Daily News Mail

Maithripal Sirisena is the new president of Sri Lanka

• Maithripal Sirisena, presidential candidate of the New Democratic Front is elected president of Sri Lanka. He was the common Opposition candidate in the Presidential election held on January 8, 2015.
• Mr. Rajpaksha had called for a fresh election two years ahead of the scheduled January 2016 because he was confident for another six years term. Mr. Rajapaksa, who had made the military victory over LTTE in 2009, the main theme of his government, believed that Sinhalese voters would once again repose(be situated or kept in a particular place) their faith in him. He had been unable to see that his one-family authoritarian rule had angered senior members of his Sri Lanka Freedom Party, and taken the shine off his image as the President who ended a three decade war.
• Mr. Sirisena was Health Minister in Rajapaksa government

Challenges ahead for Sirisena

• In his political agenda, Mr. Sirisena emphasised two types of political reforms, state reform and governance reform. The state reform agenda focussed on redemocratisation of the Sri Lankan state through reforming the executive Presidential election and abolition of the 18th Amendment, which made the office of the president enormously powerful and imperious(arrogant and domineering). 
• He received support mainly from Northern and Eastern Province, where Tamils and Muslims minorities are majority in population. He failed to secure majorities in most of the electorates which are predominantly Sinhalese.
• Mr. Rajapaksa's United People Front Alliance (UPFA) still has majority, over 135 seate in the 255-member Parliament. Mr. Sirisena would require the support and cooperation of Rajapaksa brothers who lead the UPFA . This idea can be called as government-opposition political accomodation for national unity.
• The new government need to review the development agenda and excessive reliance on China for economic assistance and loans, which has political consequences too, must be checked.

m- Indicator, an app for women safety

• Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu launches an app m-Indiacator for women safety. The application allows women passengers to avail themselves of immediate help from railway Protection Force with just an SMS.
• It doesn't require GPS or Internet for the RPF to operate and comes with the automatic location alert SMS facility.
• The SMS contain user's approximate location, compartment and train information. This will allow the RPF to track the victim's location even in a moving train and provide help at the next station.

Nod for Kotak-ING Vysya merger

• the shareholders of Kotak Mahindra and ING Vysya Bank have approved the amalgamation of ING Vysya with Kotak Mahindra Bank.
• The share exchange ratio is 725 equity shares of Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd. for every 1000 equity shares of ING Vysya Bank Ltd. was approved.