Source: Cick Here

• Convicted of breaking Myanmar’s Official Secrets Act, Reuters journalists Wa Lone, 33, and Kyaw Soe Oo, 29, had spent more than 500 days in jail when they were freed.


• They had been convicted in September and sentenced to seven years in jail, in a case that raised questions about Myanmar’s progress toward democracy and sparked an outcry from diplomats and human rights advocates.


• President Win Myint has pardoned thousands of prisoners in amnesties since last month. It is customary in Myanmar for authorities to free prisoners across the country around the time of the traditional New Year, which began on [latex]17^{th}[/latex] April.

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• Hundreds of former federal prosecutors (439 on Monday evening) – Democrats and Republicans - have signed a statement countering Attorney General William Barr’s testimony to the U.S. Senate last week that there was not sufficient evidence to say U.S. President Donald Trump had obstructed justice with regard to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into Russian meddling in the U.S. 2016 presidential elections.


• The former prosecutors’ statement says that each of the signatories believes that without his Presidential office protecting him Mr. Trump would have faced “multiple felony charges for the obstruction of justice.” It is Department of Justice practice not to indict a sitting president.


• “The Mueller report describes several acts that satisfy all of the elements for an obstruction charge: conduct that obstructed or attempted to obstruct the truth-finding process, as to which the evidence of corrupt intent and connection to pending proceedings is overwhelming”.

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• Turkish authorities scrapped the result of a vote for Istanbul mayor lost by President Tayyip Erdogan`s candidate, responding to calls by his AK Party for a re-run, in a move that hit the lira and drew opposition accusations of "dictatorship."


• The High Election Board ruled that a fresh Istanbul mayoral contest will be held on June 23. The AK Party representative on the board, Recep Ozel, said the decision was based on unsigned results documents from the [latex]31^{st}[/latex] March election and on some ballot box officials not being civil servants.


• Turkey`s main opposition Republican People`s Party (CHP), which narrowly won the mayor`s office in the country`s largest city, called the ruling a "plain dictatorship."

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• The Chinese troll 'army' suddenly struck one evening, bombarding the Facebook pages of two pro-Uighur groups with an array of verbal grenades and offensive images.


• The social media onslaught was the handiwork of the self-styled Diba Central Army, a Chinese patriotic group that has targeted other pages in the past to defend Beijing.

Source: Cick Here

• India and the United States have agreed to strengthen economic co-operation and bilateral trade by ensuring greater collaboration amongst stakeholders, including government, businesses and entrepreneurs.


• A bilateral trade meeting was held between the two countries in New Delhi. Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu and US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross co-chaired the meeting.


• An official release said, both leaders appreciated the strong, robust and growing bilateral ties across the entire spectrum of trade and commerce.


• Both sides also expressed satisfaction over last year's progress, with bilateral trade in Goods and Services registering a growth of 12.6 per cent.

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• Maharashtra government has declared Rs 10 crore aid for Odisha aftermath cyclonic storm Fani leaving a catastrophic effect in the state.


• Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on [latex]6^{th}[/latex] May, 2019 said that his government will contribute Rs 10 crore to Odisha for relief and rehabilitation measures in different parts of Odisha affected by the cyclone storm.


• The Odisha government has mounted massive restoration work across 10,000 villages and 52 urban areas ravaged by the storm, affecting nearly one crore people.


• The cyclone struck Odisha on May 3, unleashing heavy rain and winds of up to 175 kmph.

Source: Cick Here

• Central Board of Secondary Education, CBSE has announced the results for Class 10 examinations Of the 17.6 lakh students who appeared in CBSE's Class 10 examination, 91.1 per cent have passed.


• 13 students share the top position with 499 out of 500 marks. Girls have done better than boys by 2.31 per cent.


• Trivandrum has performed the best region wise with 99.85 pass percentage, followed by Chennai and Ajmer.


• The CBSE will be providing Class X digital academic documents such as mark sheets, migration certificate and pass certificate through its academic repository ‘Parinam Manjusha’, which is integrated with DigiLocker.

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• Even as the fifth phase of the Lok Sabha elections was underway, a controversy of sorts erupted when 2 balloting units, a control unit and 2 VVPAT machines were found from a hotel in Bihar’s Muzaffarpur. Voting was held in Muzaffarpur on [latex]6^{th}[/latex] May.


