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India has formally proposed a three-part truce framework for the Russia-Ukraine war, stepping up its diplomatic role in a conflict that is now in its fifth year. New Delhi conveyed the plan to the Ukrainian leadership during External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar's visit to Kyiv last month. The proposal centres on three linked measures: an end to attacks on energy facilities and other critical infrastructure, the continued movement of grain and energy through Black Sea ports, and a halt to strikes on commercial vessels in the strategic waterway. Ukraine calls it the "most comprehensive" Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha confirmed on October 2 that Kyiv had received the Indian proposal and described it as the most...

Indian pilot Captain Smit Machchhar, who helped prevent a mid-air disaster aboard flydubai flight FZ1073, suffered a depressed skull fracture during the cockpit attack and underwent emergency surgery before being airlifted to the United Arab Emirates, where he is now recovering. The 38-year-old captain was allegedly attacked by his Omani co-pilot, Hamam al-Hammami, with an emergency crash axe inside the cockpit of the Dubai-to-Tel Aviv flight on September 30. According to doctors cited in reports, the blow left a "depressed fracture fragment of skull" — a break in which a piece of the skull is pressed inward toward the brain. Emergency surgery was performed in Saudi Arabia, where the flight made an emergency landing in Tabuk, before...

The Supreme Court has set aside elections in 50 municipal wards of Punjab and ordered fresh polls within six weeks under a monitoring mechanism overseen by the Punjab and Haryana High Court. The detailed written order, passed on September 28 by a bench led by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, was officially made available on Wednesday. The 50 wards comprise 28 in the Aam Aadmi Party-ruled Patiala Municipal Corporation — including the wards of the city's senior deputy mayor and deputy mayor — and 22 in the Dharamkot and Baghapurana municipal councils of Moga district. The bench, also comprising Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana, accepted the findings of a one-member commission headed by retired Punjab and Haryana High Court judge...

US Vice President JD Vance said Iran must make a "meaningful" reduction in its nuclear enrichment capacity to satisfy US demands and end the seven-month war, in an exclusive interview with Reuters conducted after a campaign trip to Alaska. The US demand Vance, a longtime skeptic of US involvement in foreign wars who has taken a leading role in negotiating a settlement to the conflict, said any agreement would require Iran to actually reduce its enrichment capacity rather than offer assurances of future drawdowns. "If you don't want a nuclear weapon, then why do you need 60% enriched fuel? And if you want to show commitment to not building a nuclear weapon, don't build highly enriched fuel. That's a very basic threshold issue," Vance...

The Tamil Nadu Public Service Commission has released the Group 4 Notification 2026, opening applications for 6,574 vacancies across state government departments under the Combined Civil Services Examination-IV. What the notification covers The recruitment drive, issued under Advertisement No. 747 and Notification No. 11/2026 on October 6, 2026, spans 46 post entries across various Tamil Nadu government departments, boards and corporations. It covers Village Administrative Officer (VAO), Junior Assistant, Bill Collector, Revenue Assistant, Tax Collector, Typist, Steno-Typist, Executive Officer Grade IV, Forest Watcher, Forest Guard and several other Group IV posts. The Commission has noted the vacancy figures are tentative and may be...

Security forces have launched a massive search operation in the forests of Kokernag in Jammu and Kashmir's Anantnag district after two soldiers went missing during a combing exercise, officials said on Wednesday. Contact lost during anti-terror sweep The soldiers lost contact with their unit during a combing operation in the Kokernag area, where security forces were conducting a sweep to track down terrorists, officials said. A large search has been launched across the forested terrain to locate the two missing personnel. No further details about the soldiers' identities or the circumstances in which contact was lost have been officially released, and authorities have not attributed the disappearance to any specific cause. Second...

