Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar launches “The Saras Collection” on GeM portal

1.International Day of the Midwife: 5 May

International Midwife Day is celebrated on the 5th of May every year, to appreciate the work of midwives.Midwives are women who have practical knowledge of helping pregnant women give birth.

In the early times when there were no highly professional and equipped hospitals for pregnant ladies, they used to give birth to a child at home with the help of these midwives.

To celebrate these brave women and respect their work, International Midwife Day is celebrated.

2020 theme: ‘Midwives with women: celebrate, demonstrate, mobilise, unite – our time is NOW!’.

2.World Asthma Day: 05 May 2020

World Asthma Day takes place on the first Tuesday of May. This year, the World Asthma Day is observed on May 5, 2020.It is a global initiative to improve asthma awareness and care around the world. Asthma is a long term disease that affects the lungs.

This disease causes inflammation in the airways and narrows them making it difficult to breathe.

As per the WHO, about 80%of asthma deaths occur in low and lower-middle-income countries.

The theme for World Asthma Day 2020 is ‘Enough Asthma Deaths’.

3.Health minister Dr Harsh Vardhan launches multimedia guide ‘COVID Katha’

Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan launched ‘COVID Katha’, a multimedia guide on the COVID-19 disease.The book is a multimedia guide on COVID-19 in which visual representation of themes, developed and researched by Assam-based Dr Anamika Ray Memorial Trust (ARMT) team and illustrated by Assam cartoonist Nituparna Rajbongshi, have been used to spread the message of science and health in simple ways.

Vardhan said the book is extremely useful and an exemplary science communication solution for the people at large in the current scenario.

4.Facebook and Bollywood collaborate on ‘I FOR INDIA’ concert

Social media networking site Facebook has collaborated with some of the biggest names in Indian entertainment to put together a home-to-home fundraiser concert, ‘I For India’.100 percent proceeds from the fundraiser concert will go to the India COVID Response Fund managed by GiveIndia, to support on-ground relief efforts.

GiveIndia (www.giveindia.org) is India’s largest giving platform with reach across 23 states.

It is associated with over 100 NGOs, working on-ground to support the required interventions with the prevention, healthcare infrastructure, livelihood support, and essentials for people in need, the company mentioned.

The vision for the concert by leaders from the entertainment industry is three-pronged: to entertain those locked down in their homes. To pay tribute to those who are working on the frontlines. And, to raise funds for those who have no work and no home and do not know where their next meal is coming from.

5.DRDO develops Ultra Violet Disinfection Tower for rapid and chemical free disinfection

Defence Research and Development Organisation, DRDO has developed an Ultra Violet Disinfection Tower for rapid and chemical free disinfection of high infection prone areas.The equipment named UV blaster is an Ultra violet based area sanitiser designed and developed by Laser Science and Technology Centre.

The UV Blaster is useful for high tech surfaces like electronic equipment, computers and other gadgets in laboratories and offices that are not suitable for disinfection with chemical methods.

The product is also effective for areas with large flow of people such as airports, shopping malls, metros, hotels, factories and offices.

6.Union Minister Narendra Singh Tomar launches “The Saras Collection” on GeM portal

Union Minister of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj Narendra Singh Tomar launched “The Saras Collection” on the Government e Marketplace (GeM) portal.The Saras Collection showcases daily utility products made by rural self-help groups (SHGs) and aims to provide SHGs in rural areas with market access to Central and State Government buyers.

It is a unique initiative of GeM and the Deen Dayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM).

Under this initiative, the SHG sellers will be able to list their products in 5 product categories, namely  handicrafts,  handloom and textiles,  office accessories, grocery and pantry and personal care and hygiene.

In the first phase, 913 SHGs from 11 States have already registered as sellers and 442 products have been on-boarded.

7.Ameyo launches RBI compliant video KYC engagement platform

Ameyo, a customer engagement technology provider, announced the launch of video-based KYC for businesses to eliminate the need for physical KYC following the latest RBI guidelines issued in Jan 2020.Ameyo’s video KYC is an end-to-end solution with omnichannel capabilities of scheduling and reminding customers to complete the KYC process, thus enabling brands to reduce the drop-offs by 20%.

