Month Wise Current Affairs 2018 for NDA, CDS and Others Exam Preparation

Current Affairs Section is very important for your exams. In this section you can score very high and that too in less time. This will be very useful for your Competitive exams like UPSC (NDA, CDS, AFCAT, AirForce, SSB), SSC, Railway, Banking and Other Competitive exams. The given Current Affairs are prepared in exam point of view basis. 

 

Current Affairs 2018

December-2018

Dec. 1: Chief Election Commis­ sioner O.P. Rawat demits offce.

Dec. 2: Sunil Arora takes over as the new CEC.

Train 18, India’s first engine­less train, breaches the 180 kmph speed threshold during a test run in the Sa­ wai Madhopur section in Rajasthan, becoming the nation’s fastest train.

Dec. 3: A Uttar Pradesh police in­ spector and a youth are killed as a mob attacks an outpost at Chingra­ vati in Syana tehsil, Bulanshahr dis­ trict, following rumours of alleged cow slaughter at Mahav village.

The board of Hindustan Unilever Ltd. approves the merger of GlaxoS­ mithKline Consumer Healthcare In­ dia with the firm.

Dec. 4: British national Christian Michel James, wanted in the Agus­ taWestland VVIP helicopter deal bribery case, is brought to Delhi af­ ter being extradited by the UAE.

Dec. 5: The Witness Protection Scheme, 2018, is put in place by the Supreme Court.

Tamil writer S. Ramakrishnan bags the Sahitya Akademi Award for 2018 for his novel Sancharam.

The 5,854 kg communication sa­ tellite GSAT­11 is put into orbit after launch from the European Space­ port in Kourou, South America.

Dec. 6: A special session of the Tamil Nadu Assembly passes a reso­ lution against permission to Karna­ taka to prepare a project report for a dam across the Cauvery at Mekedatu.

Dec. 7: Krishnamurthy Subrama­ nian is appointed Chief Economic Adviser.

Rajasthan registers 74% turnout in the Assembly polls and Telangana 67% .

Dec. 10: RBI GOvernor Urjit Patel resigns.

Union Minister of State for Hu­ man Resource Development Upen­ dra Kushwaha quits the Cabinet.

Dec. 11: The Congress wins the Assembly polls in Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan. The Telangana Rashtra Samithi retains power in Telangana. The Mizo National Front is back in power in Mizoram after 10 years.

Shaktikanta Das is appointed RBI Governor.

Dec. 12: The Congress wins the Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls af­ ter a see­saw battle with the BJP.

The Dam Safety Bill, 2018, is in­ troduced in the Lok Sabha.

Dec. 13: The Madras High Court quashes GO on DVAC probe into ‘ir­ regularities’ in the construction of the new Secretariat in Chennai.

K. Chandrasekhar Rao is sworn in Telangana Chief Minister for a se­ cond term.

Dec. 14: The Supreme Court re­ jects pleas for probe into the Rafale jet deal.

Eminent novelist Amitav Ghosh is chosen for the 2018 Jnanpith Award.

Dec. 15: The NGT sets aside the Tamil Nadu government’s order for the closure of Sterlite’s copper smel­

ter in Thoothukudi.

Mizo National Front president Zo­ ramthanga is sworn in as the ninth Chief Minister of Mizoram.

Dec. 16: UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi unveils a statue of DMK lead­ er M. Karunanidhi at the party head­ quarters in Chennai.

Dec. 17: The Delhi High Court sentences Congress leader Sajjan Kumar to life term for the murder of five Sikhs during the 1984 anti­Sikh riots.

Kamal Nath takes offce as Mad­ hya Pradesh Chief Minister. Ashok Gehlot takes oath as Rajasthan Chief Minister and Bhupesh Baghel is sworn in as Chhattisgarh Chief Mi­ nister.

Dec. 18: Hamid Nehal Ansari, who had been missing in Pakistan since 2012, reunites with his family at the Attari­Wagah border crossing on repatriation after serving a three­ year jail term.

In a first for India, all of Kerala’s

519 captive elephants get unique DNA­based genetic IDs.

Dec. 19: The Lok Sabha passes a Bill banning commercial surrogacy. GSAT­7A, a 2,250 kg communica­ tions satellite to primarily cater to the IAF’s needs, is launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in

Sriharikota.

Dec. 20: The Lok Sabha passes the Consumer Protection Bill, 2018. The government issues an order allowing 10 Central agencies to in­ tercept and monitor information

stored in any computer.

FinMin’s Alternative Mechanism gives nod for Bank Of Baroda’s merger with Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank.

Dec. 21: A special CBI court in Mumbai acquits all the 22 accused in the November 2005 Sohrabuddin Shaikh­Kausar Bi fake encounter case.

The Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court orders maintenance of status quo on the Sterlite plant reopening.

The Delhi High Court orders re­ lease of former Youth Congress leader Sushil Kumar Sharma, serv­ ing a life term for the murder of his live­in partner Naina Sahni in 1995.

Dec. 25: Prime Minister Naren­ dra Modi inaugurates the 4.9 km Bo­ gibeel Bridge, India’s longest rail­ cum­road span, across the Brahma­ putra in Dibrugargh district, Assam. Dec. 26: The NIA arrests 10 ‘members’ of an IS­inspired module

and foils terror strikes in Delhi. International golfer Jyoti Randha­

wa is arrested for ‘poaching’ in a for­ est range in Uttar Pradesh.

President Ram Nath Kovind or­ ders separation of the ‘common’ Hyderabad High Court into the High Courts of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.

The government bars online re­ tailers from selling products of firms in which they own a stake, effective February 1, 2019.

Dec. 27: Lok Sabha passes The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2018.

Dec. 28: The Union Cabinet gives nod for changes to the POCSO Act, 2012, making assault on boys pun­ ishable by death. Nod for the Gaga­ nyaan manned space mission.

Dec. 30: Prime Minister Naren­ dra Modi renames three Andaman islands after Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.

Dec. 31: Former Congress leader Sajjan Kumar surrenders in a Delhi court and is sent to jail.

A special court in Nashik acquits all seven persons, including prime accused Abdul Ladsab Telgi (now dead) in the fake stamp paper scam. The Lok Sabha passes the Indian Medical Council (Amendment) Bill.

November-2018

 

Nov. 2: The Supreme Court re­ jects a CBI plea to revive charges against the Hinduja brothers in the 764­crore Bofors guns payoffs case, 12 years after acquittal by the Delhi High Court.

The NGT stays implementation of the Neutrino project in the Pottipu­ ram area of Theni district, Tamil Na­ du.

Nov. 3: Karthik K.P., an Ayurveda doctor from Ernakulam, Kerala, is presented the 7th The Hindu and Saregama M.S. Subbulakshmi Award 2018 Voice of the Year at the Music Academy, Chennai.

Nov. 5: India declares its nuclear triad operational.

Nov. 6: Uttar Pradesh Chief Mi­

nister Yogi Adityanath announces decision to rename Faizabad city as Ayodhya.

Nov. 9: The Madras High Court directs a special court for CBI cases to frame charges afresh against former Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran, his brother Kalanithi Maran and others in the illegal BSNL tele­ phone exchange case.

Nov. 12: Over 76.42% polling is recorded in phase I of the Chhattis­ garh Assembly polls.

Over 1,000 fireworks units in Si­ vakasi and other parts of the coun­ try announce an indefinite closure.

Nov. 13: The Supreme Court re­ fuses to stay ruling allowing women of all age groups to offer worship at the Sabarimala temple.

Binny Bansal resigns as Flipkart CEO.

The government notifies the Ta­ mil Nadu Lokayukta Rules, 2018.

The Centre rejects Karnataka’s suggestion to grant minority reli­ gion status to Lingayats.

Nov. 14: ISRO successfully launches the 3,423 kg GSAT­29 com­ munication satellite from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Srihariko­ ta, Andhra Pradesh.

Nov. 15: Pune police file a char­ gesheet against lawyer Surendra Ga­ dling, Nagpur University professor Shoma Sen, activists Sudhir Dha­ wale, Mahesh Raut and Rona Wilson arrested on June 6 for their role in the Bhima­Koregaon clashes.

Nov. 16: At least 52 people are killed as Cyclone Gaja wreaks havoc in Thanjavur, Tiruvarur, Nagapatti­ nam, Cuddalore, Ramanathapuram and Pudukottai districts of Tamil Nadu.

John Allen Chau, an American missionary is killed allegedly by the reclusive Sentinelese tribespeople when he tries to enter the North Sentinel Island in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Nov. 17: Revolutionary writer Va­ ravara Rao, under house arrest for 79 days at his Ashoknagar residence in Hyderabad, is taken into custody by the Pune police.

Nov. 19: Three AIADMK men, serving life terms for setting ablaze a bus in Dharmapuri on February 2, 2000, resulting in the death of three students of the TNAU, Coimbatore, are granted remision and set free from the Vellore Central Prison.

Nov. 20: Andhra Pradesh Chief

Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu launches ‘Bhudhaar’, an 11­digit un­ ique code aimed at easy identifica­ tion of land parcels, at a function at Undavalli, near Amaravati.

Over 71.93% voting in phase II of the Chhattisgarh Assembly polls.

Nov. 21: Jammu and Kashmir Go­ vernor Satya Pal Malik dissolves the State Assembly.

Nov. 22: The Supreme Court sets aside a Madras High Court direction to the CBSE to grant grace marks for 49 questions to students who took the NEET 2018 in Tamil for faulty translation.

Nov. 26: Vice­President M. Ven­ kaiah Naidu lays the foundation stone for the Kartarpur corridor between India and Pakistan in Gur­ daspur, Punjab.

Nov. 28: Madhya Pradesh regis­ ters a record 74.61% turnout in the Assembly polls. Mizoram records 80% polling.

Ukrainian film Donbass directed by Sergei Loznitsa wins the Golden Peacock at the 49th International Film Festival Of India in Panaji, Goa.

Nov. 29: ISRO’s PSLV C­43 rocket puts into orbit Hyper Spectral Imag­ ing Satellite (HysIS), and 30 small commercial satellites after liftoff from the Satish Dhawan Space

Centre in Sriharikota.

The Maharashtra Assembly pass­ es a Bill proposing 16% quota for Ma­ rathas.

Nov. 30: The Tamil Nadu govern­ ment challenges the Central Water Commission order on the Mekedatu project in the Supreme Court.

October.-2018

Oct. 1: The government takes ov­ er the Infrastructure Leasing and Fi­ nancial Services group and appoints Uday Kotak, MD and CEO of Kotak Mahindra Bank, as non­executive chairman.

Oct. 3: Ranjan Gogoi is sworn in the 46th Chief Justice of India.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is conferred the Champions of the Earth Award by U.N. Secretary­Gen­ eral Antonio Guterres at a ceremony in New Delhi.

The Supreme Court upholds the validity of the Goods and Services Tax (Compensation to States) Act of 2017.

Oct. 4: Chanda Kochhar quits as MD and CEO of ICICI Bank. Sandeep Bakshi is named her successor.

Oct. 5: India and Russia sign a 740,300­crore contract for five S­400 ‘Triumf ’ air defence missile systems in New Delhi.

Oct. 11: Sixtyone people are killed as Cyclone Titli batters Srikak­ ulam and Vizianagaram districts of Andhra Pradesh and Odisha’s Gaja­ pati and Ganjam districts.

Oct. 15: The Kerala High Court grants bail to Bishop Franco Mulakkal.

Oct. 16: The Uttar Pradesh Cabi­ net adopts a proposal to rename Al­ lahabad as Prayagraj.

Oct. 17: Over 200 protesters and 12 police personnel are injured in violence at Nilackal and Pampa as the Sabarimala temple reopens.

Union Minister of State for Exter­ nal Affairs M.J. Akbar quits the Cabinet.

Oct. 19: At least 59 people are killed and 57 injured as a train mows down a crowd of Dasara revellers that had strayed on to the tracks, at Joda Phatak in Amritsar, Punjab.

