Hamas Rejects Blair's Proposal on Truce with Israel
Hamas rejected of a proposal by Tony Blair on reaching a long-term truce with Israel.
As per Hamas leader Mahmoud al-Zahar, the group does not have a new truce deal, but an implementation of the ceasefire agreement announced by Egypt in August last year.
In August Hamas confirmed for the first time that it has conducted a meeting with Mr. Blair to stabilise the ceasefire with Israel in the Gaza Strip.
As per Hamas officials, these talks were still in the making and have not reached a final stage, while various media reports said the talks reached a dead-end.
State-run Syndicate Bank and United Bank of India cut their benchmark lending rates by up to 0.30 percent.
Other banks which have or have announced to cut rates are:
Karur Vysya Bank, United Bank of India, United Bank of India.
The rate cut has been triggered by Reserve Bank revising downward its benchmark short-term lending (repo) rate by 0.50 percent in its fourth bimonthly monetary policy review.
Following this about 20 banks from public and private sectors have cut interest rates by up to 0.40 percent. Market majors like SBI, ICICI Bank, PNB, BoB have cut rates.
CIL Misses September Output Target
State-owned Coal India recorded an output of 37.17 million tonnes in September, missing the target by 4.1 per cent. The target for September was 38.77 million tonnes, Coal India. The government has set one billion tonne production goal for this public sector undertaking by 2020. The corresponding figure for the current fiscal is 550 million tonnes. Coal India missed the production target for 2014-15 by three per cent, recording an output of 494.23 million tonnes. It accounts for over 80 per cent of the domestic coal production.
Sania Mirza and Martina Hingis clinched the Wuhan Open women's doubles trophy.
They defeated the Romanian team of Irina-Camelia Begu and Monica Niculescu in the title clash.
With this win, the Indo-Swiss pairing has seven WTA doubles titles together this year – Indian Wells, Miami, Charleston, Wimbledon, the US Open, Guangzhou and Wuhan.
Elections to local self-government institutions in Kerala will be held in two phases, on November 2 and November 5.
As many as 21,871 wards in 941 grama panchayats, 152 blocks, 14 district panchayats, 86 municipalities, and six Corporations will go to the polls in two phases.
As per reports, the election schedule is as follows:
Thiruvananthapuram, Kollam, Idukki, Kozhikode, Wayanad, Kannur, and Kasaragod districts will go to the polls on November 2 and Pathanamthitta, Kottayam, Alappuzha, Ernakulam, Thrissur, Palakkad, and Malappuram on November 5.