21 MARCH 2014

Ø  Writer, historian and columnist Khushwant Singh died of cardiac arrest at his residence here on Thursday morning. He was 99.

Ø  India on Thursday urged the visiting President of the 68th United Nations General Assembly John W. Ashe to maintain the momentum on expansion and reform of the Security Council so that there would be a concrete outcome by next year, 70th anniversary of the U.N. At his meeting here with Mr. Ashe, External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid called for “clearly identifiable progress” during the Intergovernmental Negotiations.

Ø  Indian business honchos Anand Mahindra and Lakshmi Mittal are among the world’s 50 greatest leaders, according to Fortune magazine. The list of leaders, which includes Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, the Dalai Lama and Pope Francis, through their leadership are “energising” their followers and making the world better.

Ø  Sulaiman Abu Ghaith (48), a Kuwaiti preacher known for provocative anti-American rhetoric in numerous post-attack videos, said to Osama, “America, if it was proven that you were the one who did this, will not settle until it accomplishes two things: to kill you and topple the state of the Taliban.”

Ø  The Central Government will sell 4.2 crore shares or 9 per cent stake in Axis Bank on Friday. The merchant bankers for the deal have proposed the price band at Rs.1,290-1,357 per share for the sale. The closing price for the Axis Bank scrip on Thursday on the Bombay Stock Exchange was Rs.1,356.85 or 2.1 per cent lower than the previous day. The government holds about 20.72 per cent of the shares of the third largest Indian private sector bank through the Specified Undertaking of UTI (SUUTI), an offshoot trust fund of the erstwhile UTI that was formed in 2003. The SUUTI also holds stakes in other private companies. It holds 11.32 per cent stake in tobacco-to-hotels giant ITC and 8.2 per cent in the engineering company L&T. However, the government is unlikely to sell its stake in other SUUTI companies this financial year.