3rd NOVEMBER 2014

Around 200 enthusiasts gathered on Sunday morning at the fort here to participate in the first-ever Heritage Marathon in the historic city of Bidar. Men and women aged above 60 ran alongside a group of children aged between 10 and 15. A large number of the runners were young IT engineers, doctors, other professionals and students from Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Mumbai, Latur, and also from Kerala. Some had even come from beyond the borders.

Chairperson of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) R.K. Pachauri on Sunday said the window of action on tackling climate change was closing rapidly and warned that the path of inaction would be more costly than the path of action. Speaking at the launch of the IPCC’s Synthesis Report in Copenhagen, he said the scientific community had done its job and was in a sense passing on the baton to politicians and decision-makers. The Synthesis Report points to the human influence on climate but also points out that there were means to limit climate change and build a sustainable future. He said the global community must look at the numbers in this report and bring about change. “There is no Plan B because there is no planet B,” he said to questions.

The new Maharashtra Chief Minister, Devendra Fadnavis, has retained Home and Urban Development portfolios. Eknathrao Khadse has been given Revenue, Minorities Development and Wakf, Agriculture, Animal Husbandry, Dairy Development and Fisheries and Excise. Sudhir Mungantiwar will be Minister of Finance and Forests. BJP’s only Maratha face, Vinod Tawade, got Education, among others. Pankaja Munde, daughter of deceased veteran BJP leader Gopinath Munde, has been given the portfolios of Women and Child Development, and Rural Development and Water Conservation. Vidya Thakur has been made the Minister of State for these two Ministries.

India’s defence establishment will be fully responsible for a DRDO-developed critical propulsion system that will go into the last two of the six Scorpene submarines being built under technology transfer at Mazagon Dock, Mumbai, say the original makers of the submarine. The system, called air-independent propulsion (AIP), enhances the underwater endurance of conventional (diesel-electric) submarines. Without it, they are forced to surface to periscope depth to recharge their batteries — a position where they are most susceptible to detection — at more frequent intervals.

France and the United States headed a chorus of panic on Sunday after a major U.N. report on climate change warned that the Earth was on track for potentially disastrous global warming. France, which is hosting a U.N. conference in December 2015 that is supposed to seal cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions, said the report required “immediate, all-round mobilisation”.

2nd NOVEMBER 2014

GSLV Mark-III, the bigger and better space vehicle that will enable larger national communication satellites to be launched from India, is set for its first partial test flight in the first half of December. The landmark test flight will lead to a “future workhorse vehicle that will stay with us for many years,” ISRO Chairman K. Radhakrishnan said. It also tests features of an unmanned crew module that will be flown down from space and recovered from sea.

Hello Kitty, Japan’s global icon of cute marked her 40th anniversary on Saturday with a human-size version of the feline character regaling fans at an upscale Tokyo department store and a theme park. The moon-faced creation, who has spawned a multi-billion dollar industry, began her birthday by trying her hand as manager of the Mitsukoshi department store in Tokyo’s glitzy Ginza district. Clad in pink from head to toe with a customary bow on her head, a human-size Kitty showed up at an in-house meeting at the store, drawing cheers and applause from hordes of employees.

Nineteenth-century artist James E. Buttersworth, although a titan in the field of marine art, cannot be described as famous. Prized for his exquisitely detailed portraits of racing yachts and clipper ships, he remains unknown to the general public and therefore has limited drawing power. To overcome this obstacle, the Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, Virginia, hit on a novel solution for its new exhibition of his work: Toss in a forgery and challenge museum visitors to sniff it out from among the 34 genuine Buttersworth works.

The Union Culture Ministry will set up a National Cultural Audio-Visual Archives here to identify and preserve the cultural heritage of India. A memorandum of agreement for a pilot project was signed here on Friday between the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) under the Ministry of Culture and Rupayan Sansthan.

