Tripigator.com a travel planning engine UAE-based bank 'Emirates NBD

Tripigator.com a travel planning engine reunion of Aides-de-camp (ADC)


Tripigator.com a travel planning engine was launched in Delhi in partnership with Incredible India of Ministry of Tourism.

The reunion of Aides-de-camp (ADC) to the President of India was hosted on May 4, 2014 at Rashtrapati Bhavan.

These aides gathered not just from across the country but from various countries like US, Australia, UK, Egypt and UAE.

Hot on the heels of a stiff opposition from allies, government decided to drop its move to name a judge to head the commission set up to probe the snooping of a young woman by Gujarat police allegedly at the instance of chief minister Narendra Modi.


A modest recovery is on the cards for the Indian economy and it is expected to clock 5.6 per cent GDP growth in 2014-15, says a Citigroup report.


UAE-based bank 'Emirates NBD' has launched 'DirectRemit' service which would, among other things, enable customers to speedily transfer money to other banks in India.


Looking to tap the rapidly growing smart and intelligent automobile market, Finnish telecom giant Nokia launched a USD 100 million venture fund to invest in auto technology across the globe, including India.


Vice President Juan Carlos Varela pulled off a surprise victory in Panama's presidential election, thwarting an attempt by former ally President Ricardo Martinelli to extend his grip on power by electing a hand-picked successor.


Elena Baltacha, a former top-50 professional tennis player who had been fighting liver cancer since retiring from the game, died. She was 30.

    Qualifier Martin Klizan pulled off a shock victory over top-seed Fabio Fognini in final of the Munich ATP tournament to claim only the second title of his career.

1. Govt. of India declared Year 2013 as Water Conservation Year 

i. The Union Cabinet of India today gave its approval to declare the year 2013 as Water Conservation Year 2013.

ii. Following the theme of the year, the Government has proposed to come up with several mass awareness activities with an emphasis on sensitizing the masses on water issues and to encourage them to use water judiciously and conserve it. 

iii. The Policies and programs of the Ministry of Water Resource for the year will be to create a sustainable society and economy. 

iv. The national awareness programs launched by the Government will aim towards achieving the identified objectives of the National Water Policy 2012 and National Water Mission. 

2.    Siddaramaiah elected Karnataka's new chief minister

i.  Congress leader Siddaramaiah has been appointed as Karnataka's new chief minister today.

ii. The 121 Congress MLAs elected by the people of Karnataka voted via secret ballot to elect him this evening. 

iii. This comes after secret balloting route was adopted by the Congress to select the new chief minister for the state after the party's thumping victory in the assembly elections. 

iv. Mr Siddaramaiah is a backward caste leader with a big support base in the state.

v. He has been the Opposition leader, is among those who scripted the Congress' successful campaign. 

vi. A five-time MLA from Varuna in south Karnataka, Mr Siddaramaiah is from the Kuruba community and was virtually the face of the Congress in these elections. Once part of the JD (S) and an HD Deve Gowda protege, Mr Siddaramaiah has been a Congressman for only about six years.

3.    Roberto Azevedo appointed Head of W.T.O

i. Roberto Azevedo from Brazil on 8 May 2013 was named as the head of the World Trade Organisation.

ii. His appointment to the office came up at the time when the organization is struggling to identify ways to revive the talks on freeing global commerce and to help poorer nations in development. 

iii. He will take charge of his office from Pascal Lamy of France in the Geneva-based Body in September 2013.

iv. After being into the office, his journey will start with the 9th ministerial in Bali, Indonesia from 3 to 6 December 2013.

Azevedo is the first Latin American to be appointed as the head of the WTO since it was created in 1995

ii. The process of electing the WTO Head took a period of about six months. A total of nine people were competing for the post. 

About Roberto Azevedo

i. Since 2008, the 55 years old, Roberto Azevedo has been serving WTO as the Permanent Representative of Brazil to WTO and other International Economic Organisation in Geneva 

ii. He was the Deputy Chief of Staff for Economic Affairs to the Foreign Minister from 1995 to 96

About WTO

i. WTO was established with the signing of the Marrakesh Agreement/ Marrakesh Declaration at Marrakesh, Morrocco in 1994.

ii. WTO came up as a replacement of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). GATT was overseeing the rules of commerce since 1948. 

iii. GATT covered trade in goods, whereas WTO deals with trade of inventions, designs and services too.

4.    I&B Minister Manish Tewari hands over Phalke award to Pran

i. Information and Broadcasting Minister Manish Tewari handed over the Dadasaheb Phalke Award, the highest honour in Indian cinema, to legendary Bollywood actor Pran at his residence in Mumbai on Friday.

ii. Pran, 93, could not make it to the 60th National Film Awards ceremony held in New Delhi last week for health reasons.

iii. It is probably for the first time that an artiste was given the Phalke award at his home. The brief ceremony was telecast live.

iv. "It's a great honour to present the honour to Pran saab. His contribution to the Indian cinema has been huge and the greatness of the award gets bigger after honouring Pran with Dadasaheb Phalke," Tewari told reporters at Pran's residence.

v. Pran is known for acting in over 400 movies in a career spanning over six decades and played a vast range of roles - from a hero to a villain to a character artist. 

vi. Apart from Pran's family members, well-known filmmaker Karan Johar's mother Hiroo Johar was present at his residence for the ceremony. TV and film actor Vishal Malhotra was also seen there.

