Junior Digest

BEIJING,Jan 4,2022: No new coronavirus variant has been found in China, data released by the World Health Organization showed on Wednesday, easing some concerns about an outbreak that has spread rapidly there since Beijing abruptly reversed its “zero COVID” policy.

The U.N. agency was releasing data provided by the Chinese Center For Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), a day after WHO officials met Chinese scientists amid global unease about the accuracy of China’s reporting of an outbreak that has filled hospitals and overwhelmed some funeral homes.
China’s People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s official newspaper, sought to rally worried citizens for what it calls a “final victory” over COVID-19, rebutting criticism of its policy of strict isolation that triggered rare protests last year.
Meanwhile, health officials abroad have been struggling to work out the scale of the outbreak and how to stop it spreading, with more countries introducing measures such pre-departure COVID tests for arrivals from China, moves that Beijing has criticised.

European Union health officials meet on Wednesday to discuss a coordinated response to it.

WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a briefing the U.N. agency was continuing to seek more rapid and regular data from China on hospitalisations and deaths, adding that he was concerned for the lives of China’s citizens.

GUWAHATI,Jan 01,2023: The delimitation exercise initiated by the election commission of India (ECI) for Assam will ‘safeguard’ the future of the state.
This was stated by Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Sunday while interacting with senior journalists from the state on the first day of the year.
Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma termed the delimitation exercise of the ECI in the state a ‘breakthrough’.
Notably, the ECI, on December 27 last year, had announced the process of delimitation of assembly and parliamentary constituencies in Assam.
The delimitation exercise in Assam will be carried out by the ECI on the basis of the 2001 Census data.

WASHINGTON,Dec 28,2022: Stress in the form of traumatic events, job strain, everyday stressors and discrimination, accelerates aging of the immune system, potentially increasing a person’s risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease and illness from infections such as COVID-19, according to a new USC study.

The research, published June 13 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), could help explain disparities in age-related health, including the unequal toll of the pandemic, and identify possible points for intervention.

“As the world’s population of older adults increases, understanding disparities in age-related health is essential. Age-related changes in the immune system play a critical role in declining health,” said lead study author Eric Klopack, a postdoctoral scholar in the USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. “This study helps clarify mechanisms involved in accelerated immune aging.”

As people age, the immune system naturally begins a dramatic downgrade, a condition called immunosenescence. With advanced age, a person’s immune profile weakens, and includes too many worn-out white blood cells circulating and too few fresh, “naive” white blood cells ready to take on new invaders.

Immune aging is associated not only with cancer, but with cardiovascular disease, increased risk of pneumonia, reduced efficacy of vaccines and organ system aging.

But what accounts for drastic health differences in same-age adults? USC researchers decided to see if they could tease out a connection between lifetime exposure to stress — a known contributor to poor health — and declining vigor in the immune system.

They queried and cross-referenced enormous data sets from University of Michigan’s Health and Retirement Study, a national longitudinal study of the economic, health, marital, family status, and public and private support systems of older Americans.

To calculate exposure to various forms of social stress, the researchers analyzed responses from a national sample of 5,744 adults over the age of 50. They answered a questionnaire designed to assess respondents’ experiences with social stress, including stressful life events, chronic stress, everyday discrimination and lifetime discrimination.

Blood samples from the participants were then analyzed through flow cytometry, a lab technique that counts and classifies blood cells as they pass one-by-one in a narrow stream in front of a laser.

As expected, people with higher stress scores had older-seeming immune profiles, with lower percentages of fresh disease fighters and higher percentages of worn-out white blood cells. The association between stressful life events and fewer ready to respond, or naive, T cells remained strong even after controlling for education, smoking, drinking, BMI and race or ethnicity.

Some sources of stress may be impossible to control, but the researchers say there may be a workaround.

T-cells — a critical component of immunity — mature in a gland called the thymus, which sits just in front of and above the heart. As people age, the tissue in their thymus shrinks and is replaced by fatty tissue, resulting in reduced production of immune cells. Past research suggests that this process is accelerated by lifestyle factors like poor diet and low exercise, which are both associated with social stress.

“In this study, after statistically controlling for poor diet and low exercise, the connection between stress and accelerated immune aging wasn’t as strong,” said Klopack. “What this means is people who experience more stress tend to have poorer diet and exercise habits, partly explaining why they have more accelerated immune aging.”