Lithuania on Saturday enacted a ban on selling energy drinks to anyone under 18, in what officials in the Baltic country claimed was a global first. “It’s a revolutionary development the world over: we didn’t find a single other country to have this kind of ban,” health ministry official Almantas Kranauskas told

A massive nationwide power blackout hit Bangladesh on Saturday after a transmission line failed, leaving homes, businesses and shops in the densely-populated country without electricity. Power was restored in some parts of the capital Dhaka after several hours, and authorities said they hoped to have electricity back on across the nation of 155 million by Saturday evening.

The Spanish government has successfully passed a new copyright law which imposes fees for online content aggregators such as Google News, in an effort to protect its print media industry. The new intellectual property law, known popularly as the “Google Tax” or by its initials LPI, requires services which post links and excerpts of news articles to pay a fee to the organisation representing Spanish newspapers, the Association of Editors of Spanish Dailies (known by its Spanish-language abbreviation AEDE). Failure to pay up can lead to a fine of up to €600,000

Tamil Nadu’s Velavan Senthilkumar and Delhi’s Adya Advani won the under-17 boys’ and girls’ titles respectively in the National sub-junior and junior squash championships here on Saturday. Kush Kumar and Harishit Kaur Jawanda retained their titles in the under-19 section.

1st NOVEMBER 2014

There was no redemption for Warren M. Anderson — accused no. 1 in the criminal case pertaining to the Bhopal gas tragedy — in life. On Thursday, it seemed there was none in death. Hearing of his death, a full one month after he passed away at a nursing home in Vero Beach, Florida, on September 29, survivors of the Bhopal gas tragedy assembled outside the now-defunct Union Carbide factory and placed a large portrait of him. Then, one by one, they spat at the photograph. With his death, the struggle to get the former CEO of Union Carbide extradited has hit a dead end.

The State government on Friday expressed its difficulty before the High Court to implement the recommendations made by a committee that looked into eligibility of persons to retain sites allotted to them by the Bangalore Development Authority, under ‘G’ category, based on the recommendations of then Chief Ministers.

Indian Oil Corporation’s (IOC) retail outlets in the city stand fully automated from Friday. Makarand Nene, Director (Marketing), IOC, made the declaration at the inauguration of automation at a retail outlet at Palarivattom. Kochi is the second city after Thiruvananthapuram to be declared as fully automated.

Education Ministers and officials of eight South Asian countries have resolved to collaborate on increased use of information technology and improving the quality of education. At the second meeting of Education Ministers of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) here on Friday, representatives of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka issued a joint statement titled “The New Delhi Declaration on Education.” Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani chaired the meeting.

OUAGADOUGOU: Burkina Faso's embattled President Blaise Compaore announced on Friday that he was stepping down to make way for elections following a violent uprising against his 27-year rule that saw parliament set ablaze.

Myanmar’s Parliament will consider amending the country’s constitution — which currently bars opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi from becoming President — ahead of crucial elections next year, an official said on Friday.

Hungary’s Prime Minister on Friday scrapped plans to introduce an Internet tax that had sparked major demonstrations and further concerns about civil liberties in the central European EU member state. Proposed changes to the tax code that would have imposed a new levy on online data transfers “cannot be introduced in its current form,” the right-wing Viktor Orban (51), said in a morning radio interview. He said the legislation, which was to have been voted on in Parliament on November 17, would be amended and that a “national consultation” on the Internet and taxes would be organised in January.

31st OCTOBER 2014

The Kerala High Court on Thursday upheld the State government’s decision not to renew the licences of bars in two and three-star and other hotels even as it allowed a batch of petitions challenging the decision not to issue licences to four-star and heritage hotels. The judge said the proposal to shut down bars in four-star and heritage hotels surfaced all of a sudden in the liquor policy of 2014-15. The preferential treatment given to the bars in hotels in five-star and higher categories could not be justified as well.

The coordinator of the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State group on Wednesday voiced confidence that Iraqi Kurdish reinforcements would stop the jihadists from capturing the Syrian town of Kobane.

