Former England spinner Ashley Giles has replaced Andrew Strauss as the new Managing Director of England Men’s Cricket, the England and Wales Cricket Board announced on Friday.

Giles, who is Sport Director at Warwickshire, will be responsible for building the coaching and management structure to support the England men’s cricket teams across all formats.

Former England captain Strauss stepped down from his position in October to support his wife Ruth in her fight against cancer.

Giles played 54 tests for England and later worked as a national selector from 2008-2014.

ONE OF India’s leading contemporary writers in English, Amitav Ghosh, has been honoured with this year’s Jnanpith Award, a literary award given to an author for “outstanding contribution towards literature”, Bharatiya Jnanpith announced on Friday. Ghosh is the first Indian writer in English to have been chosen for this honour.

“Amitav Ghosh is a path-breaking novelist. In his novels, Ghosh treads through historical settings to the modern era and weaves a space where the past connects with the present in relevant ways. His fiction is endowed with extraordinary depth and substance through his academic training as a historian and a social anthropologist,” a statement from Bharatiya Jnanpith read.

The decision was taken in a meeting of the Jnanpith selection Board chaired by eminent novelist, scholar and Jnanpith laureate Pratibha Ray.

Ghosh is known to create rich literature out of the blind spots of history, such as the forgotten Marichjhhapi massacre that he explored in The Hungry Tide (2004), or his rip-roaring Ibis trilogy that sets sail on stormy seas to look at the political economy of the opium trade between India and China. He explored the treachery of borders and maps in The Shadow Lines (1988), his much-loved novel that won him the Sahitya Akademi award.

The Supreme Court has dismissed a curative petition challenging the appointment of Rakesh Asthana as the special director of CBI. In January, the court had rejected a review petition in the matter.

The curative plea was taken up in-chamber by a bench of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Madan B Lokur, A K Sikri and A M Sapre on December 11.

The court ordered, “We have gone through the curative petition and connected papers. In our opinion, no case is made out within the parameters indicated in the decision of this court (in a 2002 case). Hence, the curative petition is dismissed.”

The NGO Common Cause had approached the court last year challenging Asthana’s appointment, claiming that the CBI director had raised objections to it at the probe agency’s selection committee meeting held on October 21, 2017.

Vindicating the government stand and taking the sting out of the Opposition Congress attack over alleged irregularities in the purchase of 36 Rafale fighter aircraft from France, the Supreme Court Friday dismissed all four petitions seeking a court-monitored investigation, saying it found “no occasion to really doubt the process” of decision making, pricing and selection of offset partners.

It said there was no material to show that the government had favoured anyone commercially. The bench of Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, Justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph, ruling out any intervention on this “sensitive” issue and underlining that “our country cannot afford to be unprepared/underprepared”, said “perception of individuals cannot be the basis of a fishing and roving enquiry by this court, especially in such matters”.
The judges said “we do not find any substantial material on record to show that this is a case of commercial favouritism to any party by the Indian government, as the option to choose the IOP (Indian Offset Partner) does not rest with the Indian government”.

The choice of Reliance Aerostructure Ltd as an offset partner by Dassault Aviation Ltd, which manufactures the Rafale, was one of the issues raised by the petitioners who alleged that the deal was tweaked to favour the Anil Ambani-owned company.

India will be launching GSAT 7A, a military communication satellite for the Indian Air Force (IAF), on December 19 with its Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV Mk II) rocket, said Indian space agency.

According to the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), its GSLV rocket will launch the 2,250-kg communication satellite, GSAT-7A from the second launch pad of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre SHAR, Sriharikota.

The Indian space agency said just over 19 minutes after GSLV rocket's lift-off, GSAT 7A will be injected into a geosynchronous transfer orbit from where it would be lifted to its final geostationary orbit.

The satellite with a maximum life of eight years will be for the use of IAF. The satellite is built to provide communication capability to the users in Ku-band over the Indian region.

Earlier, ISRO had sent up GSAT 7 or Rukmini, a communication satellite, for use by the Indian Navy.

India and Saudi Arabia signed the 2019 Bilateral Annual Haj Agreement on Thursday. Union Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi and Saudi Arabia's Haj and Umrah Minister Mohammad Saleh bin Taher Benten were at the event

Mr Naqvi said the Saudi government has always played an active role in ensuring the safety and comfort of Indian Haj pilgrims and that has strengthened bilateral relations. India-Saudi Arabia relations have achieved new heights under the leadership and guidance of Saudi Arabia's King Salman Bin Abdul Aziz and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he was quoted as saying by his office.

Mr Naqvi said a large number of Muslim women are likely to go to Haj without 'Mehram' (male companion) next year. More than 2,100 women have already applied.

India and Russia agreed to extend bilateral cooperation on defence joint-venture (JV) manufacturing projects on Thursday (December 13) at the 18th meeting of the India-Russia Governmental Commission on Military Technical Cooperation (IRIGC-MTC).

The meeting was co-chaired by Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and her Russian counterpart General Sergei Shoigu.

Intensive discussions were held on joint manufacturing projects, including the Kamov-226T helicopters, naval frigates and projects related to land systems.

The two countries also agreed to take forward inter-governmental arrangements for facilitating joint manufacturing of spares for Russian origin equipment in India, under the Make in India’ initiative.

The suspense over the next Rajasthan Chief Minister came to an end when Ashok Gehlot was formally announced as the Rajasthan CM-designate.

After being named the chief minister, Gehlot said, "Sachin Pilot and I will give good governance in Rajasthan."

Following the meeting earlier in the day, Rahul took to Twitter to share a photo with Gehlot and Pilot stating "united colours of Rajasthan", hinting at a possible resolution.

The government has constituted a Group of Ministers headed by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley to vet the recommendations of a high-level panel on stressed power projects, as per an official order.

The panel, headed by Cabinet Secretary P K Sinha, had submitted its report last month.

“It has been decided with approval of the Prime Minister, to constitute a Group of Ministers (GOM) to examine the specific recommendations of High Level Empowered Committee constituted to address the issue of stressed power projects and forward their comments for consideration by the Cabinet,” the order said.

The International Monetary Fund said that global debt has reached an all-time high of 184 trillion US dollars with the United States, China and Japan accounting for more than half of it.

According to the IMF report, the amount in nominal terms, is the equivalent of 225 per cent of the world GDP in 2017. 

On average, the world's debt now exceeds 86,000 dollars per person, which is more than two and half times the average income per-capita. IMF said it is striking that the most indebted economies in the world are also the richer ones.   

Since the beginning of the millennium, China's share in global debt has gone up from less than three per cent to over 15 per cent.