What was the theme of the World Thalassaemia Day 2019?

Manappuram Finance, a Non-banking finance company withdrew a release which had issued earlier regarding securing Rs 695 crore debt funding from NABARD.Previously this Rs 695 crore funding will agree to use for priority sector lending.

For the 1st time, private lender YES Bank Ltd, in terms of market valuation, has slipped by 3 levels to come down to the 10th spot. The position of the bank has come down due to its shares collapsing over 30% in the last 4 sessions after YES bank had reported a net loss of Rs. 1500 crore in its March quarter earnings. The most valued Indian bank with a market cap of Rs. 6.34 trillion is HDFC Bank Ltd. This is followed by (SBI) State Bank of India and Kotak Mahindra Bank with market cap of Rs 2.76 trillion and Rs 2.68 trillion, respectively. Shares of YES Bank were down 5.3% at Rs.166.30 on the 6th of May, 2019 and its market capitalization was Rs. 38,515.71 crore.

Three Indian expats from the UAE are amongst those who won the prestigious Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award the highest honor conferred on Indian diaspora. President Ram Nath Kovind conferred the award on Girish Pant, Surender Singh Kandhari and Dr. Zulekha Daud and other awardees at the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) Convention in Varanasi.

Stanford University has been named the World's Most Innovative University for the fourth consecutive year in Reuters' ranking of World's Most Innovative Universities. This list ranks educational institutions based on new technologies they have invented and new markets and industries they have powered. Stanford University is followed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Harvard University, University of Pennsylvania.

'Bharat Fibre', the state-owned telecom firm, BSNL (Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited) became the 1st operator to start optical fibre-based high-speed broadband service in Pulwama. The Bharat Fibre services with reliable and high-speed internet are provided on the optical fibre by FTTH (fibre-to-the-home) service up to the customer premises. The service was launched by BSNL Chief General Manager of Jammu and Kashmir Circle, Rana Ashok Kumar Singh, in the presence of Srinagar General Manager Telecom District Zafar Iqbal and BSNL's channel partner, Mir Nazir. The Internet services generally remain unaffected even during the vagaries of weather.

The government will be setting up the country's largest national data centre in Bhopal, with capacity for 500,000 virtual servers. The country has four such centres for hosting government websites, services and apps. These are at Pune, Hyderabad, Delhi and Bhubaneswar.

The Passport Index of 2019, which ranks almost 199 countries in the world based on their Visa-Free Scores and their ranking according to the UNDP human development index, showed that Indian passport has steadily strengthened in a period of 5 years from rank 77 in 2015 to 67 in 2019. 25 countries allow visa-free entry to Indian passport holders, whereas 39 countries offer visa-on-arrival. The Tourism Ministry for India is also offering e-tourist visa facilities to 166 countries, by making several amendments in the e-visa regime of the country in order to make this process more tourist friendly.

ISRO will launch a student satellite called 'Kalamsat' and an imaging satellite known as 'Microsat-R' on 24 January 2019. Both the satellite will be carried by 'PSLV C-44' rocket. PSLV is a four-stage launch vehicle. In PSLV-C44, the fourth stage (PS4) of the vehicle would be moved to a ?higher circular orbit so as to establish an orbital platform for carrying out experiments.

In the special mission, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will also launch 28 third-party satellites and will demonstrate its new technologies like three different orbits with a new variant of 'Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle' (PSLV) rocket in March, 2019. Electronic intelligence satellite 'Emisat' of Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) weighs about 420 kg. After launching Emisat at an altitude of 763 km, the PSLV rocket will be brought down to put the remaining 28 satellites into orbit at an altitude of 504 km.