Improving diet and exercise behaviors in older adults may help offset the immune aging associated with stress.

Additionally, cytomegalovirus (CMV) may be a target for intervention. CMV is a common, usually asymptomatic virus in humans and is known to have a strong effect accelerating immune aging. Like shingles or cold sores, CMV is dormant most of the time but can flare up, especially when a person is experiencing high stress.

In this study, statistically controlling for CMV positivity also reduced the connection between stress and accelerated immune aging. Therefore, widespread CMV vaccination could be a relatively simple and potentially powerful intervention that could reduce the immune aging effects of stress, the researchers said.

Dec 29,2022:Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju on Wednesday said that the government has planned to bring Millet into the diet in the G20 meetings that will be held in the country next year. “The government is celebrating the international year of Millet. In G20 meetings we have planned to bring Millet into the diet. It is nutritious and tasty as well. People should put efforts to bring Millet into their diet and make it a Millet movement,” Rijiju said.

Taking to Twitter, Rijiju said, “I can’t resist eating millets… Today, the entire staff in the Ministry of Law and Justice came together for the Millet Lunch to promote the International Year Of #Millets 2023 at Dr Ambedkar International Centre, New Delhi.” Earlier on December 20, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, along with fellow Members of Parliament, enjoyed a lunch hosted by agriculture minister Narendra Tomar to mark Millet Year 2023.

Sitting alongside PM Narendra Modi while having the meal were agriculture minister Narendra Tomar, defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankar and former prime minister HD Devegowda. “We prepared delicacies including Roti and sweets made out of Jwar bajra and ragi for which chefs were specially brought in from Karnataka. I was delighted that the Prime Minister really enjoyed his meal here,” Minister of State for agriculture Shobha Karandlaje told ANI.

Earlier, during the BJP Parliamentary Party meeting, PM Modi laid emphasis on the celebration of International Millet Year 2023 and suggested ways to promote an ongoing nutrition campaign through millet. On the initiative of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the United Nations has declared the year 2023 as the International Year of Millet (IYOM).

The Government of India had notified millet as a nutritious- cereal in April 2018 and millet has also been included in the Poshan Mission campaign. Under the National Food Security Mission (NFMS), a nutritious cereal component for Millet is being implemented in 212 districts of 14 States.

Asia and Africa are the major production and consumption centres of millet crops. India, Niger, Sudan and Nigeria are the major producer of millet. India is the major production country of Millet in which Kangni, Kutki or small millet, Kodon, Gangora or Barnyard, china and Brown top are included with Jowar, Bajra, Ragi and small millets. Most of the states in India grow one or more millet crop species. During the last 5 years, our country produced more than 13.71 to 18 million tonnes of millet with the highest production in 2020-21.

New Delhi, January 1,2023: The Centre launched a new integrated food security scheme on Sunday. The scheme will provide free foodgrains to 81.35 crore beneficiaries under NFSA for the year 2023 and aims to ensure effective and uniform implementation of the National Food Security Act (NFSA).
The Cabinet decided to launch a new central sector scheme to fulfil the vision of One Nation-One Price-One Ration under Prime Minister Narendra Modi. This is a commitment of the government to the most vulnerable 67 per cent of the population which is 81.35 crore persons covered under NFSA, according to the ministry’s statement.
Under the scheme, the government will provide free foodgrains to all NFSA beneficiaries namely Antyodaya Ann Yojana (AAY) households and Priority Household (PHH) persons for one year through the wide network of 5.33 lakh fair price shops across the country, according to the statement of the ministry of consumer affairs, food and public distribution. The decision will strengthen the provisions of NFSA, 2013, in terms of accessibility, affordability and availability of foodgrains for the poor.
The new integrated scheme will subsume two current food subsidy schemes of the department of food and public distribution (DFPD) namely food subsidy to Food Corporation of India (FCI) for NFSA, and sops for decentralised procurement states, which deal with procurement, allocation and delivery of free foodgrains under NFSA.
Free foodgrains will concurrently ensure uniform implementation of portability under One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) across the country and will further strengthen this choice-based platform. This means the ration card could be used anywhere in the country. The Centre will bear the food subsidy of more than Rs 2 lakh crore for 2023. The new scheme is aimed at bringing uniformity and clarity on food security under NFSA at beneficiary level, the ministry statement said.
For implementing this scheme, the ministry had said that the secretary of DFPD had taken a meeting with all state food secretaries on December 29, 2022. The issues related to distribution of free foodgrains were discussed including technical resolutions. All states and Union Territories assured to implement the free foodgrain scheme from January 1, 2023, according to the statement.
The government had issued an order to all general managers of FCI to visit three ration shops every day in different areas of their jurisdiction mandatorily from January 1 till 7 and submit a report to the DFPD nodal officer on a daily basis, in the given format for review and taking corrective action.
In view of free foodgrains, an advisory is issued to the states/UTs on the mechanism to provide dealer’s margin for distributing foodgrains to the beneficiaries, the ministry said.

