• Private life insurer SBI Life Insurance has appointed Sanjeev Nautiyal as its new managing director and chief executive, replacing Arijit Basu who moves back to parent SBI Group to take up a key role.

• Nautiyal began his career with State Bank in 1985 as a probationary officer in the Lucknow circle and has since then held various roles in fields like credit, HR, and international banking.

• The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved amendments to the human rights protection bill for "better protection and promotion of human rights in the country", a statement said.

• The Protection of Human Rights (Amendments) Bill, 2018, was cleared in a Cabinet meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

• Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe on Wednesday comfortably won the no-confidence motion against him in Parliament.

• In the 225 member Parliament, 122 members voted against the motion while 76 voted in favour of it.

• Turkey, Russia and Iran on Wednesday said they were committed to achieving a "lasting ceasefire" that will "protect civilians" in Syria, in a joint statement issued following a summit in Ankara hosted by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

• Erdogan, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and Russia's Vladimir Putin reaffirmed their commitment to reviving the political process for peace and cooperating for "the achievement of a lasting ceasefire between the conflicting parties," a joint communique said.

• India, Japan and the United States participated in the ninth trilateral meeting in New Delhi on Wednesday. The meeting focused on connectivity, counter-terrorism and other regional and global issues, a joint press release issued after the talks informed.

• “The officials reviewed the outcomes of the Trilateral Infrastructure Working Group that met in Washington in February and agreed to continue to collaborate to promote increased connectivity in the Indo-Pacific,” the press release stated.

• A Memorandum of Undertaking (MoU) tailor-made to suit the requirements of serving soldiers, pensioners and families, was signed between the Indian Army and HDFC Bank on the defence salary package on Tuesday.

• The first MoU between HDFC Bank and the Indian Army was signed in 2011 and was renewed on 13th March 2015. The signing in ceremony was chaired by the Director General (MP&PS), Lt Gen S K Saini and was attended by the top dignitaries of HDFC Bank headed by Smita Bhagat, Head Government Business and Branch Banking.

The opening ceremony of the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games at Carrara Stadium is underway as 4,000 performers, including the Bangarra Dance Theatre and Ricki-Lee Coulter, put on a display for 35,000 spectators.

• Nasa's Hubble Space Telescope has discovered the farthest individual star ever seen - an enormous blue stellar body nicknamed Icarus located over halfway across the universe.

• The star, harboured in a very distant spiral galaxy, is so far away that its light has taken nine billion years to reach Earth. It appears to us as it did when the universe was about 30 per cent of its current age.

• Normally, the star would be too faint to view, even with the world's largest telescopes.

• NEW DELHI: The Indian Institute of Science (IISC) in Bengaluru was adjudged the overall best institution in the country by the Human Resource Development Ministry's national ranking framework (NIRF).

• Union HRD minister Prakash Javadekar, while announcing the rankings at an event in the Vigyan Bhavan, said the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras (IIT-M) has been adjudged the best engineering college and the Indian Institute of Management-Ahmedabad (IIM-A) the best management institution.

• State television TRT showed workers already starting work on the ground as fireworks went off to mark the event.

• Once completed the power station will provide 10 percent of the electricity needs of Turkey, which has few energy resources of its own. 
  

• The first stage is due to come online in 2023, the 100th anniversary of modern Turkey's founding, and be completed entirely in 2026.