Actor, producer and screenwriter Salim Khan, who is also the father of superstar Salman Khan, was honoured with the Master Deenanath Mangeshkar Lifetime Award

Australia’s Claire Polosak became the first woman to officiate in a men’s one-day international in the World Cricket League Division 2 final match between Namibia and Oman in Windhoek.

The banking ombudsman received 24.9% more customer complaints in FY18 over the previous year, said the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The 21 offices of the banking ombudsman received 1,63,590 complaints in the year 2017-18 marking an increase of 24.9% over previous year.

The Supreme Court on April 29, 2019 sought a response from the Election Commission on a plea seeking abolition of a provision in election rules that provides for prosecution of an elector if a complaint alleging malfunctioning of EVMs and VVPATs turns out to be false. A three-judge bench headed by CJI Ranjan Gogoi took note of the plea, which alleged that Rule 49MA of ‘The Conduct of Elections Rules’ was unconstitutional as it criminalises reporting of malfunctioning of Electronic Voting Machines and Voter Verified Paper Audit Trails.

Indian Army signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC) to construct four underground tunnels for storage of ammunition along the China and Pakistan border. This is a pilot project and the tunnels are expected to be completed within two years. The cost of the pilot project is around Rs 15 crore. At Under the pilot project, three tunnels will be built on China border while one will be built along the Line of Control with Pakistan. The project is meant to bolster the Indian Army’s capabilities along the Chinese border where India’s infrastructural development is far outpaced by that of China. Besides strengthening the defensive capabilities, the tunnels will protect the ammunition and other stored equipment from the air-strikes and detection by the enemy satellite. present, ammunition dumps are mostly over-ground and could be targeted by the enemies and their spies.

According to Fitch Solutions Macro Research report, India is probably going to install 54.7GW of wind capacity by 2022 against the 60 GW target set by the government. This wind capacity installation is a part of India’s ambitious target of installing 175 GW of renewable energy capacity by the year 2022 which includes 100 GW from solar, 60 GW from wind, 10GW from bio-power and 5 GW from small hydro-power.

Russian state-run atomic energy corporation Rosatom has successfully tested the world’s first Floating Nuclear Power Plant (FNPP) – Akademik Lomonosov.

The Indian Council of Medical Research has launched the ‘Malaria Elimination Research Alliance (MERA) India’ to eliminate malaria from India by 2030. The initiative is a conglomeration of partners working on malaria control. The principal activity of the alliance is to prioritise, plan, conduct, scale up and translate relevant research in a coordinated and combinatorial way in order to have a tangible impact of this research on the population at risk for malaria. The MERA India does not intend to duplicate international efforts rather complement this on a national scale while contributing to the broader global agenda. The alliance will facilitate trans-institutional coordination and collaboration around a shared research agenda which responds not only to programmatic challenges and addresses gaps in available tools but also pro actively contributes to targeted research. It aims to harness and reinforce research in coordinated and combinatorial ways in order to achieve tangible impact on malaria elimination.

Puranik Yogendra (or Yogi) from Pune has become the first ethnic Indian to contest and win an election in Japan. He has been elected to Edogawa Ward assembly of Tokyo. Hence, this is the first-ever victory of a naturalized Japanese of Indian origin in elections in Japan. Yogi went to Japan to pursue higher studies in 1997 and worked with various IT companies there. He lived there for 20 years and has been the resident of Edogawa for 15 years. Puranik believes that his ties with his adopted home were strengthened after Japan went through earthquake and tsunami in 2011 and he came to know more about the country when would visit the affected area on weekends to help the people affected due to two calamities. Soon after, he obtained Japanese citizenship and came to enter politics; he was fielded by the Constitutional Democratic Party (CDP) of Japan in the recent polls.

The Defence Minister Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman is on a three days visit to Bishkek in Kyrgyzstan to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Defence Ministers’ Meet. The SCO meeting is being held in the run-up to the SCO summit, which is expected to take place in June 2019.

Spain’s ruling center-left socialist party has won the snap elections that were held on April 28, 2019. The opinion polls had predicted a victory for outgoing socialist premier Pedro Sanchez. With 99 percent of the ballots counted, the Socialists led by Prime Minister Sanchez won 29 percent of the vote, capturing 123 seats in the 350-seat Congress of Deputies.

Cyclone Fani is expected to intensify into a very severe cyclonic storm and will continue to move North West and change its path to North East. Cyclone Fani’s landfall over Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh is ruled out. However, the possibility of landfall in Odisha is under continuous watch.

BuyUcoin, second oldest Cryptocurrency Exchange in India, has introduced a new and unique platform for wholesale cryptocurrency trading. This platform works on ‘free trading model’ which means it charges zero fee on any trade. This wholesale platform also known as OTC (Over-the-counter) Desk allows users to trade on a large scale with low price fluctuations. This new platform will help to improve the problem of liquidity of cryptocurrency in Indian market. This will also help in quicker transactions, better prices and market stability.

Kazakhstan under the chairmanship of it’s Prime Minister, Askar Mamin has set up Coordinating Council for attracting foreign investments inclusive of investments from India. Under Askar Mamin, a decision was taken to lay down the functions of Investment Ombudsman in order to venture for new approaches to improve investment scenario in Kazakhstan by efficiently interacting with the investors and providing solutions to current issues.The requirement for such task is to increase the volume of investment in fixed assets in the medium term to 30% of (Gross Domestic Product) GDP of the nation and the primary driver should be foreign direct investment (FDI).The meeting chose the Astana International Financial Centre (AIFC) as a Unified Centre for the coordination of work on investment and promotion (Regional Investment Hub).

Indonesia in a landmark step on April 23, 2019 released a special stamp on the theme of Ramayana for the first time underlining strong centuries old cultural bonds. The stamp, designed by renowned Indonesian sculptor Padmashri Bapak Nyoman Nuarta, features a scene from Ramayana in which Jatayu valiantly fought to save Devi Sita symbolising the resolve of two peoples in the face of adversity.

The researchers have finally detected the most ancient type of molecule in our universe in space for the first time ever. They used NASA’s Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) to detect helium hydride in a planetary nebula NGC 7027 about 3,000 light-years away from Earth. Helium hydride ion (HeH+) was the first molecule that formed when, almost 14 billion years ago, falling temperatures in the young universe allowed recombination of the light elements produced in the Big Bang. At that time, ionised hydrogen and neutral helium atoms reacted to form HeH+. Despite its importance in the history of the early Universe, HeH+ has so far escaped detection in astrophysical nebulae — cloud of gas and dust in outer space. Hence, the detection of this special molecule brings a long search to a happy ending, and eliminates doubts about understanding of the underlying formation and destruction of the early universe. SOFIA is the joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) to construct and maintain an airborne observatory. Being the world’s largest airborne astronomical observatory, the telescope has the ability to produce a higher resolution image, three times higher in quality than those captured by other observatories.

 Ministry of Finance has approved 8.65% interest rate on Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) for 2018-19 as proposed by Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO).