Ahead of a deadline set by Sri Lanka's Supreme Court, former President Maithripala Sirisena has paid the first instalment of 15 million Sri Lankan Rupees as compensation to the victims of the Easter terror attacks in 2019.

In January, Sirisena, 71, was ordered by the apex court to pay SLRs 100 million as compensation to the victims for his negligence in preventing one of the country's worst terror strikes despite having credible information of an imminent attack.

Sirisena was Sri Lanka's President and Defence Minister at the time of the attacks when nine suicide bombers belonging to the local Islamist extremist group National Thawheed Jamaat (NTJ) linked to ISIS carried out a series of devastating blasts that tore through three Catholic churches and three luxury hotels on April 21, 2019, killing nearly 270 people, including 11 Indians, and injuring over 500.

The court ordered Sirisena to pay a compensation of SLRs 100 million, former police chief Pujith Jayasundara and former state intelligence services chief Nilantha Jayawardene to pay a compensation of SLRs 75 million each, former defence secretary Hemasiri Fernando to pay a compensation of SLRs 50 million.

Ahead of the July 12 July set by the Supreme Court, Sirisena paid SLRs 15 million as compensation on June 28 and filed a motion requesting that he be allowed to pay the remaining sum in 10 instalments of SLRs 8.5 million from June 30, 2024, to June 20, 2033.

In a motion filed through his lawyers, the former President explained that he receives a pension of SLRs 97,500 as the former President, alongside a sum of SLRs 54,285 for his services as a Member of Parliament, thus, he requested that he be granted more time to pay the remainder of the ordered sum of SLRs 100 million.

The GST Council on  Jul 11  decided to tax online gaming at 28 per cent on full face value with no distinction between games of skill and chance. Casinos and horse racing will also be taxed at 28 per cent on the full face value of bets.

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the decision is not to hurt the industry or states.

The government will have to make suitable amendments to include online gaming and horse racing in Schedule III as taxable actionable claims.

While the Centre’s decision will ensure a multi-fold increase in its revenue kitty, it will be catastrophic for the industry.

The move can also have legal ramifications. 

Tata Group will become the first Indian company to assemble iPhones in India as the company is set to acquire Taiwan-based Wistron Corp, one of the contract manufacturers of Apple in India. The agreement could be sealed as early as August 2023.

The Wistron’s factory in Karnataka manufactures iPhones including the latest iPhone 14, and currently, it employs over 10,000 workers.  The company is valued at $600 million now. It is believed that initially, Wistron will continue to provide technical support to Tata Group.  Also, the Tata group will retain some personnel. Wistron entered in the Indian market in 2008 with a repair facility, and in 2017 it started manufacturing iPhones for Apple.

The US-based tech giant Apple has increased its production in India in the past few years. Wistron has promised Apple to ship $1.8 billion dollar worth of iPhones by March 2024, and triple its workforce in its Kolam factory by next year. Now, Tat Group will have to fulfil these commitments.

Sinead Farrelly wasn’t sure she’d ever come back to soccer.

Farrelly, whose story was at the center of an abuse scandal that rocked women’s soccer in the United States, hadn’t played for more than six years before re-embracing the sport this spring.

Now headed to the Women's World Cup with Ireland, Farrelly’s presence at the tournament is a testament to her own resilience and healing. But it also underscores the larger realities of sexual, verbal and emotional abuse in women’s soccer and what is being done about it on the global stage.

Allegations of abuse, often sexual, have affected national teams around the world in recent years, including reported cases in Haiti, Venezuela, Zambia, Argentina, Colombia and Afghanistan, where the women’s team was disbanded because of Taliban rule.

FIFPRO, the global players’ union, acknowledges that while important steps have been implemented to protect players, “cases are often only brought to light once they have already reached a tragically high human cost.”

Soccer’s global governing body is paying attention. FIFA rolled out a safeguarding program at the under-20 Women’s World Cup in Costa Rica last summer, aimed at keeping participants and fans safe from abuse, exploitation and harassment. Games were staffed by a safeguarding official and all participants were briefed about abuse and how to report it.

FIFA will do much the same at the Women’s World Cup that starts next week. Among the programs for players, teams and other stakeholders are pre-tournament educational presentations. Every participating nation must designate a player welfare official, required to complete a safeguarding course. FIFA is also unveiling a training and shadow program to develop competition safeguarding officers.

There will also be confidential ways around the clock to report abuse with what FIFA says is a “victim-centered approach.”

During the tournament, FIFA will also implement an initiative designed to protect players from abuse on social media, developed along with FIFPRO. First used the men's World Cup in Qatar, the service uses artificial intelligence to identify problematic posts, which are then reported. Players and teams also have access to moderation software to hide posts that are abusive, discriminatory, or threatening.

It’s clear that such programs are necessary — and that more work needs to be done to protect players.

Q1. The Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Abu Dhabi on July 15 after concluding a two-day visit to

1. Paris
2. London
3. Vienna
4. Oslo
5. None of These

Q2. Name the state whose chief minister  who has made 2,715 announcements in the last three years ?

1. Uttar Pradesh
2. Chhattisgarh                                            
3. Madhya Pradesh
4. Bihar
5. None of These

Q3. The Yogi Adityanath's cabinet has  approved two thermal power projects — ‘Obra D’ —- of 800 MW capacity each to be built at the cost of Rs 18,000 crore in the tribal district of

1. Lalitpur
2. Sonbhadra
3. Jhansi
4. Mirzapur
5. None of These

Q4.  Name the Czech writer who wrote The Unbearable Lightness of Being and who  died recently ?

1. Franz Kafka
2. Bohumil Hrabal
3. Jaroslav Hašek
4. Milan Kundera
5. None of These

Q5. Name the former Sri Lankan  President has paid the first instalment of 15 million Sri Lankan Rupees as compensation to the victims of the Easter terror attacks in 2019

1. Maithripala Sirisena
2. Gotabaya Rajapaksa
3. Ranil Wickremesinghe
4. Mahinda Rajapaksa
5. None of These                                          

Answers

1-------------------1  Paris

2------------------3   Madhya Pradesh

3-------------------2  Sonbhadra

4-------------------4 Milan Kundera

5----------------------1  Maithripala Sirisena

A sub-divisional magistrate (SDM) in Madhya Pradesh's Jhabua district was arrested  for alleged sexual harassment of minor tribal girls at a government-run hostel.

The incident took place when SDM Sunil Kumar Jha went to inspect the hostel for tribal girls, as per a complaint filed against him.

Following the complaint, he has also been suspended.

The accused allegedly committed obscene acts with the minor students during the inspection, Superintendent of Police Agam Jain said quoting the complaint by the hostel's superintendent.

Based on the complaint, Jha was arrested and a case registered against him under Indian Penal Code sections 354 (assault or criminal force to woman with intent to outrage her modesty), 354A (sexual harassment), and relevant provisions of the Protection of Children from of Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, Jain said.

The Election Commission of India (ECI) has updated the current office-bearers of many political parties after their organisational elections and the commission has also uploaded the list of office-bearers of the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) as submitted by Edappadi K Palaniswami.  This is considered as a further approval of Palaniswami's leadership of the AIADMK by the ECI. 

Actor Vikram Mastal Sharma, who played the role of Lord Hanuman in Anand Sagar’s Ramayana, recently joined the Congress at a Hanuman temple built by state party chief Kamal Nath in Chhindwara district. On the same day when small screen’s Hanuman joined Congress, the king of erstwhile Rewa state Pushpraj Singh (who was a minister in the past Congress government headed by Digvijaya Singh) joined the BJP.