1. Virat Kohli named T20 Player of the Year in Ceat Award event
2. AR Rahman to be conferred with top Japanese honour 'Grand Fukuoka Prize 2016'
3. SBI now also has the largest PoS network in India
4. FICCI survey reports GDP growth estimate at 7.7 pct for 2016-17
5. Pope Francis honors George Clooney, Richard Gere, Salma Hayek
6. China launches three satellites
7. Alastair Cook surpasses Sachin Tendulkar as fastest to 10k runs in Tests
8. Sandhu becomes first Indian to play in European top league
9. India tops global slavery index with 18.35 million people enslaved
10. Sunil Lanba takes charge as Navy chief
Admiral Sunil Lanba, took charge as the Chief of Naval Staff in New Delhi as the current CNS Admiral R.K.Dhowan retired after four decade of service.
Star India batsman Virat Kohli has been named Ceat T20 Player of the Year while former India captain Dilip Vengsarkar was conferred with the Lifetime Achievement Award.
England batsman Joe Root was named as the Ceat International Cricketer of the Year as well as International Batsman of the Year.
India off-spinner R Ashwin won the Ceat International Bowler of the Year award while Rohit Sharma was named as the Indian Cricketer of the Year.
Kohli has been in the form of his life in the shortest format recently as he was named as Player-of-the-Tournament in the World T20 held in India earlier this year and won the orange cap for amassing the most runs of 973 in 16 matches in the just-concluded IPL-9.
60-year-old Vengsarkar had amassed 6868 runs in 116 Tests with 17 hundreds to boot that included a hat-trick of tons in successive Test appearances at Lord's Cricket ground in England.
Vengsarkar was also a part of the 1983-World Cup winning Indian team.
The award winners:
Lifetime Achievement Award - Dilip Vengsarkar
International Cricketer of the Year - Joe Root
International Batsman of the Year - Joe Root
International Bowler of the Year - R Ashwin
Test Cricketer of the Year - Kane Williamson
ODI Cricketer of the Year - Martin Guptill
T20 Player of the Year - Virat Kohli
Indian Cricketer of the Year -Rohit Sharma
Domestic Cricketer of the Year - Shreyas Iyer
Young Player of the Year - Rishabh Pant
Special Award - Ajinkya Rahane.
2. AR Rahman to be conferred with top Japanese honour 'Grand Fukuoka Prize 2016'
Music maestro A R Rahman has been announced as the recipient of Grand Fukuoka Prize 2016 for his outstanding contribution to Asian culture through his music.
As part of the ceremony, Rahman has been invited to the city to give a public lecture on "From the Heart: The World of A R Rahman's Music".
The 49-year-old Oscar-winning composer has been chosen for the honour alongside Philippines' historian Ameth R Ocampo (Academic Prize) and Yasmeen Lari from Pakistan (Arts and Culture Prize) by the secretariat of Fukuoka prize committee.
The annual award, was established by Fukuoka City, Japan, in 1990 with an aim to honour the outstanding work of individuals, groups and organizations working to preserve and promote the unique and diverse culture of Asia.
Rahman started his movie career with Mani Ratnam's Tamil film "Roja". Rahman's first big break in Hindi cinema came with Ram Gopal Varma's "Rangeela".
He is now one of the most sought after composers in India with his brilliant compositions for films like "Bombay", "Dil Se", "Taal", "Lagaan", "Rang De Basanti", "Delhi 6", "Rockstar", "Highway" and "Tamasha".
Rahman has carved an impressive career in Hollywood after composing "Jai Ho" for British director Danny Boyle's "Slumdog Millionaire", which earned him two Academy awards and a Golden Globe trophy.
Previous winners from India include distinguished names such as sitar player Ravi Shankar, dancer Padma Subrahmanyam, historian Romila Thapar, sarod maestro Amjad Ali Khan, Ashish Nandy, Partha Chatterjee, Vandana Shiva, Nalini Malini and historian Ramachandra Guha.
Other winners include Nobel laureates Muhammad Yunus (Bangladesh) and Mo Yan (China).
3. SBI now also has the largest PoS network in India
State Bank of India SBI)'s point of sales terminal (PoS) network is now the largest in the country after it over took its private sector rivals in February. It plans to add another 1 lakh PoS terminals in the current fiscal year ending March 2017.
As of April 30, the state owned lender had a PoS network of 3,07,000, 26% of which were in the semi urban and rural areas, the bank said in a press release.
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data shows that it had installed 2,96,310 PoS terminals in India, higher than HDFC Bank's 2,81,642, Axis Bank's 2,58,250 and ICICI Bank's 2,00,756. These four large banks together dominate the 13,63,148 PoS terminal network in the country.
In the fiscal year which ended in March 2016, SBI added 1,00,000 new PoS terminals, more than 30,000 of which were equipped with near field communications to make payments. The bank contributed 40% of the growth of total network that year.
4. FICCI survey reports GDP growth estimate at 7.7 pct for 2016-17
The results of latest round of FICCI's Economic Outlook Survey puts across a median GDP growth forecast of 7.7 percent for the fiscal year 2016-17. The growth in 2016-17 is expected to be supported by an improvement in the agricultural and industrial sector performance. Prediction of a good monsoon after two consecutive years of sub-optimal rainfall backs the improved outlook in the current fiscal.
According to the survey results, agriculture sector is expected to record a median growth of 2.8 percent in 2016-17, with a minimum and maximum range of 1.6 percent and 3.5 percent respectively. Industrial growth is anticipated to grow by 7.1 percent in 2016-17, while services sector growth is estimated at 9.6 percent.
The survey was conducted during April/May 2016 among economists belonging to the industry, banking and financial services sector. The economists were asked to provide forecast for key macro-economic variables for the year 2016-17 as well as for Q4 (January-March) FY16 and Q1 (April-June) FY17.