New Delhi,Dec 29,2022: According to reports, the Election Commission has developed a prototype of a remote EVM voting machine for domestic overseas voters. It can control remote voting in 72 constituencies from a single booth.

“Voter turnout in General Elections 2019 was 67.4% and the Election Commission of India is concerned about the issue of over 30 crore electors not exercising their franchise,” Election Commission officials said regarding the move. They further added, “It is understood that there are multifarious reasons for a voter not opting to register in a new place of residence, thus missing out on exercising the right to vote. Inability to vote due to internal migration (domestic migrants) is one of the prominent reasons.”
The technical and legal boundaries of the move are being considered now before it is implemented on the ground zero level. As per reports, if this comes into effect then it will be able to accept votes from voters living far away from their hometowns. It is programmed in a way that it will switch to the person according to his/her constituency during voting. This move shall benefit a lot of people working or living overseas and is sure to increase the vote percentage as well.

Dec 30,2022:Israel’s parliament has sworn in Benjamin Netanyahu as prime minister, inaugurating the country’s most far-right, religiously conservative government in history.
Netanyahu, 73, took the oath of office on Thursday, moments after Israel’s parliament, or Knesset, passed a vote of confidence in his new government. Of the parliament’s 120 members, 63 voted in favour of the new government, with 54 votes against.
His swearing in marks a personal return to power and the arrival of a government that has sparked fears among Palestinians as well as left-wing Israelis.
Al Jazeera’s Sara Khairat, reporting from West Jerusalem, said this has been in the making for almost two months and is “quite a victory for Benjamin Netanyahu”, who partnered up with a coalition that includes “a mix of an ultra-Orthodox and right-wing bloc”.
The coalition, Khairat said, includes some of the most “right-wing politicians we’ve seen”. “They were on the fringes of politics and now here they are on the main stage.”
“Even though locals we’ve spoken to have said that yes, the process is democratic, they are very deeply concerned about the laws that have been put through,” she said from outside the parliament, where left-wing Israelis had gathered to protest.
Far-right government
Netanyahu, who was prime minister between 1996 and 1999, and then between 2009 and 2021, addressed a session of the Israeli parliament, or Knesset, ahead of the vote.
Netanyahu, along with his coalition partners, has a majority in the Knesset. He was heckled during his speech to the Knesset, with opponents chanting that he was “weak”.
He said an end to the “Arab-Israeli conflict” would be his top priority, as well as stopping Iran’s nuclear programme and building up Israel’s military capacity.
Netanyahu’s win in the November 1 parliamentary elections was expected to end years of political unrest in Israel, with governments repeatedly falling, and elections held five times in less than four years.
Much of that was the result of intense political opposition towards Netanyahu himself, who is on trial for corruption, an allegation he denies.

Jan 03,2022: Defence Minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated the Siyom bridge in Arunachal Pradesh. The 100-metre long, steel arch bridge is built over the river Siyom. The bridge on the Along-Yingkiong Road is constructed by the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) under the project Brahmank. The bridge gives Indian military strategic advantage in deploying troops to the far-flung areas of the Line of Actual control faster. It provides connectivity to nearby villages which helps improving their access to markets and amenities.
Siyom Bridge, a 100-metre-long bridge with a ‘Class 70’ steel arch superstructure constructed along the Along-Yinkiong Road. The bridge also has military significance given it will enable faster movement of the troops as well as heavy machinery including weapons such as howitzers and mechanized vehicles, thus facilitating movement to forward areas of the Upper Siang district, Tuting and Yingkiong regions, along the Line of Actual Control with China.

