Indian Sub-continent

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) — Sri Lanka’s disputed prime minister announced Saturday that he would step aside, paving the way for his sacked predecessor to regain the position and apparently ending a political impasse that has paralyzed the government for nearly two months.

Mahinda Rajapaksa’s resignation signals the end of a crisis that began in October when President Maithripala Sirisena sacked Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe and appointed Rajapaksa as his replacement.

KANPUR: All-India Inter-University Volleyball Championship will be played at Kanpur University from January 21 to January 25, 2019.

Teams from Kurukshetra University, Punjab University, and Guru Nanak Dev University have already qualified to participate.

KANPUR: A (khalasi) cleaner died after coming under a moving truck’s wheels in Bidhnu on Thursday late night. A 20-year-old Moolchand r/o village Barmauti in Mahoba arrived by a loaded truck in Kanpur from Hamirpur. On account of some work, he stopped along with the truck driver Brijesh at the Shambhala Phatak. While stepping up the truck cabin during the nighttimes he fell down after misbalancing. As the truck driver suddenly sped up the vehicle, he came under the heavy tyres.

KANPUR: The BJP workers entangled into a scuffle during the Kamal Sandesh Yatra taken out by the BJP here on Friday. They disagreed as harshly as their challenge ended in beating one another. What was more surprising was the presence of the party’s senior leaders on the spot. A written complaint has been filed by the quarrelling groups at the police station.

KANPUR: Whether it was state minister or divisional commissioner or district magistrate or city mayor everyone has been habituated to face the employees’ indiscipline. Indiscipline and carelessness towards responsibility are not lessening despite warnings and actions.

New Delhi, Dec 14 (PTI) The Supreme Court Friday gave the Narendra Modi government a clean chit on the procurement of 36 Rafale fighter jets from France and dismissed all the petitions seeking a direction to the CBI to register an FIR for alleged irregularities in the deal.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said there was no occasion to doubt the decision-making process in the multi-billion dollar deal.

Bhopal, Dec 14 (PTI) Senior Congress leader Kamal Nath said he will take oath as chief minister of Madhya Pradesh on December 17.

The swearing-in ceremony will take place at Lal Parade Ground here around 1.30 pm, Nath told reporters outside Raj Bhavan.

Nath, along with senior Congress leaders, including Digvijay Singh, Vivek Tankha and others met Governor Anandiben Patel and informed her about his election as Congress Legislature Party leader, following which the governor invited him for the oath.

The meeting lasted for nearly 50 minutes.

Ahmedabad, Dec 14 (PTI) As many as 83 Hindus hailing from Pakistan, who had migrated to the city years ago, were awarded Indian citizenship by the district authorities here Friday.

At a camp organised at the District Collectorate, Collector Vikrant Pandey and local MLA Balram Thawani handed over the certificates of Indian citizenship, issued in accordance with the provisions of the Citizenship Act, 1955, to these 83 applicants.

Most of the applicants were either Sindhis or from Maheshwari community.

New Delhi, Dec 14 (PTI) The Congress on Friday named Ashok Gehlot as Rajasthan's next chief minister and Sachin Pilot his deputy after party president Rahul Gandhi successfully brokered peace between the veteran leader and his younger colleague following several rounds of discussions

After Congress' observer to the state K C Venugopal made the announcement at a media briefing here, Gehlot thanked Gandhi for giving him an opportunity to serve the people of the state for the third time and promised that he and Pilot will give "good governance"

KANPUR: Despite the divisional commissioner’s ultimatum at the city’s second big government Ursula Hospital for correcting the irregularities, nothing useful was available to the district magistrate during his visit on December 13.

It was most unexpected, almost shocking for him. From November 27, 2018 inspection by the divisional commissioner to the district magistrate’s ire at the persisting poor position at the hospital was worth understandable.