• The purpose of World Turtle Day, May [latex]23^{rd}[/latex], sponsored yearly since 2000 by American Tortoise Rescue, is to bring attention to, and increase knowledge of and respect for, turtles and tortoises, and encourage human action to help them survive and thrive.

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• China must prepare for difficult times as the international situation is increasingly complex, President Xi Jinping said in comments carried by state media, as the U.S.-China trade war took a mounting toll on tech giant Huawei.


• The world’s two largest economies have escalated tariff increases on each other’s imports after talks broke down to resolve their dispute, and the acrimony has intensified since Washington last week blacklisted Chinese telecom equipment company Huawei Technologies.

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• The US announced a $150 hike in fees for processing student visa, up from the current $200 to $350, marking a 75% rise that will make US education even costlier for applicants and hopefuls, many of whom come from India.


• The new fees, which apply to F (academic) and M (non-academic, vocational) visa categories of students go into effect on June [latex]24^{th}[/latex] , US citizenship and immigration services said.


• Fees will go up also for other services under the Student and Exchange Visitor Program (SEVP) such as exchange visitors under J category and SEVP-certified schools for processing applications and site inspections.

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• Top US officials told Congress in close-door briefings that ongoing actions regarding Iran are “about deterrence, not war” as questions continued to be raised if the Trump administration is gunning for a conflict or could accidentally provoke one through a “miscalculation”.


• Secretary of state Mike Pompeo and secretary of defence Pat Shanahan briefed US Senate and the House of Representatives on the “credible intelligence” that led to recent escalation, with the US deploying an aircraft carrier group, bombers and anti-missile defence system to the region.

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• The police in Tokyo said that they have arrested a man in his sixties on suspicion of aiming a laser pointer at a US military transport aircraft flying close to the Yokota Air Base in the outskirts of the Japanese capital.


• The police said they arrested Yoshinori Shigekawa, 60, for allegedly pointing the green laser beam at a C-130J plane on a training flight at around 6.30 p.m. (local time) on February 11 as it was flying in the vicinity of the base.

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• Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's governing party has taken an early lead as votes are counted after the country's marathon general election.


• Mr Modi, whose Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) swept to power in 2014, looks on course to keep his commanding majority.


• He was up against a resurgent main opposition Congress party and powerful regional rivals across the country.


• Counting began at 08:00 local time (02:30GMT) after six bitterly fought weeks of voting ended.

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• Jagan Mohan Reddy's YSRCP leading in 144 seats, set to clinch victory in the state.


• Live updates of the 2019 Andhra Pradesh Assembly election result. YSRCP takes a lead in early trends

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• External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and her Pakistani counterpart Shah Mehmood Qureshi exchanged pleasantries during a SCO meeting here and sat next to each other during a joint call on on Kyrgyz president, amid strained ties between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.


• Swaraj and Qureshi attended the meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which was founded at a summit in Shanghai in 2001 by the presidents of Russia, China, Kyrgyz Republic, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

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• The Supreme Court restrained West Bengal police on Wednesday from taking any coercive action against Arjun Singh, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate from the Barrackpore Lok Sabha constituency, who is facing several criminal cases.


• The protection from arrest to Singh was granted until May 28 to enable him to be present for the counting of votes in his constituency.


• The top court also gave him liberty to approach an appropriate forum for bail once the protection ceases to exist.

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• A large number of anti-drought projects related to water harvesting and micro irrigation that have been taken up in many states in the past few years under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) either remain incomplete or have been abandoned, government data shows.


• This assumes significance as several districts in central, east and peninsular India are staring at extreme arid conditions after the India Meteorological Department last week predicted 22% deficiency in pre-monsoon showers between March and May.

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• The board of directors of HDFC Bank, approved a proposal to split the lender’s share from one equity share of face value of ₹2 each to two shares of face value ₹1 each.


• “Owing to the bank’s strong financial performance and sound asset quality, the market price of the bank’s equity shares has grown steadily over the past several years,” HDFC Bank said in a regulatory filing, adding that the stock split will augment the affordability of the bank’s equity shares and participation of retail and individual investors.

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• In a bid to reach out to a larger number of customers, especially the youth, Canara Bank has marked its official presence on two social-media platforms – Facebook and Instagram.


• The bank, launched the official Facebook (@canarabankglobal) and Instagram (@canarabankinsta) pages.

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• Pakistan's Nida Dar smashed a 20-ball fifty against South Africa in the fourth T20I to register the second fastest fifty in women's T20Is.


• Dar finished her innings with 75 runs off 37 balls, the highest ever T20I score by a Pakistani woman. Dar also reached 1000 T20I runs, becoming the third woman from Pakistan to reach the milestone.

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• Omani author Jokha Alharthi has won this year's Man Booker International Prize - the first Arabic writer to do so.


• Her novel Celestial Bodies centres on the lives of three sisters and their families coming to terms with social changes in Oman.


• Judges described it as "a richly imagined, engaging and poetic insight".


• Alharthi shares the award of £50,000 ($63,000) with her translator, the American academic Marilyn Booth.

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• Lyon striker Ada Hegerberg has been voted the BBC Women's Footballer of the Year 2019.


• The award, voted for by fans across the world, comes four days after she scored a hat-trick in the Champions League final as her side lifted the trophy.

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• Former PepsiCo chairman and CEO Indra Nooyi was presented with an honorary degree by the prestigious Yale University, her alma mater, in recognition of her achievements in business and for being a global role model who encouraged women and girls to see themselves as top corporate executives.


• Nooyi, who received a degree in Master of Public and Private Management from the university's Yale School of Management in 1980, was presented with the Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters.

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• Big Bash League (BBL) franchise Melbourne Stars on Wednesday appointed former Australian batsman David Hussey as their men's team head coach.


• Hussey, who succeeds Stephen Fleming, has signed a two-year deal with Stars, said the club in a media release.


• After his appointment, Hussey said he was incredibly excited by the opportunity to lead the Stars.

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• Ruskin Bond, on his 85 birthday launched new memoir titled “Coming Round the Mountain”.


• India’s beloved children’s author socially released the book at Cambridge bookstores in Mussourie, Uttarakhand.


• The book has been published by Penguin India.

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• Prize-winning Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina has died in Nairobi after a short illness at the age of 48.


• He won the Caine Prize for African writing in 2002 and was best known around the world for his satirical essay How to Write About Africa.


• Wainaina was also named among Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in 2014 for his gay rights activism.

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