Morning Digest: Netanyahu’s office says his Cabinet has approved ceasefire deal with Hezbollah; Bajrang Punia suspended for four years for violation of anti-doping code, and more

The Hindu Morning Digest gives a select list of stories to start the day. Read the top news today on November 27, 2024

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s security Cabinet has approved a ceasefire deal with Hezbollah, clearing the way for the truce to take effect. Netanyahu’s office said the plan was approved by a 10-1 margin. The late-night vote came shortly before President Joe Biden was expected to announce details of the deal in Washington. The ceasefire will begin at 4:00 a.m. local time (0200 GMT), Mr. Biden said, speaking at the White House after Mr. Netanyahu’s office announced his Ministers had approved the deal.

The National Anti-Doping Agency suspended Bajrang Punia for four years for his refusal to provide his sample for dope test on March 10 during selection trials for the national team. The suspension means that Punia will not be able to return to competitive wrestling and apply for a coaching job abroad if he aspires to. He joined Congress along with fellow wrestler Vinesh Phogat and was given charge of All India Kisan Congress, had challenged the charge on July 11, 2024, in a written submission following which hearings were held on September 20 and October 4.

The Central Trade Unions and the Samyukt Kisan Morcha, a platform of about 500 farmers’ outfits, held nationwide protests to demand legalised minimum support prices and the scrapping of the four Labour Codes. The protesters submitted a 12-point charter of demands to President Droupadi Murmu and sought her intervention to fulfil the promises made to peasants and workers by the Union government.

A tribal council in Assam has decided to send back more than 1,000 Kuki-Zo people who came from ethnic violence-scarred Manipur. Tuliram Ronghang, the chief executive member of the Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council (KAAC), said the Karbi Anglong district has no space for the “newly arrived migrants”, indicating they settled down after the ethnic clashes between the non-tribal Meitei and the tribal Kuki-Zo people broke out in Manipur in May 2023.

Demanding the release of the Hindu monk arrested in Bangladesh, Chinmoy Krishna Das, the West Bengal unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) held protests outside the State Assembly and announced that party MLAs would lay siege outside the Bangladesh Deputy High Commission in Kolkata on Wednesday.

Australia’s House of Representatives passed a bill that would ban children younger than 16 years old from social media, leaving it to the Senate to finalize the world-first law. The major parties backed the bill that would make platforms including TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X and Instagram liable for fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars ($33 million) for systemic failures to prevent young children from holding accounts.

A lawyer was killed during clashes between the security personnel and followers of a Hindu community leader, who was denied bail and sent to jail by a court in the port city of Chattogram in Bangladesh, police said. Police said that assistant public prosecutor Saiful Islam, who is in his early 30s, was critically wounded and rushed to a hospital where he was declared dead.