Oct. 23: The Supreme Court res­ tricts bursting of crackers during Deepavali and other festivals to two hours. Bans online sale. Green crackers made mandatory for Delhi. CBI Director Alok Kumar Verma and Special Director Rakesh Astha­ na are divested of their responsibili­ ties. Joint Director M. Nageswara Rao is appointed interim Director.

Oct. 24: Malayalam author Be­ nyamin is presented the inaugural JCB Prize for Literature, for his no­ vel Jasmine Days at a function in New Delhi.

Oct. 25: Justice M. Sathyanaraya­ nan of the Madras High Court upholds the validity of an order passed by Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker P. Dhanapal on September 18, 2017, disqualifying 18 AIADMK MLAs owing allegiance to Amma Makkal Munnetra Kazhagam deputy general secretary T.T.V. Dhinakaran under the anti­defection law.

Oct. 26: Essar Steel goes to ArcelorMittal.

Oct. 27: A special court in Pune remands activists Sudha Bharadwaj, Arun Ferreira and Vernon Gon­ salves in police custody.

Oct. 30: The Supreme Court modifies its order restricting the time for bursting crackers and al­ lows the southern States to fix own two­hour slots.

Lieutenant Colonel Prasad Puro­ hit, Sadhvi Pragya Singh Thakur among seven indicted by the NIA for their role in the September 29, 2008 blast in Malegaon, Maharashtra that claimed six lives and left 101 injured. Oct. 31: The Delhi High Court jails for life 16 former Provincial Armed Constabulary jawans for the killing of 38 Muslims on May 22, 1987 in the Hashimpura area in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveils a 182­metre­tall ‘Statue of Unity’ of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel on an islet, Sadhu Bet, overlooking the Narmada in Gujarat.

September-2018

Sept. 1: Prime Minister Narendra Modi launches the India Post Pay­ ments Bank in New Delhi.

Sept. 6: The Supreme Court de­ criminalises homosexuality. De­ clares Section 377 “irrational, inde­ fensible and manifestly arbitrary.”

The Telangana Assembly is dis­ solved by Governor E.S.L. Narasim­ han.

India and the U.S. sign a land­ mark defence pact, at the end of the inaugural ‘2+2’ Ministerial Dialogue in New Delhi.

Sept. 12: The Supreme Court quashes the Kerala Professional Col­ leges (Regularisation of Admission in Medical Colleges) Ordinance, 2017.

Sept. 14: Former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan is a victim of trumped­up charges of spying by the Kerala police, says the Supreme Court and orders Kerala to pay com­ pensation of 750 lakh.

Sept. 20: The first­of­its­kind sex offenders’ registry is launched in New Delhi.

Sept. 21: The special investiga­ tion team of the Kerala police prob­ ing the alleged rape of a nun arrests Jalandhar Bishop Franco Mulakkal in Kochi.

Sept. 22: The first case of Zika vi­ rus infection surfaces in Rajasthan.

Sept. 23: Kidari Sarveswara Rao, Araku MLA and Siveri Soma, a form­ er MLA, both of the TDP, are killed by Maoists near Livitiput village in Dumbriguda mandal in the Visakha­ patnam agency area.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi launches Ayushman Bharat, at a function in Ranchi, Jharkhand.

Sept. 26: The Supreme Court upholds the constitutional validity of Aadhaar. Not mandatory for opening bank accounts, it rules and declares seeding of Aadhaar with SIM cards as unconstitutional.

The Supreme Court upholds plea for live­streaming of  its proceedings.

An ordinance is issued dissolving the MCI and replacing it with a se­ ven­member Board of Directors.

Sept. 27: Adultery not a crime, holds the Supreme Court and strikes down Section 497 of the IPC. Sept. 28: Women of all age groups can enter and pray at the Sa­ barimala temple in Kerala, says the

Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court dismisses a curative petition by Karnataka, chal­ lenging the abatement of its appeal against the acquittal of former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa in a disproportionate assets case.

August-2018

Aug. 2: The Lok Sabha passes by a two­thirds majority the Bill ex­ tending constitutional status to the National Commission for Backward Classes.

Aug. 3: The Madras High Court orders suspension of the Justice R. Regupathi Commission of Inquiry probing the alleged irregularities in the construction of the Assembly­ cum­Secretariat complex by the DMK regime between 2006 and 2011.

Aug. 6: The Lok Sabha passes the Scheduled Castes and Sche­ duled Tribes (Prevention of Atroci­ ties) Amendment Bill, 2018.

Aug. 7: M. Karunanidhi, 94, former Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu and DMK president, passes away at Kauvery Hospital in Alwarpet, Chennai where he was being treated for 11 days. The State government announces seven­day mourning. The Centre announces a state funeral.

Aug. 8: Former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi is buried on the Marina with full State ho­ nours. Both Houses of Parliament are adjourned for the day.

Aug. 9: National Democratic Al­ liance candidate and Janata Dal (Un­ ited) MP Harivansh is elected Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman.

Kerala is battered by torrential rain triggering Pash Poods and land­ slips. Twentytwo people are killed, 17 in Idukki and Malappuram dis­ tricts. Sluice gates of 24 dams are opened.

The Supreme Court finalises the new Constitution for the BCCI. Re­ jects the ‘one state­one vote’ recom­ mendation of the Justice R.M. Lodha Committee.

The Hindu Playwright Award 2018 is presented to Annie Zaidi for her play Untitled-1 at the launch of the 14th edition of The Hindu Theatre Fest in Chennai.

Aug. 10: The Supreme Court ad­ mits the CBI plea against the acquit­ tal of dentist couple Rajesh and Nu­ pur Talwar in the 2008 murder of their daughter Aarushi and domes­ tic servant Hemraj, by the Allahabad High Court in October 2017.

Aug. 13: The government dismis­ ses Usha Ananthasubramanian, former MD of Punjab National Bank. Gives sanction for her prosecution.

Aug. 15: Kerala receives 127.8mm rainfall, the highest on a single day this monsoon season Thirty­five dams, barrages opened.

Aug. 16: Former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, 93, dies at the AIIMS, New Delhi.

Aug. 17: Atal Bihari Vajpayee is accorded a state funeral at Smriti Sthal in New Delhi.

Aug. 18: The Hindu announces The Hindu Photojournalism Awards to be presented in five categories.

The L&T board gives nod for 79,000­crore buyback proposal.

Aug. 20: Rail and road services are partially restored in Kerala. Toll up to 223.

Aug. 21: The Supreme Court scraps the use of NOTA (none of the above) option for Rajya Sabha polls.

Aug. 24: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan seeks allround sup­ port to rebuild state. Puts loss of lives at 372.

Aug. 26: The Crime Branch CID of the Tamil Nadu police cracks the looting of 75.75 crore from the Sa­ lem­Chennai Express on August 18, 2016 and says it is the handiwork of a Madhya Pradesh gang.

Aug. 27: The nation’s first­ever bio jet fuel­powered Pight is operat­ ed on the Dehradun­Delhi route.

Aug. 28: M.K. Stalin takes charge as DMK president at the party’s gen­ eral council meeting in Chennai.

The Maharashtra police arrests Telugu poet Varavara Rao, activists Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferrei­ ra, trade union activist Sudha Bha­ radwaj and civil liberties activist Gautam Navlakha for their ‘links’ to the Communist Party of India­ Maoist, after co­ordinated crack­ down across six States.

Aug. 29: Nandamuri Harikrish­ na, son of former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N.T. Rama Rao and former Rajya Sabha MP dies in an accident at Anneparthy in Nalgonda district, Telangana.

Aug. 31: Mobile operators Voda­ fone India and Idea Cellular com­ plete merger and the entity is named Vodafone Idea Ltd.

JULY-2018

July 1: Five persons are beaten to death by a mob which assaults a group of 78 people on suspicion of being child­lifters at the tribal Rani­ pada hamlet in Sakri tehsil in Maha­ rashtra’s Dhule district.

Eleven members of a family are found dead at their home in Sant Nagar area of North Delhi’s Burari.

July 2: The Cauvery Water Man­ agement Authority, at its first meet­ ing in New Delhi, directs Karnataka to release 34 tmcft of water to Tamil Nadu.

July 3: Mumbai receives 131mm rainfall in 24 hours throwing life out of gear.

July 4: Delhi Lt. Governor Anil Baijal is bound by the “aid and ad­ vice” of the Arvind Kejriwal govern­ ment, says a five­judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court.

Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh announces an an­ nual dope test for all government staff, through every stage of service. July 10: The Madras High Court confirms the death sentence on Chennai youth Daswant imposed by a Mahila Court in Chengalpattu on February 19, 2018 for the rape and murder of a seven­year­old girl at an apartment in Mugalivakkam on Fe­ bruary 5, 2017.

July 11: A Delhi Court sentences former Navy Offcer, Captain (retd.) Salam Singh Rathore to seven years in jail in the 2005 Navy war room leak case. Commander (retd.) Jar­ nail Singh Kalra is acquitted.

The Telecom Commission ap­ proves Net neutrality.

July 17: Seventeen persons are held for sexual assault on an 11­year­ old hearing­challenged girl in an apartment in Ayanavaram, Chennai between January 15 and July 5.

July 18: The Enforcement Direc­ torate files a chargesheet against 34 persons accused and also against firms in the 73,700 crore AgustaW­ estland VVIP chopper deal.

The Lok Sabha passes the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (Second Amendment) Bill, 2017.

The Lok Sabha passes the Fugi­ tive Economic Offenders Bill.

The Union Cabinet gives its nod for the withdrawal of the Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance Bill, 2017.

July 20: The BJP­led NDA govern­ ment defeats the no­confidence mo­ tion moved against it by the Opposi­ tion and initiated by the Telugu Desam Party after a 12­hour debate in the Lok Sabha.

July 21: Rakbar Khan, a Muslim youth from Kalgaon village in Harya­ na’s Nuh district, is lynched on sus­ picion of cow smuggling in a forest area at Lalwandi village in Ramgarh of Rajasthan’s Alwar district.

Malayalam writer S. Hareesh withdraws his novel Meesha being serialised in the Mathrubhumi weekly following threats in social media over a conversation between two characters.

July 22: The western Odisha town of Burla gets 622mm rainfall beating a 36­year record in State.

July 23: The rape of at least 34 girls at a shelter in Muzaffarpur, Bi­ har, is brought to light in a social au­ dit report prepared by the Tata Insti­ tute of Social Sciences, Mumbai in May 2018, after inspection of homes across the State in 2017.

The Lok Sabha passes the Nego­ tiable Instruments (Amendment) Bill.

July 24: The Lok Sabha passes the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill, 2018.

July 25: The Madras High Court sets aside an order, passed by a Spe­ cial CBI Court in Chennai on March 14, discharging former Union Minis­ ter Dayanidhi Maran, his elder brother Kalanithi Maran, and five others from the BSNL illegal tele­ phone exchange case.

July 26: The West Bengal As­ sembly passes a resolution  to change the name of the State as Ban­ gla in three languages – Bengali, En­ glish and Hindi.

The Lok Sabha passes the Traf­ ficking of Persons (Prevention, Pro­ tection and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2018.

July 30: More than 40 lakh of the

3.29 crore applicants in Assam are left out of the complete draft Nation­ al Register of Citizens published in Guwahati.

The Lok Sabha passes the Crimi­ nal Law (Amendment) Bill, 2018, that provides for death sentence to rapists of girls aged under 12.

JUNE-2018

June 1: All five accused in the July 7, 2013 Bodh Gaya serial bomb blasts case are awarded life sen­ tence by a special NIA court in Pat­ na, Bihar.

June 4: Kalpana Kumari from Sheohar in Bihar emerges all­India topper in the NEET securing 691 marks out of 720.

June 5: The Tamil Nadu govern­ ment announces decision to ban plastic products except as packing material for milk, curd, oil and med­ ical products from January 1, 2019.

June 6: The Pune police arrests five people — Sudhir Dhawale, Sho­ ma Sen, Mahesh Raut, Rona Wilson and Surendra Gadling — after raids in Delhi, Mumbai and Nagpur, in connection with the Bhima­Kore­ gaon violence on January 1.

