Daily News Dose: NGO revokes Swapna's appointment | Feb 19, 2022

Hello listeners, this is your daily dose of news from Onmanorama. I'm your host, Gopika KP.

1) A separatist leader in eastern Ukraine ordered a full military mobilisation amid growing invasion fears. Denis Pushilin, the head of the pro-Russian separatist government in the Donetsk region, released a statement today announcing a full troop mobilisation and urging reservists to show up at military enlistment offices. The move comes amid a spike in violence along the line of contact
between Ukrainian forces and Russia-backed rebels in the region in recent days that fuelled Western fears that Moscow could use it as a pretext for an invasion.

2) Gold smuggling case-accused Swapna Suresh's plans of a new career has gone up in smoke soon after she joined the Thodupuzha office of a Delhi-based non-governmental organization. The NGO named High-Range Rural Development Society (HRDS) India has decided to revoke her appointment in a key post, reasoning that it was done without the sanction of the management or the chairman. S Krishna Kumar, BJP leader and Chairman of HRDS India, said that the job was given to Swapna illegally and neither the Board or himself had any role in the decision.

3) The International Olympic Committee on Saturday awarded India the right to host the IOC Session in Mumbai next year. Nita Ambani, the Indian representative on the committee, described it as "a significant development for the country's Olympic aspiration". India will host the session for the first time since 1983. The session will be hosted at the state-of-the-art, brand new Jio World Convention Centre. Mumbai received a historic 99% of the votes in favour of its bid from the delegates participating in the process, with 75 members endorsing its candidature in the session held at Beijing.

4) A notorious fraudster who was behind the Total 4U scam that rocked Kerala a decade ago is back again duping gullible investors. A group of 10 students from Pathamuttom village have complained to the police that Rs 75 lakh was extorted from them by two fraudsters by offering them profit from a non-existent juice parlour. The youth filed the police complaint against Sabarinath, who was the
prime accused in the Total 4U fraud, and Thattarathodi Nibil Nath of Feroke in Kozhikode for duping them.

5) A public offering of shares by India's state-run Life Insurance Corp (LIC), set to be the country's biggest yet at $8 billion, is expected to open for anchor investors on March 11, three sources with
direct knowledge of the matter said. The book will open for bidding by other investors a couple of days later, the sources said.

6) India's COVID-19 tally climbed to 4.28 crore on Saturday with 22,270 more people testing positive for the viral disease, while the number of active cases came down to 2,53,739. The death toll reached 5,11,230 with 325 fresh fatalities, the data updated at 8am stated.

That brings us to the end of this episode! Be sure to come back tomorrow. As always, thanks for listening to Daily News Dose.