The Competition Commission of India has approved the acquisition of certain equity stake in Logisteed Holdings, Ltd. (Target) by Japan Post Co., Ltd. (Acquirer).
The Proposed Combination involves the acquisition of a 19.9% equity stake with 14.9% voting rights in the Target by the Acquirer from HTSK Investment L.P.
The Acquirer is a Japanese company, and is globally engaged in postal operations, sales of documentary stamps, logistics business, real estate business, international cargo transport, bank and insurance agency services, etc.
The Target is a special-purpose investment holding company incorporated in Japan.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on December 16, 2025 was conferred with Ethiopia's highest award 'The Great Honour Nishan of Ethiopia' by his Ethiopian counterpart Abiy Ahmed Ali.
The award was conferred upon Prime Minister Modi in a special ceremony hosted at the Addis International Convention Centre.
Prime Minister Modi was conferred with the award for his exceptional contribution towards strengthening India-Ethiopia partnership and for his visionary leadership as a global statesman, the Ministry of External Affairs said in a statement in New Delhi.
Prime Minister Modi is the first global head of state to receive this award.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has accorded its approval to HDFC Bank Ltd Bank (being promoter / sponsor of its group entities HDFC Mutual Fund, HDFC Life Insurance Company Ltd, HDFC ERGO General Insurance Company Ltd, HDFC Pension Fund Management Ltd and HDFC Securities Ltd),
to acquire “aggregate holding” of up to 9.50% of the paid-up share capital or voting rights in IndusInd Bank.
The approval is valid for a period of one year from the date of RBI’s letter, i.e., till December 14, 2026.
IndusInd Bank said that HDFC Bank must ensure that the “aggregate holding” in the IndusInd would not exceed 9.50% of the paid-up share capital or voting rights of IndusInd Bank, at all times.
India and Brazil have taken a significant step towards deepening maritime and defence cooperation with the signing of a tripartite Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the Indian Navy, the Brazilian Navy and Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDL) for the exchange of information related to the maintenance of Scorpene-class submarines and other naval platforms.
The MoU was signed during the visit of Chief of Naval Staff (CNS) Admiral Dinesh K Tripathi to Brazil from December 9 to 12, aimed at strengthening the expanding India–Brazil maritime partnership.
The visit and the MoU underline the growing convergence between India and Brazil in maritime security and defence cooperation, and their shared commitment to advancing operational engagement, industrial collaboration and training partnerships.
DHRUV64, India’s first homegrown 1.0 GHz, 64-bit dual-core microprocessor, strengthens the indigenous processor pipeline.
National Programmes like Digital India RISC-V give India the support needed to design, test and prototype indigenous chips, including DHRUV64.
After DHRUV64 success, the next-generation Dhanush and Dhanush+ processors are now under development.
South Africa spinner Simon Harmer wins the men’s award for his inspired bowling in the ICC World Test Championship series against India
India opening batter Shafali Verma wins the women’s award for her all-round heroics in the ICC Women’s Cricket World Cup 2025 Final.
South African spinner Simon Harmer went past Bangladesh’s Taijul Islam and Pakistan all-rounder Mohammad Nawaz to be named the ICC Men’s Player of the Month for the first time.
Shafali Verma beat out Thipatcha Putthawong from Thailand and Esha Oza from the UAE for her first-ever Player of the Month award.
She scored an excellent 87 from 78 deliveries – the highest by an Indian opening batter in a Women’s World Cup Final – to set up India’s total of 298 for seven in the title decider against South Africa.
She compounded her batting brilliance by taking the game-changing wickets of Suné Luus and Marizanne Kapp.
Unesco has officially recognised Italian cooking as a cultural beacon, an endorsement hailed by the far-right prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, whose government has put the country’s food at the heart of its nationalistic expression of identity.
The announcement, made on Wednesday during the UN cultural body’s assembly in Delhi, means Italian cuisine – from pasta and mozzarella to wine and tiramisu – will be inscribed on the coveted list of “intangible cultural heritage”.
Italy already has 21 other traditions on the list, including the art of Neapolitan pizza making and opera singing, and it is the first country to be recognised for its cuisine in its entirety rather than for a single tradition or recipe.
India and Jordan formalised a series of agreements to broaden cooperation across priority sectors including clean energy, water management, digital innovation and cultural preservation, as Jordan signalled its willingness to align with major India-led global initiatives during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s two-day official visit to the country.
