Mexico grants asylum to Bolivia's Evo Morales for humanitarian reasons

International News
Mexico has said it has granted asylum to Bolivia's Evo Morales, after the leftist president's resignation left the South American nation reeling amid a power vacuum.
"Several minutes ago I received a phone call from (former) president Evo Morales in which he responded to our offer and verbally and formally requested political asylum in our country," Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard told a news conference on Monday.
"The Mexican foreign ministry, after consulting Interior Minister Olga Sanchez Cordero, made the decision to grant him asylum... for humanitarian reasons." Morales's "life and physical integrity are at risk in Bolivia," added Ebrard, saying Mexico had asked the Bolivian foreign ministry to grant the former president safe conduct.
Ebrard did not answer journalists' questions on whether Morales would travel to Mexico, and if so when he would arrive. A Peruvian military source later said a Mexican air force plane had arrived in Peru's capital, Lima, en route to get Morales in Bolivia."We still don't have a departure time," the source told AFP.
Peruvian government sources said the plane was waiting for permission from Bolivian aviation authorities to take off.Mexico had said Sunday it was prepared to grant Morales asylum, after he stepped down amid massive protests and growing unrest over his fraud-stained re-election to a fourth term on October 20.
Morales, 60, had been in power since 2006.

Mexico, currently led by leftist President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, has repeatedly said Morales was the victim of a "coup." The country is already hosting a large group of Morales government officials and allied lawmakers in its embassy in Bolivia. Originally, there were 20 of them, but Ebrard said earlier Monday that there are now "many more."....READ MORE

BS Best B-school Project Awards: Solving problems using cutting-edge tools

Current Affairs

Projects on efficient distribution of citywide electric vehicle charging stations, a budgetary tool for C-level executives, and a method for bringing about efficiency in network equipment logistics in telecom industry that resulted in crores of savings were among the winners of the Business Standard Best B-School Project Award 2018.

The top prize went to Nimesh Shah from the School of Petroleum Management, Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University (PDPU), Gandhinagar, for his project on mapping out charging availability for electric vehicles in Bengaluru for Sun Mobility.

The project came about after the Karnataka government announced a policy for 5,000 new e-autos within the city. His project looked at population density, and existing fuel outlets, among the factors for the analysis. The model which evolved can be used as a template across major cities for planning future e-auto transport ecosystems.

The first runner-up was Harshil Shah of the KJ Somaiya Institute of Management Studies and Research. His internship project with consulting firm GEP Worldwide resulted in increased efficiency through a strategy dossier as well as the creation of a budgeting tool for CXOs. This was adopted by a key client of the firm, and resulted in similar tools being requested for regions including South America, Europe, West Asia, and Africa.

Shailesh Mahajan from the National Institute of Industrial Engineering (NITIE) was the second runner-up. He worked on improving reverse logistics involved in the movement of network equipment for Bharti Airtel. Packaging changes and standardisation resulted in a Rs 17-crore savings during the course of the project itself.


 The eleventh edition of the awards saw a power-packed jury select the winners based on presentations made by five shortlisted candidates.