The median growth forecast for IIP has been put at 3.5 percent for the year 2016-17, with a minimum and maximum range of 3.0 percent and 4.5 percent respectively.
The outlook of the participating economists on inflation remained moderate. The median forecast for Wholesale Price Index based inflation rate for 2016-17 has been put at 2.2 percent, with a minimum and maximum range of (-)1.3 percent and 2.9 percent respectively. The Consumer Price Index has a median forecast of 5.1 percent for 2016-17, with a minimum and maximum range of 4.5 percent and 5.5 percent respectively.
5. Pope Francis honors George Clooney, Richard Gere, Salma Hayek
Pope Francis honoured Hollywood actors Richard Gere, George Clooney and Salma Hayek with the Olive Medal of Peace in an event to promote the Scholas Occurrentes foundation.
The A-listers have agreed to work as ambassadors for the foundation's arts projects, said The Hollywood Reporter.
Scholas Occurrentes, or "schools that meet," is a foundation that links 400,000 schools and educational networks from various cultures and religions in 82 countries.
6. China launches three satellites
China successfully launched a new civilian high-resolution mapping satellite along with two other foreign satellites .
The Ziyuan III 02 satellite took off on the back of a Long March 4B rocket from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Centre in northern Shanxi Province.
It was the 228th flight mission by a Long March carrier rocket.
All three satellites have entered the preset orbits, the Taiyuan centre said in a statement.
7. Alastair Cook surpasses Sachin Tendulkar as fastest to 10k runs in Tests
Alastair Cook became the first England cricketer to cross the 10,000-run mark in Test cricket, and the youngest overall, beating Sachin Tendulkar's record set in 2005 by five months at the age of 31 years, five months. Tendulkar - Test cricket's leading run-scorer - was 31 years, ten months 20 days old when he scored his 10,000th run in 2005.
England captain Cook, already his country's leading Test run-scorer, came into the ongoing second Test against Sri Lanka at Chester-le-Street just 20 runs away from becoming the first Englishman to join the coveted 10k club. Cook was dismissed for 15 runs in the first innings and the landmark came in post-lunch session of the fourth day in the second over of the second innings when he flicked a Nuwan Pradeep delivery to mid-wicket for four.
Cook is the 12th batsman to get to 10,000 runs in Tests, after Tendulkar, Ricky Ponting , Jacques Kallis , Rahul Dravid , Kumar Sangakkara , Brian Lara , Shivnarine Chanderpaul , Mahela Jayawardene , Allan Border , Steve Waugh and Sunil Gavaskar. Pakistan's Younis Khan is the next active batsman with a chance at entering the club, having 9116 to his name, and there is a chance he joins Cook with Pakistan playing four Tests in England later this summer.
National football team goalkeeper Gurpreet Singh Sandhu has achieved a historic feat as he became the first Indian to feature in a top-tier league match in Europe by turning out for his Norwegian side Stabaek FC.
The 24-year-old Indian kept a clean sheet in his first Tippeligaen (Norwegian Premier League) start for Stabaek FC, helping them claim a dominant 5-0 triumph over IK Start in an away league match last night.
Sandhu, who signed for Stabaek FC in 2014, has not played in the Tippeligaen till yesterday though he has already featured in five matches in the Norwegian Cup. He has thus far played second fiddle to Ivorian goalkeeper Sayouba Mande who is the first choice Stabaek FC goalkeeper.
Sandhu will directly join the national football team in Laos where India are playing their play-off match of the 2019 Asian Cup Qualifiers on June 2.
9. India tops global slavery index with 18.35 million people enslaved
India has the dubious distinction of having the highest number of people in the world trapped in modern slavery with 18.35 million victims of forced labour, ranging from prostitution and begging, according to a new report, which estimated that nearly 46 million people are enslaved globally.
According to the 2016 Global Slavery Index released by Australia-based human rights group Walk Free Foundation on Tuesday, an estimated 45.8 million people, including women and children, are subject to some form of modern slavery in the world, compared to 35.8 million in 2014.
The report said India has the highest absolute numbers of people trapped in slavery with 18.35 million slaves among its 1.3 billion population while North Korea has the highest incidence, 4.37 per cent of the population, and the weakest government response to deal with it.
In the last report in 2014, India had nearly 14.3 million people enslaved.
Incidences of slavery were found in all 167 countries in the index, with Asian countries occupy the top five for people trapped in slavery.
Behind India was China (3.39 million), Pakistan (2.13 million), Bangladesh (1.53 million) and Uzbekistan (1.23 million).
The index said that these five countries combined accounted for almost 58 per cent of the world's enslaved, or 26.6 million people.
The Index presents a ranking of 167 countries based on the proportion of the population that is estimated to be in modern slavery.
Modern slavery refers to situations of exploitation that a person cannot leave because of threats, violence, coercion and abuse of power or deception.
The research included over 42,000 interviews conducted in 53 languages across 25 countries, including 15 state-level surveys in India. These representative surveys covered 44 per cent of the global population.
The countries with the highest estimated prevalence of modern slavery by the proportion of their population are North Korea, Uzbekistan, Cambodia, Cambodia, India, and Qatar.
The countries with the lowest estimated prevalence of modern slavery by the proportion of their population are Luxembourg, Ireland, Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, Austria, Sweden and Belgium, the United States and Canada, and Australia and New Zealand.
Admiral Sunil Lanba, took charge as the Chief of Naval Staff in New Delhi as the current CNS Admiral R.K.Dhowan retired after four decade of service.
On May 6, 2016, the government appointed Lanba, the Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Naval Command as the Chief of Naval Staff.
Admiral Lanba, 58, is a qualified specialist in navigation and direction course and will have a full three-year-term in office till May 31, 2019.