Tata AIA Life Insurance Company (Tata AIA Life) on Thursday announced the appointment of Naveen Tahilyani as its Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director. He will assume office at Tata AIA Life in January, 2015

Pankaj Advani won a grand double by clinching the World billiards championship (time format) at Leeds (England), just days after winning the points format title. Advani cruised past England’s Robert Hall 1928-893 in the final late on Wednesday night, capping a memorable week.

30th OCTOBER 2014

Technically, 2018 appears to be the next best time to go for a second Indian Mars trip. An opportunity to go to Mars from Earth comes up every 26 months; the next date, 2016, is believed to be too soon for ISRO and not conducive. The Indian Mars Orbiter Mission of 2013-14 should have a successor, but “it is not an active thought nor is it in the realm of any planning yet,” says S.K. Shivakumar, Director of the ISRO Satellite Centre.

A team of researchers from India and Sri Lanka has discovered seven new species of Golden-backed frogs in the Western Ghats-Sri Lanka global biodiversity hot spot, throwing new light on the highly-distinct and diverse fauna in the two countries.

Champion for girls’ rights Malala Yousafzai, the youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate in history, won the World’s Children’s Prize on , after a global vote involving millions of children.

Japanese and Indian officials on Wednesday discussed development plans for Varanasi, as part of the sister city agreement between Kyoto and Varanasi signed during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent visit to Japan. Kenichi Ogasawara, Vice Mayor of Kyoto, is in the capital to attend the eighth meeting of the India-Japan Joint Working Group on Urban Development. He met Urban Development Secretary Shankar Aggarwal and is scheduled to visit Varanasi on Thursday. During the meeting, Mr. Agarwal suggested that Kyoto could consider extending cooperation for Varanasi’s development through effective waste management systems.

A new, lighter version of the supersonic cruise missile BrahMos called BrahMos-M (Mini) weighing around 1.5 tonnes is being planned for use by the Navy and the Air Force. “BrahMos Aerospace is currently getting the user requirements to finalise the configuration,” said Sudhir Mishra, CEO and MD of BrahMos Corporation (BA).

India ranked 142 among the 189 countries surveyed for the latest World Bank’s “Ease of Doing Business” report released on Wednesday, a drop by two places from the last year’s ranking, as Singapore topped the list.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has revealed a new drug to stem the global spread of multi-drug resistant (MDR) tuberculosis, but has cautioned that its use must follow a set of guidelines issued by it.

The governments of India and Russia have agreed that BrahMos missile will be exported to a list of mutually agreeable countries for defensive purposes. There is also a negative list to which exports are barred.

GSAT-6, the advanced communication satellite that got ISRO’s arm Antrix Corporation embroiled in a controversy with erstwhile partner Devas Multimedia P Ltd in 2011, is slated for a March 2015 launch. The S-band GSAT-6 satellite with five special transponders for multimedia services is “all done”, integrated and should start thermovacuum tests in late November, according to ISRO Satellite Centre’s Director, S.K.Shivakumar, whose centre readies all Indian spacecraft in Bangalore.

LUSAKA: Zambia's President Michael Sata — nicknamed "King Cobra" for his sharp tongue and manner — has died, officials said on Wednesday, making his vice-president Gary Scott Africa's first white head of state in decades.

Harinder Pal Sandhu and Dipika Pallikal emerged winners in the fourth and final leg of the JSW-PSA men’s Challenger and the JSW-WSA women’s event respectively at the ISA courts, here on Wednesday.

29th OCTOBER 2014

Cyclone Nilofar is set to make landfall at Naliya village in Kutch district, along the Gujarat coast, on Saturday, a day later than expected, says a revised weather forecast on Tuesday. The landfall was earlier forecast on Friday morning.

Calling India’s defence cooperation with Vietnam “among our most important,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi gave a commitment to “modernise Vietnam’s defence and security forces” on Tuesday after talks with his counterpart Nguyen Tan Dung. The two countries signed several agreements, including a memorandum of understanding for exploration by ONGC Videsh Limited in two blocks in the South China Sea. As  reported on Monday, Mr. Modi also announced the operationalisation of the $100 million line of credit for Vietnam’s defence purchases.