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday inaugurated Phase 1 of the Navi Mumbai International Airport, a Rs 19,650-crore greenfield project billed as India's largest airport development, and dedicated the fully completed Mumbai Metro Line-3 to the nation during a day of high-profile infrastructure launches in Maharashtra. Navi Mumbai International Airport opens its doors The Prime Minister undertook a walkthrough of the newly built airport around 3 PM before inaugurating it at around 3:30 PM, the Prime Minister's Office said. Developed under a public-private partnership, the Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA) is India's largest greenfield airport project, spread over 1,160 hectares. It will serve as the second international...

EU trade chief Maros Sefcovic will hold critical talks with Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao in Beijing on October 8-9, as the two sides head into the final stretch of discussions to tackle their trade tensions. What's on the table The 27-nation bloc is deeply concerned about its trade imbalance with China and the damage Brussels says it is inflicting on key European industries. The European Union's trade deficit in goods with China hit around 360 billion euros in 2025. According to EU spokesman Olof Gill, priorities for the EU include the management of Chinese exports to the bloc, Europe's access to the Chinese market, and export controls on rare earths. China, the dominant supplier, restricted exports of rare earths last year...

Kenya has confirmed its first-ever Ebola case after a Kenyan national who had returned from the Democratic Republic of the Congo died in Nairobi, health authorities announced on Tuesday. How the case unfolded Kenya's Health Minister Aden Duale said the patient had lived in the Democratic Republic of the Congo for several years and had fallen ill about a month ago, receiving treatment at several hospitals there before travelling. He travelled by road from the Congo to Uganda's capital, Kampala, and then boarded a flight to Nairobi on October 3. At Nairobi's airport he passed routine public health screening. Health authorities later explained that medication he was taking probably masked his symptoms as he walked through the...

The Congress party has called for nationwide protests on Thursday, October 8, and declared October 7 a "Black Day for Indian Democracy", escalating its confrontation with the Election Commission after the detention of Rahul Gandhi, Priyanka Gandhi Vadra and other INDIA bloc leaders. In a letter dated October 7, Congress general secretary (organisation) K C Venugopal directed Pradesh Congress Committees, district and block units to organise protests at the state, district and block or mandal levels on Thursday. Second detention in 24 hours The call follows the detention of the opposition leaders for the second time in 24 hours during their protest over the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls and their demand for the...

Police in Kurukshetra arrested two youths hailing from Patiala in Punjab on Tuesday and seized a hand grenade and five live cartridges from their possession, in what officers believe may be linked to a criminal gang network. Acting on a tip-off, a police team intercepted the accused on the Pehowa Highway while the duo was travelling on a motorcycle from Punjab towards Kurukshetra, news agency PTI reported. Explosive defused in the evening A bomb disposal squad was called in from Madhuban in Karnal and defused the hand grenade at about 8.30 pm, a police official said. No injuries were reported in the operation. The official said both suspects are believed to have links with a criminal gang, and further investigation is underway to...

Israel on Wednesday marked three years since Hamas's October 7, 2023 attack — the deadliest day in the country's history — with memorial events held under a fragile ceasefire and just weeks before a general election. About 1,200 people were killed in the assault, according to official Israeli figures cited in an AFP tally that puts the toll at 1,221, while militants dragged 251 hostages into Gaza. Israel's subsequent military campaign has killed over 74,000 people in Gaza, according to health authorities there. A day of remembrance A tribute was held at 06:29 a.m. — the exact time the attack began three years ago — at Kibbutz Kfar Aza near the Gaza border, where militants killed 64 residents and abducted 18 people. Israelis also...

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday flagged off the third edition of Sagarmanthan: The Great Oceans Dialogue, a three-day maritime conference that will bring more than 1,200 speakers, delegates and participants from nearly 75 countries to New Delhi from October 7 to 9. The event, themed "Blue Geographies, New Aspirations: Trade, Technology, and Trust at Sea", is co-hosted by the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways and the Observer Research Foundation, and will deliberate on the future of the global maritime sector across trade, technology, sustainability and cooperation. A message for the world's oceans In a written message to the conference, the Prime Minister called for a "free, open, secure and rules-based maritime...