• District Magistrate Alok Ranjan Ghosh said that the machines recovered from the hotel were reserved machines that were to be used in case any faulty machines needed to be replaced.


• “Sector officer was given some reserved machines so that it could be replaced with faulty ones. After replacing EVMs he was left with 2 balloting unit, 1 control unit and 2 VVPAT in his car”.

Source: Cick Here

• The US said it cannot ensure the sale of its crude oil to India at concessional rates to make up for the cheaper Iranian oil going out of the market.


• "Oil is owned by private people, so the government cannot force people to make concessionary price," US Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who is here to participate in a trade forum.


• India this month stopped importing crude oil from Iran following the US move to end sanction waivers.


• Iranian oil was a lucrative buy for Indian refiners as the Persian Gulf nation provides 60 days of credit for purchases, terms not available from suppliers of substitute crudes Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Nigeria, and the US.

Source: Cick Here

• The Supreme Court dismissed a review petition filed by 21 opposition parties seeking verification of 50 per cent EVMs and VVPAT machines during counting of Lok Sabha election votes scheduled for May 23.


• In the hearing that lasted barely a minute, Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said, “We will not review our order.”


• Citing issues with electronic voting machines (EVM) in the first few phases of polling for the Lok Sabha election, 21 opposition parties had filed a review petition in the Supreme Court demanding verification of 50% EVMs using voter-verified paper audit trail (VVPAT) slips.


• The petition claimed that after the first phase of polling, in many cases, EVMs were found to be defective and faulty. “It has been reported that in some cases where voters would vote for one party, EVMs would record their vote having been cast for another party”.

Source: Cick Here

• In addition to ₹381 crore released last week, PM Narendra Modi announced additional ₹1,000 crore assistance for cyclone Fani hit Odisha.


• The PM further praised state CM Naveen Patnaik for handling the state's situation during the cyclone. PM Modi also announced ₹2 lakh ex-gratia each for the kin of dead in the cyclone and ₹50,000 for the injured.

Source: Cick Here

• External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi will attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Council of Foreign Ministers in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, later this month, for the first time since a proposed meeting between them in New York last September was cancelled.


• The two-day meeting, concluding on [latex]22^{nd}[/latex] May, a day ahead of the announcement of the Lok Sabha election result, assumes significance ahead of the planned heads of government meeting, also in Bishkek on June 14 and 15.


• This meeting is expected to be attended by the newly appointed Prime Minister and his Pakistani counterpart, Imran Khan.

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• Private sector lender ICICI Bank reported a 5% decline in standalone net profit to ₹969 crore during the fourth quarter of 2018-19, compared to ₹1,020 crore during the same period of the previous year.


• The profit for Q4 of FY18 was boosted by a one-time gain of around ₹3,300 crore from stake sale in ICICI Securities, one of its subsidiaries.


• This apart, rise in expenses also impacted the bottom line in Q4, which rose 18% to ₹14,680 crore.

Source: Cick Here

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has increased the eligibility cap on home loans extended by regional rural banks and small finance banks to Rs. 35 lakh in metropolitan areas and Rs. 25 lakh in other centres, provided the overall cost of the dwelling unit in the metropolitan centres and other centres does not exceed Rs. 45 lakh and Rs. 30 lakh.


• All such loans will be now classified by these banks as priority sector loans.


• Existing family income limit of Rs. 2 lakh per annum to be eligible for loans for housing projects exclusively for construction of houses for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) and Low Income Groups (LIG), is revised to Rs. 3 lakh per annum for EWS and Rs. 6 lakh per annum for LIG, in alignment with the income criteria specified under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana.

Source: Cick Here

• The board of HDFC Bank – country’s most valued private lender by market value – will consider a proposal to split the face value of its shares on [latex]22^{th}[/latex] May, a move that will increase liquidity.


• The bank intends to cut the face value of its stock from Rs 2 to Rs 1 a piece. Stock splits are generally done when the denomination of the share price rises. A stock split helps the share price to come down, which could increase its popularity among retail investors.


• Market participants perceive lower denomination of a stock as a cheaper one. Shares of HDFC Bank rallied 17 per cent in the last one year to close at Rs 2328.40.

