27 JANUARY 2014

Ø  Nepali Congress president Sushil Koirala on Sunday cleared the first hurdle to becoming the country’s next Prime Minister.

Ø  The Aam Aadmi Party on Sunday expelled rebel MLA Vinod Kumar Binny

Ø  Karl Slym, managing director of Tata Motors Ltd, died on Sunday after falling from a high floor of a hotel in Bangkok.

Ø  On the country’s 65th Republic Day, National broadcaster Doordarshan for the first time beamed the live telecast of the ceremony from Rajpath in superior quality High Definition (HD) transmission and also streamed it on YouTube.  In another first, hearing impaired people were also able to follow the entire live coverage with the help of sign language commentary on three channels — DD News, DD Bharati and DD Urdu.

Ø  Nobel Prize-winning author of Indian-origin, Sir V.S. Naipaul, and Pakistani teenage campaigner Malala Yousafzai have been named among Britain’s 500 most influential people. The first-ever ‘Influential 500’ list, compiled by specialist publisher Debrett’s and The Sunday Times , includes personalities in 25 areas chosen by experts in their field. Trinidad-born Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul was singled out for his Nobel Prize in Literature in 2001.

Ø  Russia and China have begun their first naval war games in the Mediterranean in what is seen as preparation for joint military operations in the world ocean far away from their territorial waters. The joint naval drill, which began on Saturday, involves Russia’s heavy nuclear missile cruiser Peter the Great and Chinese frigate Yancheng, the Russian Defence Ministry said in a statement. The Russian and Chinese warships will perform joint manoeuvring, in the course of which the Russian cruiser will set up a smokescreen and ship-borne helicopters of the two vessels will practise landing on each other’s deck.