International Day for the Fight against Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing

 

The UN General Assembly declared June 5th as the International Day for the Fight against Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated Fishing in December 2017. The date coincides with the entry into force of the Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA), which is the first international legally binding treaty specifically addressing IUU fishing. This day is observed annually to raise awareness about IUU fishing and its impact on sustainable fisheries, livelihoods, and food security. 

 

Indian Arrival Day in Suriname

 

On June 5, 1873, Lalla Rookh, a ship, landed on the shore of Paramaribo, the capital of Suriname. On board the ship were 400 Indian indentured labourers, who became the first people of Indian origin to arrive in the then Dutch colony; the first of over 34000 that eventually arrived in Suriname between 1873 and 1916. The first 400, like the rest, were mostly poor, rural workers from modern day Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and parts of Tamil Nadu. These indentured labourers, brought on a contract, found themselves in gruelling conditions on sugarcane plantations thousands of miles away from home.

Descendants of these Indians now make up the single largest demographic in Suriname, accounting for 27.4% of the country’s population. These descendants of indentured labourers are no longer just that, as they now are politicians, artists, teachers, leaders, entrepreneurs, and more, having shaped Suriname’s national fabric. And hence, June 5, is etched into the cultural and emotional memory of the Indo-Surinamese population and is observed as Indian Arrival Day aka Prawas Din. Apart from Suriname, countries like Fiji (May 14), Grenada (May 1), Guyana (May 5), Jamaica (May 10), Mauritius (November 2), Saint Lucia (May 6), Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (June 1), South Africa (November 16), Trinidad and Tobago (May 30), all have their own Indian Arrival Days.

 

International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression

 

International Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression is a United Nations observance held on June 4 every year. It was established on 19 August 1982.

Originally focused on victims of the 1982 Lebanon War, its purpose expanded to "acknowledge the pain suffered by children throughout the world who are the victims of physical, mental and emotional abuse. This day affirms the UN's commitment to protecting the rights of children.”

The Great Auk went extinct in 1844

 

The great auk was a large bird, that could not fly. People hunted it for meat and feathers. It grew rare, because it was too easy to kill, and the ones left could not breed fast enough to make up for the lost ones.

On 3 June 1844, the last two confirmed specimens were killed on Eldey, off the coast of Iceland, ending the last known breeding attempt. Later reports of roaming individuals being seen or caught are unconfirmed. A report of one great auk in 1852 is considered by some to be the last sighting of a member of the species. It lived mostly in the water, like a duck.

Penguins got their name from the great auk. The word "penguin" was the Celtic word for "great auk". When sailors saw penguins for the first time, they thought they looked like great auks.

The great auk was covered in black feathers, but had white feathers on its chest and abdomen. It had very short wings, like stubs, which meant it could not fly. On land it stood upright and was about 75 cm tall. They spent most of their time at sea, coming to shore in the summer to breed. They lived in large breeding colonies on low rocky islands in the north Atlantic Ocean from Canada to Norway. Females laid one egg on bare rock. In winter they went as far south as Florida and southern Spain.  

Charles Drew's Birth Anniversary

Charles Richard Drew, born on 3 June 1904, in Washington D.C., U.S., was an African American physician and surgeon who was an authority on the preservation of human blood for transfusion.

Drew was educated at Amherst College (graduated 1926), McGill University, Montreal (1933), and Columbia University (1940). While earning his doctorate at Columbia in the late 1930s, he conducted research into the properties and preservation of blood plasma. He soon developed efficient ways to process and store large quantities of blood plasma in “blood banks.” As the leading authority in the field, he organized and directed the blood-plasma programs of the United States and Great Britain in the early years of World War II, while also agitating the authorities to stop excluding the blood of African Americans from plasma-supply networks.

Drew resigned his official posts in 1942 after the armed forces ruled that the blood of African Americans would be accepted but would have to be stored separately from that of whites. He then became a surgeon and professor of medicine at Freedmen’s Hospital, Washington, D.C., and Howard University (1942–50). He was fatally injured in an automobile accident in 1950.

Raj Kapoor's Death Anniversary

 

Raj Kapoor, who passed away on 2 June 1988, aged 63, in New Delhi, was an Indian motion-picture actor and director whose Hindi -language films were popular throughout India, the Middle East, the Soviet Union, China, and Southeast Asia. Along with Dilip Kumar and Dev Anand, he dominated Bollywood during its golden age (1940s–60s). He is known for tackling complex themes in his films, many of which are counted among India’s most acclaimed cinematic works, and for creating a screen persona modelled on Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp. Often described as “the showman of Indian cinema,” he is credited with elevating Indian films to the global stage.

Thomas Hardy's Birth Anniversary

 

Thomas Hardy, born on 2 June 1840, in Stinsford, Dorset, England, was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Wordsworth. He was highly critical of much in Victorian society, especially on the declining status of rural people in Britain such as those from his native South West England.

While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a poet, his first collection was not published until 1898. Initially, he gained fame as the author of novels such as Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891) and Jude the Obscure (1895). During his lifetime, Hardy's poetry was acclaimed by younger poets (particularly the Georgians) who viewed him as a mentor. After his death his poems were lauded by Ezra Pound, W.H. Auden and Philip Larkin.

Many of his novels concern tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances, and they are often set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex; initially based on the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom, Hardy’s Wessex eventually came to include the counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, Hampshire and much of Berkshire, in south-west and south-central England. Two of his novels, Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd, were listed in the top 50 on the BBC’s survey of best-loved novels, The Big Read.