As per Ficci's survey 'Ficci's Economic Outlook Survey', the Indian economy is expected to grow at __________ in the current fiscal.

Stevo Pendarovski, the 55-year-old former political-science professor won the presidential runoff vote amid promises to push the Balkan state towards NATO (The North Atlantic Treaty Organization) and European Union membership. Pendarovski had 51.7% of votes whereas Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova, his challenger, had 44.7% votes. Siljanovska-Davkova is North Macedonia's first female candidate and a university professor. The main conservative opposition VMRO DPMNE (Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization-Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity) party (which backed Siljanovska-Davkova) having seen many irregularities in the election procedure, accused the government of "electoral engineering".

Researchers have Genetically Modified (GM) a common indoor plant, golden pothos or Devil's ivy (Epipremnum aureum), to remove pollutants inside the house. It has been modified to produce a liver enzyme called cytochrome p450 2e1, which is taken from rabbits, that breaks down a wide range of pollutants. The researchers put the modified plant and normal pothos ivy in glass tubes and added either benzene or chloroform gas into each tube. They found that the concentration of either gas did not change for normal plants. However, for the modified plants, the concentration of chloroform dropped by 82%, and it was almost undetectable by day six.

In a bid to evaluate the environmental performance of existing schools across India, the Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment (GRIHA) Council has recently released a rating tool 'GRIHA for Existing Day Schools'. The rating tool will work as an integrated tool to evaluate performance and provide solutions for enhanced energy and water efficiencies, increased thermal and visual comfort, and decreased operational and maintenance costs. The purpose of the rating is to familiarize the students with the concepts of sustainability by involving them, under the guidance of their teachers, on evaluating the environmental impact of schools on the environment. Through the rating process, students and teachers will get an opportunity to establish contact with nature and with each other using the approach of co-creation and understanding.

Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) has constituted a committee to implement the National Clean Air Program (NCAP). The objective is to reduce the PM (particulate matter) 2.5 and PM 10 concentration by 20% to 30% in at least 102 cities by 2024. The committee will be headed by the Secretary, Union Environment Ministry. The headquarters of the committee will be in New Delhi.The other members of the committee will be Joint Secretary (Thermal), Ministry of Power; Director General, The Energy Resources Institute (TERI) and Professor Sachidananda Tripathi, IIT Kanpur.The 102 cities, across 23 states and Union Territories will be identified by the Central Pollution Control Board (CBCB). The selection criteria will be based on their ambit air quality data between 2011 and 2015. The NCAP is envisioned as a five-year action plan with 2019 as the first year. There would be a review every five years.

Google unveiled its on-demand video-game streaming service Stadia, built for Chrome, Android and TVs, at the 2019 Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, California. Stadia's 'Crowd Play' feature will let people, watching a YouTube live stream, to actually join the streamer's game. The service will initially be launched this year in the US, Canada, the UK and Europe.

World Laughter Day is celebrated on the first Sunday of May of every year. The first celebration was on May 10, 1998, in Mumbai, India. The celebration of World Laughter Day was meant to be a positive manifestation for world peace and to build up a global consciousness of brotherhood and friendship through laughter and run-on sentences. Its popularity has grown exponentially with that of the Laughter Yoga movement, which is now counting over 6000 Laughter Clubs worldwide on all 5 continents. World Laughter Day was created in 1998 by Dr. Madan Kataria, founder of the worldwide Laughter Yoga movement. Laughter Yoga movement in part by the facial feedback hypothesis, which postulates that a person's facial expressions can have an effect on their emotions. World Laughter Day is now celebrated in every year in most large cities around the world. Hundreds of people gather worldwide on that day to laugh together.

Reliance Nippon Life Asset Management (RNAM) has joined hands with Google to enable the customers of Reliance Mutual Fund to carry out voice-based financial transactions. With this, RNAM becomes the first company in India, to provide a conversational interface that would help customers regarding funds transactions.

An international research team including Dr. Surhud More and Dr. Anupreeta More from Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA), Pune has ruled out the possibility of primordial black holes being a major constituent of dark matter using Subaru telescope. This finding disproves a theoretical claim of Prof Stephen Hawking. In the solar system, Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun, takes just 88 days to make one revolution around the sun, while Neptune, the farthest one, takes 165 years to make one round. In like manner, laws of gravity expect us to see stars closer to the centre of galaxies rotating faster than the stars on the edge.

As per RBI notification, IDBI Bank has been categorized as a private sector lender following the acquisition of majority stake by Life Insurance Corporation. IDBI Bank has been under the prompt corrective action framework of RBI that bans it from corporate lending and branch expansions, salary hikes and other regular activities. In January 2019, LIC completed the process of picking up a controlling 51% stake in the nearly crippled IDBI Bank. IDBI Bank has been categorized as a 'private sector bank' with effect from January 21, 2019.