• IPS officer Subodh Kumar Jaiswal on 26 May took charge as director of the CBI, officials said.
• Jaiswal is a 1985-batch officer of the Maharashtra cadre. He was till now serving as the chief of the CISF. He has also served as Maharashtra's director general of police in the past. The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) was working without a regular chief for over three months after Rishi Kumar Shukla completed his two-year tenure on February 3.
• Earlier, during the meeting of the high-powered selection committee comprising of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Chief Justice of India NV Ramana and Leader of Congress in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury, had shortlisted three names, including SSB DG Kumar Rajesh Chandra (1985-Bihar cadre IPS) and Special Secretary (Internal Security) in the MHA VSK Kaumudi (1986- Andhra Pradesh cadre) besides Jaiswal, who is currently holding the office of DG CISF.

• Wesak Day is a Holy Day for Buddhists. In fact, it is considered the holiest day in the Buddhist Calendar.
• The Buddha's birthday is observed annually on the Sunday nearest to the full moon in May. It is a holiday observed by Buddhists across the world, though the exact date may differ from country to country.
• Besides being the time of the year when Buddhist temples sport a beautiful display of lights, it is also the time when Buddhists spend the whole sacred day at temples meditating, chanting prayers and offering alms to Buddhist monks.

• Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan chairs 74th World Health Assembly.
• Director-General of the World Health Organization Dr Tedros was also present on the occasion.
• Highlighting the achievements of the 148th session, which was held from 18th January to 26th January 2021, Dr Harsh Vardhan noted that the Board called for further efforts to ensure fair and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines through the COVAX Facility and encouraged WHO to work closely with World Organization for Animal Health (OIE), and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) to identify the zoonotic source of the virus.
• The Board emphasized the importance of adopting a ‘One Health’ approach following consideration of a report on anti-microbial resistance and welcomed Member State’s participation in the revision of the Codex Code of Practice to Minimize and Contain Foodborne Antimicrobial Resistance.”

• The 2021 TCS CodeVita competition invited college students from around the world to pit their programming skills against each other to be ranked among the top student programmers globally.
• “The ninth season of TCS CodeVita has won a Guinness World Records title as the world’s largest computer programming competition with 136,054 participants from 34 countries“.
• The 2021 TCS CodeVita competition invited college students from around the world to pit their programming skills against each other to be ranked among the top student programmers globally.

• The Banks Board Bureau (BBB) has recommended the name of S L Jain for the post of managing director (MD) of state-owned Indian Bank.
• The term of incumbent MD of the Chennai-based lender, Padmaja Chunduru, would superannuate later this month.
• The bureau interviewed nine candidates from various public sector banks on May 24 for the forthcoming vacancy of managing director and chief executive officer in the Indian Bank.

6.David Barnea, former top agent, appointed as next Mossad chief

• Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that the next director of Israel’s Mossad espionage agency will be David Barnea, 56, a veteran of the organization who has been its deputy head for the past two years.
• Barnea, who is also known by his nickname Dedi, will replace outgoing director Yossi Cohen, Netanyahu said at the annual ceremony conferring the Prime Minister’s Award for exceptional Mossad officers.
• He was appointed Cohen’s deputy in 2019, and will take over as director on June 1.

• A new snake species has been described from the Indian state of Tamil Nadu.
• Now known as Joseph's racer, the new species was first collected in the mid-nineteenth century. But confusion around this snake goes back over two centuries as it had been mixed up with another similar species found across the rest of India.
• The new species is named after late herpetologist Naveen Joseph.
• It is published in Vertebrate Zoology.

• The Indian Council for Cultural Relations is likely to institute ‘Annapurna Award’ for Indian restaurants abroad that attract the highest footfall of local non-NRI people.
• Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) president Vinay Sahasrabuddhe recently made the announcement on the occasion of the fourth Deendayal Upadhyay Memorial International Oration, it said, noting that Chicago-based food historian Collin Taylor Sen also spoke on India”s culinary culture as soft power.
• Observing that India’s influence on world’s cuisine is greater than that of any other civilization, Sen said vegetarianism and Ayurveda-based food are two most significant contributions of the country to global food traditions.

• On May 23, 2021, Phil Mickelson won the PGA Championship by two shots over Brooks Koepka and South African Louis Oosthuizen.
• Mickelson (50 Years old) is the oldest winner in the 161 years of major championship golf.
• He sealed the deal with a one-over-par 73 at the Ocean Course that left him at six-under on the week.
• The victory by Mickelson marked the sixth major championship win of his career and first since the 2013 British Open.
• Mickelson became the 10th player to win majors in three decades, an elite list that starts with Harry Vardon and was most recently achieved by Tiger Woods.

• Ex-Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone said it was "like losing a brother".
• Mr Mosley, who had been suffering from cancer, led motorsport's governing body the FIA from 1993 to 2009.
• He also campaigned for tighter press regulation after winning £60,000 damages from the News of the World when it wrongly published a story alleging he had attended a Nazi-themed orgy.
• Mr Mosley - the son of 1930s British fascist leader Sir Oswald Mosley - took his privacy action against Sunday tabloid the News of the World in 2008 over the paper's story.
• The newspaper had secretly filmed him with five prostitutes and later published a front-page story.
• A judge ruled there was no substance to the allegation that there had been a Nazi theme to the sex party and found that his privacy had been breached. The High Court also said the article was not in the public interest.

Download Daily GK PDF of 26 May 2021