May Current Affairs - 2010

·         Senior BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi was appointed Chairman of the Parliamentary Accounts Committee, replacing fellow party man Gopinath Munde.

·         Viswanathan Anand won the World Chess Championship, beating Veselin Topalov in the final game of the 12-game tournament in 56 moves, in Sofia (Bulgaria).

·         The government agreed to give an additional Rs 14,000 crore to oil retailers Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and HPCL to make up for most of the losses they incurred on selling cooking fuel below cost.

·         West Indian Deandra Dottin became the first woman cricketer to hit a Twenty20 International century, also the fastest ever in this format, when she blasted a 40-ball unbeaten 112 against South Africa in the World Cup.

·         India and Finland have agreed to cooperate in building roads and highways and share information on attracting more investments for public-private-partnership (PPP) projects in the sector.

·         Distinguished Indian physicist and environmentalist Vandana Shiva has been awarded the prestigious Sydney Peace Prize this year, in recognition of her works in the field of social justice.

·         Chandigarh has emerged as the number one city in terms of sanitation in the National Rating Exercise, government said. Announcing this, Urban Development Minister S Jaipal Reddy listed Mysore at Number 2, Surat at No 3 and the NDMC area of New Delhi in the fourth position.

·         South Zone won the inter-zonal JK Bose Twenty20 cricket tournament clinching its third straight match at the Sports Authority of Goa (SAG) ground at Campal.

·         Zarine Khan, who shot to fame as Salman Khan's leading lady in her Bollywood debut 'Veer', has been conferred the 'Hero to Animals' Award by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) for rescuing a cat.

·         The country is ranked 73 in the list of 77 nations rated for the "best place to be a mother", according to a report by child rights organisation 'Save the Children'.

·         Nitin Nohria, an IIT alumnus, has been named as the 10th dean of Harvard Business School, the first time an Indian-origin person has been named to the post in the prestigious institution's 102-year old history.

·         The new wholesale price-based inflation basket will have as many as 676 products, including LCD TVs, mobile phones, and packaged drinking water among others, and is likely to be rolled out in June or July. In the new series there will be no obsolete items like typewriters and VCRs. The new index, with 2004-05 as the base year, will have 241 new items and is expected to provide a more realistic picture of price rise and its impact on the common man. Currently there are 435 items in the WPI basket.

·         S Sabanayakan of Kolkata was re-elected president while G Viswanath of Mumbai was elected as the secretary of the Sports Journalists Federation of India (SJFI).

·         The government notified the ban on FDI in cigarette manufacturing. The decision was taken by the Union Cabinet on April 8. "Manufacturing of cigars, cheroots, cigarillos and cigarettes, of tobacco or of tobacco substitutes" have been put under the list of sectors where FDI is prohibited.

·         The State Bank has won the prestigious Asian Banker Achievement Award for being the strongest bank in Asia Pacific region, instituted by the Qatar Financial Centre Authority and the Asian Banker magazine.

·         Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said that the government had to inject Rs 80,000 crore into the economy to minimise the impact of the global slowdown.

·         Launching the second review of the India-Singapore Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA), India and Singapore set a target of doubling the bilateral trade to 232 billion dollars by 2015.

·         India's leading IT firms Infosys, Wipro and Tata Consultancy Services has been listed among the world's top 10 best outsourcing providers. The list released by International Association of Outsourcing Professionals (IAOP).

·         Avadhesh Kaushal, a human rights activist, has been nominated by the Union Ministry of Rural Development for monitoring of the rural job guarantee scheme NREGA.