June 8: Two Guwahati­based youth — Nilotpal Das and Abhijeet Nath — are bludgeoned to death on suspicion of being child­lifters, by tribal villagers at Panjuri Kachari­ gaon in Karbi Anglong district.

June 10: Pranav Goyal of Panch­ kula, Haryana, tops the Joint En­ trance Examination (Advanced) for admissions to the IITs by scoring 337 out of 360.

June 14: President Ramnath Ko­ vind rejects the Tamil Nadu govern­ ment’s request to release the seven prisoners convicted of the assassi­ nation of former Prime Minister Ra­ jiv Gandhi on May 21, 1991.

Veteran journalist and Editor of Rising Kashmir newspaper Shujaat Bukhari is shot dead close to his of­ fice at Pratap Park in Srinagar.

The first Division Bench of the Madras High Court delivers a split verdict in a batch of cases filed by 18 AIADMK MLAs challenging their dis­ qualification by the Speaker on Sep­ tember 18, 2017. Cases to be heard afresh before a third judge.

June 18: Survey by the Tamil Na­ du Revenue Department offcials for the eight­lane Salem­Chennai green corridor begins amid protests.

June 19: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti re­ signs after the BJP pulls out of the al­ liance with her Peoples Democratic Party that has ruled the State since March 2015.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejri­ wal ends nine­day sit­in at the Raj Ni­ was after bureaucrats attend meet­ ings called by Ministers.

June 20: Governor N.N.Vohra takes charge in Jammu and Kashmir and places the Assembly under sus­ pended animation.

Chief Economic Adviser Aravind Subramanian resigns.

June 21: Lok Sabha Speaker Su­ mitra Mahjan, accepts the resigna­ tion of five YSR Congress MPs.

June 22: The Centre notifies the formation of the Cauvery Water Management Authority and the Cauvery Water Regulation Committee.

June 23: Mumbai becomes the first major city to impose a tough plastic­free regime.

June 25: Heavy rain lashes Mum­ bai bringing life to a standstill. San­ tacruz records 231mm and Colaba 99mm rainfall. Malad West registers around 300mm.

June 26: The Tamil Nadu As­ sembly unanimously adopts a spe­ cial resolution urging the Centre to keep the Dam Safety Bill, 2018, in abeyance.

June 27: The Centre decides to scrap the UGC and replace it with a Higher Education Commission of India.

June 29: Sterling Biotech Limit­ ed, a pharmaceutical company in the Nilgiris, is served with a closure notice by the Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board for Pouting environ­ mental norms.

MAY-2018

May 1: Maharashtra becomes the first state to provide digitally­signed land record receipts (also known as 7/12 receipts).

May 2: Gangster Chhota Rajan and eight others are sentenced to  life imprisonment in the June 11, 2011 murder of journalist Jyotirmoy Dey in Mumbai by a special court. Journalist Jignesh Vora is acquitted.

May 9: U.S. retail giant Walmart agrees to pay $16 billion for a 77% stake in Indian e­commerce startup Flipkart.

May 12: A record 72% voting re­ gistered in the Karnataka Assembly polls.

May 14: The Centre files the draft Cauvery water management scheme in the Supreme Court.

The CBI files the first chargesheet in the PNB scam before a Special CBI Court and names former CEO Usha Ananthasubramanian, Nirav Modi and 20 others.

At least 20 people are killed and hundreds injured during voting in the West Bengal panchayat polls.

May 17: BJP state president B.S. Yeddyurappa takes oath as the 29th Chief Minister of Karnataka. In a pre­dawn hearing, the Supreme Court refuses to stay the swearing­in.

The ruling Trinamool Congress sweeps the West Bengal panchayat polls.

May 19: B.S. Yeddyurappa re­ signs as Karnataka Chief Minister without facing the Poor test.

May 20: Kerala Health Depart­ ment confirms Nipah virus infection in the State with the blood samples of two people who had died in Koz­ hikode district a fortnight ago test­ ing positive. Another of the family

from Sooppikkada village too had died.

May 21: The Nipah toll goes up to four with the death of Lini, a nurse attached to the Perambra taluk hos­ pital in Kozhikode.

INSV Tarini becomes the first In­ dian vessel with an all­women crew to successfully circumnavigate the world and is received at the INS Mandovi jetty at Verem in north Goa.

May 22: At least 13 people, in­ cluding Snowlin, a 17­year­old girl, are killed in police firing after a sec­ tion of participants in a massive ral­ ly to the Collectorate seeking clo­ sure of the Sterlite Copper, a Vedanta group firm in Thoothukudi, resorts to violence.

May 23: H.D. Kumaraswamy is sworn in as the 30th Chief Minister of Karnataka, heading a JD(S)­Con­ gress coalition government.

May 24: The Tamil Nadu Pollu­ tion Control Board orders closure of the Sterlite Copper unit and cuts power supply to the plant.

Nipah Virus claims one more life in Kerala’s Kozhikode district, tak­ ing the death toll to 12.

May 28: Sterlite Copper, the Ve­ danta Group’s Copper smelter plant in Thoothukudi, Tamil Nadu is sealed.

May 30: The chargesheet is filed in the journalist­activist Gauri Lan­ kesh murder case by the Special In­ vestigation Team and it names Na­ veen Kumar as the key accused.

May 31: A united Opposition wrests the Kairana and Bhandara­ Gondiya Lok Sabha seats from the BJP, which manages to retain Palgh­ ar while its ally NDPP bags the lone Nagaland seat. The Opposition par­ ties win 10 Assembly seats across the nation and the BJP only a single seat in Uttarakhand.

APRIL-2018

April 1: ISRO begins operations to correct glitch, after the GSAT­6A satellite goes silent on Day Two of the launch after the second firing of the on­board engine.

April 2: At least nine people are killed and hundreds injured in vio­ lence across several States in North India during a nationwide bandh called by Dalit groups against the al­ leged dilution of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Pre­ vention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.

April 3: The ruling AIADMK in Tamil Nadu observes a State­wide fast demanding the constitution of the Cauvery Management Board.

April 5: Actor Salman Khan is sentenced to five years in jail by a court in Jodhpur, Rajasthan, for poaching two black buck on the night of October 1­2, 1998.

Normal life is partially hit in Ta­ mil Nadu during the DMK­led Oppo­ sition­sponsored bandh demanding the setting up of the Cauvery Man­ agement Board.

April 6: Five YSRC MPs hand ov­ er resignations to Lok Sabha Speak­ er Sumitra Mahajan.

April 7: A sessions court in Jodh­ pur, Rajasthan grants bail to actor Salman Khan.

April 8: A minor girl from Un­ nao, along with her family mem­ bers, threatens to commit suicide outside U.P. Chief Minister Yogi Adi­ tyanath's residence over the police failure to act on her complaint against the BJP MLA from Banger­ mau, Kuldeep Singh Sengar, of gang­ raping her on June 17, 2017.

April 9: The father of the girl from Unnao dies in judicial custody almost a week after he was thrashed by supporters of the BJP MLA Kul­ deep Singh Sengar.

A person's right to choose a reli­ gion and marriage is an intrinsic  part of her meaningful existence, holds the Supreme Court in its 61­ page judgment in the Hadiya case.

An eight­year­old girl from the nomadic Bakherwal community, ab­ ducted on January 10 and allegedly raped by six men and killed later, was held captive in a temple in Ras­ sana village, Kathua, reveals the chargesheet filed by the Jammu and Kashmir Police's Crime Branch in the Chief Judicial Magistrate's Court in Jammu. The body was recovered on January 17.

April 10: The IPL match bet­ ween CSK and KKR is held in a tense atmosphere in Chennai, with thou­ sands of people blocking all roads leading to the M.A. Chidambaram Stadium in protest  against the delay in the formation of the Cauvery Management Board.

April 11: Owing to security con­ cerns, the remaining six IPL match­ es are moved out of Chennai.

Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu launches the Bhuseva project in Vijayawada.

April 12: The 1,425kg navigation satellite IRNSS­1I is launched from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.

April 13: The CBI arrests BJP MLA Kuldeep Singh Sengar.

Actor Vinod Khanna is posthu­ mously awarded the Dada Saheb Phalke Award at the 65th National Film Awards function in New Delhi. Sridevi is posthumously honoured with the Best Actress Award for her role in the rape revenge drama Mom. Best Actor Award goes to Riddhi Sen for role in Bengali film Nagar Kirtan. Rima Das' Assamese film Village Rockstars is adjudged Best Feature Film.

April 16: All the five accused in the May 18, 2007 blast at the Mecca Masjid in Hyderabad, including Na­ ba Kumar Sarkar alias Swami Asee­ manand, are acquitted by a special NIA court in Hyderabad.

April 19: The Supreme Court concludes that there is no foul play in judge B.H. Loya's death on De­ cember 1, 2014 in Nagpur.

April 20: The Congress and six other Opposition parties in the Ra­ jya Sabha move an impeachment motion against CJI Dipak Misra on grounds of ''misbehaviour.''

The Gujarat High Court acquits former Minister Dr. Maya Kodnani who was sentenced to 28 years in jail by a trial court in connection with the February 28, 2002 Naroda Patiya massacre case. Upholds the conviction of 12 persons, including Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi.

April 21: The Union Cabinet ap­ proves the promulgation of the Cri­ minal Law (Amendment) Ordinance providing for death penalty for ra­ pists of girls below 12 years.

Senior BJP leader Yashwant Sinha quits the party.

April 22: Sitaram Yechury is re­ elected CPI(M) general secretary for a second term at the end of the five­ day 22nd Party Congress in Hydera­ bad.

April 23: Rajya Sabha Chairman

M. Venkaiah Naidu rejects the im­ peachment motion against CJI Di­ pak Misra.

April 25: Self­styled godman As­ aram Bapu is convicted of rape and sexual assault of a teenage girl at his ashram in Manai village near Jodh­ pur, Rajasthan on August 15, 2013 and sentenced to life imprisonment till death by a Special SC/ST Court.

April 27: The Madras High Court dismisses plea seeking disqualifica­ tion of O. Panneerselvam and 10 other AIADMK MLAs for having vot­ ed against a no­confidence motion moved by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami on Febru­ ary 18, 2017.

Indu Malhotra takes oath as Su­ preme Court judge, becoming the first woman to be appointed to the post directly from the Bar.

The National Company Law Ap­ pellate Tribunal stays an order of the CCI imposing a penalty of 7136 crore on Google.

MARCH-2018

March 3: The BJP wins the Trip­ ura Assembly polls. Hung Assem­ blies in Meghalaya and Nagaland.

March 4: Manik Sarkar resigns as Tripura Chief Minister.

The PNB scam is pegged at 713,578 crore, with the bank filing a supplementary complaint with the CBI against Mehul Choksi, his firms for an additional amount of 7942.18 crore.

March 5: The Centre gives envi­ ronment clearance for the Neutrino Observatory at Pottipuram village in Theni district, Tamil Nadu.

March 6: Conrad Kongkal Sang­ ma, is sworn in as Meghalaya Chief Minister.

Nagaland Chief Minister T.R. Ze­ liang resigns.

March 7: A CBI special court in Thiruvananthapuram frees Fr. Jose Poothrukayil in the murder of Sister Abhaya at a convent in Kottayam in 1992. The other two accused, Fr. Thomas Kottoor and Sister Stephy are ordered to face trial.

The Union Cabinet approves eas­ ing the cap on spectrum holding by telcos.

Architect Balkrishna V. Doshi, a pioneer of low­cost housing design, becomes the first Indian to win the Pritzker Prize.

March 8: Union Civil Aviation Mi­ nister Ashok Gajapathi Raju and Mi­ nister of State for Science and Tech­ nology Y.S. Chowdary of the TDP resign.

The Supreme Court sets aside Kerala High Court order annulling the marriage of Hadiya to Shafin Ja­ han after her conversion to Islam.

Ottamuri Velicham, directed by Rahul Riji Nair is adjudged the best film at the Kerala State Film Awards for 2017. Lijo Jose Pellissery is named best director (Ee. Ma. Yau). Indrans bags best actor award (Alo­ rukkam) and Parvathy best female actor (Take Ofl).