The legendary career of professional wrestling superstar John Cena came to an end on Saturday evening at the Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C. The 17-time world champion ended his wrestling journey with a submission loss to Gunther in his very last match, at Saturday Night’s Main Event.
To decide his very last opponent, a tournament called Last Time Is Now, featuring 16 wrestlers, was held.Gunther and LA Knight reached the final, and it was The Ring General who earned the right to compete with Cena in his farewell match.
John Cena first appeared on WWE programming in 2002.
John Cena holds the record for winning the world title the most number of times – 17
ISRO has lined up seven launch missions by March 2026, including one to demonstrate home-built electric propulsion systems for satellite and quantum key distribution technologies, and the first uncrewed mission of the Gaganyaan project.
The first of the seven launches is expected to take place in December 2025..
India's heaviest rocket, LVM3, will place in orbit the Bluebird-6 communication satellite for U.S.-based AST Spacemobile through a commercial agreement with ISRO's New Space India Limited (NSIL), Union minister Jitendra Singh recently told Parliament.
The Armed Forces Medical Services (AFMS), in collaboration with the Dr. Rajendra Prasad Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences (RPC), AIIMS, and the eHealth AI Unit of the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW), has launched India’s first Artificial Intelligence (AI)–driven community screening programme for Diabetic Retinopathy (DR) on December 16, 2025 in New Delhi.
The initiative marks a significant step towards strengthening early detection of diabetic eye disease and building a real-time national health intelligence framework.
Anchored by MadhuNetrAI, the programme is a web-based Artificial Intelligence tool developed by the Dr. Rajendra Prasad Centre for Ophthalmic Sciences (RPC).
The platform facilitates automated screening, grading and triaging of retinal images captured using handheld fundus cameras, enabling trained Medical Officers, Nursing Staff and healthcare assistants to undertake community-level screening.
As part of the pilot phase, the Armed Forces Medical Services (AFMS) will implement the initiative at seven locations—Pune, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Dharamshala, Gaya, Jorhat and Kochi—covering metropolitan, rural, hilly, coastal and remote regions. Personnel from each site will undergo intensive training at RPC, AIIMS, followed by large-scale community screening.
The Reserve Bank of India has doubled its liquidity injection plan to Rs 1.5 lakh crore through variable repo rate auction, to ensure comfortable liquidity in the system at the time of advance tax payments. The earlier notified amount was Rs 75000 crore.
In parallel, the central bank will conduct a dollar-rupee buy-sell swap Tuesday to infuse durable rupee-liquidity.
"The increase in VRR will limit the transient liquidity tightness which be will be created post advance tax payments and GST payment," said Gaura Sengupta, chief economist at IDFC First Bank.
IDFC FIRST Bank has launched the IDFC FIRST Global Savings Account in USD and EUR, an exclusive foreign-currency savings solution offered through GIFT City, Gujarat for Non Resident Indians. The account is designed for internationally mobile customers who want to hold, save, and remit funds in foreign currency without conversion risks or cross-border banking friction.
Buoyed by the robustness in rural job market on account of rabi sowing, India's monthly unemployment rate fell to an eight-month low of 4.7 per cent in November, latest periodic labour force survey (PLFS) monthly bulletin released by the National Statistics Office (NSO) showed.
Data by the NSO pegged the unemployment rate in November for the 15 years and above category in current weekly status (CWS) terms in rural areas at 3.9 per cent. It was down from 4.4 per cent in the preceding month.
For urban areas, the jobless rate fell to 6.5 per cent from 7 per cent during the same period.
In CWS, the activity status is determined by the reference period over the past seven days preceding the date of the survey.
Under this, a person is considered unemployed in a week if he did not work even for one hour on any day during the reference week but sought or was available for work at least for one hour on any day during the reference week.
The data further showed that the unemployment rate among men and women fell to 4.6 per cent and 4.8 per cent from 5.1 per cent and 5.4 per cent, respectively, during the month.
This is the lowest monthly unemployment rate recorded by the PLFS, since the start of the bulletin by NSO in April 2025.
Meanwhile, the labour force participation rate (LFPR) — which is a measure of the number of people either working or looking for work — rose slightly to 55.8 per cent in November from 55.4 per cent in October.
In rural areas, the figure rose to 58.6 per cent from 57.8 per cent, while in urban areas it fell marginally to 50.4 per cent from 50.5 per cent.
