For which book, Francis Spufford has been awarded the 2017 Desmond Elliott Prize?

The official Twitter account of the Indian Army's Additional Directorate General of Public Information tweeted that an Indian Army mountaineering expedition team has sited mysterious footprints of mythical himalayan beast "Yeti" measuring 32x15 inches (81 centimeters by 38 centimeters) close to Makalu Base Camp,located in North-Eastern Himalayas on 09 April 2019. The yeti also known as Abominable Snowman or Asian Bigfoot is a giant ape-like creature often figures in South Asian folklore. Yetis are believed to weigh anywhere between 91 to 181 kilograms with a height of above 6 feet.

The Lok Sabha passed a Bill to amend the Aadhaar and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2018. The amendment will allow individuals to offer voluntarily biometric ID as a means of identity verification for obtaining services such as opening a bank account and getting a mobile phone connection. The Bill also gives a minor the option to opt out of the 12-digit identity scheme on attaining the age of 18. It provides for stiff penalties for violation of norms set for the use of Aadhaar and bans service providers from storing core biometric information and Aadhaar number of individuals who voluntarily offer it as a means of authentication.

President Ram Nath Kovind appointed Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka of the Bombay High Court as the Chief Justice of the Karnataka High Court. And Kerala High Court Judge Justice P.R. Ramachandra Menon as Chief Justice Of Chhattisgarh High Court.

India's Haj Quota has been increased by about 25,000, raising the number to 2 lakh from 1.75 lakh by Saudi Arabia. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman gave the assurance to Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a meeting in February. This will help the huge number of pilgrim of Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, and Bihar to embark pilgrimage this year. Also, total 2,340 Muslim women from India will go for Haj without 'Mehram' or male companion. This year, the GST on Haj pilgrimage has been reduced from 18 percent to 5 percent which will ensure that about Rs 113 crore will be saved by pilgrims during the 2019 Haj.

Bharti Airtel and Hughes Communication India have agreed to merge their broadband satellite or VSAT (very small aperture terminal) business to improve operational efficiencies and target new customers in areas such as in-flight connectivity. After a merger, Hughes Communication will own 67% share of new entity and the remaining 33% will own by Bharti Airtel. If we talk about current market share, the Hughes Communication has 36% share of the market and Airtel Business - the enterprise and VSAT arm of Bharti Airtel has 27% share of the market.

Anand-based National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) has developed world's first complete parent-wise genome assembly of buffalo named "NDDB_ABRO_Murrah" of riverine buffaloes. This comes on the back of the successful launch of a customized genotyping chip for indigenous cattle and their crosses, named INDUSCHIP. To ensure better accuracy, for the first time a trio binning was used for separating haplotypes of a buffalo, using a father-mother-offspring trio. World buffalo population is estimated to be 224.4 million, of which 219 million (97.58 per cent) are in Asia.

The Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) has launched an awareness programme on Goods and Services Tax (GST) in collaboration with Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) Institute Limited to help small scale businesses. The purpose of the GST programme is to impart basic knowledge and skills required to fulfil various requirements under the GST Act. It would be beneficial to people who are engaged in maintaining accounts and filing of various indirect tax returns. The main objective of the programme is to impart skills to book keeping professionals to file various regular GST returns along with the various compliance requirements. Those who have passed Class 12 are eligible for the course, which will be offered in January and July cycle of admissions.

The report titled, 'The Belt and Road Initiative Progress, Contributions and Prospects' released by the Leading Group for Promoting the Belt and Road Initiative had previously listed the BCIM as a BRI project. But, owing to the fact that India had skipped the Belt and Road Forum (BRF), the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) economic corridor ran the possibility to be excluded from the list of projects under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) umbrella. The BRI is a major initiative speared by China to reconstruct the ancient Silk Road connectivity across Eurasia and Africa.This has come to limelight after a document attached with the Joint Communique of the Leaders' Roundtable of the BRF that concluded in Beijing, the website did not list the BCIM as a project under the BRI.

TIME magazine features Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the headline 'India's Divider in Chief' in its May 20, 2019 edition. The headline pertains to the story "Can the World's Largest Democracy Endure Another Five Years of a Modi Government?" by journalist Aatish Taseer.