Neiphiu Rio is sworn in as Naga­ land Chief Minister.

March 9: A five judge Constitu­ tion Bench of the Supreme Court upholds passive euthanasia and the right to give advance medical direc­ tives or ‘Living Wills’ to smoothen the dying process.

Biplab Kumar Deb is sworn in as Tripura Chief Minister.

March 11: At least 20 trekkers are killed after falling down into a 70­ foot gorge while trying to escape a forest fire in Kolukkumalai area close to Kurangani hill in the Bodi hills of Theni district, Tamil Nadu.

March 13: Foreign law firms or foreign lawyers cannot practise law in the country either on the litiga­ tion or non­litigation side, rules the Supreme Court.

March 14: The Samajwadi Party wrests both the Gorakhpur and Phulpur Lok Sabha seats in U.P. from the BJP. In Bihar, the RJD re­ tains the Araria Lok Sabha seat. The RJD and the BJP retain their seats in the Assembly byelections in Jehana­ bad and Bhabua respectively.

Former Union Telecom Minister Dayanidhi Maran and his brother and Sun group chairman Kalanithi Maran are discharged by a Special CBI Court in Chennai from the ille­ gal telephone exchange case.

March 15: Rebel AIADMK leader

T.T.V. Dhinakaran Poats a political party, Amma Makkal Munnetra Kaz­ hagam and unveils Pag at a public meeting at Melur, Madurai.

March 16: The Telugu Desam Party moves a no­confidence mo­ tion against the government after quitting the NDA.

Social activists and researchers from Maharashtra, Dr. Abhay Bang and Dr. Rani Bang, are presented the first­ever BusinessLine Change­ makers Awards, in New Delhi.

March 20: The Supreme Court expresses serious concern over the misuse of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, and introduces the provision of anticipatory bail and rules against automatic arrest of anyone booked under the law.

March 22: Parliament passes the Payment of Gratuity (Amendment) Bill, 2017 paving the way for dou­ bling the limit of tax­free gratuity to 720 lakh.

March 23: The Delhi High Court quashes a notification issued by Pre­ sident Ram Nath Kovind disqualify­ ing 20 AAP MLAs for holding offces of          profit   as      parliamentary secretaries.

March 24: RJD chief Lalu Prasad is sentenced to 14 years in prison in the fourth fodder scam case, by a Special CBI Court in Ranchi.

March 27: “Honour killing guil­ lotines individual liberty, freedom of choice and one’s own perception of choice,” says the Supreme Court and upholds choice of consenting adults to love and marry as part of their fundamental rights.

March 29: ISRO places GSAT­6A, a communication satellite in orbit after launch on board a GSLV F­08 rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh.

February-2018

Feb. 1: Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, presents the 2018­19 Union Budget, the main features being Ay­ ushman Bharat and a dedicated ‘Af­ fordable Housing Fund.’ Reintro­ duces the long­term capital gains tax and standard deduction.

The Congress wins the bypolls to the Alwar and Ajmer Lok Sabha seats and Mandalgarh Assembly seat in Rajasthan. In West Bengal, Trinamool bags both the Uluberia Lok Sabha seat and Noapara As­ sembly seat.

Feb. 3: Veteran filmmaker Shyam Benegal is conferred with the V. Shantaram#331007Lifetime Achieve­ ment Award at the valedictory of the Mumbai International Film Festival 2018.

Feb. 7: The Supreme Court can­ cels 88 iron ore mining leases in Goa.

Feb. 8: The Competition Com­ mission of India imposes a fine of 7136 crore on Google for unfair trade practices.

Feb. 10: Two soldiers are killed and nine injured after a heavily armed group of fidayeen storms a camp housing families of the Army’s

36 Brigade in Jammu’s Sunjuwan area. Two militants die in the reta­ liatory fire.

Feb. 11: The death toll in the mil­ itant attack on the Sunjuwan camp goes up to six, with the recovery of the bodies of three soldiers and a ci­ vilian. A third militant is shot dead.

Feb. 12: A constable is killed and a policeman injured as paramilitary personnel foil a fidayeen attack on the CRPF’s 23 Battalion headquar­ ters in Srinagar, Jammu and Kashmir.

Feb. 14: The Punjab National Bank reports the unearthing of un­ authorised transactions worth 711,500 crore in the Kala Ghoda branch in south Mumbai, in a regu­ latory filing to the stock exchanges. The CBI and the ED register cases against Mumbai­based billionaire diamond merchant Nirav Modi.

Feb. 16: A three­judge Bench of the Supreme Court reduces Tamil Nadu’s share of Cauvery water from 419 tmcft to 404.25 tmcft. Karnataka will now get 284.75 tmcft, against 270 tmcft earlier. Directs the govern­ ment to create an implementation mechanism.

Feb. 18: Seventy­nine % voting is registered in Tripura Assembly polls.

Feb. 19: Flying Offcer Avani Cha­ turvedi becomes the first Indian wo­ man to Py a fighter aircraft solo, when she Pew an MiG­21 Bison from IAF’s Jamnagar base in Gujarat.

Feb. 20: The Government opens up commercial coal mining for In­ dian and foreign firms in the private sector.

Delhi Chief Secretary Anshu Pra­ kash is allegedly assaulted by AAP MLAs at a meeting at the Chief Mi­ nister Arvind Kejriwal’s residence.

Feb. 21: Veteran Tamil actor Ka­ mal Haasan launches his party, Mak­ kal Needhi Maiam (People’s Justice Centre), at a function in Madurai and unveils the Pag.

Feb. 24: Prime Minister Naren­ dra Modi launches the Amma two­ wheeler scheme meant for working women on the occasion of the form­ er Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayala­ lithaa’s 75th birth anniversary cele­ brations in Chennai.

Feb. 27:Meghalaya and Nagaland register 85.7% and 75% polling res­ pectively in the Assembly elections.

Feb. 28: The CBI arrests Karti Chidambaram at the Chennai Air­ port on charges that he took a bribe of $1 million for scuttling a probe against INX Media for violation of  FIPB conditions in 2007.

JANUARY-2018

Jan. 1: A youth is killed and many injured in clashes after violence breaks out during the bicentenary celebrations of the 1818 Bhima­Kore­ gaon battle at Koregaon in Pune, Maharashtra.

Tamil actor Rajinikanth launches a website and an app to enrol mem­ bers for his party.

Jan. 3: Normal life is hit in several parts of Maharashtra following a bandh.

Jan.4: A Delhi court declares bu­ sinessman Vijay Mallya a pro­ claimed offender in a FERA viola­ tion case of 1995.

Transport corporation staff go on a Pash strike across Tamil Nadu.

Jan. 6: RJD chief Lalu Prasad is awarded a three­and­a­half year jail term in a fodder scam case by the special CBI Court in Ranchi, Jharkhand.

Jan. 7: Sahitya Akademi awardee Indira Parthasarathy is chosen for the Lifetime Achievement Award at the inaugural The Hindu Lit for Life­ Tamil festival in Chennai. Writer Imayam bags the Jayakanthan prize for contemporary literature.

Saudi Arabia gives nod to India’s plan to ferry devotees to Jeddah for Haj via the sea route.

Jan. 9: The Supreme Court makes it optional for cinema halls to play the national anthem before ev­ ery show.

Jan. 10: The Centre allows over­ seas airlines to own up to 49% of Air India under the approval route and permits 100% FDI in single brand re­ tail under the automatic route.

Jan. 11: The transport strike in Tamil Nadu comes to an end.

The Supreme Court appoints former Delhi High Court judge Jus­ tice S.N. Dhingra to head its SIT on the 1984 anti­Sikh riots.

Jan. 12: Four senior judges of the Supreme Court publicly accuse the CJI Dipak Misra of selectively assign­ ing cases to judges of his choice, at a press conference in New Delhi.

ISRO workhorse PSLV­C40 puts in space the Cartosat 2 series satel­ lite and 30 others from seven coun­ tries after lift­off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Srihariko­ ta, Andhra Pradesh.

Jan. 15: Deepak Unnikrishnan is presented The Hindu Prize, 2017 for his novel Temporary People by British novelist Sebastian Faulks. Tamil writer and playwright Indira Par­ thasarathy receives The Hindu Ta­ mil Lifetime Achievement Award.

Jan. 16: The Centre announces the withdrawal of Haj subsidy.

Jan. 17: Sensex closes above the 35,000­mark for the first time ever spurred by surge in banking stocks. Jan. 21: The Union Law Ministry appoints Om Prakash Rawat as Chief Election Commissioner. Former Fi­ nance Secretary, Ashok Lavasa, is

named Election Commissioner.

Jan. 23: A candlelight march by Karni Sena activists in protest against Padmaavat release turns violent in Ahmedabad, Gujarat. Three dozen vehicles are torched and theatres, multiplexes and two malls vandalised in Memnagar and on SG Highway.

Jan. 24: A special CBI Court in Ranchi awards a five­year jail term to RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav in the third fodder scam case.

The Multiplex Association of In­ dia decides not to screen Padmaa­ vat.

Jan. 25: Music composer Ilaiyara­ ja, Indian classical musician Ghulam Mustafa Khan and P. Parameswa­ ran, a senior RSS ideologue from Kerala are chosen for Padma Vib­ hushan award.

Former Russian Ambassador Alexander Kadakin (posthumous), cricketer Mahendra Singh Dhoni, actor Manoj Joshi, billiards cham­ pion Pankaj Advani, U.S. academic Ved Prakash Nanda, historian R. Na­ gaswamy, painter Laxman Pai, among Padma Bhushan awardees.

Tennis player Somdev Devvar­ man, badminton player Kidambi Srikanth, yoga teacher V. Nanam­ mal from Coimbatore, ‘Plastic Man of India’, R. Vasudevan, Romulus Whitaker, founder of the Madras Snake Park, prominent among 73 Padma Shri awardees.

Jan. 26: The leaders of 10 ASEAN countries are hosted by Prime Mi­ nister Narendra Modi as chief guests at the parade marking 25 years of the ASEAN­India Dialogue Partner­ ship, as India celebrates its 69th Re­ public Day in New Delhi.

Jan. 30: Veteran Bengali actor Soumitra Chatterjee is presented the Knight of the Legion of Honour, France’s highest civilian award, at a function in Kolkata.

Jan. 31: Kerala youth Sreejith ends his 782­day stir in front of the Secretariat in Thiruvananthapuram after the CBI records his statement on the alleged custodial death of his brother Sreejeev on May 21, 2014.

People throng planetariums across the country to witness the rare phenomenon of a super moon, a blue moon and an eclipse.

DECEMBER-2018

Dec. 1: At least 412 people are arrested as French police clash with “yellow vest” protesters around the Champs Elysses in Paris.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador takes offce as Mexican President.

Meng Wanzhou, CFO of Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies, is arrested in Vancouver, Canada.

Dec 2: China and the U.S. agree to halt additional tariffs for 90 days.

Dec. 4: France suspends fuel tax rise for six months.

Dec. 8: China launches Chang’e­4 lunar probe mission to uncover moon’s ‘dark side’ from the Xichang launch centre.

Vanessa Ponce de Leon, a Mexi­ can model, is crowned Miss World 2018 at an event in China.

Dec. 10: The Westminster Magis­ trates’ Court in London orders Vijay Mallya’s extradition to India.

Congolese gynaecologist Denis Mukwege and Yazidi activist Nadia Murad are presented the Nobel Peace Prize at a function in Oslo.

Dec. 11: Jamal Khashoggi, two jailed Reuters reporters, Philippine writer Maria Ressa and Capital Ga- zette newspaper are chosen Time’s Person of the Year 2018.

Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief fi­ nancial offcer is granted bail.

Dec. 12: British Prime Minister Theresa May wins a vote of confi­ dence in her leadership of the Con­ servative Party by 200 to 117.

Michael Cohen, former personal lawyer of U.S. President Donald Trump, is jailed for 36 months for fi­ nancial crimes and lying to Con­ gress by a federal court in Manhattan.

Dec. 13: President Maithripala Sirisena’s move to dissolve Parlia­ ment and call for snap polls illegal, rules the Sri Lankan Supreme Court.

