08:27 K L Rahul, Murali Vijay dropped from Team India squad for MCG Test:
he Indian team management named the playing XI for the Boxing Day Test and there are quite a few changes in the team from the XI that took the field in the second Test in Perth.
Both the openers KL Rahul and Murali Vijay have been dropped and Mayank Agarwal is set to make his debut. All-rounder Ravindra Jadeja also comes in for Umesh Yadav as the thinktank decided to pick a spinner. ODI deputy Rohit Sharma also makes a comeback to the team.
The playing XI for 3rd Test goes: Virat Kohli (C), Ajinkya Rahane (VC), Mayank Agarwal, Hanuma Vihari, Cheteshwar Pujara, Rohit Sharma, Rishabh Pant (WK), Ravindra Jadeja, Mohammed Shami, Ishant Sharma, Jasprit Bumrah.
08:17 Erdogan invites Trump to visit Turkey: White House:
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has invited his American counterpart Donald Trump to visit Turkey in 2019, the White House has said.
“President Erdogan invited President Trump to visit Turkey in 2019. While nothing definite is being planned, the President is open to a potential meeting in the future,” a White House spokesperson said.
The invitation comes just days after Trump made the controversial decision to withdraw American troops from Syria, where they have been deployed to assist in the international war against the Islamic State jihadist group.
Turkey was a rare ally that lauded Trump’s decision on Syria, a country where it will now have a freer rein to target Kurdish fighters who were armed and trained by the US and played a major role in the war against IS but are deemed terrorists by Ankara.
Turkey has said an offensive targeting the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units militia and IS group will be launched in the coming months, and has deployed troops to the Syrian border.
08:03 Madhya Pradesh Cabinet ministers to take oath today:
The new Cabinet of Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath will take oath on December 25.
The oath ceremony would take place at Raj Bhawan at 3 pm.
Congress veteran Nath was sworn-in as Chief Minister on December 17, six days after his party posted a narrow victory over the BJP, which ruled the state for 15 years.
Nath has been camping in New Delhi since the past three days to finalise the list of his Cabinet colleagues, to be sworn in today, in consultation with Congress president Rahul Gandhi and other senior party leaders.
Their names have not been made public so far.
According to party sources, one or two Independent MLAs may get into the new Cabinet.
Though the Congress, with 114 seats, emerged as the single largest party in the 230-member assembly, it failed to cross the halfway mark on its own and enlisted support of the
BSP and the SP, which have won two seats and one, respectively.
Four Independent MLAs, who are Congress rebels, have also extended their support, taking the total number of MLAs on the Congress side to 121.
The BJP had won 109 seats.
The MP assembly session is going to begin on January 7 with the oath-taking by newly elected MLAs.
— PTI
00:12 Don’t trouble Hanuman, your Lanka will be on fire: Raj Babbar to BJP:
Uttar Pradesh Congress chief Raj Babbar Monday asked the BJP to refrain from making statements on Lord Hanuman, suggesting that the party lost elections in three states by dragging the deity into politics.
The Congress leader’s remarks came amid a row over Lord Hanuman’s caste triggered by Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath when he called the deity a Dalit during a rally in the run-up to the Rajasthan assembly elections.
“Don’t trouble Lord Hanuman too much. With a swipe of his tail, the BJP lost elections in three states, Now, their Lanka will be on fire,” he told reporters here.
While addressing a rally in Rajasthan’s Alwar district, Adityanath had said, “Hanuman was a forest dweller, deprived and a Dalit. Bajrang Bali worked to unite all Indian communities, from north to south and east to west.”
A few days later, National Commission for Scheduled Tribes chairperson Nand Kumar Sai had claimed that Lord Hanuman was a tribal.
Last week, Bukkal Nawab, a BJP MLC from Uttar Pradesh, claimed that the monkey god was a Muslim while UP’s Religious Affairs Minister Laxmi Narayan Chaudhary stated that the Hindu deity belonged to the Jat community.
Samajwadi Party’s national general secretary and former MP Rama Shankar Vidyarthi had claimed that Lord Hanuman belonged to tribal ‘Gond’ community. — PTI
Source: Rediff