celebrated on 7th March across the country.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed five thousand Janaushadhi stores across the country through video-conferencing on the occasion.

Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilizers, Mansukh Mandaviya stated the Janaushadhi Kendras are providing quality medicine at the affordable price and government's aim is to open Janaushadhi Kendras at block level by 2020.

Japanese architect Arata Isozaki has been honored with Pritzker Architecture Prize 2019.

He has been named 2019's Pritzker laureate, known internationally as architecture's highest honor, due to his original and "visionary" approach.

He is the 8th Japanese and 46th Pritzker laureate to be honored with this award.

Isozaki will be awarded the prize of $100,000 in May 2019 at a ceremony at the Chateau de Versailes in France.

The unemployment rate in India rose to 7.2% in February 2019, the highest since September 2016, and up from 5.9% in February 2018, according to data compiled by the Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE).

The number of employed persons in India was estimated at 400 million in February 2019 compared with 406 million last year.

The decision to provide a loan of Rs.2200 crores ($328-million) to Andhra Pradesh for implementation of the AP Health Systems Strengthening Project (APHSSP).

The loan agreement was signed between the Government of India, Government of Andhra Pradesh and the World Bank

The project aims to improve the quality of healthcare, availability, and accessibility of primary health services to the majority population of the state.

About World Bank

Headquarters - Washington, D.C., US

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