News in Short

• India has supplied 6.2 tonnes of essential medicines to Maldives as  assistance in fight against COVID 19 under Operation Sanjeevani.
• The medicines were procured from various cities and delivered by an Hercules aircraft of Indian Air Force.
• India has also supplied essential food grains and edibles despite logistical challenges in wake of lockdown. The neighbouring country is mostly dependent on imports from India for such supplies.

• Madhuban Gajar, a biofortified carrot variety with high β-carotene and iron content has been developed by Shri Vallabhhai Vasrambhai Marvaniya, a farmer scientist from Junagadh district, Gujarat.
• The Madhuvan Gajar is a highly nutritious carrot variety developed through the selection method with higher β-carotene content  and iron content dry basis and is used for various value-added products like carrot chips, juices, and pickles.
• The variety is being cultivated in more than 1000 hectares of land in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh during the last three years.

• Getting back classic programmes during the coronavirus lockdown to keep people entertained has catapulted Doordarshan (DD) to be the highest watched channel in India for week ended April 3, according to BARC.
• The national broadcaster could achieve the feat, which involves a nearly 40,000% jump in viewership in the evening and morning bands, despite a surge reported by the private broadcasters who are also experiencing higher viewership.
• Starting with the Hindu mythology series Ramayan, DD has got back other classics like Mahabharat, Shaktiman and Buniyaad to serve the audiences during the three-week lockdown. Most of these were produced when DD monopolised TV broadcasting in the country.

• France's competition regulator said that Google must start paying media groups for displaying their content, after it had been refusing for months to comply with Europe's new digital copyright law.
• The agency said it requires Google, within three months, to conduct negotiations in good faith with publishers and news agencies on the remuneration for the re-use of their protected contents.
• The new rule on so-called "neighbouring rights" is designed to ensure news publishers are compensated when their work is shown on websites, search engines and social media platforms.

• The consumer price index (CPI)-based inflation, which had stayed elevated in the last few months, is expected to soften during the course of the financial year, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said in its monetary policy report (MPR).
• CPI inflation is tentatively projected to ease from 4.8% in Q1 of 2020-21 to 4.4% in Q2, 2.7% in Q3 and 2.4% in Q4, with the belief that in the prevailing high uncertainty, aggregate demand may weaken further than currently anticipated and ease core inflation further.
• The RBI had reduced the repo rate by 75 basis points (bps) to 4.4% in the monetary policy review while cash reserve ratio was reduced by 100 bps to 3%. The central bank, however, refrained from making any prediction on growth.