The minister also kicked off 27 more projects of the BRO, virtually. Along with this, he also released the BRO Vision and New Tech Handbook. Not only this, but he also interacted with the locals of the state.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Tuesday inaugurated the Siyom Bridge in Arunachal Pradesh, along with 27 other infrastructure projects completed by the Border Roads Organization.

The projects built at a cost of Rs. 724 crore will hugely augment India’s border infrastructure, mostly along the Chinese border from Ladakh to Arunachal.
Inaugurating the projects, the minister said that India’s forces at the border are ever vigilant and prepared to tackle any adverse development.
Singh inaugurated 21 other bridges, three roads and three additional infrastructure projects in Arunachal Pradesh, J&K, Ladakh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Punjab and Rajasthan virtually from the Siyom bridge site.
His visit to the state comes less than a month after Indian forces thwarted an attempt by Chinese soldiers to set up an observataion post, some distance inside Indian territory close to the LAC near Tawang.
It is due to this very border dispute between India and China that the infrastructural boost is taking place in the region. The dispute has been worsening over the past few years, the latest one being the Tawang clash in December where multiple soldiers suffered serious injuries.

BRASILIA, Jan 02,2023: Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was sworn in as Brazil’s president on Sunday, delivering a searing indictment of far-right former leader Jair Bolsonaro and vowing a drastic change of course to rescue a nation plagued by hunger, poverty and racism.

In a speech to Congress after officially taking the reins of Latin America’s biggest country, the leftist said democracy was the true winner of the October presidential vote, when he ousted Bolsonaro in the most fraught election for a generation.
Bolsonaro, who left Brazil for the United States on Friday after refusing to concede defeat, rattled the cages of Brazil’s young democracy with baseless claims of electoral weaknesses that birthed a violent movement of election deniers.

Jan 02,2023:The Russian Ministry of Defence has said an attack on a facility in Makiivka, a Russian-held city in Donetsk, has left 63 soldiers killed, while the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence has said the death toll is closer to 400.
Russian drones have attacked infrastructure in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv and surrounding areas, damaging energy facilities and causing some power outages, officials say.
Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford, reporting from Kyiv, says it’s a “rare admission” from the Russians to announce a death toll after a vocational college that had been used to house soldiers was targeted in Donetsk.

“It’s very difficult to try and sift through some of the competing narratives here, but it’s safe to say it’s a rare admission from the Russians there that such a significant attack has happened”, he said.

“There saying 63 Russian soldiers were killed in this attack”.

He adds that Ukrainian armed forces have said on their telegram channel that “400 Russian corpses” were seen at the site – significantly higher than what Russia has announced.

“There is a lot of heavy fighting in that area; that area is right on the frontline. It’s very difficult to confirm these kind of numbers, but it’s fair to say that this is a rare admission of a significant death toll by the Russians”, he said.

New Delhi,Dec 28,2022: Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge on Wednesday said that people are troubled due to rising inflation, and unemployment but the Centre does not care about them. He added that Rahul Gandhi-led Bharat Jodo Yatra has made party’s political rivals nervous.

Addressing party leaders and workers at the AICC headquarters in Delhi on the occasion of the 138th Foundation Day of the party, he said, “The basic principles of India are under constant attack. A pit of hatred is being dug all over the country. People are in trouble due to inflation, unemployment but the government does not care.”
“To make Congress inclusive, we have to include youth, women, intellectuals and it has already begun through Rahul Gandhi’s Bharat Jodo Yatra. This has made our rivals nervous. We appeal to people to join this Yatra,” he added.

Jan 01,2023:Croatia has switched to the euro and entered Europe’s passport-free zone – two important milestones for the country after joining the European Union (EU) nearly a decade ago.
At midnight on Sunday, the Balkan nation bid farewell to its kuna currency and became the 20th member of the eurozone.
It is now the 27th nation in the Schengen zone, the world’s largest passport-free travel area, which enables more than 400 million people to move freely around its members.
“It is the season of new beginnings. And there is no place in Europe where this is more true than here in Croatia,” tweeted EU chief Ursula von der Leyen, as she arrived in Croatia to mark the occasion.
She met Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenkovic and Slovenian President Natasa Pirc Musar at a border crossing with EU member Slovenia.
Croatia, a former Yugoslav republic of 3.9 million people that fought a war of independence in the 1990s, joined the EU in 2013.
Experts say the adoption of the euro will help shield Croatia’s economy at a time when inflation is soaring worldwide after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent food and fuel prices through the roof.
But feelings among Croatians are mixed. While they welcome the end of border controls, some fear the euro switch will lead to an increase in the cost of living as businesses round up prices when they convert them.

