Notes:
India has recently signed a loan agreement of $36 million with the World Bank (WB) for Himachal Pradesh Public Financial Management Capacity Building Programme. The purpose of the project is to improve the efficiency of public expenditure management and tax administration in Himachal Pradesh. The programme size is $45 million, of which $36 million will be financed by the Bank, and the remaining amount will be funded out of State Budget. The programme duration is 5 years.

Notes:
Tapan Ray, the 1982 batch Gujarat cadre IAS officer and currently the corporate affairs secretary, has taken additional charge as the new Economic Affairs Secretary. He succeeded Shaktikanta Das, who retired on May 31, 2017 after serving the government for 37 years in various capacities.

Notes:
The 2nd annual meeting of the board of governors of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) will be held in Jeju, South Korea from June 14-15, 2017. The purpose of the AIIB is to promote economic development of the region by supporting major infrastructure projects. From India, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will attend the meeting. AIIB is headed by Jin Liqun, the former Assistant Chinese Finance Minister. D J Pandian from India is the Vice President and Chief Investment Officer of the organization.

Notes:
Ram Shankar Katheria, a BJP MP from Agra, has been appointed as the new chairman of National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) for a period of three years. The post has been lying vacant since the retirement of the previous chairman PL Poonia in 2016. Beside this, L. Murugan has appointed as Vice-Chairman of the NCSC and K. Ramulu, Dr. Yogendra Paswan and Dr. Swaraj Vidwan as its Members. The commission is a constitutional body to safeguard interests of the dalits.

Notes:
India’s first ‘freight village’ will be developed by the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. The freight village, a one-of-its-kind infrastructure platform, will attract companies that require logistics services and can cluster to improve their competitiveness. This will allow relocation of retailers, warehouse operators and logistics service providers supplying the regional FMCG market. The facility will come around the proposed multi-modal terminal adjacent to the city on the banks of the Ganga.

Notes:
Nirupama Rao, the former Indian Ambassador to US, has been appointed as a public policy fellow to a Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (WWICS) where she will work on a project on the Sino-India ties. Rao will be affiliated with the Wilson Centre’s Asia program and spend 3 months in residence at the Wilson Centre from June 2017, which is a key non-partisan policy forum for tackling global issues. The WWICS is the living, national memorial to President Wilson, created by Congress in 1968 and headquartered in Washington DC. The Wilson Center provides a strictly nonpartisan space for the worlds of policymaking and scholarship to interact.

Notes:
The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit will be held in Astana, Kazakhstan on June 8-9, 2017. In this summit, India and Pakistan will become full members of the organization. The SCO is a Eurasian political, economic, and military organisation which was founded in 2001 in Shanghai by the leaders of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. It is mainly aimed at military cooperation between the members and involves intelligence- sharing, counter-terrorism operations in Central Asia. Afghanistan, Belarus, India, Iran, Mongolia and Pakistan have observer status.

Notes:
The World Milk Day (WMD) is observed every year on June 1 by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to recognise the importance of milk as a global food. The day is intended to provide an opportunity to bring attention to activities that are connected with the dairy sector. In India, the National Milk Day (NMD) is observed every year on November 26 to mark the birth anniversary of of Dr. Verghese Kurien, the father of India’s White Revolution.

Notes:
Anita Kundu, a Haryana police sub-inspector from Hisar, has made history by becoming the first Indian woman to climb Mount Everest from the China side on May 2017. Earlier, she had scaled the Mt. Everest from Nepal side in May 2013.

Notes:
The Sri Venkateshwara National Park is located at Chittoor and Cuddapah districts in Andhra Pradesh. The total area of the park is 353 km2. The park is known for its many waterfalls including the Talakona, Gundalakona and Gunjana. It is home to hyena, golden jackal, Indian fox, small Indian civet, jungle cat, etc.