News in Short

• Gaza’s Islamist rulers Hamas announced they have reached a Qatari-mediated deal to end more than three weeks of cross-border exchanges of fire with Israel.
• In the latest escalation, Israel has bombed Gaza almost daily since August 6, in response to airborne incendiary devices androckets launched across the border.
• The fire bombs have triggered more than 400 blazes and damaged swathes of farmland in southern Israel.
• An Egyptian delegation had been shuttling between the two sides to try to broker a renewal of an informal truce under which Israel committed to ease its 13-year-old blockade of Gaza in return for calm on the border.

• A drug used to cure a deadly viral disease in cats may be effective as a treatment for humans against the novel coronavirus, according to a study.
• The drug is effective at inhibiting viral replication in lab-grown cells infected with the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2.
• The scientists noted that the drug interferes with the virus' ability to replicate, and may help end infection.
• They said the drug is an inhibitor of some of the body's protease molecules, which are key to many body functions, and are common targets for drugs to treat everything from high blood pressure to cancer and HIV.

• Lebanese diplomat Mustapha Adib was appointed prime minister in crisis-hit Lebanon after winning the backing of major political parties.
• President Michel Aoun asked Lebanon’s ambassador to Germany Mr Adib to form a new government after he secured 90 votes in the 128-member Parliament.
• Mr Adib, is a Sunni Muslim, making him eligible to become prime minister under Lebanon's sectarian-based power-sharing system.
• The consultations were being held hours before French President Emmanuel Macron was due to arrive for a two day-visit, during which he is expected to press Lebanese officials to formulate a new political pact to lift the country out of its economic crisis.
• The appointment comes weeks after a huge explosion in Beirut, which devastated the city’s port and caused widespread damage to residential and commercial areas in the capital.

• Former President of India and Congress party veteran Pranab Mukherjee passed away at the age of 84. He was suffering from multiple ailments.
• In his over five-decade long political career, Mukherjee held various Cabinet positions for the governments led by Indira Gandhi, P V Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh.
• Mukherjee first became the general secretary of the Congress in 1998. He was a member of the Congress Working Committee for 23 years.
• Mukherjee became India's youngest finance minister in 1982 at the age of 47. He was honoured with India’s highest civilian award, Bharat Ratna in 2019.

• A rare inscription dating back to the Renati Chola era has been unearthed in a remote village of Kadapa district of Andhra Pradesh.
• Going by the language and characters, the inscription was written in archaic Telugu which was readable in 25 lines -- the first side with eleven lines and the remaining on the other side.
• It was assigned to the 8th Century A.D., when the region was under the rule of Chola Maharaja of Renadu.
• The inscription seems to throw light on the record of a gift of six Marttus (a measuring unit) of land gifted to a person Sidyamayu, one of the Brahmins serving the temple at Pidukula village.