3 FEBRUARY 2014

Ø  Oscar-winning actor Philip Seymour Hoffman, 46, was found dead in his New York apartment.

Ø  A British businessman Martin Lang has been told that a painting for which he paid £100,000 would be burned under French law after it was ruled a fake. He bought what he thought was an original work by Russian-born artist Marc Chagall in 1992.

Ø  The Union Ministry of Culture has allocated Rs. 100 crore for the renovation of Indian Museum, Kolkata, and wants the country’s oldest museum to become the role model for all other museums of the country, Minister for Culture Chandresh Kumari Katoch, said here on Sunday. Two new institutions in the city — the Victoria Memorial Hall and the National Library — will also be renovated by the Ministry.

Ø  Sanskrit scholar Vishnu Potty was conferred the title Samskrita Vidya Prasikshana Praveena by Samskrita Sahitya Parishad.

Ø  China has rejected reports suggesting it was planning to set up an air defence zone over the disputed South China Sea, saying it was “yet to feel any air security threat” from its Southeast Asian neighbours. In November, China established its first Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) over parts of the East China Sea, amid an increasingly tense stand-off with Japan over the disputed Diaoyu/Senkaku islands. An ADIZ is a defined area in international airspace within which countries monitor and track aircraft heading towards their territory. The setting up of the ADIZ heightened tensions with Japan, as it overlapped with Japan’s zone and included the disputed islands. China at the time defended the move, pointing out that Japan had established its own ADIZ in 1969.