Jan 20 news LIVE | EU, India on brink of 'mother of all deals': Ursula in Davos

Trailblazer Indian shuttler Saina Nehwal, who has been out of action for the last two years due to a chronic knee condition, has confirmed her retirement from competitive badminton, saying her body could no longer cope with the physical demands of elite sport.

The 2012 London Olympic bronze medallist last played a competitive match at the Singapore Open in 2023 but did not formally announce her retirement at the time.

“I had stopped playing two years back. I actually felt that I entered the sport on my own terms and left on my own terms, so there was no need to announce it,” Saina said on a podcast.

“If you are not capable of playing anymore, that’s it. It’s fine.”

The former world No. 1 said the decision was forced by a severe degeneration of her knee, which made sustained high-intensity training impossible.

"Your cartilage has totally degenerated, you have arthritis, that's what my parents needed to know, my coaches needed to know that, and I just told them, 'Now probably I can't do it anymore, it is difficult',” she said.

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India on Monday (January 19) signed a USD 3-billion deal to buy liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the United Arab Emirates (UAE), making it the latter’s top customer, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan set a USD 200-billion annual trade target by 2032 while pledging to form a strategic defence partnership.

Abu Dhabi state firm ADNOC Gas will supply 0.5 million metric tons of LNG a year to Hindustan Petroleum Corp for 10 years, the companies said. ADNOC Gas told news agency Reuters the agreement brings the total value of its contracts with India to over USD 20 billion.

“India is now the UAE’s largest customer and a very important part of ADNOC Gas’s LNG strategy,” the company said, as quoted by Reuters. The UAE is India’s second-largest supplier of LNG after Qatar and India’s third largest trading partner.

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The Karnataka government has placed DGP (Civil Rights Enforcement) K Ramachandra Rao under suspension with immediate effect, pending inquiry, citing conduct unbecoming of a government servant and causing embarrassment to the state administration.

News channels beamed video on Monday (January 19) purportedly showing Karnataka DGP (Civil Rights Enforcement) K Ramachandra Rao in an alleged compromising position with women.

The video went viral in the social media as well. Rao sought to reject the videos outright terming them "fabricated and false".

In an official order issued by the Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms (DPAR) on Monday, the government said videos and news reports widely circulated on television channels and digital media platforms showed the senior IPS officer acting in an "obscene manner", prompting the decision to initiate disciplinary action.

"Vide videos and news reports widely broadcast on public news channels and media platforms, it is observed that Dr K Ramachandra Rao has acted in an obscene manner which is unbecoming of a Government Servant and also causing embarrassment to the Government," the government order said.

The order further said the matter was examined by the state government, which found that the officer's conduct amounted to violation of Rule-3 of the All India Services (Conduct) Rules, 1968.

The government said it is prima facie satisfied that "it is necessary to place Rao under suspension with immediate effect, pending inquiry".

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“Intimidation," “threats” and “blackmail” are just some of the terms being used by European Union leaders to describe US President Donald Trump's warning that he will slap new tariffs on nations opposing American control of Greenland.

European language has hardened since Trump returned to the White House 12 months ago.

Now it's in reaction to the previously unthinkable idea that NATO's most powerful member would threaten to seize the territory of another ally. Trade retaliation is likely should Trump make good on his tariff announcement.

A year into Trump 2.0, Europe's faith in the strength of the transatlantic bond is fading fast. For some, it's already disappeared. The flattery of past months has not worked and tactics are evolving as the Europeans try to manage threats from an old ally just as they confront the threat of an increasingly hostile Russia.

Trump's first term brought NATO to the brink of collapse. “I feared that NATO was about to stop functioning,” former Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg wrote in his recent memoir, after the US president had threatened to walk out of a 2018 summit.

Now, Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen is warning that should he try to annex Greenland, a semiautonomous part of Denmark, “then everything stops … including our NATO.” “We are at the very early stage of a rather deep political-military crisis,” said Maria Martisiute, a European Policy Centre analyst. “There is a greater realisation, even though political leaders will not like to admit it, that America has abandoned NATO.”

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The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is conducting searches within the premises of Chennai Ambattur Smart Creations, a company whose Chief Executive Officer, Pankaj Pandari, was previously arrested by the special investigation team in connection with the Sabarimala gold theft case.

Searches by the ED are underway in various locations in Kerala.

The Special Investigation Team (SIT) has arrested around 10 people so far in connection with the theft of gold plates from the Sabarimala Dwarapalaka statue.

The ED has registered a case for illegal money laundering and has been conducting an investigation.

The searches are taking place in Chennai’s Ambattur Estate among other areas.

Searches are also being conducted at the residence of Pathanraj Bhandari, who lives on the first floor of the KENT apartment complex on Ritherdon Road in Vepery, Chennai.