Dozens of Kurdish peshmerga fighters left a base in northern Iraq on Tuesday headed for the battleground Syrian town of Kobane, an AFP journalist reported. The town on the Turkish border has become a crucial front in the fight against the Islamic State (IS) group, which overran 

large parts of Iraq in June and also holds significant territory in Syria.

SoftBank, kick-starting its plans to put in about $10 billion in India, on Tuesday, announced investments in home-grown market place Snapdeal and popular mobile app for cab bookings Ola.

Global Aircraft major Airbus Defence and Space and India’s Tata Advanced Systems Limited (TASL) of the Tata group have jointly offered the Airbus C295 medium transport to replace the Indian Air Force’s fleet of 56 Avro aircraft, an Airbus release said. The partnership follows a detailed industrial assessment and stringent evaluation of the Indian private aerospace sector by Airbus Defence and Space. In the event of C295 being selected, the first 16 aircraft will come in ‘fly-away’ condition from Airbus’s final assembly line.

Japanese firm Toshiba Corp, in collaboration with the Electronic Corporation of India, has received an order to supply transportable Doppler weather radar system to the India Meteorological Department (IMD). This will be the first weather radar that Toshiba will supply to outside Japan, and will be installed in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir, in January next, Toshiba said in a statement.

28th OCTOBER 2014

Telangana Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao on Monday put up a spirited argument with facts and figures before Krishna River Management Board chairman A.B. Pandya that the Andhra Pradesh government violated all norms in sharing water with Telangana.

The chairperson of the National Commission for Women (NCW), Lalitha Kumara mangalam, has advocated legalising sex work to regulate the trade and ensure better living conditions for women engaged in commercial sex work. Legalising the trade, she says, will also bring down trafficking in women and lower the incidence of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a petition filed on behalf of Dayalu Ammal, wife of former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi, seeking discharge from the Rs. 200 crore money laundering case, registered by the Enforcement Directorate against Kalaignar TV. A three-judge Bench comprising Chief Justice H.L. Dattu and Justices Madan B. Lokur and A.K. Sikri dismissed the petition filed by Selvi, daughter of Ms. Dayalu Ammal.

Sandeep Saxena, State Agricultural Production Commissioner and Principal Secretary of the Agriculture Department, has been appointed as new Chief Electoral Officer.  He succeeds Praveen Kumar, who was holding the post since August 2010. An order to this effect was issued by Chief Secretary Mohan Verghese Chunkath on Monday. Mr. Praveen Kumar is yet to be given a posting. An officer of the 1989 batch of the Tamil Nadu cadre, the 48-year-old Saxena is holding the present post since November 2011. 

Uttarakhand required Rs.9,222 crore for rejuvenating the Ganga, Chief Minister Harish Rawat said at the fourth meeting of the National Ganga River Basin Authority (NGRBA), held in New Delhi on 

Monday.

P. Sainath, (Al Jazeera English, USA Today and Global Post were among) the winners of the World Media Summit (WMS) Global Awards for Excellence, 2014. These are the first comprehensive news awards covering multiple media formats, including press, photo, video and integrated media to honour “truth, objectivity and excellence” in journalism, according to a release.

Telecom giant SoftBank has pledged an investment of $10 billion (over Rs.60,000 crore) in India’s IT and communications space, one of the biggest investment commitments from a Japanese firm after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to that country. SoftBank — one of the major telecom and internet corporations of Japan — will look for opportunities in telecom and the fast-growing e-commerce sector in India. The proposed investment was committed by SoftBank Chairman and CEO Masayoshi Son in a meeting with Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, an official statement said on Monday

Defending champion Mary Ann Gomes and Bhakti Kulkarni carved out clinical victories with white pieces to emerge as leaders at 2.5 points after three rounds of the National women chess championship here on Monday.

27th OCTOBER 2014

The coastal districts in Gujarat are taking steps to face Cyclone Nilofar, which has developed in the Arabian Sea and is expected to make landfall over the north-western region of the State in two days. The India Meteorological Department will give clear guidelines to the State on the progress of the cyclone on Monday.

