1. Bollywood actor Sanjay Dutt will have to undergo a jail term of three years and six months after the Supreme Court has upheld his conviction in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts case.
2. India has successfully carried out the maiden test firing of the over 290 km-range submarine-launched version of BrahMos supersonic cruise missile in the Bay of Bengal becoming the first country in the world to have this capability.
3. Veteran Congress leader and former Nagaland Chief Minister Senayangba Chubatoshi Jamir has been sworn-in as the Governor of Odisha even as the Leader of Opposition Bhupinder Singh left the ceremony alleging “protocol violation”.
4. Parliament has passed the anti-rape bill providing natural life term or even death for repeat offenders of rape, with Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde stating the “law will impact the society for years to come”.
5. The Cabinet Committee on Investment (CCI) has given clearances to oil and gas activity in five blocks off the East Coast, majority of them belonging to Reliance Industries.
6. Heeding to the advice of parliamentarians and others, the UPSC has changed its notification for the civil services (mains) examination by restoring the status of language papers where the aspirants will now be able to take the test not only in English or Hindi but also in any of regional language.
7. The UNHRC has adopted the US-sponsored resolution against Sri Lanka on human rights. India has voted in favour oresolution.
8. Bangladeshi President Mohammad Zillur Rahman died Wednesday in a Singapore hospital where he had been hospitalized for a respiratory infection. He was 84.
9. The White House is working to shift control of the Central Intelligence Agency’s lethal drone programme to the military, U.S. officials say, a move that redefines the widely contested campaign that targets suspected terrorists.
10. James Herbert, one of the UK’s most popular novelists and writer of bestselling horror books including The Rats, The Fog and The Survivor, has died at his home in Sussex aged 69.
