Notes:
The World Asthma Day (WAD) is celebrated every year on first Tuesday of May to increase awareness about asthma and aims to improve the lives of people with asthma across the world. Asthma is a chronic disease of the lungs which causes breathing problems. Asthma usually appears through symptoms like coughing, tightness in the chest, breathlessness. The 2019 WAD is observed on 7th of May with theme ‘Stop for Asthma’. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), there are 235 million people currently suffering from asthma around the world. Asthma is one of the major non-communicable diseases and it is also the most common chronic disease in children. Regular exercise can help reduce asthma symptoms.

Notes:
In Mali, President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita has recently announced the new government of 37 members under Prime Minister Boubou Cisse after its predecessor resigned last month. Last week, Cisse signed a pact with opposition and majority party representatives declaring their willingness to set up a politically-inclusive new government. Cisse’s predecessor Soumeylou Boubeye Maiga and his entire cabinet resigned on April 18 following the massacre of some 160 members of the Fulani herding community on March 23 in the village of Ogossagou near Mali’s border with Burkina Faso. Tens of thousands of people took to the streets on April 5 to protest against an upsurge of violence that has claimed around 600 lives.

Notes:
Two Indians – an Indian police officer Jitender Kumar deployed to the UN mission in Congo and a consultant Shikha Garg with the UN development programme, killed in the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash, are among 115 UN peacekeepers and staff honoured by the global organisation for their sacrifice. They lost their lives in the service of peace between January 2018 and March 2019. UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, along with top UN officials and Peacekeeping personnel paid tribute to 115 peacekeepers from 43 different nations, who sacrificed their lives in the line of duty at the solemn ceremony on May 5, 2019.

Notes:
In a bid to evaluate the environmental performance of existing schools across India, the Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment (GRIHA) Council has recently released a rating tool ‘GRIHA for Existing Day Schools’. The rating tool will work as an integrated tool to evaluate performance and provide solutions for enhanced energy and water efficiencies, increased thermal and visual comfort, and decreased operational and maintenance costs. The purpose of the rating is to familiarize the students with the concepts of sustainability by involving them, under the guidance of their teachers, on evaluating the environmental impact of schools on the environment. Through the rating process, students and teachers will get an opportunity to establish contact with nature and with each other using the approach of co-creation and understanding.

Notes:
Frontline missile destroyer of the Indian Navy ‘INS Ranjit’ has recently decommissioned at a solemn ceremony at the Naval Dockyard in Visakhapatnam, after serving the Indian navy for 36 years. INS Ranjit is the third of the five Kashin-class destroyers built by the erstwhile USSR and was commissioned on September 15 1983 by Captain Vishnu Bhagwat . Since being commissioned, INS Ranjit has sailed for 2,190 days, covering over 7,43,000 nautical miles, equivalent to navigating around the world 35 times and 3.5 times the distance from the earth to the moon. The ship was at the forefront of major naval operations and served on both the Eastern and Western seaboards. Apart from naval operations like ‘Op Talwar’ and various multinational exercises, the ship participated in relief operations post Tsunami in 2004 and Hud-hud on 2014. In recognition of the service rendered by INS Ranjit to the nation, the ship was awarded Unit Citations by the Chief of Naval Staff in 2003-04 and in 2009-10.