Dec 31,2022: Venezuela’s biggest opposition parties voted to remove Juan Guaidó as their leader, marking an end to a bold, U.S.-backed political gambit in which he was recognized as the country’s legitimate president as part of an unsuccessful bid to oust authoritarian Nicolás Maduro from power.

Lawmakers, scattered in exile around the world, voted in a Zoom call to restructure their movement, removing Mr. Guaidó and eliminating the so-called interim government he leads. The interim government had been recognized as Venezuela’s legitimate government by more than 60 countries when it was created in early 2019. But now, the U.S. and only a handful of allies continue to recognize the Guaido-led movement, while Mr. Maduro maintains an ironclad grip on the country with support from Russia, Iran and China.

Mr. Guaidó, 39 years, will continue to head both Venezuela’s opposition congress and the interim government until Jan. 5, when his movement’s duties will be divided up. The opposition said it would create a new committee to oversee Venezuelan state assets that came into its control—including U.S. refiner Citgo Petroleum Corp. as well as gold bullion at the Bank of England—and are being targeted by creditors looking to seize them.

Meanwhile, a special panel made up of political representatives will work on negotiations that the opposition is preparing with the Maduro regime, with the hopes of organizing free and fair elections in 2024.
The leadership shake-up comes after four years of unsuccessful efforts to dislodge Mr. Maduro through street demonstrations, international sanctions and a failed military uprising. A majority of lawmakers, who voted 72-29 in favor of removing Mr. Guaidó, said their political coalition needed different strategies to restore democracy in the troubled, oil-rich nation.

Dec 30,2022: Brazil football legend Pele, whose real name was Edson Arantes do Nascimento, died due to cancer at the age of 82 late on Thursday. Pele, who is also a three-time World Cup winner, was one of the greatest names in the world of football and scored a record 1,281 goals in his two-decade-long career.

The legend had undergone treatment for colon cancer in 2021. Since October this year, he was not keeping well. He had been hospitalised for the last month with multiple ailments. His agent Joe Fraga confirmed that Pele died at the Albert Einstein hospital in Sao Paulo on Thursday, December 29, at 11:57 pm (3:27 pm as per Brazil time). Brazil’s record scorer, Nicknamed “the Black Pearl” and “the King”, won three World Cups as a player, in 1958, 1962, and 1970. Pelé was one of only three players to have scored in four World Cups.
Soon after the news broke out wishes and tributes started pouring in on social media from footballing legends, players, and celebrities, like superstars Lionel Messi, Kylian Mbappe, Cristiano Ronaldo, and Neymar.

Leading the pack, superstar Messi, who recently lifted the FIFA World Cup with Argentina, posted his tribute on his official Instagram account.

Gandhinagar,Dec 30,2022: Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s mother Heeraben breathed her last earlier today. PM Modi arrived at Ahmedabad to give adieu to his mother Heeraben Modi, who passed away at the age of 100. He was received by Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel at the airport. PM Modi`s brother Somabhai Modi and other family members also arrived at the residence of Heeraben Modi.
The Prime Minister informed the nation about her demise early Friday morning. Informing about her demise, the Prime Minister posted a heartfelt tweet early Friday morning, “A glorious century rests at the feet of God… In Maa, I have always felt that the trinity, which contains the journey of an ascetic, is the symbol of a selfless Karmayogi and a life committed to values. “PM Modi recalled his visit to his mother on her 100th birthday this year.

Dec 31,2022:Former Pope Benedict, who in 2013 became the first pontiff in 600 years to resign, died on Saturday aged 95 in a secluded monastery in the Vatican where he had lived since stepping down, a spokesman for the Holy See said.
The Vatican said his body would lie in state from Monday in St.Peter’s Basilica. The Vatican has painstakingly elaborate rituals for what happens after a reigning pope dies but no publicly known ones for a former pope.
Earlier this week, Pope Francis disclosed during his weekly general audience that his predecessor was “very sick”, and asked for people to pray for him.
“With sorrow I inform you that the Pope Emeritus, Benedict XVI, passed away today at 9:34 in the Mater Ecclesiae Monastery in the Vatican,” spokesman Matteo Bruni said in a statement.

