·       After recovering a heritage Hublot wristwatch that belonged to Diego Maradona, the Assam Police seized several other stolen items, believed to be that of the late football legend.

·       During a raid at the house of the in-laws of Wazid Hussein, the police recovered two iPads, one jacket, one T-shirt, two pairs of shoes, a toy doll, two squash rackets, one watch, six lighters, among others.

·       On Dec 10  night the Sivasagar Police had recovered the heritage Hublot wristwatch and arrested the accused Wazid Hussein. He worked as a domestic help at the football star’s Dubai home.

·       Earlier, the Dubai Police had alerted an Indian law-enforcement agency about the accused. The latter, in turn, had informed the Assam Police of the 37-year-old accused. The next step of the Assam Police will be based on how the Dubai Police want the case to be pursued.

·       The senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Dec 13  invited stand-up comedians Kunal Kamra and Munawar Faruqui to hold a programme at Bhopal in the BJP-ruled Madhya Pradesh after they were recently denied permission for shows in Bengaluru.

·       Faruqui was last month denied nod to hold a show at Bengaluru in Karnataka amid the protest by the Hindu right wing outfits.

·       A few days later, Kamra, a vocal critic of the government, said his stand-up shows scheduled to be held in Bengaluru were cancelled after the organisers received threats.

·       Earlier this year, Faruqui had spent a month in jail at Indore in MP following a complaint by a BJP MLA's son in January for allegedly hurting religious sentiments. 

·       The BJP MLA Harbans Kapoor passed away at his residence in Dehradun on Dec 13 . He was 75.

·       An eight-time MLA, Kapoor was one of the seniormost members of the Uttarakhand Assembly.

·        The Reigning world chess champion Magnus Carlsen of Norway defended his title and won the FIDE World Championship on Dec 10 in Dubai.

·       He beat Ian Nepomniachtchi of Russia, securing the one point he needed to cross the seven point threshold to win the global tournament held at Dubai's Expo 2020 this month in the United Arab Emirates.

·       Carlsen wins 60% of the 2 million-euro prize offered by the championship.

·       Indian weightlifters continued their good run at the ongoing Commonwealth Championships in Tashkent, with Jeremy Lalrinnunga and Achinta Sheuli winning a gold each in their respective weight categories on dec 10  to qualify for the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

·       The 2018 Youth Olympics gold medallist Jeremy set a new national record in snatch in 67kg, while Achinta broke two records — clean & jerk and total — in 73kg en route to the top finish.

·       The Championships also serves as a qualifying event of the 2022 CWG in Birmingham. The gold medallists in each weight category at the Commonwealth Championships directly qualify for the 2022 CWG and the rest will qualify through Commonwealth rankings.

·       Indian rowers had a good day at the ongoing Asian Championships in Thailand as they struck a gold and a silver medal on Dec 11 . The double sculls pair of Arjun Lal Jat, who competed in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and Ravi clinched gold while debutant Parminder Singh bagged silver in single sculls.

·       In double sculls, the Indian pair finished first in 6:57.88 minutes ahead of teams from Thailand, China, Uzbekistan, Indonesia and Singapore. The silver won by Parminder on his debut will hold a great importance as he became the first civilian from the country in several years to bag a rowing medal in an international meet. The single sculler clocked 8:07.32 minutes to finish behind his Uzbekistan counterpart in the race.

·       Indonesia's Mulyo Handoyo and Malaysia's Tan Kim Her are set to return as India's singles and doubles badminton coaches with the national federation hoping to finalise their appointments by the end of this month.

·       Tough taskmaster Mulyo, who has coached Athens Olympic gold medallist Taufik Hidayat, had a brief stint in India and is credited for the success of men's singles players like Kidambi Srikanth, B Sai Praneeth and HS Prannoy in 2017.

·       Tan Kim Her, on the other hand, is the man responsible for forging India's best doubles pair of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy, who under his guidance won the Commonwealth Games silver, played a vital role in the team gold in 2018 and also broke into world's top 20.

·      BAI had advertised for the coaches' posts on November 18 after men's singles coach Agus Dwi Santoso departed , few weeks before the completion of his contract.

·       Manolo Santana, who became the first Spaniard to win Wimbledon and inspired his country's rise as a tennis power, died  on Dec 11 at the age of 83.

·       Santana won four major singles titles as he took the French Open in 1961 and 1964, the US Open at Forest Hills in 1965 and Wimbledon in 1966.