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The birth anniversary of Asia’s first Nobel laureate Rabindra Nath Tagore has celebrated on May 7, 2018. Rabindra Jayanti is popularly called Poncheeshe Boishakh and being celebrated ceremoniously and jauntiness all across West Bengal and Bangladesh. A revered poet, mercurial writer, and a cursive painter Tagore was a prolific composer with 2,230 songs to his credit. His songs are known as Rabindra Sangeet. Tagore has composed the national anthems of both India and Bangladesh. Tagore was highly influential in introducing Indian culture to the West and is generally regarded as the outstanding creative artist of modern India. Tagore’s own English translations of his collection of Bengali poems Gitanjali fetched him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Tagore’s works were widely translated into English, Dutch, German, Spanish, and other European languages.

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On May 8, Nikol Pashinian has become the new Prime Minister of Armenia ,when a Parliament dominated by his political foes elected him by a 59-to-42 vote. He has been the leader of the ongoing 2018 Armenian non-violent protests which forced Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan and his government to resign.The Prime Minister is appointed by the President of Armenia, but can be removed by a vote of no confidence in Parliament.

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India has been ranked 4th out of 25 nations in the Asia Pacific region listed on the Lowy Institute Asia Pacific Power Index. The inaugural index, compiled by Australian think tank The Lowy Institute, has pegged India as the “giant of the future”. The index measures a country’s overall power in an average of 8 parameters —economic resources, military capability, resilience, future trends, diplomatic influence, economic relationships, defense networks and cultural influence. The index is topped by United States, followed by China and Japan.

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The National Small Industries Corporation Limited (NSIC) has recently signed a MoU with Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) for the year 2018-19.The MoU envisages provision of enhanced services by NSIC under its marketing, financial, technology and other support services schemes, for MSMEs in the country. The corporation projects to increase its total business by 21.30% from Rs. 22,258 crore in the year 2017-18 to Rs. 27,000 crore in the year 2018-19. The NSIC is a Mini Ratna PSU established by the Government of India (GoI) in 1955. The headquarters is located in New Delhi. It is the nodal office for several schemes of Ministry of MSME such as Performance & Credit Rating, Single Point Registration, MSME Databank, National SC ST Hub, etc.

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Journalist Carlos Alvarado has been sworn-in as the new President of Costa Rica on May 8, 2018. In April 2018, he won the presidential election (second round) with 61% votes. Alvarado swept to victory against conservative Protestant singer Fabricio Alvarado Munoz. At 39, Alvarado is the country’s youngest president in modern history. He has spoken out in support of marriage equality, building a green transport network for the nation and for spurring economic growth to fight against insecurity.

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Google has appointed Nitin Bawankule as the country head for its cloud business in India. He will take over from Mohit Pande who has quit the company. Bawankule will report to Rick Harshman, Managing Director of Asia Pacific, Google Cloud. Nitin has been with Google India for over six years as sales head for multiple verticals including e-commerce, retail, classifieds, and education. He has over 20 years of experience in the digital, technology and consumer industry with stints at Dell, Motorola Mobility, Whirlpool and Godrej GE Appliances.

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On May 9, Union Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad has launched the website of Digital India Internship Scheme in New Delhi. Under this scheme, 25 interns will be inducted for a period of three months. These interns will be paid a stipend of Rs. 10, 000 per month. The internship is an opportunity for a student to secure first hand and practical work experience under the guidance of qualified and experienced Supervisor and Mentor. It also aims at active participation in the learning process through experimentation and putting into practice the knowledge acquired in the classrooms.

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In its 2018 edition of Indian Pharmacopoeia, the Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission (IPC) has approved modern, animal-free tests for drug manufacturers. This step would spare animals from suffering due to drug experiments. The 2018 edition of Indian Pharmacopoeia has provided guidelines on tests for drugs manufactured and marketed in India. In it, IPC has replaced the pyrogen test carried out on rabbits and the abnormal toxicity test carried out on guinea pigs and mice with tests that can be done in test tubes. The guidelines in the edition will come into effect from July 1. The pyrogen test is carried out to check impurity or substance that can cause adverse side-effects. For the test, the drug is injected into a rabbit and the animal is closely observed for feverish symptoms. The abnormal toxicity test is carried out to check potential hazardous biological contamination in vaccine formulation. IPC is an autonomous institution of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare which sets standards for all drugs that are manufactured, sold and consumed in India. It is headquartered in Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh.

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The Gokak falls is a waterfall located on the Ghataprabha River, a tributary of the Krishna river, in Belagavi district of Karnataka. The waterfall is horse shoe shaped at the crest, with a flood breadth of 177 metres. There is a hanging bridge across the river which stands 14m above the rock bed. The bridge was built during British rule. One of the interesting features of this place is the monuments from the Chalukya era that are found on either bank of the rocky gorge. are the monuments from the Chalukya era that are present on either banks of the rocky gorge. Another attraction of this place is the very old river-front temple dedicated to Lord Mahalingeshwara, built in the Later Chalukya style of architecture. There is also an old electricity generation station and electricity was generated here for the first time in 1887.

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The Balpakram National Park is home to wide species of plants and animals and is located in the midst of the Garo Hills in Meghalaya. The national park is full of sprawling vegetation consisting of sub tropical and deciduous trees. The park is famous for the golden cat and the barking deer. Other animals include Wild water buffalo, Red panda, Elephant and eight species of cats including Tiger and Marbled cat. Wide species of baboons and monkeys are also found in the forest. It is famous for pitcher plant and many medicinal plants called ‘Dik.ke’.