Notes:
Rajive Kaul, the Chairman of Nicco group and past president of CII, has been conferred with the Order of Diplomatic Service Merit Sungnye Medal of the Republic of Korea for his services rendered as honorary consul general of South Korea in Kolkata. The award was conferred by the acting President and Prime Minister of South Korea Hwang Kyo-ahn at a programme in New Delhi recently.

Notes:
Braj Bihari Kumar has been appointed the new chairman of the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR). He is the editor of quarterly journals Dialogue and Chintan Srijan. Kumar succeeded economist S K Thorat and will have a term of three years. The ICSSR is a council in India which promotes research in the field of social sciences and its headquarters is located in New Delhi.

Notes:
The Indira Gandhi National Forest Academy (IGNFA) is an organization under the Ministry of Environment and Forests (India) to impart knowledge and skills to the professional foresters and help them to develop competence for managing the country’s forest and wildlife resources on a sustainable basis. It is in news because the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee has addressed the annual convocation of the IGNFA on May 5, 2017 at Dehradun, Uttarakhand.

Notes:
Recently, the middleweight boxer Vikas Krishan Yadav from India has settled for a bronze medal in 75 kg category after giving a walkover in the semifinal to South Korean Lee Dongyun at the 2017 Asian Boxing Championships in Tashkent, Uzbekistan. According to the Asian Boxing Confederation, Krishan was not there in the weigh-in on May 5, 2017, therefore his South Korean opponent walked over to the final. It is not yet known as to why Vikas gave a walkover in the bout.

Notes:
Emmanuel Macron, a former civil servant and investment banker, has won the 2017 Presidential election of France and will take office on May 14, 2017. With this, he will become the youngest President in French history and the youngest French head of state since Napoleon. Beside this, Macron will also become the first President from outside the two traditional main parties since the modern republic’s foundation in 1958. He fought the election under the banner En Marche! a social-liberal political party founded by him on April 2016.

Notes:
The 7th edition of multinational military exercise “Eager Lion” has started in Jordon from May 8, 2017. Approx 7,400 troops from Europe, Asia, Africa and the Arab Gulf region are taking part in the exercises which run to May 18th, including from United States, Britain, Japan, Kenya, Pakistan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and Saudi Arabia. The man oeuvres would include border security, cyber defence, and “command and control” exercises, to bolster coordination in response to threats including terrorism. Jordan is a key recipient of US financial aid and a partner in the US-led coalition battling Islamic State group jihadists in Syria and Iraq.

Notes:
The World Red Cross and Red Crescent Day is observed every year on May 8 to commemorate the birth anniversary Jean Henry Dunant, the founder of International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the recipient of the first Nobel Peace Prize. The 2017 theme is “Less Known Red Cross Stories”.

Notes:
The Dalma Wildlife Sanctuary is located 10 km from the city of Jamshedpur in Jharkhand. It is famous for holding many elephants and other animals, which come downhill during the monsoons and winter and enter nearby villages and towns of Jharkhand and West Bengal. Beside elephants there are Indian giant squirrel, sloth bear, barking deer, wild boar, porcupine, mouse deer, pangolin and mongooses in the sanctuary. Commonly seen birds in the sanctuary are the falcons, golden oriole, Indian tree pie, paradise fly catchers, grey hornbills, Indian peafowl, different varieties of king fishers, herons, egrets, mynas, pigeons, racket tailed drongo, magpie robins etc.

Notes:
As per latest report “Regional Economic Outlook (REO) for Asia and Pacific” by International Monetary Fund (IMF), India’s GDP growth is projected to rebound to 7.2% in the FY18 (2017 18) and 7.7% in FY19 (2018-19) after disruptions caused by demonetization. IMF has recommended the removal of long-standing structural bottlenecks to enhance market efficiency. It said temporary disruptions caused by cash shortages accompanying the currency exchange initiative are expected to gradually dissipate in 2017 as cash shortages ease. Such disruptions would also be offset by tailwinds from a favorable monsoon season and continued progress in resolving supply-side bottlenecks. The IMF maintains a positive outlook on the Indian economic growth and is confident that the Goods and Services Tax (GST) implementation will be smooth. According to the report, growth in Asia is forecast to accelerate to 5.5% in 2017 from 5.3% in 2016.

Notes:
Venu Rajamony, the 1986 batch Indian Foreign Service (IFS) officer, has been appointed as the next Ambassador of India to the Kingdom of the Netherlands. He will also be India’s Permanent Representative to the Organisation for Prevention of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) based in The Hague and cover the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the Permanent Court of Arbitration and other international organisations based in the Netherlands. He is expected to take up his assignment shortly. Rajamony is a journalist-turned-career diplomat, who is currently the Press Secretary to President Pranab Mukherjee.