While waiting for the hearing of his civil suit to come up, former opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was keeping abreast with current issues by asking about the political situations in the country and the world.

Anwar asked what happened to MIC's M Saravanan ( photo ) and was told that the deputy youth and sports minister lost to Perak state legislative assembly speaker SK Devamany in the contest for the deputy president's post.

The PKR de facto leader is into his eighth month of five-year jail sentence at the Sungai Buloh prison, after being found guilty of sodomy II.

While Anwar was asking the questions, about four Prisons Department officials were watching and standing closely to the politician while his supporters took turn to shake hands.

The former deputy prime minister was in court for about 15 minutes in his RM100 million defamation suit against his former tennis partner and now Malaysian United Indian Party president, S Nallakaruppan, at the High Court in Kuala Lumpur.

The case did not go on today as Nallakaruppan's lawyer Muhammad Shafee Abdullah was ill.

Anwar, formerly Permatang Pauh MP, was also asking about the current political situations, especially on the issue of 1MDB and whether the much-hyped debate will happen.

His wife, PKR president Dr Wan Azizah Wan Ismail, Pandan MP Rafizi Ramli and Ampang MP Zuraida Kamaruddin briefed him on what transpired at the current Parliament session and that the proposed debate with 1MDB president Arul Kanda would not go on .

"They just wanted to see (Petaling Jaya Utara MP) Tony Pua to be off the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). Even I tried to replace Pua but Parliament moved to disagree after two hours," Rafizi (photo) explained on the status of the debate.

Anwar was also told about Canada which has a new prime minister in Justin Trudeau. Justin is the son of former Canadian premier Pierre.

Wan Azizah kept her husband informed on the United States presidential election race.

Anwar later spoke in Tamil and wished 'Happy Deepavali' to several of his Indian supporters in the public gallery.