Russia welcomes surgical strikes

• Russia “welcomed” the surgical strike by India, saying every country had a right to defend itself.
• Russia’s Ambassador to New Delhi Alexander M. Kadakin said his country had always been with India in fighting cross-border terrorism.
• He assured India that it did not need to worry about the Russia-Pakistan joint military exercise, saying it did not take place in the “Pakistan-occupied Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir”.

Jawhar Sircar

• Prasar Bharati Corporation CEO Jawhar Sircar has submitted his resignation four months ahead of the end of his tenure.
• As per rules of the Prasar Bharati (Broadcasting Corporation of India) Act, 1990, the CEO has to inform the administrative authority, which is the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, as he holds the office during the pleasure of the President of India.

Putin scraps plutonium disposal deal with U.S.

• Russian President Vladimir Putin on 03-10- 2016 ordered a halt to an agreement with the United States on plutonium disposal deal.
• The deal, signed in 2000, was meant to allow both nuclear powers to dispose of weapons-grade plutonium from their defence programmes.
• The two countries recommitted to the deal in 2010. Mr. Putin charged earlier this year that the United States was not honouring the agreement by disposing of plutonium in a way that allowed it to retain its defence capabilities.
• The suspension is symbolic of the breakdown in nuclear nonproliferation cooperation.
• The decree published states that Russia is pulling out of the agreement “due to a drastic change in circumstances, the appearance of a threat to strategic stability due to unfriendly actions of the United States toward Russia”.
• It claimed that Washington was “unable” to carry out the terms of the agreement and that Moscow “must take urgent measures to defend Russian security”.

Economic impact of India-Pak tensions will be marginal: Jaitley

• Finance Minister Arun Jaitley has expressed confidence that any economic impact arising from recent situation with Pakistan and incidents like the surgical strikes undertaken by Indian special forces will be “extremely marginal”.
• “Even recently, when the news came that India had made certain surgical strikes at the launch pads where the terrorists used to cross into Indian boundaries.

Lodha Panel freezes BCCI bank accounts

• The stand-off between the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and the Justice R.M.
• Lodha Committee, the Supreme Court-appointed panel to oversee reforms ordered on July 18, is going down the wire.
• Two days after the BCCI virtually defied the Supreme Court order by not adopting the new rulebook.
• The Lodha panel has barred the BCCI banks from releasing any funds in relation to last week’s sudden decision to disburse the surplus through Champions League Twenty20 settlement among state associations till the Supreme Court hearing on October 6.
• “It has come to the notice of this committee that certain decisions have been taken at the ‘Emergent Working Committee’ meeting of the BCCI on 30th September 2016 to disburse large funds to the various member associations,” stated the email sent by Gopal Sankaranarayanan.
• The root of the huge windfall is the settlement of Rs. 1,603.11 crore, as specified in the BCCI annual report for 2015-16, that was added to the BCCI coffers as the settlement fees after Star India was allowed to scrap the CLT20 broadcast deal.
• For the year 2014-15, the BCCI had received Rs. 617 crore as the settlement amount and the AGM on Nov. 9, 2015 had decided to distribute half of it equally among its full members who are entitled to grants.
• For 2015-16, the BCCI finance committee had approved Rs. 750 crore to be distributed equally among its full members. A state association official, who attended the AGM, revealed that when the issue was raised in the AGM on Sept. 21, it was discussed that it remained a contentious issue since the house wasn’t sure if the Lodha panel would allow it to be carried out.