National Political News:
1. Impasse at Shani Shinganapur temple near Pune on darshan by women devotees broken by Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, the spiritual Hindu guru who suggested that Tirupati Balaji model be followed for having darshan of the diety in which both men and women are at a distance from the platform of the inner sanctum.
2. David Coleman Headly in a video deposition to a Mumbai court, claims that Pakistan military intelligence worked with LET and Hafeez Saeed in the Mumbai terror attacks which killed 166 people.
He has further deposed that Isharat Jehan was a LET cadre. LET struck through Kasab and co. in its 3rd attempt at Mumbai the first two being not successful. He also revealed the names of the Pakistan army and intelligence involved in this heinous crime.
3. JNU students union President Kanhaiya Kumar arrested for sedition. JNU students had organized a protest against the so called judicial killing of Afzal Guru involved in attack on the Indian Parliament.
A political mess on the issue is taking place with Rahul Gandhi of Congress, Sita Ram Yechury and D Raja of the Communist party in favour of Kanhaiya Kumar Vs. ABVP and BJP against him.
4. 2 Jawans of the army and 5 terrorist killed in a fierce encounter in Kupwara sector of J&K in a 20 hours long encounter. The militants had sneaked into India wearing white snow clothing for camouflaging with the snow capped mountain surroundings.
International Political News:
1. North Korea launches a long range rocket purportedly carrying a satellite into space. US and South Korea denounce it as a ICBM test, as it has taken place weeks after the claimed hydrogen bomb test by North Korea.
North Korea executes its army chief General. Ri Young-gel for graft and for being at odds with North Korean Dictator Kim Jong-un.
2. India and US hold talks for joint patrolling of South China seas, which are claimed by China as their water way. South China seas stretch from Taiwan in the North to Vietnam in the West, Philippines in the East and Indonesia and Brunei in the South.
3. Pope Francis, the Vatican Papal head and Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill embraced and kissed in Cuba at a historic meeting ending a 1000 year split in Christianity. They have issued a joint appeal for protection of Christianity in the Middle East and other parts of the world.
Business News:
1. Make In India week gets underway in Mumbai with representatives of 1500 foreign companies representing 65 countries participating in it. The meet was inauguratedby PMModi. 25 ministers of trade and industry from countries like Japan and Germany attended the ceremony. It is the biggest such event of its kind in the country.
The focus is on 10 key sectors like manufacturing, aerospace and defence, automobiles, construction and infra, food processing, Pharmaceuticals, IT and textiles.
2. Government imposes anti dumping duty/ minimum import price on steel products to ward off imports from China and South Korea at low rates. Steel firms welcome the government move. The automobiles firms express apprehension at rise in their steel input cost.
3. Data released by CSO indicates that economy grew by 7.3% in the Oct-Dec quarter of 2015.
4. TRAI has declined the Free Basics. Activists of net neutrality acclaim the order. TRAI prohibits discriminatory tariffs for data services on the basis of content and also tariff cannot very on the basis of website / application / platform / type of content being accessed.
Science and Technology:
1. Scientist at Max Plauck institute in Greifswald, Germany have switched on an experiment in which hydrogen will be heated to become a superhot gas plasma to mimic conditions on the Sun. Atoms join at extremely high temperatures to release very high amounts of energy. This energy is likely to be harnessed for creating electrical energy. This could replace nuclear fission and fossil fuel energy.
This type of experiment is also on in South France, where a device known as ‘tokamak’ has been built to conduct it.
2. Einstien’s prediction of gravitational waves a century ago have been now established by detection of 2 massive black holes colliding 1.3 billion years ago and sending a wobble that hurtled through space and arrived at earth on September 14, 2015. It was picked up by sophisticated instruments at LIGO Laboratory in the US. Confirmation of the event has come now.
MISC.
1. The Grammy awards for the best musical performance have gone to Taylor Swift in the category of Best Pop Vocal Album and Album of the year. Rapper Kendrick Lamar scoops 5 Grammies including best Rap song and Rap performance. The record of the year has been won by ‘Uptown funk’ by Mark Ronson.
Sports:
1. The 12th South Asian games at Guwahati and Shillong are nearing conclusion. Indian swimmers weightlifters, wrestlers, shooters, archers, athletes have taken India to the No. 1 position with a tally of 237 medals comprising of 139 gold, 78 silver and 20 bronze.
Sri Lanka is at No. 2 with 151 and Pakistan at No. 3 with 72 medals.
2. The One Day Cricket Series between South Africa and England is being played in South Africa with England winning 2 matches and South Africa 1.
3. India and Sri Lanka are level at 1-1 in the 3 match T-20 series being played before the World Cup in India.
