[CA] May 02, 2020 Headlines

MAY 02, 2020
CHAK – HAO & TERRACOTA OF GORAKHPUR GETS GI TAG Chak-Hao, the black rice of Manipur and the terracotta work of Gorakhpur has been granted with the Geographical Indication (GI) tag. [Click for more details...] ICC TEST RAnKINGS India has lost its top spot & has slipped to the 3rd position (114) for the first time since 2016 in the International Cricket Council (ICC) test rankings, as its record of 12 test victories and one Test defeat in 2016-17 was removed in the latest chart as per rules. Australia (116) topped the rank, followed by New Zealand (115). The top 5 ranked test teams are: Australia, New Zealand, India, England and Sri Lanka. HEZBOLLAH Germany has classified the organization Hezbollah as a terrorist organization in its soil. The Hezbollah is a Shia Islamist political party that is based in Lebanon. The organization was founded by the Iranian effort in 1980s to aggregate Lebanese Shia groups. In the on-going Iran-Israel conflicts, Hezbollah acts as a proxy for Iran. LOCKDOWN EXTENDED IN INDIA WITH SOME RESTRICTIONS The Government said that, the nationwide coronavirus lockdown will be extended by two more weeks from May 4.  Extending the lockdown for the second time, the home ministry announced new guidelines based on the demarcation of the country into red zones with "significant risk of spread of the infection"; green zones with either zero cases or no confirmed cases in the past 21 days; and those in between as orange. While some curbs will apply across the country, there will be considerable relaxations in districts in green and orange zones to revive economic activity that has been stalled during the tough restrictions in place since March 25.  The biggest and most economically-important cities including Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai and Ahmedabad, all marked red zones, will stay under strict lockdown. All social, political, cultural and other kinds of gatherings will remain prohibited and religious places or places of worship for public will continue to remain shut. Across India, 130 Districts comes under Red Zone, 284 Districts comes under Orange Zone and 319 Districts comes under Green Zone. [Click for more details...]	SANIA MIRZA Sania Mirza became the first Indian to be nominated for the Fed Cup Heart Award from the Asia/Oceania Zone along with Priska Madelyn Nugroho of Indonesia, Estonia’s Anett Kontaveit and Luxembourg’s Eleonora Molinaro from Europe/Africa, Fernanda Contreras Gomes of Mexico and Paraguay’s Veronica Cepede Royg from Americas. The voting for the award opens from 1st May until 8th May. AYURAKSHA   The Delhi Police in association with All India Institute of Ayurveda (AIIA), a public Ayurveda medicine and research institution, has jointly run the program called ‘Ayuraksha – Corona se jung, Delhi Police ke sang’ with the aim of providing all possible health related help to all those Delhi Policemen working in the frontline to fight against coronavirus (COVID-19). YASH Programme YASH was launched by Department of Science and Technology. YASH is Year of Awareness on Science and Health. The awareness is being created to focus on COVID-19. The initiative aims at encouraging public engagement and enable communities to increase their sense of awareness against COVID-19. MAHARASHTRA: LEGISLATIVE COUNCIL ELECTION  Election Commission of India announced that it is to conduct biennial election for 9 vacant seats for the members of Legislative Council of the Maharashtra State Legislature. The Legislative Council is the upper house in a state legislature and is established under Article 169. 6 out of 28 states have State Legislative Council. With this, the hurdle for Maharashtra Chief Minister, Mr. Uddhav Thackeray is cleared. He is Chief Minister of the State without being a member of either in Legislative Assembly or Legislative Council. As per the Constitution, a person can hold such post at maximum only for six months. ******************************** Max. Red Zone Districts: Uttar Pradesh (19) Maharashtra (14) Max. Orange Zone Districts: Uttar Pradesh (36) Tamil Nadu (24) Max. Green Zone Districts: Assam (30) Chhattisgarh (25) [Click for more details...] *********************************
Prepared by K. M. Senthil Kumar