FIFA bans Suarez for 4 months for biting opponent

1.    FIFA bans Suarez for 4 months for biting opponent

i. FIFA banned Uruguay striker Luis Suarez from all football activities for four months on Thursday for biting an opponent at the World Cup, a punishment that rules him out of the rest of the tournament and the start of the upcoming English Premier League season.

ii. The ban also covers Uruguay’s next nine international games, which goes beyond the next four months and rules him out of next year’s Copa America. FIFA also fined the Liverpool striker 100,000 Swiss francs ($112,000).

iii. Suarez bit the shoulder of Italy defender Giorgio Chiellini during Uruguay’s 1-0 win in the group stage, but escaped unpunished as the referee did not see the incident.

iv. “Such behavior cannot be tolerated on any football pitch and in particular not at a FIFA World Cup, when the eyes of millions of people are on the stars on the field,” Claudio Sulser, chairman of the FIFA disciplinary committee, said in a statement.

v. Uruguay federation president Wilmar Valdez said it was “a severe punishment.” “It feels like Uruguay has been thrown out of the World Cup,” Valdez said in Rio.

Note: This is the third time Suarez has been banned for biting an opponent after similar incidents with Ajax in the Dutch league and Liverpool. He was given a 10-match ban by the Premier League for biting Chelsea defender Branislav Ivanovic in April 2013.

2.    35th National Games in Kerala from Jan 31 to Feb 14

i. 35th National Games will be held in different venues of Kerala from 31st of January to 14th February,next year.

ii. The dates were announced Indian Olympic Association President N Ramachandran in Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday.Union Minister for Sports and Youth Affairs Sarbanand Sonowal,who was present during the occasion, formally gave approval to the dates.

iii. Speaking on the occasion,Kerala Chief Minister Oommen Chandy said construction on the National Games Village,which can accommodate 5000 people is almost complete.He said the Centre has allocated 120 crore rupees for the National Games .

iv. The State Government is spending crores of rupees to build up world class sports facilities,for the smooth conduct of the National Games.

3.    Poland's Wroclaw city named 2016 World Book Capital

i. Poland’s Wroclaw city will be the World Book Capital (WBC) for 2016 in recognition of its promoting the publishing and bookselling industries, Unesco said Thursday.

ii. Civic leaders in Wroclaw have developed an excellent programme that will promote reading among the wider public all through the year,” Unesco director general Irina Bokova said in a statement.

iii. Wroclaw — the largest city in western Poland — was selected “in light of the strong assets of its programme in terms of quality and variety” and in particsular, “for its special focus on grass-root community involvement, as well as promotion of publishing, bookselling industries and libraries at regional and international levels”.

iv. Since 2001, Unesco has been naming a city as the “World Book Capital” for its quality of programmes to promote book and reading.

Note: Indian capital Delhi got the honour in 2003. Wroclaw became the 16th city to be designated as the WBC.

ii. Nigeria’s Port Harcourt is the WBC for 2014 while South Korea’s Incheon city named for 2015.

4.    RBI to remain open on July 1 to facilitate public transactions

i. This year the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has made special provision to remain open on July 1, 2014 to facilitate settlement of market transactions as well as to facilitate the transactions of the general public.

ii. Normally, the RBI remains closed for public transactions every July 1 on account of its annual closing of accounts.

iii. The Reserve Bank’s accounting year begins on July 1 and ends on June 30.