Current Events / May 2010

• The Central Government announces an industrial and financial bonanza worth Rs.300 crore for Himachal Pradesh including extension of transportation and capital subsidy and income tax exemption for another three years.
• the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) announces that Russia will develop a lander that will ferry a rover to explore the Moon’s surface as part of the Chandrayaan II mission, slated for launch in 2013
• Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh pulls up Minister of State for Environment and forests Mr. Jairam Ramesh, asking him to refrain from commenting on the functioning of other ministries in public;  the reprimand comes for Ramesh’s comments in Beijing, China, where he criticised the Home Ministry, calling its attitude ‘alarmist’  and ‘paranoid’ towards Cinese companies engaged in various projects in India.
• Seeking  to put the trade relations between the two countries on a fast track, India and Singapore decide to double their trade in the next five years from 16 billion dollor; the decision is taken at a meeting in New Delhi between commerce and Industry Minister Mr. Anand Sharma and his Singapore counterpart Mr; Lim Hng Kiang.
• India releases its first green house gas emissions inventory since 1994  showing a 30% fall in the emisssions intensity of the GDP from that date till 2007 — even as it announces several measures to improve the domestic study of climate change.
• Justice Sarosh Himi Kapadia is sworn in as the 38th Chief Justice of India, he succeds justice K. G. Balkrishnan.
• In big ticket investment aimed at giving a boost to its holding of oil and gas assets abroad, the ONGC Videsh Ltd. (OVL) along with its partners, enters into an agreement with the Venezuelan government to develop a 20 billion dollor oil project in that country.
• the Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) at Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu, crosses milestone, with the thermal baffle, a crucial piece of cooling equipment, successfully lowered into it.
• The Central government extends the ban on the LTTE by two more years, following intelligence reports that remnants of the terror out fit are trying to regroup in Tamil Nadu.
• Mr. Ratan Kumar Sinha is appointed director, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay.
• After two successive setbacks, Agni II surface to surface ballistic missile is successfully test fired from the Wheeler island off the Orissa coast. The intermediate range missile can carry nuclear weapons and has a range of 2000 km.
• The 3 G mobile licence spectrum auction concludes, generating a big bananza for the ruling UPA Government, with the revenue in the region of r/s. 67710 crore, almost twice the expected amount.
• Pakistan sends a note verbale to India on the disputed Kishanganga projects, clearly indicating its intention to set up a court of aritration as provide in the dipute settlement mechanism under the Indus Water Treaty.
• A report released by the  Central Statistical Organisation reveals that buoyed by a robust 8.6 % expansion in the fourth quarterl, the Indian ecibint wutbessed a geaktgt griwtg if 7.4 percent in 2009 – 10 as compared to earlier estimate of 7.2 percent.
• The centre decides to set up a special investigation cell to deal with accidents and  calsualties that have shot up in the wake of increasing maritime traffic.
• Addressing a joint session of the Bhutanese Parliament in Thimpu, Bhutan, Lok Sabha Speaker Ms. Meire Kumar announces the setting up of a parliamentary Friendship Group to help reinforce and renew the bonds of friendship between India and Bhutan.
• Arjun Vajpai, a 16 year old boy from Noida, becomes the youngest Indian to scale Mount Everest.