With this platform, companies can reduce the onboarding process from the current 5-7 days to less than 3 minutes from remote locations immediately.

With a video-based consumer identification process, businesses can reduce their cost of operations by up to 90% by eliminating field agent travel and documentation costs.

8.US-Based Silver Lake To Invest Rs 5,656 Crore In Jio Platforms

Reliance Industries said that private equity firm Silver Lake will invest Rs 5,656 crore ($746.74 million) in its digital arm, giving it a valuation of Rs 4.90 lakh crore.The deal comes days after Facebook announced an investment of Rs 43,574 crore to buy a 9.99 per cent stake in Jio Platforms – the digital services entity that houses Reliance’s telecoms arm Jio Infocomm, as well as its news, movie and music apps, along with other businesses.

The deal values Jio Platforms at Rs 4.90 trillion on equity basis and Rs 5.15 trillion on enterprise value basis

Jio Platforms is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries and Reliance Jio Infocomm Limited, which provides connectivity platform

9.President Trump nominates Indian-American diplomat Manisha Singh as OECD envoy

United States President Donald Trump has nominated senior Indian-American diplomat Manisha Singh as his envoy to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).Ms Singh is currently Assistant Secretary of State for Economic and Business Affairs at the State Department.

She will be the US Representative to OECD with the rank of an Ambassador.

Paris-based OECD is an intergovernmental economic organisation with 36 member countries to stimulate economic progress and world trade.

10.President Trump nominates Indian-American as US representative to IBRD

US President Donald Trump has nominated Indian-American Ashok Michael Pinto as a representative to the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development.Pinto was nominated as US Alternate Executive Director of IBRD for a term of two years.

Pinto would replace Erik Bethel, who has resigned from the post. Pinto currently serves as Counselor to the Under Secretary for International Affairs at the United States Department of the Treasury.

Pinto was Special Assistant and Associate Counsel to President George W Bush during private practice at two international law firms.

11.Egypt’s tennis player Youssef Hossam gets life ban for match-fixing

The Tennis Integrity Unit (TIU) banned Egyptian tennis player Youssef Hossam for life after being found guilty of “multiple match-fixing” and other corruption charges.The Unit’s investigation established that from a period between 2015 and 2019, Hossam conspired with other parties to carry out an extensive campaign of betting-related corruption at the lower levels of professional tennis.

Hossam was found guilty for 21 breaches of the Tennis Anti-Corruption Program which included eight cases of match-fixing, six cases of facilitating gambling, two cases of soliciting other players not to use best efforts, three failures to report corrupt approaches, two failures to co-operate with a TIU investigation.

The 820-ranked player in ATP singles, Hossam, is now permanently excluded from competing in or attending any sanctioned tennis event organised or recognised by the governing bodies of the sport.

12.FINA postpones 2021 Fukuoka world championships to May 2022

Swimming’s world governing body FINA rescheduled the 2021 Fukuoka aquatics world championships to May 2022 to avoid a clash with the postponed Tokyo Olympics.The new dates for the swimming event in the Japanese city are May 13-29, 2022.

Lausanne-based FINA had to move the championships because the 2021 slot of Jul 16 to Aug 1 clashed with the new date for the Tokyo Games, which were postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

13.Discus thrower Sandeep Kumari gets 4-year ban for dope flunk

Discus thrower Sandeep Kumari has been slapped with a four-year ban by the Athletics Integrity Unit for flunking a dope test, nearly two years after her sample was deemed clean by the NDTL.The National Dope Testing Laboratory (NDTL) had failed to detect the banned substance, a steroid, which was present in her blood sample, collected by NADA officials during the National Inter-State Championships in June 2018 in Guwahati.

Kumari had won the gold with a throw of 58.41m.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) then decided to test the sample of Kumari at its Montreal Laboratory in Canada and it returned positive for anabolic steroid Methenolone in November 2018.