PUNJAB
- Punjab fixes cotton sowing target at 4L hectares
- The season for cotton sowing has already set in and the sowing is expected to pick pace from the first week of May. The Punjab agriculture department has devised a strategy to increase the area under cotton by nearly 40% to 4 lakh hectares, up from 2.84 lakh hectares in 2018-19 season.
- Out of the 4 lakh, the government hopes that Bathinda and Mansa alone will turn 2.20 lakh hectares (55%) to cotton — the estimate has arrived at 1.40 lakh hectares in Bathinda and 80,000 hectares in Mansa.INTERNATIONAL
- India to partner with Japan and UAE to set up two projects in Africa
- India will build a cancer hospital in Kenya in collaboration with Japan.
Also, India will partner with the UAE to set up an ICT centre(Information and Communications Technology center) in - Through this partnership, India has undertaken many projects like the ambitious Pan African e-networkproject on tele-education and tele-medicine which provides “integrated” satellite, fiber optics and wireless network between educational and medical institutes in Africa and India.
- Africa is the focus under the Narendra Modi government amid China’s push in the continent and countries from Europe are also keen to partner India for projects in third countries in Africa.
- The New York Times, Wall Street Journal awarded Pulitzer Prizes
- The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal were awarded Pulitzer Prizes for their separate investigations of President Donald Trump and his family.
- The South Florida Sun Sentinel won the Pulitzer for public service for its coverage of failings by school and law enforcement officials before and after the February 2018 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
- The Associated Press won a Pulitzer for international reporting for its coverage of the war in Yemen.
- Reuters was honoured for international reporting for its coverage of atrocities committed against Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar.
- The Pulitzer Prize is an award for achievements in newspaper, magazine and online journalism.
- Each winner receives a certificate and a US$15,000 cash award.
NATIONAL
- INS Kozhikode was decommissioned after three decades of service
- Indian Naval Ship Kozhikode was decommissionedin a ceremony held at Naval Jetty, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh on 13th April. Vice Admiral S.N. Ghormade, Chief of Staff, Eastern Naval Command, was the chief guest on the occasion. INS Kozhikode gracefully retired as an operational ship after three decades of service in the Indian Navy.
- P. Sasidharan (Retd.), Commissioning Executive Officer, Cdr. Afzal Khan, Commissioning Navigating Officer, Cdr. V.K. Sharma (Retd.) Commissioning Engineering Officer and Ms. Madhavi Sani, wife of late Cdr. Nadeem Sani, Commissioning Gunnery Officer of the ship, also graced the occasion. As part of the decommissioning ceremony, a ‘Barakhana’ for retired and serving sailors and their families was held.
- It was named after the historic port of Calicut, the ship was an integral part of the 21 Mine Counter Measures Squadron, based in ENC at Visakhapatnam.
- Kozhikode was the sixth and the last of the modified‘Natya’ class of minesweepers
- India successfully test fires sub-sonic cruise missile ‘Nirbhay’
- India successfully test-fired it’s first indigenously designed and developed long-range sub-sonic cruise missile ‘Nirbhay’ from a test range in Odisha.
- The missile can be deployed from multiple platforms.
- It was test-fired at the Integrated Test Range (ITR) at Chandipur.
- The missile is capable of loitering and cruising at 0.7 Mach at altitude as low as 100 meters.
- Centre sets up an Indo Pacific division
- The Ministry of External Affairshas set up an Indo-Pacific division in the foreign office. The Indo-pacific division is intended to give a coherent architecture to theIndo-Pacific policy. The policy was articulated by PM Narendra Modi at the Shangri-La Dialogue in 2018. In India, the policy will be run by the MEA.
- The Indo-Pacific Wing will integrate the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA), ASEAN region and the Quad
- The Indo-Pacific Wing is expected to give thrust to the Indo-Pacific centred policymaking
- The US has recently renamed its Pacific Command to the Indo-Pacific Command as it seeks to give teeth to its Indo-Pacific policy
- In its Indo-Pacific diplomacy, India has repeatedly placed ASEAN at the centre of its policy
- Meena Kumari Maisnam clinches gold in Boxing World Cup
- India finished with 5 medals in the Boxing World Cup which concluded at Cologne, Germany.
- Meena Kumari Maisnam continued her fine run to win gold in the 54 kg.
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