Which bank raised Rs.660 crore by selling shares to employees under Employee Share Purchase Scheme (ESPS)?

Ajay V Nayak, The Election Commission has appointed Ajay V Nayak, ex-Bihar chief electoral officer, as the Special Observer for West Bengal.The first phase polls held in April 11 in Cooch Behar and Alipurpur constituencies. Polls in the remaining 40 constituencies will be held in six phases.

India's National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) has recently announced for Rs. 700 crore project funds for equity investments in agriculture and rural start-ups. NABARD was used to contribute to other funds but it is for the first time when NABARD launched its own funds. This project was launched by Nabventures, an auxiliary unit of NABARD. NABARD proposed amount of Rs 500 crore with an option to retain over-subscriptions of Rs 200 crore. Company names it green-shoe option. With this initiative NABARD will assist those start-ups who are engaged in agriculture and rural areas' development.

National space agency ISRO and French space agency CNES signed an agreement to set up a joint maritime surveillance system in the country in May. K.Sivan, Chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation, and Jean-Yves Le Gall, President of CNES of France, signed the agreement in Bengaluru. The two nations will explore putting up a constellation of low-Earth orbiting satellites that will identify and track the movement of ships globally, and in particular, those moving in the Indian Ocean region where France has its Reunion Islands. The CNES-ISRO agreement intends to supply an operational system for detecting, identifying and tracking ships in the Indian Ocean. It provides for a maritime surveillance centre to be set up in India in May this year; sharing of capacity to process existing satellite data and joint development of associated algorithms. The two agencies have put up two climate and ocean weather monitoring satellites Megha-Tropiques (of 2011) and SARAL-AltiKa (2013) that are considered a model.

US President Donald Trump on May 6, 2019 bestowed Tiger Woods with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honour, describing the golfer as one of the greatest athletes in the history of sports. The 43-year-old is only the fourth and the youngest golfer ever to have received the highest American civilian award.

Scientists have developed a device named WAND which stands for "Wireless artifact-free neuromodulation device" that works like a "Pacemaker for the brain" to monitor the brain's electrical activity and potentially deliver fine-tuned treatments to patients suffering from diseases like epilepsy and Parkinson's. The most important feature of the device is that it is both wireless and autonomous, which means when it learns to recognize the signs of tremor or seizures then it can adjust the stimulation parameters on its own to prevent the unwanted movements. The device has custom integrated circuits to record the full signal from both the subtle brain wave and the strong electrical pulses.

Malayalam film Bhayanakam (Fear) directed by Jayaraj won the best cinematography award at the Beijing International Film Festival. The cinematography was done by Nikihil S Praveen. The film had also won the best cinematography award at the 65th National Film Awards. The film portrays the visits of first World War veteran to a small village in the backwaters of Kerala's Kuttanand as a postman during the World War-II. He shares with the families the good and bad news of the soldiers who took part in the war. Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan-starrer Zero was screened at the end of the festival. The festival also screened five Indian films, including Satyajit Ray's "Pather Panchali", "Apur Sansar", "Aparajito", the romantic comedy "Love Per Square Foot", the 2018 Indian romantic comedy and the thriller "Ittefaq".

Veteran actor-writer Kader Khan passed away in Canada at the age of 81. Kader Khan made his acting debut in 1973 with Rajesh Khanna's "Daag" and has featured in over 300 films. He wrote dialogues for over 250 movies. Before becoming an actor he had written dialogues for Randhir Kapoor-Jaya Bachchan's "Jawani Diwani". As a screenwriter, Khan frequently collaborated with Manmohan Desai and Prakash Mehra.

Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) inked an agreement with Mumbai-based Prin. L N Welingkar Institute of Management Development and Research in order to support startups engaged in the export sector. Under the memorandum of understanding (MoU), FIEO launched a post graduate programme in foreign trade management (PGP-FTM) at Mumbai. The main aim of this industry-academia partnership is to attract new entrepreneurs in exports to bridge the gap of availability of qualified skilled manpower in Exim trade. The programme consist of general management principles, export-import procedures, and international marketing concepts and the duration of the programme will be 11 months. The programme will be offered in 2 batches.

Indian Army showcased its artillery firepower by using ultralight Howitzers and indigenous Swathi weapon-locating radar at the annual "Exercise Topchi". The exercise was held at Deolali Camp near Nashik. Aviation and surveillance capabilities were also showcased. There were a showcase of display of rockets, missiles, surveillance, and target acquisition radars, remotely piloted aircraft and hi-tech equipment in addition to gunfire. The precision displayed while delivering the explosives in the target area stunned all those present.