1) Jhargram becomes 22nd Bengal district
•Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee declared Jhargram as the 22nd district of West Bengal.
•Jhargram has been formed by bifurcating West Midnapore, which has a population of more than 11.37 lakh. R. Arjun has been appointed the district magistrate while Abhisek Gupta has been made the police superintendent. Mamta Banerjee announced a budget of Rs 200 crore for the development of Jhargram.
2) BS-IV Grade Fuel launched by Central Government after BS-III ban
•Dharmendra Pradhan, Minister of State (I/C) for Petroleum and Natural Gas officially launched the low emission Bharat stage (BS)-IV Grade fuel in Bhubaneswar.
•The launch was made on the special occasion of Utkal Diwas which is the foundation day of Odisha. Bharat stage (BS)-IV Grade fuel was introduced after BS-III compatible vehicles sales and registration were banned by Central government from April 1, 2017.
•The launch was made in 12 cities of India. They were Varanasi, Vijayawada, Durgapur, Gorakhpur, Imphal, Bhopal, Ranchi, Madurai, Nagpur, Patna, Guwahati and Shillong.
3) Rs 40,000 crore expressway project in northeast announced
•The first express highway project in the northeast region will be developed along the Brahmaputra river in Assam at an estimated investment of Rs 40,000 crore inaugurated by Union Road Minister Nitin Gadkari.
•The agreement was signed among the Assam government, the National Highways Authority of India and the Inland Waterways of India.
4) SASEC's Finance Ministers Meeting held in New Delhi
•Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley chaired the South Asia Subregional Economic Cooperation (SASEC) Finance Ministers meeting in New Delhi.
•It was attended by the seven Finance Ministers from Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal and Sri Lanka and the Asian Development Bank as a supporting SASEC in this endeavor.
•As a part of the SASEC initiative, the member countries have come up with SASEC Vision for the economic growth of the sub-region, which was launched by Arun Jaitley during the meeting. Myanmar has joined the SASEC program as its seventh member.
5) ICICI, Axis Bank sell Rs 1800 crore Ballarpur loans to Edelweiss
•ICICI Bank and Axis Bank sold Rs.1,800 crore of loans to paper maker Ballarpur Industries Ltd to Edelweiss Asset Reconstruction Company.
•Bankers stated that this is possibly the first instance of a potential bad loan being sold off. It’s also the first time that loans have been sold to an asset reconstruction firm. Axis Bank sold loans of Rs.1,200 crore and ICICI Bank sold loans of Rs.600 crore.
6) India ranks 3rd for third year in a row in WADA doping charts
•India has been ranked third for the third year in a row in a doping violation report published by World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) for 2015 with 117 athletes from the country being punished after testing positive for banned substances.
•India followed Russian Federation (176 athletes) and Italy (129 athletes) at the third spot in the doping violation chart released by the WADA, the same position as in the reports of 2013 and 2014.
•This is the first set of Anti-Doping Rule Violation statistics under the revised WADA Code and third such report in its history since 2013.
