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National News
Anti-hijacking bill providing for death penalty
- Anti-Hijacking Bill that award death penalty to the criminals in case of death of hostages or security personnel
- Initially Life imprisonment or confiscation of Movable and immovable property as punishment to the Accused
“Agri Business Policy 2016” announced in Gujarat
- in order to promote food processing and agriculture waste management during the festival of 2016 Krishi Mahotsav
- Aims:
- Promoting Food Processing Industry
- Applying new technique to convert agriculture waste into valuable products
- Developing the entire value of chain of exporting locally grown farm produces
Panel to frame policy for taxi operators
- Three-member committee to frame a policy framework for taxi aggregators and other transport operators.
Infosys Foundation signs pact with IISER
- to pursue ‘high quality’ education for economically weaker section students.
- MoU aims to provide high quality science education and research through scholarships, fellowships and travel awards also creating equal opportunities for students from poorer background and advancing the quality of research done at Indian institutions.
- corpus fund of Rs 5 crore named as The Infosys Foundation Endowment Fund that will continue in perpetuity to benefit a minimum of 50 students annually
Ayush to sign pact with WHO
- To spread the importance of Ayurveda and Ayush across the world.
- Agreement will take place in the US in the presence of Prime Minister Modi.
- On behalf of this India and the US will sign an agreement in the next two months to carry out a research on cancer.
‘Chakravyuh-II’ training exercise in Rajasthan by Indian Army
- to validate battle readiness and operational effectiveness of the Pivot Formation and Rapid Division
- Army’s follow up mission with the Air Force to its recently-concluded month-long Exercise Shatrujeet by the Strike Corps (Strike One)
- Intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and communication systems were put to test in a network-centric battlefield environment supported by required operational logistics.
Annual core sector growth at decade low
- India’s annual core sector growth has slowed to a decade low of 2.7% in 2015-16, slower than the 4.5% pace in the previous financial year.
- The eight core industries account for 38% of India’s industrial output.
- Growth was pulled down mainly by steel and crude oil, both of which saw output contracting by 1.4% and natural gas that dropped 4.2%.
International
New restrictions on Syrian antiquities
- United States President Barack Obama signed into a law regarding new import restrictions on Syrian cultural artifacts
- Prevent cultural artifacts removed from Syria from being sold or imported into the U.S.
- Islamic State and other militants have made millions of dollars by selling unique artifacts on the black market,
Details of Panama Papers released online
- published online detailed data that covers nearly 40 years, from 1977 through the end of 2015 from the Panama Papers trove
- database built on just a portion of a total cache of 5 million documents, leaked from the Panama law firm Mossack Fonseca
- Reveals more than 360,000 names of individuals and companies behind the anonymous shell firms.
Airport Show opens in Dubai
- participation of more than 300 companies from 55 countries including India is on the go in Dubai from May 9 to 11
- Germany will be the biggest in terms of exhibitors with largest participation with more than 40 exhibitors in the showcase
UN launches trust fund for C’bean Zika virus response
- Zika Response Multi-Partner Trust Fund (MPTF) to finance critical unfunded priorities in the response to the outbreak of the mosquito borne virus in Latin America and the Caribbean.
- Fund aims to provide a rapid, flexible and accountable platform to support a coordinated response from the UN system and partners.
- Donors will contribute to a central point, and an Advisory Committee will direct funds to the highest-priority activities in the affected countries.
Business and Economy
Draft norms for universal bank licenses on tap
- Allowing individuals with 10 years of experience in banking and finance to apply for a license
- Initial minimum paid-up voting equity capital required is 500 crore, and thereafter the bank should maintain a minimum net worth of Rs.500 crore at all times.
- Applications will be screened by the RBI to assess the eligibility of applicants with regard to the criteria laid down in the guidelines.
Quikr acquires beauty services provider Salosa
- Quikr India has acquired on-demand beauty service provider Salosa, owned by Beawel Tech Pvt
- Will help to strengthen the home services segment.
- The company has 250,000 service providers who offer more than 80 services for consumers and has about 100,000 daily customers.
- Beauty services market is close to $5 billion in India and growing
People in News
ICICI Prudential appoints Sankaran Naren as executive director
- Prior to the new appointment currently his role as the CIO who oversees the investment functions across the mutual fund
Mrugank Paranjape takes charge as MCX MD & CEO
- Exchange has been headless for the past two years.
- Singhal has been re-designated as the President and Whole Time Director with effect from April this year.
Shashank Manohar Resigns as BCCI President
- Manohar has left the office as he believes recommendations made by RM Lodha panel are impossible to implement.
- The election process will be overseen by the ICC’s independent Audit Committee Chairman and all present and past ICC directors will be eligible to contest the election.
Tollywood superstar Mahesh Babu adopts AP village
- Mahesh Babu has adopted a village in Andhra Pradesh’s Guntur district village Burripalem under the Smart Village-Smart Ward program.
- Financial grant of Rs 2.14 crore used for the construction of an Anganwadi building, a community hall, additional classrooms in the local school, laying of water pipelines, development of roads and drains in the village.
- Smart Village-Smart Ward initiative of Andhra Pradesh aims for inclusive growth of villages with mutual cooperation between villagers and corporate.
US actor William Schallert passes away
- Former SAG president William Schallert, best known as TV dad Martin Lane on The Patty Duke Show has died at the age of 93
- Served as President of the Screen Actors Guild from 1979 to 1981.
Science and Technology
ISRO sets up nozzle testing labs
- Nozzle Testing laboratories (NTL) are at Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre in Thiruvananthapuram.
- First of its kind also intended towards carrying out advanced R&D in the area of rocket nozzle to cater to a wide range of studies
- Studies related to nozzles such as contour optimization for large AR (Area Ratio) nozzles, flow separation, techniques for flow separation control, nozzle wall heat transfer.
World’s first holographic flexible smartphone developed
- World’s first holographic flexible smartphone called the HoloFlex
- let’s users interact with 3D videos and images without any headgear or glasses
- Can be used for holographic gaming. Allows users to bend the side of the display to pull the elastic rubber band.
Baby born in U.K. through new DNA method
- UK’s first baby resulting from an embryo that was screened using next-generation DNA sequencing has been born in Oxford.
- Method uses a revolutionary IVF technique.
Environment and Ecology
Royal Botanic Garden, Kew Report makes new tally for number of World’s Plants
- Researchers have estimated that 390,900 plants are known.
- First Global assessment of the world’s flora and carried out by the Royal Botanic Garden, Kew.
- 2,034 new species of plant were discovered in the year 2015
Fossils of first plant-eating marine reptile found
- World’s first plant-eating marine reptile named Atopodentatus found
- reptile that lived 242 million years ago in what is found in southern China,
- The fossil, discovered in 2014, has a poorly preserved head, but it seemed to have a flamingo-like beak
Awards
MP Tourism wins ‘Best Indian Destination for Wildlife’ award
- Madhya Pradesh has 25 wild life sanctuaries including nine National Parks.
- State government launched number of programs for the conservation of flora and fauna because of which Kanha and Pench were regarded as the most beautiful national parks in Asia.
Gorakhpur scientist bags SGD 3mn grant from Singapore’s NRF
- Manvendra K Singh, among the seven young scientists from across the world to be endowed with the Singapore NRF fellowship
- To research in congenital and adult cardiovascular diseases.