1 FEBRUARY 2014

Ø  The Supreme Court on Friday stayed the execution of Devender Pal Singh Bhullar, sentenced to death for a bomb attack on former Indian Youth Congress president Maninderjeet Singh Bitta in 1993, and decided to examine his case afresh. His wife Navneet Kaur filed a curative petition and an application saying the benefit of the January 21 judgment on inordinate and unexplained delays be extended to her husband. The Bench issued notice to the Centre and the Delhi government seeking their response to the curative petition and posted the matter for further hearing on February 19.

Ø  All seven candidates from Maharashtra, including Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar and Congress leader Murli Deora, were on Friday declared elected unopposed to the Rajya Sabha.

Ø  The U.S. government spied on delegates at the high-profile UN climate summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 2009, a document obtained by some media houses via whistle-blower Edward Snowden has revealed.

Ø  Hindi film music director Bappi Lahiri joined the BJP

Ø  Mumbai Police Commissioner Satyapal Singh submitted his resignation to the State Home Department on Thursday as he plans to explore a career in politics.

Ø  Harvard Business School’s India-born dean Nitin Nohria has publicly apologised for the school’s treatment of women students and professors, and vowed to make changes at the premier institution to deal with gender bias.

Ø  An update of the Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) shows that a quarter of the world’s shark and ray species are at risk of extinction.

Ø  U.S. President Barack Obama has nominated Vice-Admiral Michael Rogers, a Navy cyber-warfare specialist, to be the next Director of the National Security Agency (NSA).

Ø  As Syria’s regime and opposition held high-profile talks in upscale Swiss hotels, their country’s brutal conflict claimed the lives of nearly 1,900 people, far from the international spotlight. President Bashar al-Assad’s government, and the opposition National Coalition, have little to show for the talks that began on January 22 in the Swiss town of Montreux and wrapped up Friday in Geneva. On the ground there was no let-up in the brutality that has devastated the country since March 2011, with more than 130,000 people killed in nearly three years and some nine million displaced.