January 2020

Nobel Laureate Abhijit Banerjee on Budget: Fiscal deficit already breached, wouldn’t support consolidation now Ahead of the upcoming Union Budget on February 1, Nobel laureate Abhijit Banerjee Saturday said the fiscal deficit had been breached by a huge margin already and it wouldn’t be wise to follow the path of fiscal tightening at this juncture. “Fiscal deficit has been breached by a huge margin already. In that sense, I don’t think that it’s a big deal to breach it more. I wouldn’t be supporting fiscal tightening right now,” news agency ANI quoted him as saying. Source: The Indian Express

Fired Boeing CEO walks away with $62.2 million, loses bonus & stock options Ousted Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg, will walk away with $62.2 million, the company disclosed on January 10. He will however not get additional severance or a 2019 bonus and forfeits stock awards worth $14.6 million. Muilenburg, who spent more than 30 years at Boeing, also has unexercised stock options, worth more than $18.5 million at the closing price on January 10, which he has held since 2013. Source: Moneycontrol

Martin Sheen recites Rabindranath Tagore’s poem at climate change protest. Desi Twitter is proud Hollywood actor Martin Sheen recited Rabindranath Tagore’s poem Where The Mind Is Without Fear while addressing the audience at the Fire Drill Fridays event in Washington, DC on January 10. The event was a weekly climate change protest that is organised by Jane Fonda. On stage, Sheen exclaimed, “Clearly, the world will be saved by women. Thank God they outnumber us men,” while applauding Jane Fonda. In an encouraging speech, Sheen added, “We are called to find something in our lives worth fighting for. Something that...

Kangana On Hindi Diwas: Film World Made Fun of My English Bollywood actress Kangana Ranaut says the film world has always made fun of her English, despite which she has always kept Hindi as her priority. Kangana’s sister Rangoli Chandel took to Twitter on the occasion of Hindi Diwas on Friday, sharing a clip of the actress. In the video, Kangana is seen urging everyone to give importance to Hindi. She said in Hindi: “Today on Hindi Diwas, let’s take ‘Panga’ with English but with love. Hindi is our national language but the nation worries speaking it… ‘A,B,C’ comes out...

“I wished I were dead”: Iran’s Guard commander accepts responsibility for Ukraine plane shootdown An Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander on Saturday said his unit accepts “full responsibility” for the accidental shootdown of a Ukrainian passenger plane. In an address broadcast by state TV on Saturday, Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh says that when he learned about the downing of the plane, which killed all 176 passengers on board, “I wished I were dead.” Source: The Hindu

If we get orders, we’ll take appropriate action: Army chief on PoK New Delhi: Indian Army chief Manoj Mukund Naravane on Saturday said the Indian Army will take steps to wrest Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) from Islamabad’s control if Parliament wanted it and if the Indian government gave such an order. Addressing his customary press conference ahead of Army Day on 15 January, Naravane, who took over as the chief of the Indian army on 31 December, also warned of possible collusion between Pakistan and China in Kashmir’s Siachen area with any link up between the two “all weather friends” in...

Sultan Qaboos of Oman, Arab world’s longest-serving ruler, dies aged 79 The sultan deposed his father in a bloodless coup with British support in 1970 and set Oman on a path to development, using its oil wealth. Widely regarded as popular, he was also an absolute monarch and any dissenting voices were silenced. No cause of death has been confirmed. His cousin Haitham bin Tariq Al Said has been sworn in as his successor. A family council had three days to choose a successor as Qaboos had no heir or publicly designated successor. Instead they opted for opening the sealed...

Sweety Kumari: Rugby player from Bihar hailed as ‘international young player of year’ The 19-year-old women’s rugby player Sweety Kumari was named as the “international young player of the year” by popular women’s rugby website Scrumqueens. Sweety was earlier declared by Asia Rugby as the “continent’s fastest player”, according to Scrumqueens. Sweety, who hails from Nawada village in Barh tehsil of Patna, plays as a winger in the team, and is nicknamed India’s “Scoring Machine” by teammates. “She impressed from the start, but it was this year that she started making a big impact in Asia, at both sevens and fifteens....

ICC should not mandate four-day Tests ‘for the sake of it’, warns Andrew Strauss Andrew Strauss, the former England opener and ECB director of cricket who now sits on the ICC’s cricket committee, has warned that any move towards making four-day Tests mandatory “should be an easy sell or we shouldn’t be doing it”. As revealed by ESPNcricinfo, cricket’s governing body is mulling the possibility of stipulating that World Test Championship matches be played over four days – with a minimum of 98 overs per day – from 2023 onwards. However, while conceding that efforts had to be made to...

Sachin Bansal buys DHFL General Insurance MUMBAI: Flipkart cofounder Sachin Bansal has acquired DHFLNSE -0.58 % General Insurance from Wadhawan Global Capital (WGC) for around Rs. 100 crore, people in the know of the deal said. The transaction is seen as a distress sale for WGC, which used to run bankrupt home financier Dewan Housing Finance, one of the persons said. Bansal’s bet on the insurance firm is part of his broader ambition in financial services industry, and comes on the back of multiple investments he has made to bulk up his portfolio of firms in the sector. Source: The...