NEWSMAKERS OF THE WEEK

THERE IS NO END TO MILKING LATE J. JAYALALITHAA’S LEGACY. HER NIECE DEEPA JAYAKUMAR HAS ANNOUNCED FORMATION OF A FORUM IN HER NAME. IT IS SURPRISING THAT SHE NEVER SHOWED ANY INTEREST IN POLITICS WHEN JAYALALITHAA WAS ALIVE. BEN STOKES

England’s Ben Stokes fetched a staggering `14.5 crore in the IPL’s player auction on Monday, with the Rising Pune Supergiants splashing out in a frenzied bidding war to land the explosive all-rounder. The Pune franchise fought off Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi and Hyderabad to get the 25-yearold despite his limited availability for the Twenty20 competition.

P.V. SINDHU

Badminton star P.V. Sindhu will be appointed deputy collector by the AP government. Orders to this effect are being prepared. Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu had assured Sindhu a Group-1 job after she won the sliver medal at the Olympics. Sindhu, deputy manager at Bharat Petroleum, has subsequently applied for the job.

MILO YIANNOPOULOS

Provocative far-right commentator Milo Yiannopoulos resigned on Tuesday as a senior editor of the Breitbart news website after he was vilified and lost a book deal over comments that condoned certain intimate relations between men and young teenage boys. Yiannopoulos was banned from Twitter last year after making remarks on race, religion and sex that incited racial attacks on an African-American actress.

KIM JONG-NAM

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un’s half brother was assassinated with a lethal nerve agent manufactured for chemical warfare and listed by the UN as a weapon of mass destruction, Malaysian police said on Friday. Releasing a preliminary toxicology report on Kim Jong-Nam’s murder, police revealed the poison used by the assassins was the odourless, tasteless and highly toxic nerve agent VX. The suspect held for the murder said she was paid $90 for what she thought was a TV prank.

DEEPA JAYAKUMAR

Late J. Jayalalithaa’s niece Deepa Jayakumar finally launched a new political forum on Friday in Chennai. Addressing a crowded press conference at her home, Deepa said her political journey had begun and also unveiled a flag depicting the images of Jayalalithaa and M.G. Ramachandran which she said was only a flag of the Forum named as ‘MGR AMMA Deepa Forum’.