Nine MBBS students at Dehradun's Doon Medical College were on Monday (January 19) suspended and expelled from the hostel for allegedly ragging junior students.

The action against the MBBS students of the 2023 and 2024 batches was taken based on the recommendations made in the inquiry report of the Anti-Ragging Committee.

The committee found them guilty in the incident of assault on two junior students in the college hostel on January 12.

They said that two students have been suspended from classes for two months and expelled from the hostel and internship for the entire duration of their course. They have also been fined Rs 50,000 each.

The officials said that in addition, seven other senior students have been suspended from classes for one month and expelled from the hostel for three months.

An NRI professional on Monday (January 19) won her High Court appeal in London after a six-year battle for workplace fairness for women suffering from a chronic health condition.

Sanju Pal, a non-resident Indian from West Bengal, suffers from endometriosis and her case is expected to set a precedent on disability discrimination in the workplace related to the illness under the UK’s Equality Act 2010.

The 41-year-old was also challenging a controversial “up or out” progression-based model used to dismiss consultants for not being ready for promotion as unfair under the UK’s Employment Rights Act 1996.

“Ms Sanju Pal succeeds in appeal against (global management consulting firm) Accenture at the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT),” her lawyers said in a statement after the judgment was handed down.

The EAT concluded that an Employment Tribunal’s reasoning on disability discrimination due to endometriosis was “wholly inadequate” and therefore the decision cannot stand. “Her evidence that she was affected by endometriosis was supported by the medical evidence,” the EAT judgment reads.

“The Employment Tribunal also failed to consider whether the condition would continue to have substantial adverse effect on the claimant’s ability to undertake normal day-to-day activities absent medical treatment. The issue of disability will have to be considered entirely afresh,” it states.

Endometriosis is a condition causing pelvic pain that reportedly impacts around 1.5 million women in the UK.

The EAT concluded that the determinations that Pal was not disabled and that she was not subject to discrimination because of something arising in consequence of disability cannot stand, her lawyers highlight.

Having won her appeal on all grounds, the matter will be sent back to a newly constituted tribunal to ensure confidence that the issue of disability will be considered afresh. Pal’s case dates back to 2019, when she was dismissed as manager for alleged underperformance after not making promotion to senior manager level at management consulting firm Accenture (UK) Ltd.

She went on to challenge her dismissal at an Employment Tribunal, which upheld her unfair dismissal claim in May 2022 but awarded her just 4,275 pounds as a “basic award”.

A crackdown on demonstrators taking part in nationwide protests in Iran killed at least 4,029 people, activists said Tuesday (January 20).

The US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency offered the toll, saying more than 26,000 people have been detained in the crackdown as well.

It said of the dead, 3,786 were demonstrators, 180 security forces, 28 children and 35 were people not demonstrating.

It fears many more may have been killed.

At least 40 people are confirmed dead in a high-speed rail collision in southern Spain on Sunday (January 18) night, when the tail end of a train jumped the track, causing another train speeding past in the opposite direction to derail.

Juanma Moreno, the president of Andalusia, the southern Spanish region where the accident happened, confirmed the new death toll in an afternoon press conference. Efforts to recover the bodies from the two wrecked train cars continued, he added.

The impact tossed the second train’s lead carriages off the track, sending them plummeting down a four-metre slope. Some bodies were found hundreds of metres from the crash site, Moreno said earlier in the day, describing the wreckage as a “mass of twisted metal” with bodies likely still to be found inside.

The crash took place Sunday at 7.45 pm when the tail end of a train carrying 289 passengers on the route from Malaga to the capital, Madrid, went off the rails. It slammed into an incoming train travelling from Madrid to Huelva, another southern Spanish city.

The head of the second train, which was carrying nearly 200 passengers, took the brunt of the impact. That collision knocked its first two carriages off the track.

Valentino Garavani, the jet-set Italian designer whose high-glamour gowns — often in his trademark shade of “Valentino red” — were fashion show staples for nearly half a century, has died at home in Rome, his foundation announced Monday. He was 93.

“Valentino Garavani was not only a constant guide and inspiration for all of us, but a true source of light, creativity and vision,” the foundation said in a statement posted on social media.

His body will repose at the foundation's headquarters in Rome on Wednesday and Thursday. The funeral will be held Friday at the Basilica Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri in Rome's Piazza della Repubblica.

Universally known by his first name, Valentino was adored by generations of royals, first ladies and movie stars, from Jackie Kennedy Onassis to Julia Roberts and Queen Rania of Jordan, who swore the designer always made them look and feel their best.

“I know what women want,” he once remarked. “They want to be beautiful.”

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