News in Short

• Bayern Munich defeated Barcelona 8-2 to reach the Champions League semi finals for the second time in three years.
• Thomas Müller scored twice and Ivan Periši? and Serge Gnabry added on in Bayern’s stunning start to the standout quarterfinal between the only past champions left in the last eight.
• Joshua Kimmich, Robert Lewandowski and Philippe Coutinho (twice) piled on in the second half as Barcelona conceded eight for the first time since 1946.
• Seeking its first title since 2013, Bayern will next face either Manchester City or Lyon, who meet on Saturday in the last quarterfinal.

• The board of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has approved the transfer of ?57,128 crore as surplus to the government for the accounting year 2019-20, while deciding to maintain the Contingency Risk Buffer at 5.5%.
• Last year, the central bank had transferred ?1.76 lakh crore, which included ?1.23 lakh crore as dividend and ?52,637 crore of excess provisions.
• While the RBI’s payout will partly bolster the Centre’s pandemic-hit finances, it is unlikely to help bridge a huge shortfall in receipts as both tax revenue and capital proceeds from planned disinvestments are set to suffer.

• Researchers from The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) and Isro has developed a sustainable process for making brick-like structures on Moon.
• It exploits lunar soil and uses bacteria and guar beans to consolidate the soil into possible load-bearing structures. These “space bricks” could eventually be used to assemble structures for habitation on the moon’s surface.
• The process developed by IISc and Isro team uses urea — which can be sourced from human urine — and lunar soil as raw materials for construction on the moon’s surface.
• The process also has a lower carbon footprint because it uses guar gum instead of cement for support. This could also be exploited to make sustainable bricks on Earth.

• New research has added to the growing body of evidence that asymptomatic patients suffering from Covid-19 are less likely to infect close contacts compared to severe cases.
• For the findings, the research team tracked more than 3,410 close contacts of 391 Covid-19 index cases between January and March 2020 to evaluate the risk for disease transmission in different settings.
• They found that risk for secondary transmission of the novel coronavirus was less than four per cent among close contacts of persons with Covid-19.
• In addition, secondary infections acquired while using public transportation were rare. In contrast, one in 10 household contacts was found to be infected.
• The researchers also found that patients with more clinically severe disease were more likely to infect their close contacts than were less severe index cases.

• The Congress government in Rajasthan led by chief minister Ashok Gehlot ended the month-long uncertainty in the state by winning the trust vote in the assembly.
• The ruling party’s demand for a floor test was accepted by speaker C.P. Joshi, even as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was planning to bring a no-confidence motion against the government.
• The development brings an end to the rebellion by former deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot and 18 other MLAs that had threatened the survival of the state government. The confidence motion was moved by Rajasthan’s parliamentary affairs minister Shanti Dhariwal.