MOSCOW, Dec 28,2022: President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday delivered Russia’s long-awaited response to a Western price cap, signing a decree that bans the supply of crude oil and oil products from Feb. 1 for five months to nations that abide by the cap.
The Group of Seven major powers, the European Union and Australia agreed this month to a $60-per-barrel price cap on Russian seaborne crude oil effective from Dec. 5 over Moscow’s “special military operation” in Ukraine.
The cap is close to the current price for Russian oil, but well beneath the windfall price Russia was able to sell for this year and that helped offset the impact of financial sanctions on Moscow.

MANILA ,Dec 30,2022: The death toll from flooding and landslides caused by Christmas Day rains in the southern Philippines rose to 44, with 28 others still unaccounted for, the national disaster agency said on Friday.

Damage to infrastructure and crops has been estimated at 1.36 billion pesos ($24.4 million), it said in a bulletin.
Heavy rains submerged villages, towns and highways in the Visayas and Mindanao regions on Christmas Day, forcing more than 50,000 people to flee their homes.

The floods had subsided but intermittent rains continued, the agency said.

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said he may visit the stricken areas to assess the situation after his scheduled trip to China from Jan. 3 to 5.
“Unfortunately, the rainfall continues. So we have to keep watching the other areas also,” a presidential palace statement quoted him as saying.

New Delhi,Jan05,2022:The Supreme Court has put on hold the demolition of more than 4,000 homes that were allegedly encroaching on land belonging to the railways in Haldwani town in Uttarakhand.
“There cannot be uprooting of 50,000 people overnight. There has to be segregation of people who have no right on the land and the need to rehabilitation while recognising the need of the railways,” the top court said in its order on Thursday.
On December 20, an order passed by the high court of the northern state declared 4,365 houses adjacent to the railway line in Haldwani’s Banbhulpura colony “illegal” and therefore to be demolished.

The Supreme Court has sought replies from the Indian Railways and the Uttarakhand government and will next hear the matter on February 7.
Braving the biting cold, hundreds of women had been holding a sit-in against the eviction drive for more than a week. They held candlelight vigils every evening, demanding a withdrawal of the lower court’s order.
The top court’s ruling comes as a relief to about 50,000 people in the Himalayan town, situated about 300km (186 miles) from New Delhi.

Jan 04,2022:Sri Lanka has announced its first nationwide elections since its president fled and resigned in the face of widespread protests, in what will be a test of popularity for his successor.
Local government polls will be held before the end of February, officials said on Wednesday, after they were delayed by a year due to the pandemic.
President Ranil Wickremesinghe, who replaced his deposed predecessor Gotabaya Rajapaksa, faces potential embarrassment in the vote, as he was his party’s sole representative in parliament.
Months of acute shortages of food, fuel and electricity since late 2021 led to mass agitation against Rajapaksa’s administration which defaulted on the country’s $46bn external debt in April.
The 73-year-old Wickremesinghe, a six-time prime minister, won a parliamentary vote to replace Rajapaksa with the backing of Rajapaksa’s SLPP party but has no popular mandate.
He has reversed tax cuts ordered by his predecessor and raised prices across the board as inflation peaked at a near-70 percent record.
Wickremesinghe has also ordered a crackdown against anti-government protests.
In the last local elections in 2018, his United National Party won just 10 percent of the 340 councils, while conceding 231 to the SLPP.
He has attempted to stall the polls, saying the bankrupt country cannot afford to spend the 10 billion rupees ($27.6m) they would cost, but the independent Election Commission went ahead anyway.
In a brief statement, the Election Commission said nominations for the more than 8,000 councillor positions would be open from January 18 to 21, after which the vote must be held within 28 days.
The local polls, set for February, cannot bring down the current national administration.
Wickremesinghe will gain the power to dissolve the current parliament when it completes half of its five-year term on February 20, but he has shown no indication he wants to go for a snap parliamentary poll.
Constitutionally, a presidential election cannot be held till the last quarter of 2024.