1. Former ISRO chief AS Kiran Kumar conferred France’s highest civilian award

• The former chairperson of the Indian Space Research Organisation, was conferred France’s highest civilian award – Chevalier of Order of the Legion of Honour – for his contribution to India-France space cooperation.
• The National Order of the Legion of Honour was set up in 1802, and is the highest civilian award given by the French government for outstanding service to the country, regardless of the nationality of the recipient.
• France’s highest civilian honour comes in recognition of AS Kiran Kumar’s invaluable contribution to the development of India-France space cooperation.

2. Chief economic advisor Krishnamurthy Subramanian included in Finance Commission's advisory council

• Chief economic advisor Krishnamurthy Subramanian has been included in the advisory council of the 15th Finance Commission as its member.
• The advisory council was set up in April 2018 to advise the commission on any issue or subject related to the terms of reference (ToR) of the commission.
• In December 2018, the government appointed Subramanian of Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad, as the chief economic advisor in the finance ministry for three years.

3. Green Number Plates Are Now Mandatory For All Electric Vehicles

• Indian government had earlier proposed a special green-coloured number plate for all electric vehicles in the country. The measures are aimed to attract buyers towards electric vehicles over the coming years
• The Central government has now asked the state transport departments to make it mandatory for all EVs to use the green number plates, irrespective of the year in which they were bought.
• The special number plate is supposed to have the vehicle number spelled out in white colour on a green background.

4. Iraq remains India's top oil supplier in FY19, imports from US up 4-folds

• India is world’s third largest importer of crude oil (7% of total crude oil imports) after China (world’s largest importer with 20.2% of total crude oil imports) and USA (13.8%).
• Saudi Arabia has traditionally been India's top oil source, but it was for the first time dethroned by Iraq in 2017-18 fiscal year.
• According to data sourced from the Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics, Iraq sold 46.61 million tonne of crude oil to India during April 2018.

5. World Press freedom day observed on 3 May

• World Press Freedom Day is annually observed on May 3 to inform the international community that freedom of the press and freedom of expression are fundamental human rights.
• The Theme of 2019 is : Media for Democracy: Journalism and Elections in Times of Disinformation.
• World Press Freedom Day was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly in December 1993, following the recommendation of UNESCO's General Conference.

6. Bajrang Punia bags gold in Ali Aliyev wrestling tournament

• World number one Bajrang Punia won the gold medal as he defeated Viktor Rassadin in the finals of men's 65kg freestyle in the Ali Aliyev wrestling tournament in Kaspiisk, Russia.
• Bajrang got the better of the local favourite 13-8 in his final bout after being down 0-5 at one stage.
• The 25-year-old Indian grappler had won a gold medal last week at the Asian Championships in Xi'an, China.

7. ISRO plans to launch radar imaging satellite in May

• India is planning to launch its radar imaging satellite RISAT 2BR1 sometime towards the end of May 2019 on one of the variants of its Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) rocket.
• The rocket that would carry RISAT 2BR1 is designated as PSLV-C46 as per ISRO's numbering system and will blast off from the first launch pad at the country's rocket port in Sriharikota.
• Its launch was earlier scheduled in 2020 after RISAT-2A but is now preponed.