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- The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has unveiled the National Family Health Survey-4 for 2015-16. The survey showed positive trends in key health indicators, including an decline in infant mortality rate and improvement in sex ratio at birth during 2015-16.
- The Union Government has signed a Financing Agreement with the World Bank for IDA credit of $63 million for the Tejaswini Socio-Economic Empowerment of Adolescent Girls and Young Women (AGYW) Project. It is the World Bank’s first project in India solely focused on the welfare of adolescent girls and young women aged between 14 and 24 to complete their secondary level education and provide relevant skills for employment.
- The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) cut its growth projection for India in 2016-17 to 7% from the 7.4% it had projected last year. The OECD, in its Economic Survey of India 2017 report, forecast a growth rate of 7.3% for 2017-18 and 7.7% for 2018-19.
- The armies of India and Oman are scheduled to conduct their second bilateral exercise, Al Nagah-II 2017, in March with a focus on counter-terrorism.
- The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has entered into 10 Advance Pricing Agreements pertaining to various sectors of economy like Telecom, Banking & Finance, Pharmaceutical, Steel, Retail and IT etc. These include 7 unilateral agreements and 2 bilateral agreements with the United Kingdom and Japan.
- The Union Government has shifted the responsibility of promoting digital transactions in the country to the Union Ministry of IT and Electronics (MEITY) from the NITI (National Institution for Transforming India) Aayog. In this regard, the Government already has changed the business transaction rules to enable MEITY to promote digital transactions, including digital payments.
- The fourth edition of India – CLMV (Cambodia, Laos PDR, Myanmar and Vietnam) Business Conclave was held in Jaipur, Rajasthan.
- The World Health Organisation (WHO) has urged governments, scientists and pharmaceutical companies to develop new drugs to tackle 12 antibiotic-resistant super-germs threatening an explosion of incurable diseases. This is for the first time that the WHO has published a list of bacteria threatening to turn once easily-treatable infections into incurable diseases, and has called them ‘priority pathogens’. These 12 germs cause ailments including blood, lung, brain, and urinary tract infections, food poisoning from salmonella and gonorrhoea.
- A meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping could be held as early as May.
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