Mariangela Hungria

♦ Brazilian microbiologist Mariangela Hungria was named the 2025 World Food Prize Laureate on 13 May 2025.

♦ Her research has helped farmers in the country sharply boost grain production. 

♦ Hungria was a researcher for more than 40 years at Brazil’s state-run agricultural center Embrapa, where she works on seeds and soil treatments that enable plants to source nutrients through soil bacteria, a particularly important development for soybean crops.

♦ Her work helped Brazil increase soybean production from around 15 million metric tons in the 1980s to more than 170 million tons today, making the country the world’s largest producer and exporter of the commodity.

♦ Hungria will receive $500,000 for being named a Laureate. The World Food Prize was created by Norman E. Borlaug, an American agronomist who developed solutions to increase agricultural production.

US and Iran

♦ A fourth round of talks between the US and Iran over Tehran’s nuclear programme concluded in the Omani capital, Muscat.

♦ The US has insisted that Iran must scrap its uranium enrichment to prevent the country from developing nuclear weapons, but Tehran denies it has any such aim and again stressed it does not intend to give up the programme.

♦ Donald Trump pulled out of a previous nuclear agreement between Iran and five other world powers in 2018.

♦ Two previous rounds of the negotiations were held in Muscat, with one taking place in the Omani embassy in Rome.

Robert Prevost

♦ American Cardinal Robert Prevost (69) was elected as the 267th pope on May 8, 2025.

♦ He chose the paple name Leo XIV following his election.

♦ He is elected the first American pope in history, succeeding Pope Francis. Now he is leader of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics.

♦ Robert was born in Chicago in 1955 to parents of Spanish and Franco-Italian descent, Leo served as an altar boy and was ordained in 1982.

Biju Patnaik

♦ Russia paid tribute to freedom fighter and former Odisha Chief Minister Biju Patnaik by unveiling a memorial plaque in his honour at its embassy in New Delhi on 7 May 2025.

♦ The event was part of celebrations marking the 80th Anniversary of the Great Victory in World War II.

♦ The Biju Janata Dal (BJD) chief Naveen Patnaik, the younger son of Biju Patnaik, attended the ceremony at the Russian embassy.

♦ Biju Patnaik was the chief minister of Odisha for two terms — from 1961 to 1963 and again from 1990 to 1995. He died on April 17, 1997.

World Press Freedom Index 2025

♦ The Reporters Without Borders (RSF) released the World Press Freedom Index 2025.

♦ A total of 180 countries are present in this index. India ranked 151st with a total score of 32.96 in the 2025 index in 2025, moving up 8 places from 159th last year (2024).

♦ Eritrea is at the bottom-most this year, followed by countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and East Asia, which experience a worrying deterioration of 80% of the economic score alongside persistent polarisation and repression.
♦ Top 10 Countries with the Best Press Freedom in 2025:

Lawrence Wongs Peoples Action Party (PAP)

♦ Prime Minister Lawrence Wong's People's Action Party (PAP) won the Singapore General Election on 3 May 2025.

♦ PAP secured 87 of the 97 parliamentary seats.

♦ In all, 65.57% of the 2,386,452 valid votes cast went to the PAP — up from 61.24% in the 2020 General Election — in what was PM Wong’s first electoral test leading the ruling party.

♦ The opposition Workers’ Party retained its 10 seats.

♦ Wong was sworn-in 2024, May as the new Prime Minister in 20 years after Lee Hsien Loong stepped down after almost two decades.

♦ The PAP has ruled the Singapore ever since independence in 1965.

India and Denmark

♦ India and Denmark have reinforced their long-standing energy cooperation by signing a renewed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on 2 May 2025.

♦ This agreement reflects both countries’ continued commitment to accelerating clean energy transitions.

♦ The MoU was signed by Pankaj Agarwal, Secretary, Ministry of Power, Government of India, and H.E. Rasmus Abildgaard Kristensen, Ambassador of Denmark to India, in the presence of Manohar Lal, Hon’ble Minister of Power and Housing & Urban Affairs. 

♦ The renewed MoU supports India's ambitious target of achieving net-zero emissions by 2070.

♦ It aims to foster knowledge exchange and technological collaboration between the two countries, particularly in the area of clean and sustainable energy solutions.  

♦ This agreement follows five years of successful collaboration under the original MoU, signed on June 5, 2020, and initially set to expire on June 5, 2025.

♦ The proactive renewal ensures continuity in dialogue and cooperation, allowing for a seamless extension of joint efforts in energy sector development.

Economic partnership agreement

♦ The United States and Ukraine have signed an “economic partnership agreement” that will give Washington access to Kyiv’s mineral resources in exchange for establishing an investment fund in Ukraine.

♦ The deal giving the United States preferential access to new Ukrainian minerals as a milestone.

♦ Ukraine holds some five percent of the world's mineral resources and rare earths, according to various estimates. Ukraine also has around 20 percent of the world's graphite, an essential material for electric batteries, according to France's Bureau of Geological and Mining Research, and is a

♦ major producer of manganese and titanium.

♦ Ukraine has agreed to the minerals deal as a way to secure long-term US investment, as Trump has drastically scaled back US security commitments around the world.

♦ The two countries will establish a joint Reconstruction Investment Fund, with each side having equal voting rights. The fund's profits will be invested exclusively in Ukraine, which will not be asked to pay back any "debt" for billions of dollars in US support since Russia's February 2022 invasion.