Source: Cick Here

• Anmol Jain and Esha Singh won the mixed air pistol team bronze medal in the Grand Prix of Liberation international shooting competition.


• The India-A team, which topped qualification with 776 out of 800, lost the race for better medals by 2.5 points to the Austrian and Italian teams.


• The other Indian team of Deepak Sharma and Annu Raj Singh also made the final, shot in the old format with the top five teams, but ended up fifth.


• Former world champion in women’s rifle prone event, Tejaswini Sawant shot 617.1 and placed 26th.

Source: Cick Here

• Former world number one Roger Federer has returned to third in the ATP Men's rankings released today, replacing Alexander Zverev after the reigning champion was knocked out of the Munich Open at the quarter-finals stage.


• Federer, who has won a record 20 Grand Slams, is making his return to clay at the Madrid Open this week after three years' absence.


• Novak Djokovic remains first ahead of Rafael Nadal to mark the Serb's 250th week as world number one, a record only bettered on four occasions in the past.


• Japan's Naomi Osaka remained at top of WTA Women's rankings, ahead of Czech Petra Kvitova and Romanian Simona Halep.

Source: Cick Here

• Chennai Super Kings (CSK) and Mumbai Indians (MI) have been the two best teams of the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2019. After going down by six wickets in their last league fixture against KXIP, defending champions Chennai Super Kings would look to bounce back with a win against Mumbai Indians in Qualifier 1 and make a direct entry to the finals.


• However, it won’t be a walk in the park for MS Dhoni’s men as Mumbai Indians are on a good run of form with three wins out of the last four league games. In their last encounter, MI beat Kolkata Knight Riders and sent them crashing out of the tournament and will be brimming with confidence.

Source: Cick Here

• For the first time in history, black women are holding all three major US pageant titles simultaneously. Last week, Cheslie Kryst won the Miss USA contest, and aliegh Garris won Miss Teen USA.


• They joined 25-year-old Nia Franklin who was crowned as the 2019 Miss America in September last year.


• Vanessa Williams became the first black woman to win the Miss America title in 1984.

Source: Cick Here

• Indian –origin journalist G D ‘Robert’ Govender conferred with V K Krishna Menon Award 2019 in UK for his contribution as a pioneer of decolonised journalism.


• The award is given to mark the 123rd birth anniversary of V K Krishna Menon, Indian diplomat and politician. Govender is the first person who has been awarded the V K Krishna Menon posthumously. He had died in the UK in 2016.


• Govender had written many books in the field of journalism but his one of the outstanding work was “The Martyrdom of Patrice Lumumba” which had exposed the role of western intelligence agencies in the murder of the Congolese independence leader.


• Govender was the first journalist who called for an international boycott of South Africa’s sports team which only had whites as their members.

Source: Cick Here

• Nepali teenager, Bandana danced continuously for 126 hours to set a Guinness World Records on “Longest Dancing Marathon by an Individual”.


• Bandana surpassed the record set by Kalamandalam Hemalatha, an Indian, who danced for 123 hours and 15 minutes in 2011.


• She danced continuously for Nepali music.

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• The Panama Electoral Tribunal announced Laurentino “Nito” Cortizo (with 95% of votes counted) as the winner of Panama’s presidential election.


• Cortizo was the candidate for the left-wing Democratic Revolutionary Party.


• Cortizo (with 33% of the votes) closest rival was Romulo Roux (with 31% votes). Romulo was from the former President Ricardo Martinelli’s right wing Democratic Change Party.


• This was the 6th presidential election in Panama, since a US invasion removed strongman Manuel Noriega in 1989.

Source: Cick Here

• Backed by North Macedonia’s ruling party, Stevo Pendarovski, the 55-year-old former political-science professor won the presidential runoff vote amid promises to push the Balkan state towards NATO (The North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and European Union membership.


• Pendarovski had 51.7% of votes whereas Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, his challenger, had 44.7% votes.


• Siljanovska-Davkova is North Macedonia’s first female candidate and a university professor.


• The main conservative opposition VMRO DPMNE (Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization-Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity) party (which backed Siljanovska-Davkova) having seen many irregularities in the election procedure, accused the government of “electoral engineering”.


