Uday Prakash decided to return his Sahitya Akademi award in protest against the murder of Kannada scholar and rationalist M.M. Kalburgi.

The former assistant professor at the Jawaharlal Nehru University here announced his intent through a Facebook post in Hindi. Currently in a village in Chhattisgarh, he will officially communicate his decision to the Akademi and return the award money of Rs.1 lakh and the citation next week when he returns to the Capital.

Women to get permanent commission in the Navy

The Delhi High Court said it would not allow \"sexist bias\" to block women’s progress.

In a landmark judgment, the Delhi High Court on 4^th September allowed women to be granted permanent commission in the Navy, ensuring that women naval officers enjoyed rights similar to their counterparts in the Army and the Air Force.

The court said it would not allow “sexist bias” to block women’s progress.

Allowing a bunch of writ petitions moved by a group of women naval officers, a Division Bench said since women were “here to stay” and since they worked shoulder to shoulder with their male counterparts, the court would “frown upon any endeavour to restrain the progress of women”.

The Bench, comprising Justice Kailash Gambhir and Justice Najmi Waziri, held that women could now have full-term service in the Navy and enjoy retirement benefits, including pension.

As of now, Navy treated women officers as a group entitled only to a short service commission of 14 years and men were entitled to both short service and permanent commissions.

The women naval officers were not eligible for pension, since it required a minimum of 20 years of service. The petitions were filed by a group of women officers, both retired and serving, from the logistics, education and air traffic control departments of the Navy.

The petitioners contended that they were losing out on career opportunities and had been deprived of pension because of the forced short service commission.

The High Court had issued notices in the case to the Chief of the Naval Staff and the Defence Ministry, asking them to clarify their stand. It had asked the respondents to explain the criteria adopted by them in case of women and men officers while deciding on the permanent commission.

42-member Sri Lankan Cabinet sworn in

31 Ministers belong to the UNP and the rest to the SLFP; there are three Tamils and four Muslims in the Cabinet.

A 42-member Council of Cabinet Ministers was sworn in by President Maithripala Sirisena in Colombo on Friday.

Thirty one of the Cabinet Ministers belong to the United National Party (UNP) and the remaining 11 to the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP). There are three Ministers from the Tamil community and four Muslims. The Cabinet includes two women, both from the UNP.

The total figure does not include Mangala Samaraweera, who was made Foreign Affairs Minister 10 days ago at a low profile event besides the President, who is the head of the Cabinet under the Constitution of Sri Lanka.

On Thursday, Parliament adopted a motion to increase the number of Cabinet Ministers not exceeding 48 and that of other categories of Ministers, not more than 45.

Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe was the first to take oath as Minister-in-charge of National Policy and Economic Affairs followed by his party colleague, John Amaratunga, who has been put in charge of Tourism Development and Christian Affairs.

Sri Lanka Central Bank receives $1.1 bn from RBI

Sri Lanka Central Bank received 1.1 billion dollars from the Reserve Bank of India, under the currency swap agreement between the two reserve banks.

Consequent to the signing of a special currency swap agreement for USD 1.1 billion by the Central Bank of Sri Lanka (CBSL) with the Reserve Bank of India on 17 July 2015, the CBSL has received USD 1.1 billion, a statement said.

This is in addition to the USD 400 million received in April 2015, the bank added.

With the enhanced level of official reserves, the CBSL expects that the exchange rate would stabilise in line with sound macro economic fundamentals and movements of other currencies of major trading partners.

In a related development, the central bank has allowed the rupee to float from today, by not quoting a specific rate in the market. The rupee exchange rate had eased to 134.75 rupees to the US dollar yesterday.

The central bank will allow the market to decide the exchange rate by not guiding with a specific rate. The bank will intervene, if the levels are too high.

Analysts say the rupee had fallen 2.7 per cent so far this year, due to increased imports.

RBI crisis fund short of target

or the last two years, the RBI has made no transfers to its Contingency Fund or its Asset Development Fund.

Contingency funds with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), used in case of unforeseen shocks, have fallen to 8.4 per cent of total assets, against a target of 12 per cent, as shown in its Annual Report for 2014-15 released on August 27.

For the last two years, the RBI has made no transfers to its Contingency Fund or its Asset Development Fund. The balance in these funds, therefore, has barely changed since 2013, when they made up 10.1 per cent of total assets.

While the total in these two funds stood at Rs.2,424 billion in 2012-13, it was Rs.2,434 billion in 2014-15.

The capital requirements of a central bank can vary considerably depending on a number of factors, according to the annual report.

Vijaya Bank cuts Base Rate

Vijaya Bank, on Friday announced a reduction in its base rate by 15 basis points with effect from September 4, 2015. Accordingly, the revised base rate will be 9.85 per cent per annum against the existing rate of 10 per cent. This is the second rate cut announced by the Bank during the last three months. With this reduction in base rate, Vijaya Bank is poised to hike its exposure in retail lending especially in the housing and Vehicle segment.