29 APRIL 2014

Ø  Washington announced a slew of additional sanctions on the inner circle of Russian President Vladimir Putin, including the Deputy Prime Minister, a senior staffer of Mr. Putin’s executive office, the director of a top Russian security agency, the chairman of a State Duma Committee, and the head of the state oil company Rosneft.

Ø  Indian environment activist Ramesh Agrawal has won the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, also known as the Green Nobel. He is among six recipients of the largest award for grass-roots environmental activism, given annually by the Goldman Environmental Foundation.

Ø  The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd (IRCTC) has launched a pilgrimage tour to trace the journey of Lord Rama from Ayodhya to Nuwara Eliya, where Sita was held captive in Sri Lanka. This is the first time that IRCTC, South Zone has embarked on the Lord Sita-Rama temples circuit. The 2,200-km tour is divided into two parts: the visit to Sri Lanka is by flight for five days and to Ayodhya by train for 11 days.

Ø  Greenpeace is sending a protest ship to meet a Russian tanker carrying the first oil drilled offshore in the environmentally fragile Arctic. The ship is to be called Rainbow Warrior is to be captained by Peter Willcox, who was among campaigners detained by Russian authorities last year after staging a high-profile protest against Arctic drilling and was due to set sail from Rotterdam on Monday afternoon, and will seek to escort to harbour the Russian tanker Mikhail Ulyanov, which is delivering oil purchased by French energy giant Total.

Ø  President Barack Obama said he had no desire to contain or counter China despite clinching a defence pact with the Philippines which will inject U.S. forces close to the volatile South China Sea. In the Philippines on the final leg of an Asian tour, Mr. Obama directly addressed leaders in Beijing, telling them that maritime territorial disputes needed to be addressed peacefully, not with “intimidation or coercion.”

Ø  The 28-member European Union has temporarily banned the import of Alphonso mangoes, the king of fruits, and four vegetables from India from May 1. The recent decision by the grouping’s Standing Committee on Plant Health came after 207 consignments of fruits and vegetables from India imported into the EU in 2013 were found to be contaminated by pests such as fruit flies and other quarantine pests.