- PROLOGUE
- History & Culture in News
- National Philosopher: Adi Shankaracharya
- Jyotiba Phule: 125th Birth Anniversary
- Komagta Maru: 102 years & Canadian Apology
- Nirankari sect
- Dead in News
- Books in New: Economy related
- Music Movies
- States in News
- Gujarat for GPSC
- Other States in News
PROLOGUE
So far, we’ve covered polity, environment, diplomacy, International relations related current affairs from May-2016, now comes history-art and culture, places and dead in news during that month.
History & Culture in News
Relevance: UPSC Prelim exam MCQs. Although, straight forward questions from following notes, are unlikely. You’ve to augment them with backend information of parallel historic people, places, event from the text-books.
National Philosopher: Adi Shankaracharya

Classification Based on this Indian-Express Article
- Born 11th May 788 AD, at Kaladi near Kochi, Kerala. Took Samadhi at the age of 33, at Kedar tirth.
- Father: Shivguru, Mother: Aryamba.
- He is associated with Maya Theory, Advaita Vedanata (Non-Dualism), Tarak Brahma
- He established four Math (Monastery) at Shingeri, Puri, Dwaraka and Badrinath– for propagation of Sanathana Dharma.
- His Books: Bhashya- commentaries on Gita and other texts; Prakaran Granths.
- Government wants to declare his birthday 11th May as National Philosopher’s day and Adi Sankaracharya as “National Philosopher”.
- But, Adi Shankaracharya was opposed to Buddhist philosophers. Therefore, theHindu columnists criticizing Modi for this idea.
Further Self-Study: NIOS Culture PDF, Chapter 8 on six schools of Indian Philosophy- page 117 onwards. Free Download
Jyotiba Phule: 125th DEATH Anniversary

Map is taken from same Tamilnadu Class-12 History Textbook
- Born in Mali caste in Satara, Maharastra on 11th April 1827. His family was in business of selling vegetables and flowers, hence the surname “Phule”.
- Founded- Satyasodhak samaj for 1. social service 2. spread of education among women and lower caste 3. widow remarriage
- He opened first girls’ school at Poona. (1851)
- Published: Tritiya Ratna, sarvajanik satyadharma, gulamgin etc.
- He was against casteism and Sanskritik Hinduism. He used symbol of Raja Bali as opposed to the Brahmins symbol of Rama.
- Why in news? 125th Anniversary in 2016. Maharashtra government to make a Rs.10 crore movie on his life.
Further Self-Study: Tamilnadu Class12 History book Ch.13. Free Download
Komagta Maru: 102 years & Canadian Apology
- 18th May 1914: Indian migrants, mostly Sikhs had boarded Japanese Ship Komagata Maru to reach Vancouver, Canada.
- But they were not allowed to land, when the ship returned to Calcutta but British forces opened fire killing 19 of them.
- 102 years of the Komagta Maru incident, the Canadian PM Justin Trudeau officially apologize for it in the Canadian Lok Sabha (House of Commons.)
Nirankari sect
- Founder: Dayal Das and his disciples Darbara Singh, Ratta Ji.
- They accept authority of a living Guru. [Other Sikh sects believe that after 10th Guru Gobind Singh- no more living Gurus, only Adi Granth Sahib ji is the eternal Guru of all Sikhs.]
- They believe god is formless (Nirankari)
- They disapprove militant brotherhood of Khalsa. They aim for standardized birth-death-marriage-rituals based on Sikh scripture, but free of cost.
- They advocate against meat, liquor and drugs.
Sant Nirankari Mission & Savinder Kaur
- It was Established in 1929 by Buta Singh, a member of Nirankari sect. It’s separate from the original Nirankari sect..
- Savinder Kaur becomes the first woman to head this sect/mission, after sudden death of her husband Baba Harvdev Singh in a plane crash in 2016.