The Senate votes to end U.S. sup­ port for the Saudi Arabia­led war in Yemen.

The Yemeni government and Houthi rebels agree on a ceasefire in Hodeida port at peace talks in Sweden.

Dec. 14: Obamacare unconstitu­ tional, rules a federal judge in Texas. Dec. 15: Mahinda Rajapaksa re­

signs as Sri Lankan Prime Minister.

Dec. 16: Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena reinstates Ranil Wickremesinghe as Prime Minister. A ‘rule book’ is finalised at the cli­

mate talks in Katowice, Poland.

Dec. 17: Catriona Gray of the Phi­ lippines is crowned Miss Universe 2018 in Bangkok, Thailand.

Dec. 19: The U.S. decides to pull out troops from Syria.

Dec. 20: U.S. Defence Secretary Jim Mattis quits.

Dec. 22: At least 430 people are killed and 1,495 injured in the Indo­ nesian islands of Java and Sumatra following a tsunami triggered by the eruption of the Anak Krakatoa vol­ cano in the Sunda Strait.

The U.S. government shuts down after Congress adjourns without passing a federal spending bill.

Dec. 24: Former Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is jailed for seven years in a graft case. Disquali­ fied from holding any public offce for 10 years.

U.S. stocks suffer their worst Christmas­eve loss in market histo­ ry.

Dec. 26: Russia successfully tests the Avangard hypersonic missile.

U.S. adventurer Colin O’Brady be­ comes the first person to complete a solo unassisted trek across Antarctica.

Dec. 28: Russia arrests Paul Whelan, a former U.S. Marine in Moscow for ‘spying.’

Dec. 29: Forty ‘terrorists’ are killed by the Egyptian police, after a blast in Giza kills three tourists and their guide a day earlier.

Dec. 30: The ruling coalition led by Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and the Awami League scores a landslide victory in the general election.

Dec. 31: Three people are in­ jured in a stabbing attack at the Manchester Victoria railway station in the U.K.

At least 38 people are killed in a blast in an apartment in the Russian city of Magnitogorsk.

The U.S. and Israel offcially quit UNESCO.

NOVEMBER-2018

Nov. 5: India, China, Japan among eight nations granted relief, as U.S. reimposes sanctions against Iran.

NASA’s Voyager 2 probe launched in 1977 enters interstellar space.

Nov. 6: The Democrats manage to take the U.S. House of Represen­ tatives after eight years, winning 220 seats in the 435­member cham­ ber, but the GOP retains its majority in the Senate bagging 51 seats in the mid­term polls.

Nov. 7: Twelve people are shot dead by Ian David Long, a former

U.S. Marine, during ‘college night’ at the Borderline Bar & Grill in Thou­ sand Oaks, Southern California.

Nov. 9: Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena dissolves Par­ liament and calls for snap polls.

Nov. 13: The U.K. and EU negotia­ tors agree on the text of a draft with­ drawal agreement in Brussels.

Nov. 14: A majority of MPs in the Sri Lankan Parliament votes against the Mahinda Rajapaksa government in a no­confidence motion.

Nov. 15: Britain’s Brexit Secre­ tary Dominic Raab, Works and Pen­ sion Secretary Esther McVey and four junior Ministers quit the May Cabinet following differences over the Brexit deal.

Saudi Arabia indicts 11 people ac­ cused of murdering journalist Jamal Khashoggi. The U.S. State Department sanctions 17 individuals.

Chaos in Sri Lankan Parliament as former President Mahinda Raja­ paksa refuses to endorse the no­ confidence motion on his address to Parliament and calls for snap polls.

Nov. 16: Former Sri Lankan Pre­ sident Mahinda Rajapaksa loses a trust vote for the third time.

In a historic vote, the kilogram gets a new definition at the General Conference on Weights and Mea­ sures held at Versailles, France.

Nov. 17: Ibrahim Mohamed Solih is sworn in Maldives President.

Nov. 19: Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. chairman Carlos Ghosn is detained in Tokyo after a probe reveals finan­ cial misconduct.

A federal judge in San Francisco issues a temporary restraining or­ der on U.S. President Donald Trump’s Nov. 9 proclamation deny­ ing asylum to those entering the na­ tion illegally.

Nov.   22:   Nis#331s007       an   Motor   Co.’s board votes to oust Carlos Ghosn.

Nov. 25: Leaders of the 27 EU na­ tions agree to the terms of the Brexit deal, at a summit in Brussels.

Russia seizes three Ukrainian na­ val vessels and 24 sailors off the coast of Crimea.

Nov. 26: The Maldives Supreme Court quashes former President Mo­ hamed Nasheed’s terrorism convic­ tion in 2015 and overturns his 13­ year jail sentence.

NASA’s Mars rover InSight lands on the Red Planet.

Nov. 28: Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan presides over the ground­breaking ceremony for the Kartarpur corridor in Narowal dis­ trict, Punjab.

October-2018

Oct. 1: Two immunologists, James Allison of the U.S. and Tasuku Honjo of Japan, are awarded the 2018 Nobel Medicine Prize.

A Swedish court hands down a two­year jail term for rape to Frenchman Jean­Claude Arnault, at the heart of a Nobel scandal, for a 2011 incident.

Oct. 2: Arthur Ashkin of the U.S., Gerard Mourou of France and Don­ na Strickland of Canada win the No­ bel Physics Prize.

A Saudi Arabian dissident jour­ nalist and columnist for The Wash- ington Post, Jamal Khashoggi, is killed at the Kingdom’s consulate in the Turkish capital Istanbul.

Oct. 3: Two Americans, Frances

H. Arnold and George P. Smith, and a Briton, Sir Gregory P. Winter, are awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize for Chemistry.

Oct. 5: Denis Mukwege, a Congo­ lese doctor, and Nadia Murad of Iraq, a Yazidi rights activist, are awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Former South Korean President Lee Myung­bak is jailed for 15 years for graft.

The Indonesian earthquake and tsunami toll touches 1,500.

Oct. 8: Americans William Nord­ haus and Paul Romer are awarded the 2018 Nobel Economics Prize.

Oct. 9: Nikki Haley resigns as the

U.S. Ambassador to the U.N.

Oct. 11: Malaysia decides to abol­ ish the death penalty.

Asian indices Hang Seng and Nik­

 

ND-X

kei shed 900 points each following massive selling in the stock markets across the globe.

 

Oct. 12: Guadeloupean author Maryse Conde wins the New Acade­ my Prize in Literature.

Oct. 16: Northern Irish novelist Anna Burns is presented the Man Booker Prize for fiction 2018 for Milkman, at a function in London.

Oct. 17: Canada becomes the first industrialised nation to legalise re­ creational marijuana.

Mohammad Imran, convicted of killing eight children, is executed at a Pakistani prison.

Oct. 18: Three top provincial off­ cials are killed and four persons, in­ cluding the Governor Zalmay Wesa, are injured after a gunman opens fire at a meeting inside the Gover­ nor’s compound in southern Kanda­ har, Afghanistan.

Oct. 20: U.S. President Donald Trump announces that Washington is pulling out of the landmark Inter­ mediate­Range Nuclear Forces Trea­ ty signed on December 8, 1987 with the Soviet Union.

Riyadh admits to the death of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in a fight at its Istanbul consulate. Eighteen Saudi nationals are arrested and five senior offcials sacked.

Afghans cast votes in parliamen­ tary polls amid violence that claims the lives of at least 36 people.

Oct. 21: Afghans cast votes for a second day, even as 11 people are killed in a roadside bomb blast in the Nangarhar province.

Oct. 24: The European Parlia­ ment votes for an EU­wide ban on single­use plastics.

Oct. 26: The first national unity government in Sri Lanka falls, as President Maithripala Srisena pulls out his United People’s Freedom Al­ liance faction. Sacks Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe. Former Pre­ sident Mahinda Rajapaksa is sworn in Prime Minister.

Oct. 27: Sri Lankan President Maithripala Sirisena suspends Par­ liament.

At least 11 people are killed after a gunman, opens fire during Shabbat services at the Tree of Life Syn­ agogue in Pittsburgh, U.S.

Oct. 28: Former Army Captain Jair Bolsonaro is elected Brazilian President in the runoff election.

Oct. 29: All 189 people on board an Indonesian Lion Air jet are killed after it crashes into the Java Sea soon after takeoff from Jakarta’s Soekarno­Hatta airport.

India and Japan sign a $75 billion currency swap agreement in Tokyo. Former Bangladesh Prime Minis­ ter Khalida Zia is sentenced to seven years in jail by a special court in Dhaka for misusing her power while in offce to collect $375,000 for the

Zia Charitable Trust Fund.

Oct. 30: A Bangladesh court doubles the jail term of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia from five to 10 years for embezzling mo­ ney meant for an orphanage.

The Maldives Supreme Court sus­ pends former President Mohamed Nasheed’s 13­year jail sentence handed down in 2015. It also over­ turns the disqualification of the re­ maining four of the 12 MPs.

Oct. 31: The Supreme Court of Pakistan acquits Asia Bibi, a Chris­ tian woman sentenced to death in November 2010 for blasphemy.

 

September.-2018

Sept. 2: A massive fire at Brazil’s National Museum in Rio de Janeiro destroys much of its collection.

Sept. 3: A Myanmar court jails two Reuters journalists — Wa Lone and Kyaw Soe Oo — for seven years after finding them guilty of breach­ ing the Offcial Secrets Act.

Sept. 5: Britain charges in absen­ tia two Russians with the attempted murder of a former Russain spy Ser­ gei Skripal and his daughter Yulia.

At least 26 people, including two journalists from Tolo News are killed and 91 others injured follow­ ing suicide attacks at the Maiwand sports club in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Sept. 7: Alfonso Cuaron’s Roma wins the Golden Lion Award at the 75th Venice Film Festival in Italy.

Sept. 9: Arif Alvi is sworn in Pa­kistan’s 13th President at a ceremo­ ny in Islamabad.

Sept. 10: Swedish election re­ sults in a hung Assembly.

Jack Ma, Chinese e­commerce company Alibaba’s co­founder and executive chairman retires.

Sept. 12: The European Parlia­ ment gives nod for a controversial EU copyright law that gives more powers to news and record firms against Internet giants like Google.

Sept. 14: U.S. President Donald Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort pleads guilty in a fed­ eral court in Washington to charges of conspiracy against the nation and obstruction of justice.

Sept. 15: Typhoon Mangkhut tears through Philippines.

Sept. 19: The Islamabad High Court suspends the jail sentences handed to the former Prime Minis­ ter Nawaz Sharif, his daughter Ma­ ryam and son­in­law Captain (retd.) Muhammad Safdar.

Sept. 20: At least 207 people are killed after a ferry sinks in Lake Vic­ toria, Tanzania.

Typhoon Mangkhut toll touches 95 in Philippines.

Sept. 23: Maldivians cast votes in presidential polls.

Sept. 24: A French shipping ves­ sel Osiris rescues Indian Navy Com­ mander Abhilash Tomy, stranded in the Southern Indian Ocean for the past three days after the mast of his boat Thuriya breaks while taking part in the Golden Globe Race, 2018. The tit for tat tariffs by the U.S.

and China take effect.

Sept. 25: Swedish Parliament ousts Prime Minister Stefan Lofven in a vote of no­confidence.

U.S. actor Bill Cosby is sentenced to between three and 10 years in jail by a judge in Pennsylvania for the 2004 sexual assault on Andrea Con­ stand, a former Temple University administrator, in Philadelphia.

Sept. 26: Russian Parliament ap­ proves President Vladimir Putin’s pension reform amendments.

Sept. 28: At least 832 people are killed and 534 injured after a power­ ful earthquake hits central Indone­ sia causing a tsunami that slams into Palu city on Sulawesi island.

Sept. 29: Tesla and its CEO Elon Musk agree to pay $40 million to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Com­ mision to settle a lawsuit that was triggered by a tweet on financing to take Tesla private. To relinquish role as chairman.

Sept. 30: Former Maldives Presi­ dent Maumoon Abdul Gayoom and his son Faris Maumoon are freed on bail.

