1. India to enhance its commitment to Sri Lanka

• India’s foreign secretary Vijay Gokhale said that India will enhance its commitment to Sri Lanka in the wake of the recent bomb attacks on churches and hotels that killed more than 250.
• The announcement is made ahead of the visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Sri Lanka on June 8.
• The PM will be visiting the Maldives also. This will be his first foreign trip since winning a second term in power.

Foot Notes:

About Sri Lanka

1. President: Maithripala Sirisena
2. Prime Minister: Ranil Wickremesinghe
3. Capital: Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte
4. Official languages: Sinhala, Tamil
5. Currency: Sri Lankan rupee (LKR)

2. UP CM Yogi Adityanath unveils Lord Ram statue at Ayodhya Shodh Sansthan

• Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath unveiled a 7-foot tall statue of Lord Rama at the Shodh Sansthan museum in Ayodhya. Adityanath will also inaugurate the event to celebrate Mahant Nritya Gopal Das.
• The statue is made out of a single rosewood block statue which was from Karnataka for Rs.35 lakh from Karnataka. The statue will depict Kodamb Ram, one of the five avatars of Lord Ram.
• Kodamb Ram is worshipped in the south. The statue depicts the stage of Ram's life when Sita was kidnapped by Ravan, the demon king. The statue shows Ram alone, without Sita and Laxman.

Foot Notes:

About  Ayodhya Shodh Sansthan

1. The Ayodhya Shodh Sansthan museum was established in 1986.
2. The museum is a government-funded museum.
3. It hosts works related to the Hindu epic Ramayana.

About  Uttar Pradesh

1. Chief minister: Yogi Adityanath
2. Population: 20.42
3. Capital: Lucknow
4. Governor: Ram Naik

3. World Oceans Day is celebrated on 8th June

• World Oceans Day is celebrated on 8th June every year. The day was declared in 2008. June 8 was marked as it marks the day when it was first proposed in 1992 by Canada's International Centre for Ocean Development (ICOD) and the Ocean Institute of Canada (OIC) at the Earth Summit, UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
• The Conference supported the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14 of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: Conserve and sustainably use the oceans, seas and marine resources for sustainable development.
• The theme for the year 2019 is Gender and Oceans. The theme is to build greater ocean and gender literacy and to discover possible ways to promote gender equality in ocean-related activities such as marine scientific research, fisheries, labour at sea, migration by sea and human trafficking, as well as policy-making and management.

4. Google Maps launches features for real-time updates on public transports in India

• Next time you aboard a bus or plan for a train journey, check Google Maps. This might just make your journey efficient and seamless.
• The tech behemoth has launched three new features- bus travel times from live traffic in 10 of the largest cities in India, live train status for Indian Railways trains, and mixed-mode commute suggestions that now combine auto-rickshaw and public transport, to let Indian users optimise travel plans by predicting transit time while traveling.
• On buses, Google map, via live traffic data and public bus schedules, will enable users to know how long a bus trip will take when factoring in live traffic conditions, as per Google. This feature is being launched in 10 cities including Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, Lucknow, Chennai, Mysore, Coimbatore, and Surat.

Foot Notes:

About Google

1. Founders: Larry Page, Sergey Brin
2. Founded: 4 September 1998, Menlo Park, California, United States
3. CEO: Sundar Pichai

5. ICICI Bank launches centre for MSMEs in Bengaluru

• ICICI Bank launched a centre in Bengaluru to provide business solutions exclusively to start-ups and MSME sector.ICICI Bank along with Viral Rupani, Retail Business Head South, ICICI Bank inaugurated the centre.
• The services offered include working capital loans upto 20 crore, business loans (based on GST returns) upto 1 crore, instant overdraft facility of 15 lakh, extensive trade solutions and cash management services, among others.
• The centre has a legal and valuation desk to assist customers in resolving challenges pertaining to collaterals offered for various loans.

Foot Notes:

About ICICI Bank

1. CEO: Sandeep Bakhshi
2. Headquarters: Mumbai
3. Founder: Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of India
4. Founded: June 1994, Vadodara

6. Lt Gen PJS Pannu designated as Deputy Chief of Integrated Defence Staff (operation)

• Lt Gen PJS Pannu take over as the Deputy Chief of Integrated Defence Staff (Operations) from Air Marshal Rajeev Sachdeva on June 1.
• He is currently posted as Deputy Chief Integrated Defence Staff (Doctrine Organisation and Training).
• The General Officer is an alumnus of Indian Military Academy and was commissioned into 22nd Battalion, The Maratha Light Infantry (MLI) on December 13, 1980, and commanded the battalion from May 1999 to February 2001 in Uri Sector (Jammu and Kashmir) during Operation VIJAY.

Foot Notes:

About  Defence Ministry

1. Headquarters: New Delhi
2. Founded: 8 October 1932, India
3. Commander-in-Chief: President Ram Nath Kovind

7. Bancha, the first solar kitchen only village in India

• Bancha in Betul district is the first village in India to have zero wooden stoves and almost no use for LPG cylinders with all its 75 houses relying on solar-powered stoves to meet their cooking needs.
• The project of installing solar power plates, batteries and stoves in all the 74 houses was started in September 2017 and got completed by December 2018.