21st May 1991 | Rajiv Gandhi Assassination Day. |
9th May 1945 | WW2-Victory day parade to commemorate Soviet Russia’s victory over Nazi Germany. |
Dead in News
Alex Lowe and David Bridges |
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Balraj Madhok |
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Rajdev Ranjan |
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Sahara |
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Books in New: Economy related
Kaushik Basu |
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Ruchir Sharma |
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Other books in news- May 2015
Anand Teltumbde | Book Mahad: the making of the first dalit revolt. |
Arjun Sumbramaniam | Book “India’s wars: A Military history from 1947 to 1971 [icon type=”shopping-cart”]“. |
Dr. K.P.Mathur | Unseen Indira Gandhi- through her physician’s eyes [icon type=”shopping-cart”]. |
IAS autobiography | Flying in high wings- S.K.Mishra. (IAS, Ex-UPSC chairman) |
Indology | David Shulman won Israel price for research on India. He’ll donate the money to Palestinians. |
Perumal Murugan | This controversial author’s Tamil novel on love, caste, intolerance has been translated in English – with title “Pyre”. |
Music Movies
Azhar |
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Salma Agha | Pakistan origin Bollywood singer, has sought OCI card. |
AIB | AIB group’s Comedian Tanmay Bhat in trouble after creating a controversial spoof video on Lata Mangeshkar and Sachin Tendulkar. |
Veerappan | Directed by Ram Gopal Varma, where Sandeep Bhardwaj plays role of the forest brigand and sandlewood smuggler Veerapan who operated in the jungles of Karnataka and Tamilnadu. |
Zubin Mehta | Music director, and Conductor in Orchestra- turned 80 years old. Some demanding Bharat Ratna for him. |
Redink Award | NDTV’s Ravish Kumar won Journalist of the year award. |
Traffic | Movie about organ donation- how police creates a ‘green corridor’ to transport a donated heart to patient. |
Mehul Kumar | Producer of noted bollywood movies such as Tiranga, Kohram, Krantiveer. He’s given 6 months imprisonment for a cheque bounce case in Gujarat. |
States in News
Gujarat Current Affairs: May-2016 for GPSC
Schemes |
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Death |
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Education |
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Vadodara |
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Misc. |
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Other States in News
Jammu & Kashmir |
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MP |
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Rajasthan |
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Kerala |
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Maharashtra |
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Next: Sport, Banking current affairs and BizGK from May-2016.
You are awesome :-)
Baba Harder Singh died in Car crash not in plane crash. Nice article though. I am your fan.. :)
Baba Hardev Singh**
Awesome content gurujee,as always.sir plz suggest material for ancient and medieval history.thnx for everything what are u doing.
People boarded Kamagaramatu from Singapore( not India).
amazing stuff .. thank you so much mrunal sir …..\,,/ little autocorrect here its ‘Gulamgiri’ & not gulamgin in mahatma phule published works ..
*small correction*
Mrunal sir, Its Jyotiba’s 125th “Death Anniversary” year.
Thank you Sir.
Jyotiba phule’s 125th death anniversary not birth anniversary please correct that
Birth -1827
Death -1890
2016 is death anniversary of jyotiba phule’s
Link-http://www.dnaindia.com/mumbai/report-film-on-mahatma-phule-to-be-released-this-year-says-devendra-fadnavis-2208519
Nice article…
I’ve no words for you.
Please post an article about “Nagetive Interest Rate Policy (NIRP)”
Its 190th birth anniversary and 125th death anniversary of phule.kindly clearify it….
yes absolutely correct..thats a mistake..
Thank u team
How to read Indian Express without buying it? Thanks, though.
Indian Express offers free pdf on their website for download. You can go to their e-paper and download the same. Hope this helps..
Adi shankara actually took the buddha’s idea of advaita vedanta. difference came only on idea of soul. acc to buddha, soul is a sum of five elements including body while shankara talked soul as an independent thing.
though five philosophical systems are mentioned here, sankara was opposed to Mimansa ( ritual based).
little correction. First school for girls by Mahatma phule in 1848, bhide wada pune not in 1851….
Thank you so much sir ….
In the culture Prashant Guarav’s Purv Madhayakalin Bharat is good for reading ?
thank you sir ji