Novak Djokovic needed only 75 minutes to win his 90th tour title, overcoming third-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-3, 6-4 in the final of the Astana Open.

Djokovic dominated his Greek opponent from the start, winning the first game in little more than a minute.

India registered a hat-trick of wins in their ongoing AFC U-17 Asian Cup 2023 Qualifiers campaign, defeating Myanmar 4-1 at the Prince Saud Bin Jalawi Stadium in Al-Khobar R (Saudi Arabia). India will take on hosts Saudi Arabia .

Q1. Name the village of Gujarat which has been declared as India’s first 24x7 solar-powered village by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi?

1. Zuluk  
2. Modhera
3. Darchik
4. Ziro
5. None of These

Q2. Name the country which will  host  Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) joint anti-terror drill to enhance operational capabilities?

1. China
2. Russia
3. Kazakhstan
4. India
5. None of These

Q3. Name the Samajwad Party founder who helmed Uttar Pradesh as Chief Minister thrice and former Defence Minister and  who died recently ?

1. Sharad Yadav
2. Ramnaresh Yadav
3. Mulayam Singh Yadav
4. Ram Gopal Yadav
5. None of These

Q4. Name the Indian-American author who is among the finalists for the 2022 National Book Awards, which will be announced on November 16 at Cipriani Wall Street in New York City ?

1. Jhumpa Lahiri  
2. Anuradha Roy
3. Aravind Adiga
4. Sarah Thankam Mathews
5. None of These

Q5. Name the tennis player who has won  his 90th tour title, overcoming third-seeded Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-3, 6-4 in the final of the Astana Open.

1. Novak Djokovic
2. Rafael Nadal
3. Carlos Alcaraz
4. Daniil Medvedev
5. None of These

Answers

1--------------------------------------- 2   Modhera

2--------------------------------------4   India

3---------------------------------------3       Mulayam Singh Yadav

4---------------------------------------4   Sarah Thankam Mathews

5---------------------------------------1  Novak Djokovic

A man-eating tiger that killed nine people in the Valmiki Tiger Reserve (VTR) area in Bihar’s West Champaran district in the last 26 days was finally shot dead on Oct 8, causing much relief to the

Sources in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) said on Oct 8 that former Governor of J&K and Meghalaya, Satya Pal Malik, was questioned in connection with his claim that he was offered Rs 300 crore to clear two files during his tenure as J&K Governor.

The CBI had registered two separate cases following allegations levelled by Malik of malpractices in awarding contract of J&K Employees Health Care Insurance Scheme to a private company and release of Rs 60 crore in 2017-18. The second case was lodged on the allegation that a civil works contract worth Rs 2,200 crore for Kiru Hydro Electric Power Project was given to a private firm flouting the rules in 2019.

Malik was the Governor of Jammu and Kashmir between August 2018 and October 2019.

After lodging these two cases, the probe agency had formed several teams to unearth the entire conspiracy.

Infamous for witchcraft Killings, Jharkhand has earned the disrepute of having the highest percentage of underage girls getting married, according to the latest demographic sample survey by the Union Home Ministry.

The percentage of girls getting married before attaining majority is as high as 5.8 in Jharkhand, according to the survey brought out by the office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, Ministry of Home Affairs.

In Jharkhand, child marriages accounted for 7.3 per cent of marriages in rural areas and three per cent in urban areas, it said.

The Sample Registration System (SRS) Statistical Report contains estimates of various demographic, fertility and mortality indicators based on the data collected through one of the largest demographic surveys in the world covering about 8.4 million sample population.

The survey was conducted in 2020 and the report was published late last month.

Jharkhand and West Bengal are the only two states in the country where more than half of the women are married before attaining the age of 21 years.

The survey said that while 54.9 per cent of girls are married in West Bengal before attaining the age of 21 years, the figure for Jharkhand is 54.6 per cent as against the national average of 29.5 per cent.

Meanwhile, as per the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), 32 people were killed on allegations of practising witchcraft in Jharkhand in 2015, 27 in 2016, 19 in 2017, 18 in 2018, and 15 each in 2019 and 2020.

Russia on  Oct 8 appointed a new general to lead the Ukraine offensive after Moscow suffered a series of military setbacks that triggered criticism of the army's leadership.

The Russian defence ministry said General Sergey Surovikin had been appointed  "commander of the Joint Grouping of Forces in the areas of the special military operation", using the Kremlin's term for the offensive.

The decision was announced after Moscow's forces were pushed back by Kyiv in recent weeks in areas the Kremlin had declared Russian "forever".

According to the ministry's website, Surovikin is 55, born in Siberia's Novosibirsk.

He has combat experience in the 1990s conflicts in Tajikistan and Chechnya and, more recently, in Syria, where Moscow intervened in 2015 on the side of Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Russian forces were driven out of much of the northeastern Kharkiv region in early September by a Ukrainian counter-offensive that allowed Kyiv to retake thousands of square kilometres of territory.

Russian troops also lost territory in the southern Kherson region as well as the Lyman transport hub in eastern Ukraine.

The setbacks led to growing criticism of the military leadership, including from the elite.

Just a week ago, 34-year-old Ibrahim Traore was an unknown, even in his native Burkina Faso. But in the space of a weekend, he catapulted himself from army captain to the world's youngest leader -- an ascent that has stoked hopes but also fears for a poor and chronically troubled country.

Traore, at the head of a core of disgruntled junior officers, ousted Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba, who had seized power just in January.

The motive for the latest coup -- as in January -- was anger at failures to stem a seven-year jihadist insurgency that has claimed thousands of lives and driven nearly two million people from their homes.

On Oct 5 , Traore was declared president and "guarantor of national independence, territorial integrity... and continuity of the State."

At that lofty moment, Traore became the world's youngest leader, wresting the title from Chilean President Gabriel Boric, a whole two years older.

Traore's previously unknown face is now plastered on portraits around the capital Ouagadougou.

Traore was born in Bondokuy, in western Burkina Faso, and studied geology in Ouagadougou before joining the army in 2010.

He graduated as an officer from the Georges Namonao Military School -- a second-tier institution compared to the prestigious Kadiogo Military Academy (PMK) of which Damiba and others in the elite are alumni.

He served in the badly-hit north and centre of the country before heading to a posting in neighbouring Mali in 2018 in the UN's MINUSMA peacekeeping mission. He was appointed captain in 2020.