Canada and the U.S. reach a dea­ dline deal on a new free trade pact that will include Mexico.

August-2018

Aug. 1: Indian­origin mathemati­ cian Akshay Venkatesh, Caucher Birkar, Alessio Figalli, and Peter Scholze are named 2018 Fields Me­ dal winners at the International Congress of Mathematicians in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Aug. 3: Zimbabwe President Em­ merson Dambudzo Mnangagwa nar­ rowly wins the July 30 polls.

Aug. 4: At least 105 people are killed and thousands of buildings damaged after an earthquake rocks the Indonesian resort island of Lombok.

Aug. 6: Bangladesh Law and Jus­ tice Minister Anisul Huq announces the Cabinet decision to impose death penalty for deliberate road deaths, following students’ protest.

Pepsico announces that CEO In­ dra Krishnamoorthy Nooyi is step­ ping down.

Aug. 7: The U.S. reimposes nu­ clear­related sanctions on Iran.

Aug. 8: Malaysia’s former Prime Minister Najib Razak pleads not guil­ ty to money laundering charges and is granted bail by court.

Aug. 9: Argentina’s Senate votes against legalising abortion after a marathon session.

Aug. 12: NASA launches a $1.5 million spacecraft, Parker Solar Probe, toward the Sun on a historic seven­year mission from Cape Ca­ naveral, Florida, the U.S.

Aug. 18: Imran Khan is sworn in as Pakistan Prime Minister.

Aug. 19: Iraq’s Supreme Court ratifies the May 12 parliamentary poll results.

Aug. 20: Greece emerges from the biggest bailout in economic his­ tory after nine years of creditor­ managed austerity.

Aug. 24: Scott Morrison is sworn in as Australia’s seventh Prime Mi­ nister in 11 years, after a party revolt unseats incumbent Malcolm Turnbull.

Aug. 26: Emmerson Mnangagwa is sworn in Zimbabwe President.

Aug. 31: Two Indians, Bharat Vatwani and Sonam Wangchuk, and four others are presented with the Ramon Magsyasay awards at a function in Manila, Phippines.

JULY-2018

July 2: Twelve boys and their as­ sistant football coach are found alive by rescuers in the Tham Luang Nang Non cave complex in Thai­

land’s Chiang Rai province nine days after they went missing.

July 3: Former Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak is arrested for wrongdoing at state fund 1MDB.

July 6: An anti­corruption court in Islamabad sentences former Pa­ kistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to 10 years in prison over the pur­ chase of four Pats in London. His daughter Maryam Nawaz gets eight years and his son­in­law Captain (retd.) Muhammad Safdar one year. The U.S. and China launch tit­for­ tat 25% tariffs on $34 billion of each

other’s imports.

Japan executes Shoko Asahara, leader of the Aum Shinrikyo dooms­ day cult, and six of his followers at a Tokyo detention house, for the March 20, 1995 sarin nerve agent at­ tack on the Tokyo subway.

Britain’s Cabinet gives nod for Brexit plan following a summit at Chequers, the Prime Minister’s country retreat.

July 8: Four of the 12 schoolboys stranded in the Tham Luang cave are rescued.

Canadian author Michael On­ daatje’s novel, The English Patient, wins the Golden Booker Prize.

July 9: British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson resigns from the The­ resa May Cabinet. Jeremy Hunt is appointed in his place.

Four more members of the “Wild Boars” football team are rescued.

July 10: All the remaining four members of the Thai football team and their coach are rescued.

July 13: Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and his daughter Maryam are arrested at the Lahore airport.

At least 149 people are killed and

150 others injured in a suicide bombing on an election rally in Mat­ sung town, near the Balochistan capital Quetta in Pakistan.

Twelve Russian intelligence offc­ ers are indicted by a U.S. grand jury for interfering in the 2016 presiden­ tial election.

July 15: Maria Butina, a covert Russian agent is arrested by U.S. off­ cials and charged with spying for Moscow.

July 16: U.S. President Donald Trump says he sees no reason to be­ lieve in Russian meddling in the 2016 polls after a historic summit with his Russian counterpart Vladi­ mir Putin in Helsinki, Finland.

Christian Michel, a key accused in the AgustaWestland chopper deal is held in Dubai.

July 18: The EU slaps Google with a record €4.34 billion ($5 billion) an­ titrust fine.

July 20: Former South Korean President Park Geun­hye is sen­ tenced to eight more years in jail.

July 25: Pakistanis cast votes in election to the National Assembly and the four provincial assemblies.

July 26: Japan executes six more Aum Shinrikyo members.

Facebook Inc. CEO Mark Zucker­ berg loses $16 billion as the market value of the social media giant goes down by more than $100 billion in the biggest one­day wipeout in U.S. stock market history.

July 27: Cricketer­turned­politi­ cian Imran Khan’s Pakistan Teh­ reek­e­Insaf emerges as the single largest party with 117 seats, in the National Assembly.

JUNE-2018

June 2: Pedro Sanchez is sworn in as Spain’s Prime Minister by King Felipe VI in Madrid.

Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah­al­ Sisi is sworn in for a second four­ year term in Cairo.

June 5: Movie mogul  Harvey Weinstein pleads not guilty to charg­ es of rape and sexual assault at the Manhattan Supreme Court, after a grand jury indictment in two cases. Kate Spade, 55, American fashion designer is found dead at her home on Park Avenue on Manhattan’s Up­

per East Side.

June 8: Chinese President Xi Jinping presents the nation’s first friendship medal to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin at a function at the Great Hall of the Peo­ ple in Beijing.

Anthony Michael Bourdain, 61, American celebrity chef and author, is found dead in his room at a luxury hotel, the Chambard, in France.

June 12: U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong­un pledge to move to­ wards complete denuclearisation at a historic summit at the Capella Ho­ tel on Singapore’s Sentosa, a resort island.

June 13: A court in the Maldives sentences former President Mau­ moon Gayoom to 19 months in pri­ son for obstructing a probe into an alleged plot to oust President Abdul­man Rights Council, accusing it of bias against Israel.

June 21: Iraq’s Supreme Court or­ ders a manual recount of the 11 mil­ lion ballots cast in the May 12 legisla­ tive elections, after Parliament annuls the result.

June 24: Saudi Arabia lifts the ban on driving by women, in place since 1957.

June 25: Turkish President Re­ cep Tayyip Erdogan wins sweeping powers after his victory in landmark polls.

June 26: The U.S. Supreme Court upholds President Donald Trump’s ban (imposed in September 2017) on travellers from Iran, Libya, So­ malia, Syria and Yemen.

The EU (Withdrawal) Bill, be­ comes law after Queen Elizabeth II gives her assent.

A U.S. judge in San Diego issues a nationwide injunction directing the administration to reunite children separated at the U.S.­Mexico border with parents within 30 days.

June 27: Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics co. Ltd. settle a seven­ year patent dispute.

June 28: Four journalists and a sales assistant of The Capital new­ spaper in Annapolis, Maryland, U.S. are shot dead at the offce by a gun­ man Jarrod Ramos.

 

MAY-2018

May 1: The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences expels

U.S. actor Bill Cosby and film direc­ tor, Roman Polanski in the light of sexual assault cases against them.

May 2: Cambridge Analytica, an­ nounces it was “immediately ceas­ ing all operations” and filing for in­ solvency in Britain and the U.S.

May 4: Nobel Literature Prize 2018 is put off to 2019, after the Swe­ desh Academy fails to contain a cri­ sis stemming from the #MeToo campaign.

May 6: Lebanese cast votes in the first parliamentary election in nine years.

May 7: Vladimir Putin is sworn in as Russia’s President for a fourth term at a ceremony at the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow.

May 8: U.S. President Donald Trump announces decision to pull out of the landmark nuclear deal with Iran and reimpose sanctions.

May 10: Mahathir Mohamad is sworn in Malaysian Prime Minister.

May 12: Iraqis cast votes in par­ liamentary election.

May 13: At least 13 people are killed and dozens injured after a fa­ mily of six, including two daughters aged nine and 12 stages suicide bombings at three churches in Sura­ baya, Indonesia.

May 14: At least 61 Palestinians are shot dead and 2,700 injured by Israeli troops on the Gaza border.

May 16: Jailed Malaysian leader Anwar Ibrahim is granted a full par­ don and freed.

May 18: At least 110 passengers on board a Cuban State airways plane are killed after it crashes soon after take­off from Havana’s Jose Marti airport.

At least 10 people, including eight students and two teachers are killed

and 10 injured after Dimitrios Pa­ gourtzis, a student, opens fire at the Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe ci­ ty in Texas, U.S.

May 19: Shia cleric Moqtada Sadr’s Marching Towards Reform bloc wins 54 of the 329 seats in Iraq’s Parliament in a major upset.

Britain’s Prince Harry marries Meghan Markle, former American actor at St. George’s Chapel in Wind­ sor Castle.

Hirokazu Kore­eda’s Shoplifters bags the Palme d’Or at the 71st An­ nual Cannes Film Festival in France. May 20: The U.S. and China agree to back off from imposing ta­

riffs on each other.

Nicolas Maduro wins a new six­ year term in the Venezuelan presi­ dential polls.

May 22: Polish author Olga To­ karczuk wins the Man Booker Inter­ national Prize for works of translat­ ed fiction for Flights, at a function in London.

May 24: Lebanese Prime Minis­ ter Saad Hariri is given a third term

sir­ul­Mulk, is sworn in Pakis­ tan’s caretaker Prime Minister hours after the President Mamnoon Hussain dissolves the Lower House of Parliament.

April-2018

April 2: Malaysian Parliament gives nod for a law that makes “fake news” punishable with a maximum six­year jail term.

April 6: The U.S. imposes sanc­ tions on seven Russian oligarchs, 12 firms they own or control, 17 senior offcials and a state­owned arms ex­ port company.

South Korea’s former President Park Geun­hye, is jailed for 24 years for graft.

Israeli troops kill nine Palesti­ nians and injure 491 people in the second mass protest in as many weeks along Gaza’s volatile border.

April 8: Hungarian President Viktor Orban wins a fourth term in general elections.

April 11: All 257 people on board an Algerian military transport plane are killed after it crashes soon after take­off at Boufarik airbase, south­ west of Algiers.

April 13: The Pakistan Supreme Court bans former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from contesting polls for life.

April 16: The 2018 Pulitzer Prize  tant engines for global growth, says President Xi Jinping after talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Wuhan, China.

April 29: British Home Secretary Amber Rudd resigns. Sajid Javid, a South Asian, is appointed in her place.

April 30: At least 25 people, in­ cluding 10 journalists are killed as two suicide blasts rip through Ka­ bul, Afghanistan.

March-2018

March 2: World stocks plunge as

U.S. President, Donald Trump’s pro­ posed tariffs on steel and alumini­ um imports, trigger fears of a global trade war.

March 4: Gullermo del Toro’s fai­ ry tale romance, The Shape of Wa- ter, wins top honours — best pic­ ture, best director statuettes for production design and test original score at the 90th Academy Awards at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California. Christopher Nolan’s World War II thriller Dun- kirk picks up three awards.

A former Russian double agent, Sergei Skripal, and his daughter Yu­ lia are found unconscious on a bench outside a shopping centre in Salisbury, U.K. Nerve agent Novi­ chok use suspected.

March 5: Italian electorate deliv­ ers hung Parliament.

March 6: The Japanese Navy ap­ points Ryoko Azuma its first woman commander of a unit that includes Izumo, the country’s biggest warship.

Gary Cohen, top economic advis­ er to U.S. President Donald Trump, resigns.

March 8: The U.S. imposes a 25% import tariff on steel and 10% on aluminium.

March 11: China’s National Peo­ ple’s Congress votes to remove li­ mits on presidential tenure, ena­ bling Xi Jinping to serve as President indefinitely. ‘Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteris­ tics for a New Era,’ is included in the Constitution.

March 12: At least 49 passengers on board a US­Bangla Airlines Pight are killed after it crashes while land­ ing at the Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, Nepal, and skids into a nearby football field.

