China’s foreign minister Qin Gang is in Myanmar for strategic talks following which he will reach Goa for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Foreign Ministers meeting.

China's foreign ministry spokesperson Mao Ning made this announcement on May 2 .

Qin has called for stability and a crackdown on cross-border criminal activity along the country’s border with Myanmar.

The 2,129-kilometer (1,323-mile) border runs through densely forested mountains and has long been notorious for drug smuggling into China from the “Golden Triangle” region where the borders of Laos, Myanmar and Thailand meet.

Meanwhile, Qin’s upcoming visit to Goa will be his second to India this year. He had earlier come to India in March to attend the G20 Foreign Ministers meet in Delhi.

After the SCO meet, Qin will head to Pakistan for bilateral talks. This will be his first visit to Pakistan after he took charge as foreign minister.

Some reports suggest that there could be trilateral talks between China, Afghanistan and Pakistan to discuss the regional situation. Afghanistan’s interim Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi is expected to attend the meeting. The last trilateral was held between these three nations in 2019.

Eight students and a security guard were killed during a school shooting in the Serbian capital of Belgrade on May 3 , the interior ministry said, as police arrested a teenage student suspected of carrying out the attack.

The incident rocked the Balkan nation, where school shootings are extremely rare and gun violence is uncommon.

The shooting occurred at 8:40 am (06:40 GMT) at an elementary school in Belgrade's downtown Vracar district.

A high-profile Palestinian prisoner died in Israeli custody on May 3  after a hunger strike of nearly three months, Israel’s prison service announced. His death set off a rocket barrage from the Gaza Strip and raised fears of a further escalation.

Khader Adnan, a leader of the militant Islamic Jihad group, helped introduce the practice of protracted hunger strikes by individual prisoners as a form of protest against Israel's mass detention of Palestinians without charge.

Palestinian prisoners are overseen by Cabinet minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, an ultra-nationalist politician who has tightened restrictions on the Palestinian inmates, including shortening their shower time and closing prison bakeries.

·         Former Audi boss Rupert Stadler will plead guilty over the "dieselgate" vehicle emissions-cheating scandal, a German court said  on May 3, which would make him the first auto CEO to be convicted in the resulting lawsuits.

·         Stadler will admit guilt in exchange for a suspended sentence after reaching an agreement with the Munich district court over the scandal that rocked Audi's parent company Volkswagen.

·         German car giant VW -- whose subsidiaries include Porsche, Audi, Skoda and Seat -- admitted in September 2015 that it had installed software to rig emission levels in 11 million diesel vehicles worldwide.

The Badrinath-Kedarnath temple committee  has filed a complaint with the police demanding an inquiry into the installation of boards asking devotees for donations through QR codes in the temples.

Temple committee chairman Ajendra Ajay said in a statement issued that the boards near the temples asking for donations through quick response (QR) codes were not put up by them.

He said these boards were found installed on the day of the opening of the doors of both the 'dhams' and were removed on the same day when it came to the notice of the officials of the committee.

Ajay said the officials of the temple committee first investigated the matter at their own level and after that filed a complaint in this regard at the Kedarnath police post and the police station in Badrinath, demanding an inquiry into the matter.

The chairman of the temple committee said so far applications like Paytm are not being used by the temple committee.

The doors of Kedarnath Dham were opened for devotees on April 25 and that of Badrinath temple on April 27.

The Enforcement Directorate on May 3  conducted searches at multiple premises linked to non-banking finance company Manappuram Finance in Kerala as part of a money laundering investigation against it.

They said the raids are being undertaken to gather evidences related to allegations of collecting public deposits worth over Rs 150 crore by the company in contravention of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) guidelines.

A total of four premises, including the headquarters of the company in Thrissur and those of its promoters are being searched 

Coal India Limited (CIL) production in April 2023 surged 7.7% to 57.6 million tonnes (MT). This marks an increase of 4.1 MT compared to the 53.5 MT recorded in April 2022.

It said all CIL subsidiaries, barring Eastern Coalfields, achieved their highest-ever production for April.“

Overburden removal (OBR) grew by 31% in April 2023, reaching 169.5 million cubic metres, 109% of the targeted amount. This increase will bolster production throughout the upcoming monsoon season.

CIL’s supplies shot up to 62.3 MTs in April 2023, ahead by 5 MTs against the comparable month of last year when the off-take was 57.4 MTs. The 8.6% growth during the month was built over a high base. All of CIL’s producing units logged growth. The company said its supplies to coal fired plants of the country rose to 50.6 MTs in April’23 compared to 49.3 MTs of April last year.

In a major setback for the country’s aviation sector, low-cost carrier GoFirst (formerly known as GoAir) has filed for voluntary insolvency resolution proceedings before the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), Delhi.

A severe financial crunch because of the non-supply of engines by Pratt & Whitney (P&W) forced the airline to take this extreme step, said GoFirst CEO Kaushik Khona. The Wadia family-promoted airline has suspended all operations from May 3-5, impacting the movement of thousands of passengers.

Civil aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia said it is unfortunate that this operational bottleneck at GoFirst has dealt a blow to the airline’s financial position.

Aviation regulator Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has issued a show cause notice to GoFirst after it found that the airline has failed to adhere to the approved flight schedule, resulting in inconvenience to passengers.

Founded in 2005 by billionaire Jehangir Wadia, whose family has a controlling stake in firms such as Bombay Dyeing and Britannia, and GoFirst, has always remained a smaller player in the Indian aviation space even as IndiGo, which was founded a year later, has grown to capture 55 per cent of domestic skies.

GoFirst’s market share has seen a slump in recent months and the same came down to 7.8 per cent in the January-March quarter. The airline’s financial woes were known to many as it was facing difficulty in paying salaries on time to its large employee base of 5,000. It had incurred a loss of Rs 1,804 crore on revenues of Rs 4,183 crore in FY22. It recently pulled out for an initial public offering to raise Rs 3,600 crore and efforts to rope in strategic investors also did not bore any fruit.

The airline has already filed an emergency petition in Delaware court, USA, against P&W seeking enforcement of an order issued by the Singapore International Arbitration Commission (SIAC).

Down in the dumps

Fleet size 59 aircraft, including 54 A320neo

Half of the fleet grounded due to non-supply of engines by Pratt & Whitney

Employee strength: Over 5000

Market share down to 7.8 per cent in Jan-March quarter

Connects 27 domestic destinations and 7 international cities