1.Eye on Odisha, BJP greets Amit Shah with halfway-mark lotus garland :-
Upbeat after impressive wins in the recent assembly polls and inroads made in Odisha local polls, the BJP national executive will meet in Bhubaneswar over the weekend to chart the course for elections to the Lok Sabha and the state assembly in 2019.
As Union Minister and senior state BJP leader Dharmendra Pradhan announced “Odisha will be the laboratory for Modi’s pro-poor policies and schemes”, party president Amit Shah arrived in Bhubaneswar Friday for the two-day meet and was greeted with a garland of 74 lotus flowers, symbolising the half-way mark in the 147-seat Odisha assembly.
2.Air China cancels some Beijing-Pyongyang flights :-
China’s national airline, Air China, has cancelled some flights to the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, due to poor demand but it has not suspended all flights there, it said on Friday, denying a report by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV.
3.CM Connect app exposes official apathy too :-
Not all is so flashy about the much-touted CM Connect app launched by the government. There have been some comments that exposed the official apathy.
The officials haven’t issued pattadar passbook (denoting the title deed) to a farmer in the Amaravati Capital region. The farmer brought the issue to the notice of Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu five times in vain. The farmer’s reaction indicates the magnitude of corruption and accountability in the governance.
4.Kaziranga film: BBC banned for 5 years from all national parks, sanctuaries :-
The government has prohibited the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) from filming in India’s national parks and wildlife sanctuaries for “irreparable damage done to India’s reputation”. Imposed with “immediate effect” on April 10, the five-year ban applies to filming for BBC documentaries and news reports.
5.North Korea prepared to respond to any nuclear attack in kind: No 2 official :-
North Korea is prepared to respond to any nuclear attack by the United States in kind, the country’s number two official said on Saturday.
“We’re prepared to respond to an all-out war with an all-out war and we are ready to hit back with nuclear attacks of our own style against any nuclear attacks,” Choe Ryong-Hae said in a speech at a ceremony before a large military parade started, which was broadcast live by the North’s Korean Central TV.
6.SCR shakes off market blues :-
The South Central Railway has loaded 9.44 million tonnes (MTs) of freight traffic in the month of March, around 8.36% more compared to the same month last year, according to a release here on Friday.
This improvement in performance has reversed the sluggish trend on account of fall in imports and market conditions.
7.Trump administration says no US trading partners manipulate currency :-
US President Donald Trump’s administration declined to name any major trading partner as a currency manipulator in a highly anticipated report on Friday, backing away from a key Trump campaign promise to slap such a label on China. The semi-annual US Treasury currency report did, however, keep China on a currency “monitoring list” despite a lower global current account surplus, citing China’s unusually large, bilateral trade surplus with the United States.
The Treasury report recognized what many analysts have said over the past year, namely that China has recently intervened in foreign exchange markets to prop up the value of its yuan currency.
8.Water sports in seven new locations along Krishna river :-
The Bhavani Island Tourism Corporation (BITC) believes that water sports will act as a catalyst to drive tourism growth in the Krishna River region.
Hence, to expand water sports activities, the BITC has selected two water sports operators — Amaravati Boating Club and WaterSports Simple — through a competitive bidding process to set up and operate water sports at seven new locations in the Krishna River.
9.IPL 2017: Mumbai Indians’ escape artists :-
Mumbai Indians dig themselves out of hole; beat RCB after being reduced to 33/5 by hat-trick man Samuel Badree.
Kieron Pollard has the last word after fellow Trini Samuel Badree tricks Mumbai Indians on a day Virat Kohli and the IPL rekindled their flame.
10.Tea exports drop :-
Tea exports have declined in the first eleven months of fiscal 2017 and is likely to close at a lower level after showing a healthy rise by volume and value in 2015-16. A bumper crop in Kenya and lower exports to some of the key markets were the main reasons behind this.
As per latest official statistics, between April and February 2017, exports, at 206.9 million kgs were down by four per cent over the previous period.
11.Uttar Pradesh: 8 coaches of Meerut-Lucknow Rajya Rani Express derail near Rampur :-
Eight coaches of the Meerut-Lucknow Rajya Rani Express derailed near Rampur in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday, reports news agency ANI.
The incident took place at 8:15 am between Mundapandey-Rampur. Currently, there are no reports of any casualties.