• Pendarovski has strongly supported the Prespa deal signed with Greece in 2018 to change the country’s name.


• North Macedonia is 1 of the poorest countries in Europe with an average monthly salary of about 470$.

Source: Cick Here

• Space Exploration Technologies Corp. (Space X) launched its 17th commercial resupply mission to the International Space Station (ISS) by using Falcon 9 rocket with Dragon Spacecraft.


• The 213-foot-tall rocket lifted off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. This mission is a part of NASA’s Commercial Resupply Services (CRS) program, which uses commercial spacecraft to deliver cargo to the ISS.

Source: Cick Here

• INS Ranjit, a Rajput class destroyer was decommissioned at a solemn grand ceremony at Naval Dockyard at Visakhapatnam.


• The Decommissioning Ceremony was graced by 16 officers and 10 sailors from the commissioning crew and 23 erstwhile Commanding Officers.


• The ship commissioned on 15 September 1983 by Captain Vishnu Bhagwat in erstwhile USSR has rendered yeoman service to the nation for 36 years. The ship since her commissioning has sailed for 2190 days covering a distance of over 7,43,000 nautical miles.


• The ship has been at the forefront of major naval operations and has the distinction of serving on both Eastern and Western seaboards. Apart from various naval operations like Op Talwar and various multinational exercises, the ship has also been a flag bearer of the Indian Navys benign role by participating in relief operations post Tsunami in 2004 and Hud-hud on 2014.

Source: Cick Here

• Former Lok Sabha member and Veteran CPI leader Duti Krushna Panda passed away due to old age-related ailments in Bhubaneswar, Odisha. He was 97.


• He was elected to the state assembly from Aska seat in 1990. He was also elected to LokSabha from Bhanjanagara Parliamentary Constituency (presently Aska) in 1971.


• Panda was also the founder president of Odisha Anganwadi Workers’ Association and was the president of Ganjam district sugar growers’ association.


• He was also the state secretary and president of Communist Party of India (CPI) and All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), respectively.

A. Justice Ramachandra Menon B. Justice Ajay Kumar Tripathi C. Justice Alok Kumar Singh D. Justice Vikram Sethi Answer: A

A. Election Commission of India B. Supreme Court C. Delhi High Court D. Central Government Answer: B

A. 4th May B. 5th May C. 6th May D. 7th May Answer: D

A. INS Kalvari B. INS Vikram C. INS Ranjit D. INS Viraat Answer: C

A. United Nations B. World Bank C. Asian Development Bank D. Greenpeace Organisation Answer: C

A. United States B. China C. Russia D. United Kingdom Answer: A

A. Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta B. Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga C. Boubou Cisse D. Dioncounda Traoré Answer: C

A. Michael Jordan B. Serena Williams C. Tiger Woods D. Dwayne Johnson Answer: C

A. Bahrain B. Saudi Arabia C. Qatar D. UAE Answer: D

A. Karnataka B. Jammu and Kashmir C. Madhya Pradesh D. Maharashtra Answer: D

A. Reza Baqir B. Ashraf Mahmood Wathra C. Yaseen Anwar D. Imtiaz Alam Hanfi Answer: A

A. The Times of India B. The Indian Express C. The Hindustan Times D. International Federation of Environmental Journalists (IFEJ) Answer: D

A. Justice K T Koshi B. Justice Arijit Pasayat C. Justice Shripathi Ravindra Bhat D. Justice Hrishikesh Roy Answer: C

A. World Asthma Day B. National Youth Day C. International Labour Day D. World Laughter Day Answer: D

A. INS Karang B. INS Vagir C. INS Khanderi D. INS Vela Answer: D

A. Cyrus Poncha B. Ramit Tandon C. Saurav Ghosal D. Mahesh Mangaonkar Answer: C

A. New York, USA B. Barcelona, Spain C. Vienna, Austria D. Cape Town, South Africa Answer: C

A. United States B. Germany C. Japan D. France Answer: D

A. Rahul Roy B. M G Tandon C. K G Balakrishan D. G D Robert Govender Answer: D

A. Sushil Kumar B. Bajrang Punia C. Jinder Mahal D. Mahabali Shera Answer: B