Union Health Ministry launches India’s first suicide prevention policy

Union Health Ministry launches India’s first suicide prevention policy

• The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Monday announced a National Suicide Prevention Strategy, the first of its kind in the country, with time bound action plans and multi sectoral collaborations to achieve reduction in suicide mortality by 10% by2030.
• The strategy broadly seeks to establish effective surveillance mechanisms for suicide within the next three years, establish psychiatric outpatient departments that will provide suicide prevention services through the District Mental Health Programme in all districts within the next five years, and to integrate a mental wellbeing curriculum in all educational institutions within the next eight years. 
• It envisages developing guidelines for responsible media reporting of suicides, and restricting access to means of suicide.The stress is on developing community resilience and societal support for suicide prevention. 
• In India, more than one lakh lives are lost every year to suicide. In the past three years, the suicide rate has increased from 10.2 to 11.3per 1, 00,000 population, the document records. The most common reasons for suicide include family problems and illnesses, which account for 34% and 18% of all suicide related deaths.

Shahjahanpur District of UP Amongst Top Ranked District on the Jal Jeevan Mission

• Shahjahanpur has become number one in the country in giving maximum number of tap connections in a month. Under the Jal Jeevan Mission, Shahjahanpur has created history in providing tap connections to every household in rural areas.
• According to the data given on the website of Jal Jeevan Mission, Bulandshahr, Bareilly, Mirzapur have also got a place in this survey. This achievement is being considered as a big leap in the matter of rural drinking water supply. In this survey, districts are selected across the country on the basis of the progress of the scheme.
• In Jal Jeevan Survekshan-2023, districts across the country are selected in 5 categories. In four categories, the districts with 100 percent tap connections in a month as front runners, the districts with 75 to 100 percent tap connections as high achievers, the achiever’s category, the districts providing 50 to 75 percent tap connections as performers. And districts with 0 to 25 percent tap water are included in the aspirant category.

Retired IAS Arun Goel appointed as Election Commissioner of India

• President Droupadi Murmu has appointed retired IAS Arun Goel as the Election Commissioner in the Election Commission with effect from the date he assumes the office. 
• A Punjab cadre officer of the 1985 batch, Goel will join Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar and Election Commissioner Anup Chandra Pandey in the poll panel. 
• Till recently, Mr Goel was the heavy industries secretary and has also served in the Union Culture ministry. He was to retire on December 31, 2022, but his voluntary retirement came into effect on November 18.
• Former Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra had retired in May this year, handing charge to Rajiv Kumar. The poll panel has been a two-member body since and had to handle several crucial issues including the demands for disqualification of Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren. The poll panel will have its full strength when it decides the election schedule for Nagaland, Meghalaya, Tripura and Karnataka in the coming months.

Khalid Jawed’s wins the 2022 JCB Prize for Literature

• Author Khalid Jawed’s “The Paradise of Food”, translated by Baran Farooqi from Urdu, won the fifth JCB Prize for Literature. The book, originally published as “Ne’matKhana” in 2014, is the fourth translation to win the award and the first work in Urdu. 
• “The Paradise of Food” tells the story of a middle-class joint Muslim family over a span of fifty years where the narrator struggles to find a place for himself, at odds in his home and the world outside.
• The award was instituted by the JCB Literature Foundation, a not-for-profit company, in 2018 to promote the art of literature in India.

MoS for Education Subhash Sarkar Confers National Swachh Vidyalaya Puraskar 2021-22

• Thirty-nine schools from across the country have been awarded the Swachh Vidyalaya Puraskar for the 2021-22 academic session. Minister of State for Education Dr Subhash Sarkar conferred National Swachh Vidyalaya Puraskar 2021-22 in New-Delhi.
• The schools selected from among the total 8.23 lakh entries are 28 government and aided while 11 are private schools.  A total of 39 schools have been selected for the national award including 34 in the overall category and five in sub-categories by the national selection committee.
• The Swachh Vidyalaya Puraskar has been instituted by Ministry of Education to recognize, inspire and celebrate excellence in sanitation and hygiene practice in schools. 
• The purpose of the SVP is to honor schools that have undertaken significant steps towards fulfilling the mandate of the Swachh Vidyalaya Campaign.