1- Writer, director Philip S. Goodman passes away

Philip S. Goodman, an American film, television and stage writer, producer and director passed away on 2 May 2015 in New York, United States.

He was best known for directing the drama film We Shall Return (1963), which starred Cesar Romero.

Goodman was born on February 20, 1926 in New York City. He had graduated from Brooklyn College and the University of Southern California (USC).

During World War II, he had served in United States Army from 1944 to 1946.

He had written for numerous television series of the 1950s and 1960s such as Profiles in Courage, Rocky King Detective, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, and Johnny Staccato. He also had directed plays at the Actors Studio. He also had written three episodes of National Educational Television’s “Our Vanishing Wilderness in 1970 which was one of the first series on television to focus on environmental issues.

Apart from writing for TV series and films, he also had directed TV commercials for Coca-Cola, RCA, Revlon and Rheingold beer, among many others

2- Maya Plisetskaya, Russian ballet legend passes away

Maya Plisetskaya

Maya Plisetskaya, one of the greatest ballerinas of the 20th century from Russia passed away in Germany. She was 89. Plisetskaya was born in Moscow on November 20, 1925. Her ballet career spanned for more than five decades.

She had joined the Bolshoi, a historic theatre in Moscow in 1943. Her performances had captivated audiences around the world. In 1960, she became the Bolshoi’s prima ballerina.

Her modern choreography and performances were charged with eroticism flouted Soviet convention.

In 1983, she became one of the first Soviet celebrities allowed to work for Western dance companies without having to defect. She was also the artistic director of the Rome Opera Ballet.

Her acclaimed roles were Odette-Odile in Swan Lake, Aurora in The Sleeping Beauty and Carmen in Carmen Suite.

Plisetskaya had retired from stage performance at the stage age of 65 and became a choreographer and giving master classes around the world.

3- Floyd Mayweather Jr defeats Manny Pacquiao to win World Welterweight title of Boxing

Floyd Mayweather Jr

American boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. has won the unified World Welterweight title of World Boxing Council, World Boxing Organisation and World Boxing Association.

To win this title he defeated Manny Pacquiao from Philippines on a unanimous decision with Judges Scores of 118-110, 116-112 and 116-112 in 12 rounds of intense boxing.

The legendary bout termed as ‘Fight of the Century’ was played at iconic MGM Grand, Las Vegas. This fight was also the highest watched and most revenue generating with almost 400 million dollars of all time.

4- Rajasthan Government allocates 12 crore rupees for Project Great Indian Bustard

Great Indian Bustard

Rajasthan Forest department has allotted more than twelve crore rupees for a bird conservation programme, Project Great Indian Bustard (GIB). For this project Japan Bank is going to provide financial support of three crore rupees.

Under the GIB Project, closures will be made at many places in Khudi rasla, Pokhran and Shahgarh of Jaislmer district for safe habitat of bird. In order to regularly monitor the bird information chips will installed.

The Great Indian Bustard locally called as Godawan is also the state bird of Rajasthan.

Status of the Great Indian Bustard

• The Great Indian Bustard presently is confined to only eight pockets in 6 Indian states- Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.
• The largest population is found in Jaisalmer, Barmer, and Bikaner districts of Rajasthan
• Great Indian Bustard is the State Bird of Rajasthan and locally is called as Godawan.
• It is listed as critically endangered species by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red data list.

5- Indira Gandhi International Airport adjudged world’s best airport

Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA) has been adjudged the world’s best airport for the year 2014.

In this regard, Airports Council International (ACI) presented the Airport Service Quality (ASQ) award to IGIA under the category of handling 25 to 40 million passengers per annum.

IGIA had scored 4.90 on a scale of 5 points measured by 300 members of the ACI ASQ benchmarking programme. It should be noted that, IGIA has bettered its ranking from second position for three consecutive years 2011, 2012 and 2013 to emerge on top in 2014.

Airport Service Quality (ASQ) is the key to understanding how to increase passenger satisfaction and improve business performance. While the ACI is a trade association of the world’s airports and was founded in 1991.

About Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA)

• IGIA is run by Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), a joint venture between the Airports Authority of India (AAI) and GMR Group-led consortium which include Fraport and Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad.
• The airport was developed under the public-private partnership (PPP) mode. The mandate for DIAL was to finance, design, build, operate and maintain IGIA for 30 years, along with an option to extend it for another 30 years.
• Presently, IGIA hosts 6 domestic carriers, 56 international carriers and also has the capacity to handle the gigantic aircrafts like Airbus A380.

6- May 03: World Press Freedom day

World Press Freedom Day is observed on 3 May every year across the world. The theme of 2015 year is: Let Journalism Thrive! Towards better reporting, gender equality and media safety in the digital age.

Observing this day marks an opportunity to:

• Celebrate the fundamental principles to evaluate press freedom.
• Assess the state of freedom of press throughout the world.
• Defend the media from attacks on their independence.
• Pay tribute to journalists who have lost their lives in the exercise of their profession.

Background

• In December 1993, World Press Freedom Day was proclaimed by the UN General Assembly (UNGA. It was proclaimed following the recommendation adopted at 26th Session of UNESCO’s General Conference in 1991.
• This recommendation was a response to a call given by African journalists who in 1991 produced the landmark Windhoek Declaration on media pluralism and independence.
• Since then 3 May, is observed as anniversary of the Declaration of Windhoekand is celebrated worldwide as World Press Freedom Day.

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Read Also: Current Affairs: 2nd May 2015