The former Union Minister Jairam Ramesh has been designated to chair a global research platform panel on sustainable development —‘Future Earth Engagement Committee’— instituted by an alliance of organisations including the UNEP, the UNESCO and the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).

Vishal Bhardwaj’s Haider — a modern-day adaptation of Hamlet — won the People’s Choice Award in the Mondo Genre (world genre) at the ninth edition of the Rome Film Festival.

Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung will arrive in India on Monday for a two-day visit, and the bilateral agenda will be seen as another strong assertion of India’s interests in the South China Sea. China will be closely watching the visit. India and Vietnam will sign three agreements, one an MoU on prospecting by OVL (ONGC Videsh Ltd.) in two more fields in the South China Sea. Discussions will be held on supplying naval vessels to Vietnam. Both issues had seen statements of concern from Beijing in the past. However, officials confirmed that the current blocks under discussion to be signed during this visit, part of a batch of five offered by Vietnam in November, are in Vietnamese territorial waters, and not disputed.

Haryana Governor Kaptan Singh Solanki on Sunday administered the oath of office and secrecy to Manohar Lal Khattar who became the 10th Chief Minister of Haryana at a ceremony witnessed by an unprecedented crowd and a galaxy of dignitaries. Nine Ministers, including six of Cabinet rank, were also sworn in.

The State government has finally decided to include Gulbarga in the list of cities to be recommended to the Union government to be declared as smart cities under various categories. Urban Development Minister Vinaykumar Sorake said here on Sunday that the name of Gulbarga would be on the top of the list of the cities to be recommended as a smart city.

The International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) India Mission Chief has said that among emerging markets and BRICS countries, India stands out for accomplishing the sharpest turnaround in its macro economy since the U.S. Federal Reserve started reversing its zero-interest rates monetary policy. As a result, of all these economies, India is best prepared to deal with the Fed’s monetary policy actions. Earlier this month, the IMF raised its 2014 India growth forecast to 5.6 per cent as against its 5.4 per cent April projection while cutting its world Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth projection to 3.3 per cent. If the new government follows through with structural reforms India can see a growth of 7 per cent to 8 per cent, IMF India Mission Chief Paul A. Cashin told

SpaceX’s unmanned Dragon spacecraft has splashed down in the Pacific Ocean carrying a heavy load of NASA cargo and scientific samples from the International Space Station that experts hope could yield significant results. Dragon also carried crew supplies, hardware and computer resources.

Botswana President Ian Khama saw off the biggest challenge posed by the opposition since independence, winning a second term in power on Sunday. His Botswana Democratic Party garnered at least 34 of the 57 parliamentary seats, below its previous 41 seats.

Sania Mirza and Cara Black reeled off 12 straight games to stun defending champions Hsieh Su-wei and Peng Shuai by the record score of 6-1, 6-0 in the WTA Finals doubles final on Sunday. In singles, world No. 1 Serena Williams beat Simona Halep 6-3, 6-0 to triumph for the third time in a row. Serena Williams won 11 of the last 12 games in the match to join Martina Navratilova and Steffi Graf as the only players to have won five titles in the season-ending championships. 

Yugichi Sugita’ won the KPIT-MSLTA ATP Challenger men’s singles final defeating Adrian Menendez-Maceiras 6-7(1), 6-4, 6-4 at the Shiv Chhatrapati Tennis Complex after an intense contest stretching two hours, 55 minutes.

Roger Federer outclassed David Goffin 6-2, 6-2 in the Swiss Indoors final on Sunday to claim his third title in the last four events, and the sixth in his home event. Federer spent just 51 minutes in delighting his hometown crowd, setting up two match-points with a fifth ace and coming up with an effortless drop shot winner to clinch the 82nd title of his career.

P. Mukundhan won the men’s 50 metre freestyle event and also set a new meet record with a time of 00:24.22 in the senior State aquatic championships held on Sunday. T. Sethu Manickavel and A.V. Jayaveena claimed the overall honours.