A tropical storm named Isaias formed in the Gulf of Mexico early Wednesday, and forecasters expect it to rapidly strengthen into a dangerous Category 2 hurricane before striking the U.S. northern Gulf Coast at the end of the week. The National Hurricane Center said Isaias strengthened from Tropical Depression Nine in the Bay of Campeche on Wednesday morning, with sustained winds of 45 mph. The storm was centered about 540 miles south-southwest of the mouth of the Mississippi River and was moving east-northeast at about 8 mph. Forecasters project it to become a hurricane by Thursday, Oct. 8, and reach 110-mph Category 2 strength within 48 hours as it charges toward the northern Gulf Coast. State of Emergency in Florida Florida Gov...

The Union Cabinet has approved the creation of a new apex body to bring all transport and logistics planning in India under one roof. The Integrated Transport and Logistics Authority, cleared by the Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday, will be set up in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and function as the national hub for planning, project appraisal, monitoring and data analytics across every mode of transport. What the authority will do The authority will draw up a National Transport Master Plan with a planning horizon of ten years or more, covering roads, railways, ports and shipping, civil aviation, inland waterways, coastal shipping, urban mobility and logistics. It will also vet shorter five-year...

Swedish police shot an armed man outside the Royal Palace in central Stockholm on Tuesday evening after responding to reports of a disruptive individual carrying a weapon, authorities said. The man was struck by police gunfire and taken to hospital with injuries described as serious but not life-threatening. Police said there was no danger to the public, and the Royal Court confirmed that no member of the royal family was at the palace at the time. Evening confrontation The alarm came in at around 6:30 p.m. near Lejonbacken, close to the palace entrance, prompting a large police operation that Swedish media said involved about 20 police cars, with ambulances also called to the scene. Officers responding to the reports opened fire on...

A five-storey building collapsed in northeast Delhi's Seemapuri area on Wednesday afternoon, leaving several people feared trapped under the debris as police and rescue teams rushed to the spot and launched a rescue operation. Rescue operation underway According to Times Now, which updated its report at 4:57 PM IST, the building came down in New Seemapuri and around a dozen people were initially feared trapped under the rubble. Four people, including two children, had been pulled out of the debris by the time of the report, and rescue teams were continuing efforts to locate and free anyone still buried. The report noted there was no official information yet on the exact number of people injured or the number still trapped, with...

The 2026 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Henri B. Kagan and Kenso Soai "for the discovery of non-linear effects and autocatalysis in asymmetric organic synthesis," the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced in Stockholm on Wednesday. Solving a century-old mystery The pair's work addresses one of chemistry's oldest puzzles: homochirality — the phenomenon that living systems use only one of two possible mirror-image forms of a molecule, like left and right hands. Kagan and Soai showed how this one-sidedness can emerge spontaneously through chemistry rather than being unique to living organisms. "Henri Kagan and Kenso Soai have provided a solution to a chemical mystery that is over a century old: how homochirality can...

North Korea has accused the United States of stoking tensions in the Taiwan Strait through arms sales and military support for the island, while leader Kim Jong Un separately pledged continued backing for Russia's war effort in a birthday message to President Vladimir Putin, state media reported on Wednesday. Warning over Taiwan The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) carried a commentary attributed to international affairs analyst Kim Myong Chol, which said Washington's Taiwan policy was undermining peace and stability in the region. The commentary condemned the appearance of American-made fighter aircraft in Taiwan, saying the United States "should think twice" about whether it was prepared for a direct confrontation with China over...

More than a quarter of a million people marched across France on Tuesday in the largest day yet of a student-led movement against crumbling and understaffed schools, as Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu suspended high school classes nationwide for the rest of the week and ordered his ministers to answer the students' demands by the end of October. France's Interior Ministry estimated that 266,000 people took part in demonstrations across the country, including 56,000 in Paris, while organisers claimed the figure was closer to 450,000. The High School Students Union said nearly 2,000 high schools were blockaded or closed for the day; the Education Ministry said classes were totally or partially suspended at 891 schools. Protests that...