Evening brief: Jaishankar to co-chair India-Nepal meet

External affairs minister S Jaishankar will make his first foreign visit of the year to Nepal during January 4-5 to co-chair a meeting of the bilateral joint commission and to hold talks with the leadership in Kathmandu to take forward ties in areas ranging from connectivity to development cooperation. Jaishankar is visiting Nepal at the invitation of foreign minister NP Saud, who will join him to co-chair the seventh meeting of the joint commission, which was established in 1987 and acts as a platform for both foreign ministers to review all aspects of the bilateral partnership. During the visit, Jaishankar will call on the leadership of Nepal and meet prominent political figures, the external affairs ministry said in a statement announcing the visit on Wednesday. Dig Deeper
Replies to all RTI applications need to be approved by the general manager of the zone or divisional railway manager of the division and responses to appeals also need their clearance, the Railways said in a recent notification, stressing on stricter compliance with the provisions of the law. The notification, issued on December 28, came days after a controversy broke out over the railways’ response to a RTI application on the cost of selfie booths featuring Prime Minister Narendra Modi at railway stations within the Central Railway zone. On December 29, the Central Railways zone board also transferred its chief public relations officer (CPRO), replacing Shivraj Manaspure with Swapnil D Nila, who previously served as the divisional office manager of the Pune division. Manaspure, who served in the position for eight months against the official tenure of three years. The RTI was signed by deputy general manager/public information officer of the central railway Abhay Mishra. Dig Deeper
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Some details of Salman Khan’s new collaboration with Karan Johar have surfaced. Titled The Bull, the shoot was kicked off with the mahurat shot in Mumbai on December 29. The film will be backed by Karan’s Dharma Productions, and directed by Vishnu Vardhan of Shershaah-fame. As per a press note, Salman will play Brigadier Farukh Bulsara, who led Operation Cactus in 1988 in the Maldives. He will essay a paramilitary officer in the movie and begin filming in February. The Bull will present a retelling of Operation Cactus, wherein the Indian armed forces, on November 3, 1988, assisted the Maldives in reclaiming control following a coup attempt led by businessman Abdullah Luthufi and the People’s Liberation Organisation of Tamil Eelam (PLOTE). Dig Deeper
There were a couple aimed at Dean Elgar’s rib cage. The South Africa stand-in skipper, in his last Test, somehow managed to survive even though one lobbed in the air and landed agonisingly close to the short leg and short mid on fielders. India were out there with a clear plan in the second Test at Newlands in Cape Town. Or were they? After Mohammed Siraj peppered Elgar’s weak point – he has been out caught down the leg four times in his last three Test – Jasprit Bumrah dished out a toe-crushing yorker that nearly swept the left-hander’s off his feat. The wry smile on his face was perhaps the biggest indicator that the Indian pacers were back. And that there was no pattern to their destruction. Both edges were being challenged. It was going to be head-to-toe stuff. This was the pace attack that tormented batters around the world for the last five years. They had merely taken a breather in Centurion. Dig Deeper