1) Indian Delegation led by Amit Khare, I&B Secretary met Film Commissioners of participating countries at Cannes Film Festival. The Delegation further met Eti Cohen, Director of Film Department and Council, Ministry of Culture and Sports, Israel. During the meeting, Israel proposed India to be the focus country in Jerusalem Film Festival, 2020. The buzz created by the Hindi movie Newton in Israel was also highlighted by the Israeli Delegation. Israel also proposed the idea of making concept-based films in India, with a focus on regional and small budget films.
2) The Central Bank notified that the (Reserve Bank of India) RBI-appointed committee chaired by Nandan Nilekani, Aadhaar architect, submitted the panel’s suggestions on promoting digital payments to Shaktikanta Das, the Governor of RBI. In January 2019, the Central Bank had set up the 5-member panel with an objective to promote digitization of payments, thus improving financial inclusion through digitization. Besides Infosys co-founder Nilekani, former RBI deputy governor H R Khan, former MD and CEO of Vijaya Bank, Kishore Sansi, former secretary in ministries of IT (Information Technology) and steel Aruna Sharma, chief innovation officer, Centre for Innovation, Incubation & Entrepreneurship (CIIE), IIM Ahmedabad, Sanjay Jain were also members of the panel.
3) Bajaj Finserv, through it, ‘s lending arm Bajaj Finance Ltd has launched a specialized insurance cover titled ‘Mumbai Local Train Cover‘for passengers traveling in local trains in Mumbai. This policy provides coverage in case of a mishap during a train journey. The passengers will get an insurance cover of Rs 1 lakh against a payment of Rs 399 per annum. In the event, when an insured passenger suffers a disability as a result of a Mumbai-local train accident, the passenger is covered against loss of income, with Rs. 2000 per week during the policy period. Local train travelers who are eligible for this insurance cover are persons above 18 years of age and below 70 years of age.
4) The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, Government of India, felicitated Legacy Accelerators, Antano, and Harini with the ‘Award for Honour’ for their work to help people change the trajectory of their lives and create a personal legacy in compressed time. Antano and Harini together with their Team of Excellence Installation Specialists and Change Agents were invited to work with some Government officers across various levels. As the impact of their work, they were felicitated with the Award. The 20 specialists of Excellence Installation Specialists and Change Agents, guided by Antano and Harini for last 3 years, also received an appreciation letter along with a sapling from B.L. Meena, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.
5) On May 14, 2019, one of the paintings of 1890 named ‘Mueles’ (Grainstacks) of Claude Monet was sold for a record-breaking price of $110.7 million (Rs.778 crore) at Sotheby’s Impressionist & Modern Art Evening Sale. It became the ninth most expensive work ever sold in the auction. It is the finest work of Claude Monet from ‘Haystacks’ series and became the first impressionist work to cross $100 million thresholds at auction. The painting ‘Mueles’ is an oil on canvas which was completed in the year 1890. It depicts stacks of harvested wheat that belonged to Monet’s neighbor. Monet was the founder of French Impressionism and was known as the Master of plein air landscapes. He died in the year 1926 aged 86. The other paintings of Monet are Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York in the US, Musée d’Orsay, Paris in France and Art Institute of Chicago.
6) United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) granted the prestigious Sasakawa Award 2019 for Disaster Risk Reduction to Additional Principal Secretary to Prime Minister of India, Dr. Pramod Kumar Mishra, during the ongoing 6th Session of Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (GPDRR) 2019 at Geneva, Switzerland. GPDRR is a biennial multi-stakeholder forum that was established by the (United Nations) UN General Assembly to evaluate progress, share knowledge and discuss the recent developments in decreasing disaster risk. The Indian delegation was led by Dr. P K Mishra. In the area of Disaster Risk Management, the United Nations Sasakawa Award is the most prestigious international award.
7) 19-year-old Indian YouTuber, Ajey Nagar is named among the Top 10 ‘Next Generation Leaders 2019’ by Time Magazine. He is the most followed YouTuber in India. The ‘Next Generation Leaders’ is a list of 10 young people around the world who create new paths in politics, music and other spheres. Ajey Nagar runs a youtube channel named CarryMinati which has 6,827,342 subscribers. He had uploaded the first video when he was 10 years old and found his niche in 2016 by producing diss tracks. In January 2019, Nagar’s diss track against Swedish YouTuber Felix Kjellberg, popularly known as PewDiePie which was viral rendered enormous success to his YouTube career. In a video titled “Bye PewDiePie”, Nagar raps in Hindi to tell PewDiePie that one day, India will rule the whole world.
8) The theme of the 2019 Sasakawa award was titled “Building Inclusive and Resilient Societies”. Dr. Mishra was honoured with the award for his constant dedication in improving the strength of the communities which were most exposed to disasters. He also personally committed to work for social inclusion for the reduction in inequality and poverty, and also enhanced safety and security. The United Nations Sasakawa Award is collaboratively organized by the UNDRR and the Nippon Foundation and was instituted over 30 years ago. A total grant of 50,000 USD is distributed among the winners of the award, which can be either organizations or individuals. UNDRR received over 61 nominations from 31 countries for the 2019 award.
9) Child actor, Sunny Pawar aged 11, won the Best Child Actor Award for his performance in ‘Chippa’ at the 19th New York Indian Film Festival. He hails from a slum in Kunchi Kurve Nagar in Mumbai, Maharashtra. Film ‘Chippa’ is directed by Safdar Rahman. His film ‘Lion’ directed by Australian Garth Davis’, which was nominated for Oscars 2017, had awarded him the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards (AACTA Awards). He has also won a Special Mention Grand Jury Prize at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards.
10) On May 17, 2019, the Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, announced the appointment of Radha Venkataraman as the next High Commissioner of India to the Kingdom of Eswatini. She is currently serving as the Director in the Ministry of External Affairs. She is set to take up her responsibility soon. She succeeds Rudra Gaurav Shresth.
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