March 13: U.S. President Donald Trump sacks Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. CIA Director, Mike Pom­ peo to replace him.

March 14: British Prime Minister, Theresa May, announces in Par­ liament decision to suspend all high­level bilateral contacts with Russia over the poisoning of Sergei Skripal.

Angela Merkel is re­elected Ger­ man Chancellor for a fourth term.

March 15: The U.S. slaps sanc­ tions on 19 Russian individuals and five groups for meddling in the 2016 presidential polls and for malicious cyberattacks.

March 16: Facebook suspends the account of Cambridge Analyti­ ca, the data firm that helped U.S. President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, for failing to delete user data.

March 17: China’s Parliament un­ animously elects Xi Jingping as Pre­ sident for a second consecutive term.

March 18: Vladimir Putin wins a fourth term as Russian President.

March 20: “China’s President Xi Jinping takes offce for the second term.

March 22: U.S. President Donald Trump directs imposition of 25% ta­ riffs on Chinese products worth $60 billion.

March 23: U.S. President Donald Trump signs a $1.3 trillion federal spending Bill, averts shutdown.

March 24: Nearly 8,00,000 peo­ ple take out rallies across the U.S. seeking tougher gun laws.

March 25: At least 64 people, many of them children, are killed in a blaze at the Winter Cherry shop­ ping centre in the city of Kemerovo in Siberia, Russia.

March 26: The U.S. expels 60 Russian offcials and orders closure of the consulate in Seattle.

March 29: Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al­Sisi is re­elected for a second term following a three­day polling.

Britain starts the one­year count­ down to Brexit.

Russia decides to expel 150 west­ ern diplomats, including 60 from the U.S., and close the U.S. consu­ late in St. Petersburg.

March 30: At least 18 Palesti­ nians are killed and 400 injured as Israeli security forces fire on de­ monstrators, pressing for a right of return for refugees, along the Israel­ Gaza border.

February-2018

Feb. 1: Fidel Angel Castro Diaz­ Balart, 68, the eldest son of the late Cuban President, Fidel Castro, and a nuclear physicist commits suicide, in Havana.

Feb. 2: The Maldives Supreme Court nullifies the convictions of ex­ iled former President, Mohamed Nasheed and eight others. Orders reinstatement of 12 parliamentar­ ians expelled for defection.

Feb. 3: The Japan Aerospace Ex­ ploration Agency launches the world’s smallest rocket from the Uchinoura Space Center in Kagoshi­ ma Prefecture.

Feb. 5: Maldivian troops arrest the Chief Justice and a judge after storming the Supreme Court pre­ mises. Hours later, former President Maumoon Abdul Gayoom is arrested.

Samsung Group heir Jay Y. Lee in detention since February 2017 is freed.

Wall Street’s Dow Jones and S&P benchmarks slump by 4.6 and 4.1, their biggest drops since August 2011. More than $1 trillion is wiped from U.S. equities.

Feb. 6: Poland’s President Andr­ zej Duda signs into law a controver­ sial Holocaust Bill.

The order to free nine political prisoners, including former Mal­ dives President, Mohamed Nasheed is annulled by three of the five Su­ preme Court Justices.

SpaceX successfully test­launches Falcon Heavy, the world’s most po­ werful commercial rocket from the Kennedy Space Center in Cape Ca­ naveral, Florida, U.S.

Feb. 8: Bangladesh Nationalist Party leader and former Prime Mi­ nister, Khaleda Zia, is jailed for five years for graft by a Special Judge’s Court in Dhaka.

Over 170 persons are killed in the past four days, as Syrian regime war planes rain bombs on the rebel­held enclave of Eastern Ghouta, outside Damascus.

Feb. 9: U.S. Congress passes a crucial federal spending Bill. Scientists from Britain and the

U.S. successfully grow human eggs to maturity outside the body, in a laboratory for the first time, and pu­ blish the results in the journal Mo- lecular Human Reproduction.

Feb. 11: All 65 passengers and six crew members aboard a Russian passenger plane are killed as it crashes in Argunovo village in Ra­ mensky district soon after takeoff from Moscow’s Domodedovo air­ port.

Feb. 14: South African President Jacob Zuma is forced to resign.

At least 17 people are killed and 15 injured in a mass shooting by a former student, Nikolas Cruz, at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland near Miami, U.S.

Feb. 15: Cyril Ramaphosa is elected South African President by

ANC legislators.

The U.S. Senate blocks several im­ migration proposals, leaving in lim­ bo the fate of near#331007ly two million mi­ grants brought to the country illegally as children.

Feb. 16: Special Counsel Robert Mueller announces the indictments of 13 Russians and three firms for al­ leged interference with the 2016

U.S. presidential polls, handed up by a Washington grand jury.

Feb. 18: All 66 people on board an Iranian passenger plane are killed after it crashes into the Zagros mountains 45 minutes after takeoff from Tehran’s Mehrabad airport.

Crime drama Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri, bags five British Bafta film awards in London. Guillermo Del Toro gets best direc­ tor award for The Shape of Water.

Feb. 21: Pakistan Supreme Court disqualifies former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif from heading Pakistan Muslim League­Nawaz party.

Feb. 23: U.S. President Donald Trump imposes new sanctions on North Korea.

Feb. 24: At least 29 civilians are killed in air strikes in Eastern Ghou­ ta, an enclave outside Damascus, Sy­ ria. Death toll touches 500.

Feb. 26: At least 55 people are killed and 500 wounded after a 7.5 magnitude earthquake strikes Pa­ pua New Guinea.

JANUARY-2018

Jan. 1: California legalises recrea­ tional marijuana.

Jan. 2: Israel’s Parliament passes legislation requiring a super­majori­ ty to cede control over any part of Jerusalem.

Jan. 3: World stocks hit fresh highs and Asian markets scale new peaks.

Jan. 8: An Italian appeals court in Milan acquits Giuseppe Orsi, former president of Finmeccanica and Bru­ no Spagnolini, former CEO of the firm’s helicopters subsidiary Agus­ taWestland of bribery charges in the 73,600­crore deal to sell 12 chop­ pers to India.

Jan. 9: The body of Zainab Fati­ ma Ameen, a six­year­old child kid­ napped six days ago, is found in a garbage heap in Kasur in Pakistan’s Punjab province bearing signs of sexual abuse, triggering massive protests.

Jan. 11: Ecuador grants citizen­ ship to WikiLeaks founder Julian As­ sange, holed up in the country’s London embassy for over five years. Jan. 12: U.S. President Donald Trump gives the Iran nuclear deal a

final reprieve.

Jan. 15: The Communist Party of China names President Xi Jinping as the lingxiu, a status bestowed only on iconic leaders Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.

Jan. 16: Bangladesh and Myan­ mar sign a deal to repatriate  650,000 Rohingya refugees, in Naypyidaw.

Jan. 20: The U.S. Government shuts down after the impasse over immigration and border security stalls a funding Bill in the Senate, a day earlier.

Jan. 22: Congress votes to reo­ pen the U.S. government as Demo­ crats drop objections to a tempor­ ary funding bill.

Jan. 23: Pakistan arrests Imran Ali, a serial killer, and key suspect accused of raping and murdering Zainab Fatima Ameen in Kasur, Pun­ jab.

Jan. 24: An appeals court unani­ mously upholds the corruption con­ viction of Brazil’s former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, condemn­ ing him to 12 years in prison.

Jan. 27: At least 103 people are killed and 235 wounded after an ex­ plosives­packed ambulance is

blown up by Taliban­affliated Haq­ qani Network in the Afghanistan capital Kabul.

Jan. 28: American singer­song­ writer Bruno Mars, sweeps the 60th Annual Grammy Awards held at Ma­ dison Square Garden in New York City, winning six of them. Kendrick Lamar bags five awards, including the ‘Best Rap Album’ for Damn.

 

DECEMBER-2018

Dec. 4: Gautam Gambhi announces retirement from all formats of the game.

Dec. 7: New Zealand records a 123-run win in the third and final Test in Abu Dhabi, wins its first away series win against Pakistan in 49 years.

Dec. 8: The 22-year-old Shubhankar Sharma becomes the youngest Indian golfer to win the Asian Tour Order of Merit.

Dec. 16: P.V. Sindhu emerges champion at the World Tour Finals in Guangzhou, the first Indian to achieve the feat.

Belgium wins the hokey World Cup in Bhubaneswer.

Dec. 18: Varun Chakaravarthy and Jaydev Unadkat picked for ` 8.4 crore each at the IPL auction in Jaipur.

Aravindh Chithambaram bags the National chess title in Jammu.

Dec. 20: W.V. Raman appointed Indian women’s cricket team coach.

NOVEMBER-2018

Nov. 14: Viswanathan Anand is the king at the Tata Steel blitz chess championship in Kolkata.

Nov. 18: Alexander Zverev wins the ATP Tour Finals in London.

Nov. 24: Fencer Bhavani Devi emerges the Commonwealth champion in Canderra.

Mary Kom wins a record sixth corown in the World boxing championship in New Delhi.

Nov. 25: Croatia lifts the Davis Cup.

Nov. 28: Magnus Carlsen defends his World chess title. 

OCTOBER-2018

Oct. 5: Indian men finish sixth and women eighth in the Chess Olympiad in Batumi (Georgia).

Oct. 14: Hazaratullah Zazai smashes six sixes in an over in the Afghanistan Premier Cricket League in Sharjah.

Oct. 28: Lewis Hamilton seals his fifth World title at the Mexican GP.

Elina Svitolina wins the WTA Finals in Singapore.

SEPTEMBER-2018

Sept. 2: India finishes eighth in the Asian Games medals table with 15 gold, 24 silver and 30 bronze.

Sept. 8: The 20-year-old Naomi Osaka shocks Serena, becomes the first Japanese player to bag a Grand Slam title.

Sept. 9: Djokovic makes it two Slams in a row, wins the US Open.

Sept. 16: Kenya’s Eliud Kipchoge sets a new marathon world record in Berlin.

 

AUGUST-2019

Aug. 15: Former Indian cricket captain Ajit Wadekar passes away at the age of 77.

Aug. 18: The 18th Asian Games kicks off in Jakarta and Palembang.

JULY-2018

July 12: Hima Das races to the 400m gold at the World under-20 athletics championships.

July 14: Angelique Kerber eases post Serena Williams, wins Wimbledon title.

July 15: France defeats Croatia 4-2 to lift its second FIFA World Cup crown.

Novak Djokavic emerges the Wimbledon champion, beating Kevin Anderson in straight sets.

July 22: Francesco Molinari wins the 147th Open championship golf tournament at Carnoustie (Scotland).

July 29: Geraint Thomas rides to his maiden Tour de France title. 

JUNE-2018

June 8: Golden State Warriors blanks Cleveland Cavaliers 4-0 to claim its third straight NBA title.

June 9: Simona Halep outlasts Sloane Stephens in the French Open final, clinches maiden Grand Slam title.

June 10: Rafael Nadal demolishes Dominic Thiem, makes it 11 at Roland Garros.

June 14: the FIFA World Cup begins in Russia.

June 15: Afghanistan makes its Test debut, against India in Bengaluru.

June 17: Golfer Brooks Koepke wins the US Open held at Shinnecock Hills.

June 24: The 13-year-old R. Praggnanandhaa becomes the world’s second-youngest chess Grandmaster.

MAY-2018

May 11: Iraland becomes the 11th Testplaying nation.

May 14: Juventus seals its seventh successive Serie A crown.

May 25: Real Madrid beats Liverpool 3-1 in the final, completes a hat-tirick of Champions League titles.

May 26: Chennai Super Kings, making a comeback to the IPL after two years, cruises past Sunrisers Hyderabad by eight wickets to clinch its third crown.

April-2018

April 8: the Indian women’s table tennis team defeats Singapore 3-1 to win the gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast. Manika Batra becomes India’s first table tennis gold mediallist in women’s singles.

Manu Bhaker claims her first CWG gold, taking the top spot in 10m air pistol.

April 15: India finishes third at Gold Coast, with a haul of 26 gold, 20 silver and 20 bronze.

