The ED has arrested Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) communication in-charge Vijay Nair and businessman Abhishek Boinpally in connection with its ongoing probe into the Delhi Excise policy that was scraped following corruption allegations.

The two are currently in judicial custody and lodged in jail here after the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) arrested them in the same case.

They would be confronted with the other accused – P Sarath C Reddy and Binoy Babu – arrested by the agency last week. All accused will be questioned in the presence of each other.

Nair, the former CEO of Only Much Louder (OML), an entertainment and event management company, and Abhishek Boinpally, a Hyderabad-based businessman, was arrested by the CBI in September, while Boinpally was apprehended last month.

The duo have been in judicial custody since last month after their interrogation by the CBI.

The Hyderabad-based Boinpally is not named as an accused in the CBI FIR but his close associate and partner Arun Ramchandra Pillai is.

The two founded Robin Distribution LLP in July this year.

According to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), Nair and Boinpally were actively involved in irregularities in framing and implementation of excise policy. They influenced the distribution of liquor licenses to various traders and distributors and were involved in large-scale cartelization.

The ED earlier arrested Sameer Mahandru, promoter of liquor company Indospirit, general manager of liquor company Pernod Ricard, Benoy Babu, and P Sarath Chandra Reddy, whole-time director and promoter of Aurobindo Pharma.

Television actor Kalyani Kurale Jadhav died in a road accident on  Nov 12 evening.

The 32-year-old actor met with a road accident on Sangali Kolhapur highway near Halondi village in Kolhapur district.

Kalyani was a Marathi television actor. She acted in TV serials including 'Tujhyat Jeev Rangla' and 'Dakkhancha Raja Jyotiba'.

Almost 75.6 per cent polling was recorded in Himachal Pradesh assembly elections. The state went for a single-phase election on Nov 13 . While 76.8 per cent of the total female electorate exercised their franchise, it was 72.4 per cent among men. The third gender poll percentage was 68.4 per cent.

In these elections more women exercised their franchise than men as 76.8 percent were women voters and 72.4 per cent men. Both the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the main opposition Congress have expressed confidence to form the next government.

The highest polling percentage of 85.25 per cent was reported from Doon assembly segment and the lowest polling percentage of 62.53 per cent was in Shimla.

Turkey's Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu on Nov 14 said that the person, who planted the bomb on Istanbul's Istiklal Street that killed at least six people, has been arrested.

At least 81 people were injured when an explosion rocked the busy pedestrian street. Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay called it a "terrorist attack."

Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said that CCTV footage shows a woman sitting on a bench for more than 40 minutes and then getting up one or two minutes before the explosion, leaving a bag or plastic bag behind. He further informed that earlier, a woman, who was suspected of being involved in the attack, was kept in custody.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that preliminary information indicated that the blast was a terrorist attack. 

US President Joe Biden arrived in Indonesia’s Bali on Nov 13 for a summit of the world’s 20 largest economies and a high-stakes meeting with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.

The US leader said he expects to establish “red lines” in Washington’s fraught relations with Beijing in his first face-to-face talks as president with Xi.

The superpower sit-down will come on the sidelines of the G20 summit from Nov 14 , the biggest gathering by the group since the Covid-19 pandemic began.

Biden said he was going into the discussions with Xi “stronger”, after his Democratic Party’s unexpected success in midterm elections they had been forecast to lose heavily.

President Joe Biden and the leaders of Japan and South Korea on Nov 13 vowed a unified, coordinated response to North Korea's threatening nuclear and ballistic missile programs, with Biden declaring that the three-way partnership is “even more important than it's ever been” when North Korea is stepping up its provocations.

Biden met separately with Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol before all three sat down together on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in Cambodia.

G20 health and finance ministers launched a $1.4-billion fund on Nov 13  to tackle the next global pandemic ahead of the bloc's leaders gathering for a summit on the Indonesian resort island of Bali but the host's president said it was not enough.

The 24-nation fund is viewed as one of the early global outcomes of the summit next week where little progress is expected on the Ukraine crisis with Russian President Vladimir Putin, not in attendance.

It was launched at a news conference on Nov 13 opened by Indonesian President Joko Widodo and addressed by World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and World Bank President David Malpass.

He said $31 billion was required to tackle the next global pandemic.

The United States has contributed $450 million to the fund, nearly a third of the total. US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the joint fund was an example of what the G20 can do to tackle global problems.

The fund's major donors include the United States, Britain, India, China, France, Canada, Australia and Japan.

Indian-origin Nobel laureate Professor Venki Ramakrishnan has been awarded the Order of Merit -- an exclusive mark of honour conferred by the British sovereign -- in recognition of his distinguished service to science.

Molecular biologist Ramakrishnan, 70, is among six appointments made to the order by Queen Elizabeth II before her death in September.

Tamil Nadu-born Venki received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work on ribosomal structure and was knighted in 2012.

He is a Member of the US National Academy of Sciences, Leopoldina and EMBO, and a Foreign Member of the Indian National Science Academy. He was President of the Royal Society from November 2015 until November 2020.

The Order of Merit, founded in 1902 by King Edward VII, is a special mark of honour conferred by the Sovereign on individuals of exceptional distinction in the armed forces, science, arts, literature, or for the promotion of culture.