23 JANUARY 2014

Ø  Telugu film actor Akkineni Nageswara Rao, 91, died at a private hospital here on Wednesday morning. He had been undergoing treatment for intestinal cancer.

Ø  Scientists whose Antarctic expedition became trapped in sea ice finally returned to dry land Wednesday, apologising for the disruption and facing questions over who will pay for the international rescue mission. The scientists were among the 52 passengers plucked by helicopter from their stranded Russian ship, the Akademik Shokalskiy, on January 2 after Chinese and Australian icebreakers failed to cut through the ice to rescue them.  A helicopter from the Chinese ship transferred them to the Australian ship the Aurora Australis, which docked in Hobart on Wednesday.

Ø  Top Taliban leader Asmatullah Shaheen Bhittani who briefly headed the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) after the death of Hakimullah Mehsud last November, along with 33 Uzbek nationals and three Germans were among those killed in the night-long air strikes in North Waziristan

Ø  Reserve Bank of India (RBI) decides to withdraw from circulation all currency notes issued prior to 2005 is a well thought out exercise by the central bank to capture the “money flows” into the system and also help flush out counterfeit notes.