MARCH-2018

March 4: Meerut-based shooter Shahzar Rizvi clinches gold in the ISSF World Cup with a World record score.

March 5: Viswanathan Anand wins the Tal Memorial rapid Chess title in Moscow.

March 8: Minerva Punjab clinches its maiden I-League title.

March 17: England batsman Kevin Pietersen announces retirement.

March 24: India’s 16-year-old shooting sensation Manu Bhaker bags gold in the individual and team 10m air pistol events of the ISSF junior World Cup in Sydney.

March 26: Dustin Johnson becomes the first golfer to win all four World championship- HSBC Champions, Bridgestone invitational, Maxico Championship, and Dell Technologies Match Play.

March 28: Australia Captain Steve Smith and vice-captain Devid Warner receive one-year bans and Cameron Bancroft a nine-month ban for ball tampering in the Cape Town Test.

 

 

FEBRUARY-2018

Feb. 3: India beats Australia by eight wickets to clinch a record fourth under-19 World Cup, in New Zealand.

Feb. 12: India’s Shiva Keshavan (men’s luge) retires after competing in his sixth Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

 

 

JANUARY-2018

Jan. 6: Gilles Simon Claims the Maharashtra Open title in Pune, defeating Kevin Anderson in the final.

The Swiss pair of Roger Federer and Belinda Bancic clinches the Hopman Cup with a thrilling 2-1 win over Germany in the final, Federer had last won the tournament in 2001, teaming up with Martina Hingis.

Jan. 27: Caroline Wozniacki wins the Australian Open, her maiden Grand Slam title, beating Simona Halep in the final.

Jan. 28: Roger Federer retains Australian Open crown, defeating Marin Cilic in the final. It is the Swiss maestro’s sixth title in Melbourne.

 

December-2018

Dec. 10: Mushirul Hasan, 71, eminent historian, in New Delhi.

Dec. 13: Nancy Wilson, 81, Jazz legend, at her home in Pioneertown in California, U.S.

Dec. 16: Geeta S. Iyengar, 74, daughter of B.K.S. Iyengar and not­ ed yoga exponent, at her home in Pune.

Dec. 21: Prapanchan, 73, Tamil writer, in Puducherry.

Dec. 22: Paddy Ashdown, 77, former U.K. Liberal Democrats lead­ er, of bladder cancer.

Dec. 24: Nirupam Sen, 72, vete­ ran CPI(M) leader and former Indus­ tries Minister of West Bengal, at a hospital in Kolkata.

Dec. 28: Amos Oz, 79, Israeli wri­ ter, of cancer in Tel Aviv.

Dec. 30: Mrinal Sen, 95, iconic Indian filmmaker, at his south Kol­ kata residence.

Dec. 31: Loknath, 92, veteran Kannada actor, in Bengaluru.

Kader Khan, 81, Hindi screenwri ter, actor, in Canada.

November-2018

Nov. 12: H.R. Ananth Kumar, 59, Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, of lung cancer at a private hospital in Bengaluru.

Stan Lee, 95, American comic book writer and co­creator of Mar­ vels’ iconic superheroes, at Cedars­ Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, U.S.

Nov. 17: Alyque Padamsee, 90, ad guru and theatre doyen, at a hos­ pital in Mumbai.

Nov. 24: M.H. Ambareesh, 66, noted Kannada actor and former Union Minister, at a hospital in Ben­ galuru, Karnataka.

Nov. 25: C.K. Jaffer Sharief, 85, veteran Congress leader and former Railway Minister, at a private hospi­ tal in Bengaluru, of a cardiac arrest. Nov. 26: Iravatham Mahadevan,

88, noted epigraphist, in Chennai. Bernardo    Bertolucci,    77,  re­

nowned Italian director, at his home in Rome, of cancer.

Nov. 30: George H.W. Bush, 94, former U.S. President, at his home in Houston, Texas.

 

October-2018

Oct. 1: Charles Aznavour, 94, le­ gendary French singer and actor, at his home in Alpilles, France.

Oct. 6: Montserrat Caballe, 85, renowned Spanish soprano, at the Sant Pau hospital in Barcelona.

Oct. 12: Roelof “Pik” Botha, 86, former South African Foreign Minis­ ter, at his home on the outskirts of Pretoria.

Oct. 13: Annapurna Devi, 91, doyenne of Hindustani classical music, at a hospital in Mumbai.

Oct. 15: Paul Gardner Allen, 65, the co­founder with Bill Gates of Mi­ crosoft in 1975, of blood cancer, in Seattle, U.S.

SEPTEMBER-2018

Sept. 6: Burt Reynolds, 82, Holly­ wood actor, of a heart attack at a hospital in Florida, U.S.

Sept. 23: Kalpana Lajmi, 64, filmmaker, at the Kokilaben Dhirub­ hai Ambani Hospital in Mumbai.

August-2019

Aug. 11: V.S. Naipaul, 85, Trinida­ dian­British writer and Nobel lau­ reate, at his home in London, England.

Aug. 13: Somnath Chatterjee, 89, former Lok Sabha Speaker, at a priv­ ate hospital in Kolkata, due to multi­ ple organ failure.

Aug. 16: Aretha Franklin, 76, American soul singer, of pancreatic cancer in Detroit, Michigan, U.S.

Aug. 18: Kofi Atta Annan, 80, former U.N. Secretary­General and Nobel Peace Prize winner, at a hos­ pital in Bern, Switzerland.

Aug. 20: Uri Avnery, 94, Israeli peace activist, lawmaker and jour­ nalist, at a Tel Aviv hospital.

Aug. 22: Gurudas Kamat, 63, former Union Minister and senior Congress leader, at a private hospi­ tal in New Delhi.

Aug 23: Kuldip Nayar, 95, vete­ ran journalist and former Rajya Sab­ ha member, after a brief illness, in New Delhi.

Aug. 25: John McCain, 81, Viet­ nam war veteran and six­term American Senator, of brain cancer, in Cornville, Arizona, U.S.

July-2018

Aug. 11: V.S. Naipaul, 85, Trinida­ dian­British writer and Nobel lau­ reate, at his home in London, England.

Aug. 13: Somnath Chatterjee, 89, former Lok Sabha Speaker, at a priv­ ate hospital in Kolkata, due to multi­ ple organ failure.

Aug. 16: Aretha Franklin, 76, American soul singer, of pancreatic cancer in Detroit, Michigan, U.S.

Aug. 18: Kofi Atta Annan, 80, former U.N. Secretary­General and Nobel Peace Prize winner, at a hos­ pital in Bern, Switzerland.

Aug. 20: Uri Avnery, 94, Israeli peace activist, lawmaker and jour­ nalist, at a Tel Aviv hospital.

Aug. 22: Gurudas Kamat, 63, former Union Minister and senior Congress leader, at a private hospi­ tal in New Delhi.

Aug 23: Kuldip Nayar, 95, vete­ ran journalist and former Rajya Sab­ ha member, after a brief illness, in New Delhi.

Aug. 25: John McCain, 81, Viet­ nam war veteran and six­term American Senator, of brain cancer, in Cornville, Arizona, U.S.

June-2018

June 25: David Goldblatt, 87, South African photographer who “chronicled apartheid,” of cancer, at his home in Johannesburg.

June 29: Stephen Ditko, 90, U.S. comic artist and co­creator of Mar­ vel superheroes Spider­Man and Doctor Strange, is found dead at his home in New York City, U.S.

JULY

July 8: M.M.Jacob, 91, senior Congress leader , at a private hospi­ tal in Kerala’s Kottayam district.

July 11: Sri Ranga Narayana Jeer, 89, the Jeer of the Srirangam Sri Ranganathaswamy Temple and 50th Pontiff of Sri Ramanuja Mutt, at a private hospital in Tiruchi.

July 12: Dada J.P. Vaswani, 99, spiritual leader, on the Sadhu Vas­ wani Mission premises in Pune, Maharashtra.

MAY-2018

May 1: Ashok Mitra, 90, former West Bengal Finance Minister, in Kolkata.

May 10: Neelu, 82, Tamil come­ dian, in Chennai.

May 14: E.C.G. Sudarshan, 86, eminent physicist , in Texas, U.S.

Tom Wolfe, 87, American journal­ ist and novelist, in New York.

May 15: Balakumaran, 71, Tamil writer, in Chennai.

May 19: Reginald Grant Lucas, 65, Grammy­winning American musician, in New York City, U.S.

May 22: Philip Roth, 85, American author, at a hospital in Manhat­ tan, U.S.

May 26: Alan Bean, 86, former Apollo astronaut and lunar module pilot for the second moon landing mission in November 1969, in Hous­ ton, Texas.

May 28: Serge Dassault, 93, French billionaire and aviation mag­ nate, at his offce in Paris.

May 29: Muktha V. Srinivasan, 88, renowned Tamil film director and producer, in Chennai.

April-2018

April 1: C.V. Rajendran, 81, vete­ ran Tamil film director, in Chennai.

April 2: Winnie Madikizela­Man­ dela, 81, anti­apartheid activist and former wife of South African Presi­ dent, Nelson Mandela, at the Net­ care Milpark Hospital, in Johannesburg.

April 14: Ram Kumar, 93, Indian artist, writer extraordinaire, at his residence in New Delhi.

April 20: Rajinder Sachar, 94, human rights activist and former Chief Justice of Delhi High Court, at Fortis Hospital in New Delhi.

April 29: Lester James Peiris, 99, Sri Lankan filmmaker and a national icon, in Colombo.

March-2018

March 4: Javed Abidi, 53, conve­ nor of the Disabled Rights Group, of a chest infection, in New Delhi.

March 6: John Edward Sulston, 75, British scientist who helped de­ code the human genome, of sto­ mach cancer, in Buckinghamshire, U.K.

March 10: Hubert James Marcel Taffn de Givenchy, 91, French fashion designer, at the Renaissance chateau near Paris.

March 11: Ken Dodd, 90, British comedian, in the Liverpool suburb of Knotty Ash, U.K.

March 14: Stephen William Hawking, 76, English theoretical physicist, at Cambridge, Cambrid­ geshire, U.K.

March 19: Sri Ranga Ramanuja Maha Desikan, 84, 11th pontiff of the Srirangam Srimad Andavan Ashra­ mam, at a hospital in Chennai.

February-2018

Feb. 11: Asma Jilani Jahangir, 66, noted Pakistani lawyer and human rights activist, in Lahore.

Feb. 15: Morgan Richard Tsvangi­ rai, 65, former Prime Minister of Zimbabwe, at a hospital in Johan­ nesburg, South Africa.

Feb. 19: M.S. Anantharaman, 94, noted violinist, in Chennai.

Feb. 21: William Franklin Gra­ ham Jr., 99, U.S. Christian evange­ list, at his home in Montreat, North Carolina, U.S.

Feb. 24: Sridevi Kapoor Ayyap­ pan, 54, multilingual actor, at a ho­ tel in Dubai.

Feb. 28: Sri Jayendra Saraswathi, 83, 69th head of the Sri Kanchi Ka­ makoti Peetam, at a hospital in Kan­ cheepuram, Tamil Nadu.

 

JANUARY-2018

Jan. 2: Radha Viswanathan, 83, Carnatic singer and daughter of M.S. Subbulakshmi, in Bengaluru.

Jan. 5: John Young, 87, legendary U.S. astronaut, at his home in Houston, Texas, of pneumonia.

Jan. 15: Gnani, 64, journalist, theatre personality, in Chennai, fol­ lowing a cardiac arrest.

Dolores Mary Eileen O’Riordan, 46, Irish musician and Cranberries lead singer, in a London hotel.

Jan. 21: Khagen Das, 81, CPI(M) veteran and chairman of the Left Front Committee of Tripura, in Kolkata.

Jan. 23: Hugh Masekela, 78, “the father of South African jazz” and le­ gendary trumpeter, in Johannes­ burg.

Jan. 27: Ingvar Kamprad, 91, founder of Swedish furniture major, Ikea, at his home in Smaland, Alm­ hult, Sweden.

Jan. 29: Heinz Jakob “Coco” Schumann, 93, German jazz musi­ cian and Holocaust survivor, in Berlin.