News in Short

• India’s eight infrastructure sectors contracted by a record 6.5% in March after touching an 11-month high in February, hit by a nationwide lockdown to contain the spread of covid-19.
• Data released by the industry department on Thursday showed sectors including crude oil (-5.5%), natural gas (-15.2%), refinery products (-0.5%), fertilizers (-11.9%), steel (-13%), cement (-24.7%) and electricity (-7.2%) saw a contraction in output in the month, except coal which grew 4%.
• India’s core sector grew just 0.6% in FY20 lagging a 4.4% rise in FY19, which will have an adverse impact on factory output and subsequently on economic growth. The eight core industries comprise 40.27% of the weight of items included in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP).

• Australia have displaced India to be ranked as the No.1 Test team in the world by the International Cricket Council (ICC), removing the team from the top spot for the first time since October 2016.
• Australia have also been ranked as the new No.1 T20I team, displacing Pakistan, while England have held on to No.1 spot in the ODI rankings.
• India’s drop in the Test rankings is largely because Team India had won 12 Tests and lost just one in 2016-17, the records of which were removed in the latest annual update.

• NASA’s first Mars helicopter has been named Ingenuity, as suggested by an Indian-origin girl Vaneeza Rupani. Rupani, earned the honour of naming the helicopter after she submitted her essay into NASA’s “Name the Rover” contest.
• While NASA announced in March that its next rover would be named Perseverance based on Alexander Mather’s essay, the agency decided to also choose a name for the helicopter that will accompany the rover to Mars.
• Ingenuity and Perseverance are scheduled to launch in July and land next February at Mars' JezeroCrater, the site of a lake that existed 3.5 billion years ago.

• The government’s plan to construct a new Parliament building was approved by the Central Vista Committee at a meeting with the suggestion that the design be “in sync” with the existing Parliament House.
• The construction of a new Parliament is a part of the larger revamp of the entire 3-km Central Vista from Rashtrapati Bhavan till India Gate, proposed by the Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry and its construction agency, the CPWD.
• The plan includes constructing a new triangular Parliament opposite the existing heritage structure and building a central secretariat for all Ministries.

• Iconic former India footballer Chuni Goswami, who captained the 1962 Asian Games gold-winning team and also played first-class cricket, died. He was 82.
• The striker, whose actual name was Subimal but was best known by his nickname, played 50 international matches between 1956 and 1964, including the 1960 Olympics in Rome.
• Besides captaining India to the Asian Games gold medal in 1962, he was also a part of the silver-winning team in the 1964 Asia Cup in Israel, which remains the country's best performance in the continental showpiece till date.