Here are the top 5 news of December 28, 2020:
India captain Virat Kohli today headlined the ICC top honours for the decade, winning the Sir Garfield Sobers award for the best male cricketer of the past 10 years. Kohli was also picked for the ODI Cricketer of the Decade award.
Former India skipper MS Dhoni won the 'ICC Spirit of Cricket Award of the Decade', chosen by fans for his gesture of calling back England batsman Ian Bell after a bizarre run out in the Nottingham Test in 2011.
Besides, ICC named Australian batting mainstay Steve Smith the Test Cricketer of the Decade and Afghanistan star Rashid Khan as the T20 Cricketer of the Decade.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today inaugurated India's first-ever driverless train operations on Delhi Metro's Magenta Line along with the fully operational National Common Mobility Card service on the Airport Express Line via video conferencing.
The driverless trains will be fully automated, which will eliminate the possibility of human error, the government has said, adding that after the start of driverless services on the Magenta Line (Janakpuri West-Botanical Garden), the Pink Line (Majlis Park-Shiv Vihar) of Delhi Metro is expected to have driverless operations by mid-2021.
In a sensational revelation, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut today claimed that for the past one year, some senior BJP leaders have been indirectly forcing him to topple the Maha Vikas Aghadi government headed by Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray. "Some senior leaders are meeting me continuously attempting to convince me not to continue supporting the MVA as they have made all preparations to bring it down. They even showed me a list of 22 NCP and Sena MLAs who will be slapped with cases, arrested and forced to quit the government," Raut contended.
However, he made it clear that all efforts and threats by the BJP using the CBI or ED or any other agency, send notices or arrests, to browbeat the Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress will not succeed and they cannot even "harm a hair" of the MVA government. "This is a political war and we shall only fight it politically." Raut declared. He was addressing a press conference after his wife has been sent a notice from the Enforcement Directorate (ED) - which he has denied.
A controversial build-up notwithstanding, the Delhi and District Cricket Association (DDCA) today unveiled the statue of its former president Arun Jaitley at its premises in the memory of the late administrator and political figure. Union Home Minister Amit Shah unveiled Jaitley's life-size statue, prepared by 96-year-old renowned sculptor Ram Sutar, the man behind the making of the iconic Statue of Unity in Gujarat.
Former Indian cricketer Bishen Singh Bedi had severely criticised the DDCA for choosing to install the statue of an administrator instead of an inspirational cricketer and even demanded that his name be removed from one the stands at the Feroze Shah Kotla ground.
A two-day dry run to check the preparedness of health authorities for a future nationwide COVID-19 vaccination programme began today in Rajkot and Gandhinagar districts of Gujarat. Gujarat is one of the four states chosen by the Centre to conduct the mock COVID-19 vaccination drive. Punjab, Assam and Andhra Pradesh are the other three states.
The exercise will include necessary data entry in Co-WIN, an online platform for monitoring of vaccine delivery, testing receipt and allocation, deployment of team members, mock drill of session sites with test beneficiaries, the Union Health Ministry had said. It will also include testing of cold storage and transportation arrangements for COVID-19 vaccine, management of crowd at session sites with proper physical distancing, the ministry added.
(With input from agencies)
