1. Former Maharashtra Minister Shivajirao Deshmukh dies

• Veteran Congress leader and Maharashtra’s former legislative
• council chairman Shivajirao Deshmukh passed away in Mumbai after a prolonged illness. He was 84.
• Deshmukh was first nominated to the state’s legislative council in 1996.
• Before that, he was elected to the legislative assembly on four occasions. He was elected unopposed as the chairman of the legislative council three times.

2. Fin Min wants PSU banks to bring down govt equity to 52%

• In a bid to align with the best corporate practices, the Finance Ministry has asked the public sector banks to gradually bring down the government’s equity to 52 per cent.
• The country’s largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) has already initiated step for Rs 20,000 crore share sale through qualified institutional placement.
• A notification under the Securities Contracts Regulations (Amendment) Rules makes it mandatory for all listed entities to have a minimum public float of 25%.

3. SpaceX Dragon Returns to Earth After 2nd Space Station Delivery

• SpaceX's fourth Dragon capsule to make two trips to the International Space Station successfully returned to Earth overnight, with splashdown confirmed in the Pacific Ocean.
• The SpaceX-CRS-16 Dragon successfully delivered more than 2,500 kilograms (5,600 pounds) of cargo to the space station and orbited Earth for five weeks.
• The International Space Station is a habitable artificial satellite, in low Earth orbit.

4. PM Narendra Modi unveils slew of projects worth over Rs 1,550 cr in Odisha

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched a slew of projects worth over Rs 1,550 crore for Odisha.
• He dedicated to the nation electrification of Jharsuguda- Vizianagaram and Sambalpur-Angul lines spanning 813 km completed at a cost of Rs 1,085 crore.
• A Multi-Modal Logistics Park (MMLP) at Jharsuguda, built at a cost of Rs 100 crore, was dedicated to the nation by the prime minister.

5. Pongal: legends behind the Harvest festival celebrated largely in Tamil Nadu

• Pongal is a three-day Hindu festival majorly celebrated in south India. It is celebrated in the winters when the sun reaches its southernmost point according to the Hindu calculations.
• The most popular legend associated with Pongal is that on the first day, which known as the Bhogi, Lord Krishna lifted Goverdhan Mountain in his little finger, to protect cattle and people from Indira, the rain god.
• Pongal marks the beginning of the sun’s northward journey towards the equinox, known as Uttarayan.

6. Stage set for RBI rate cut as retail inflation falls to 2.19%

• India’s retail inflation and wholesale inflation fell to multi-month lows in December amid signs of weakening economic recovery, creating wiggle room for the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) monetary policy committee to cut interest rates at its meeting on 7 February.
• Data released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) showed consumer price index (CPI) based inflation at an 18-month low of 2.19% in December against 2.33% a month ago, as food prices continued to slide.
• Wholesale inflation (measured by WPI) softened to an eight-month low of 3.8% in December from 4.64% in November, 2018.

7. Detained Chinese lawyer Yu Wensheng wins Franco-German human rights award

• The French and German ambassadors to Beijing have granted a human rights award to a detained Chinese lawyer, with his wife picking up the prize on his behalf.
• Mr Yu Wensheng - best known for suing the Beijing government over the city's once chronic pollution - was detained in January last year and charged with "inciting subversion of state power".
• Beijing has stepped up its crackdown on civil society since President Xi Jinping took power in 2012, tightening restrictions on freedom of speech and detaining hundreds of activists and lawyers.