BEIJING, March 9 (Xinhua) -- China's consumer price index (CPI), a main gauge of inflation, rose 1.5 percent year on year in February, the National Bureau of Statistics said Saturday.

The increase was down from 1.7 percent for January.

Food prices climbed 0.7 percent year on year last month, down 1.2 percentage points from January, according to the NBS.

Non-food prices gained 1.7 percent, the same growth as that in January.

The CPI in urban areas increased 1.5 percent, while that in the countryside ticked up 1.4 percent.

Chennai, Mar 8 (PTI) The three mediators appointed by Supreme Court to resolve the Ayodhya dispute have a common thread -- all hail from Tamil Nadu.

The Supreme Court Friday referred the politically sensitive case for mediation and appointed retired apex court judge FMI Kalifulla as the head and senior advocate Sriram Panchu and spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar as two other members of the panel for the purpose.

Coimbatore, Mar 8 (PTI) CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury Friday alleged that the Election Commission was deliberately delaying the announcement of the Lok Sabha election dates to favour the ruling BJP.

Addressing a public meeting here tonight, he said that in 2014, the EC had announced the date as March 5 for the general elections.

But despite the date being March 8, the Commission was yet to announce the dates.

Jaipur, Mar 8 : A MiG-21 fighter aircraft of the Indian Air Force (IAF) crashed in Rajasthan's Bikaner district on Friday with the pilot ejecting safely, a defence ministry spokesperson said.

The aircraft was on a routine mission and crashed after getting airborne from the Nal airbase near Bikaner. The pilot of the aircraft ejected safely, the spokesperson said.

He said that a court of inquiry would investigate the cause of the accident.

Islamabad, Mar 8; GANASHAKTI: Krishna Kumari Kohli, Pakistan's first female senator from the Hindu Dalit community, on Friday chaired the session of the Upper House of Parliament on occasion of International Women's Day.

"Chairman Senate of Pakistan decided to make our colleague Krishna Kumari Kohli aka Kishoo Bai to Chair the Senate for today on Women's Day," Senator Faisal Javed tweeted.

New Delhi, Mar 9 (PTI) Senior Congress leader P Chidambaram on Saturday hit out at the Centre over alleged lack of job creation, saying the three main issues in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls would be jobs, jobs and jobs.

"What is worse? Not creating jobs or lying about creation of jobs?" Chidambaram asked in a tweet, alleging that the National Democratic Alliance government was guilty of both. "The top three issues in the elections will be jobs, jobs and jobs."

Raipur, Mar 8 (PTI) A hardcore Naxal, who was carrying a reward of Rs 8 lakh on his head, Friday surrendered before the police in Sukma district of Chhattisgarh, officials said.

According to Sukma police, the Naxal, identified as Madkam Arjun, has been active in South Bastar division since the last 18 years.

TOKYO (AP) — A 116-year-old Japanese woman who loves playing the board game Othello was honored Saturday as the world’s oldest living person by Guinness World Records.

The global authority on records officially recognized Kane Tanaka in a ceremony at the nursing home where she lives in Fukuoka, in Japan’s southwest. Her family and the mayor were present to celebrate.

Tanaka was born Jan. 2, 1903, the seventh among eight children. She married Hideo Tanaka in 1922, and they had four children and adopted another child.

New Delhi, Mar 9 (PTI) Taking a swipe at Attorney General K K Venugopal's fresh remark on Rafale documents, senior Congress leader P Chidambram Saturday said that from "stolen documents" they became "photocopied documents" as the "thief" may have returned them.

New Delhi; 8March 2019; GANASHAKTI: The Indian Air Force (IAF) on Thursday said that it continues to remain in a high state of preparedness, after Pakistan chose not to open the airspace over the Indo-Pak border region. The IAF said it will proactively engage any perceived threat in the highly volatile existing security scenario.

The Air Force further said it is maintaining a strict vigil in the skies to detect and thwart any act of aggression from the Pakistan Air Force.

New Delhi, Mar 8 (PTI) Congress president Rahul Gandhi on Friday condemned the violence against Kashmiris and said India belonged to its citizens from every corner of the country.

Gandhi's reaction come after two Kashmiri vendors selling dry fruits were thrashed by a group of saffron-clad men in Lucknow on Wednesday.

New York, AP: The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the first immunotherapy drug for breast cancer.

Swiss drugmaker Roche’s Tecentriq was OK’d Friday for treating advanced triple-negative breast cancer, which accounts for about 15 percent of cases. It’s to be given with chemotherapy, the standard treatment.

Mount Sinai breast cancer specialist Dr. Amy Tiersten in New York called it “tremendously exciting news.”

Approved for two other cancers, Tecentriq works by boosting the immune system’s ability to spot and kill cancer cells.