5.    Minister for Women & Child Development Launched the World Bank Assisted ISSNIP

i. The Minister for Women & Child Development, Krishna Tirath on 9 May 2013 launched the World Bank assisted ICDS Systems Strengthening and Nutrition Improvement Project (ISSNIP).

ii. The aim of the programme is improvement of child development and nutritional outcomes for children in selected districts having higher proportional of child under nutrition.

iii. The project is worth 2893 crore Rupees with 70 percent IDA share of2025 crore Rupees over the time duration of 7 years.

iv. The project received an initial support of 106 million US dollar by World Bank, which is payable over the time of 25 years.

v. This will be followed by the support for second phase of 344 million US dollar, which will be subject to assessment of phase

Features of ICDS Systems Strengthening and Nutrition Improvement Project (ISSNIP):

i. ISSNIP is designed to supplement and provide value addition on the existing ICDS programme, through systems strengthening for better service delivery, as well as to allow the selected States and Districts to experiment, innovate and conduct pilots of potentially more effective approaches for ICDS in order to achieve early childhood education and nutrition outcomes.

Four major components under the project are: 

(i) Institutional and systems strengthening in ICDS

(ii) Community mobilization and behaviour change communication

 (iii) piloting multi-sectoral nutrition actions,

(iv) Project Management, Technical Assistance and Monitoring & Evaluation.

6.    Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar, Dhrupad Vocalist Passed Away

i. Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar (1932-2013), the dhrupad vocalist passed away on 8 May 2013 following brief illness at his Gurukul near Panvel.

ii. He was 80 years of age. Drupad is the oldest existing north Indian classical music form.

About Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar

i. Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar was born in Udaipur, Rajasthan on 15 June 1932. 

ii. He was also the court musician of Maharana Bhupal Singh of Udaipur.

iii. He was the master of srutis. He was renowned for his drupad vocal in not just India, but also across the world. 

iv. He won various prestigious honours and awards such as Tagore Ratna Award, Tansen Samman and Sangeet Natak Academy Fellowship. 

v. He was also conferred upon with the Padma Shri- India's fourth highest civilian honor in 2012, but he turned it down. 

vi. He also remained a distinguished guest faculty at the Dhrupad Sansar of IIT Bombay for 5 years.

8.    Former Congress MLA Rukminibai Waje no more

i. Rukminibai Vithal Waje, a former Maharashtra MLA, died after a prolonged illness at Sinnar near Nashik on Thursday night.

ii. She was 79 and is survived by a son and four daughters.

iii. Waje was elected to the Assembly from Sinnar constituency in North Maharashtra on Congress ticket in 1967.

iv. She was the first woman MLA of Congress from Sinnar. Her son Hemant Waje is a former Sinnar Municipal Council President.

9.    Hindi story writer and playwright Surendra Tiwari died 

i. Hindi story writer and playwright Surendra Tiwari died due to brain haemorrhage .

ii. He was 64 years of age. He is survived by his wife, two sons and a daughter. 

About Surendra Tiwari

i. Surendra Tiwari wrote and edited 25 books in all.

ii. He also edited 51 stories of Nobel Prize winners as well as 10 volumes of stories of 251 female storytellers

iii.  He was born on 8 October 1948 in Ballia, Uttar Pradesh.

iv. His renowned novels included Agniparv and Antatah.

10.  Knight Riders canter to easy win over Warriors

i. Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) showed tremendous determination and returned to winning ways at the Subrata Roy Sahara Stadium here on Thursday night.

ii. Man-of-the-match Gautam Gambhir first steered his team to a modest 152 with a fourth half-century in the Pepsi-IPL-VI and thereafter deployed his resources well to eventually lead his team to a 46-run victory over Pune Warriors.

iii. It was KKR’s fifth win in 13 matches.

iv. When the hosts started their chase, there was plenty of heat and drama surrounding a run-out appeal against Aaron Finch at the umpire’s end. 

v. Jacques Kallis was convinced that he had deflected the straight hit from Robin Uthappa off his right foot onto the stumps.

vi. It was on the back of Gambhir’s half-century and Ryan ten Doeschate’s big hits in the last four overs that the defending champion eventually managed to set a challenging 7.6-run an over chase.

7.    SC dismisses Sanjay Dutt's review plea

i. Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt's hope of getting relief in 1993 Mumbai blasts case was on Friday dashed with the Supreme Court dismissing his plea seeking review of its judgment on his conviction and five-year jail term.

ii. A bench of justices P Sathasivam and BS Chauhan, which had delivered on 21stMarch verdict, refused to review its verdict on Dutt's plea. 

iii. Dutt, who was granted four weeks more time to surrender to undergo remaining three-and-a-half-year jail term, will have to surrender before jail authorities on 16th May.

iv. With the dismissal of review plea, 53-year-old Dutt has got only one option of getting relief from the court by filing a curative petition. 

v. The apex court had on 21st March upheld his conviction in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case which it said was organized by underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and others with the involvement of Pakistan's ISI.

NOTE:  Dutt was convicted by the TADA court for illegal possession a 9-mm pistol and an AK-56 rifle which were part of a consignment of weapons and explosives brought to India for coordinated serial blasts that killed 257 people and injured over 700 in 1993.