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Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Swiss President Guy Parmelin held wide-ranging bilateral talks at Hyderabad House in New Delhi on Monday, the first day of the Swiss leader's three-day State visit to India. The two sides reviewed cooperation across trade, technology, defence and energy, and signed a clutch of new agreements covering transport, migration and professional mobility. Talks on day one of the State visit Parmelin arrived in India for the October 5-7 State visit and was given a ceremonial welcome at Rashtrapati Bhavan before sitting down with Modi for the delegation-level talks. He also met External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar earlier in the day. It is Parmelin's first State visit to India, though he has travelled to the...

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has called a snap general election for November 29 after Parliament rejected housing relief measures proposed by his minority government, setting up a vote in just 54 days that could bring the far right into central government for the first time since the Franco era. Sánchez made the announcement on Monday in a televised address from Moncloa. "We need to renew people's support," he said, cutting short a legislature he had intended to run until 2027. Housing crisis at boiling point The trigger was Parliament's rejection last Friday of two housing decrees from his government, including strengthened protections against evictions and restrictions on speculative home purchases. The measures were voted...

The Supreme Court of India grew by three judges on Monday as the Centre formally notified the appointment of three high court chief justices, taking the apex court's working strength to 37 against a sanctioned strength of 38. The newly appointed judges are Justice Sunita Agarwal, the Chief Justice of the Gujarat High Court; Justice Devendra Kumar Upadhyaya, the Chief Justice of the Delhi High Court; and Justice Aparesh Kumar Singh, the Chief Justice of the Telangana High Court. Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal announced the appointments after the government issued the official notification. Collegium's recommendation clears in a week The notification follows a Supreme Court Collegium recommendation made on September 28, when the...

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on October 4 that the United States wants to broker a new round of talks with Ukraine and Russia on ending the four-and-a-half-year war, to be held by the end of October, AFP reported via The Straits Times. Zelenskyy said Washington is in contact with both sides and has proposed a meeting "at the technical level in a trilateral format." He said he had spoken with the American negotiating team on October 3 and confirmed that Ukraine was ready to support the timeline. No venue yet No location has been fixed. Zelenskyy said Ukraine was open to the United Arab Emirates — which has previously hosted US-mediated talks — or "another country proposed by the American side." Media reports ahead of...

The protest by Maharashtra Public Service Commission (MPSC) aspirants in Pune entered its fifth day on Monday, with NCP(SP) MLA Rohit Pawar giving the state government a 48-hour ultimatum to act on the students' demands, mid-day reported. Pawar demanded the immediate removal of MPSC Chairman Vivek Bhimanwar, citing allegations of paper leaks and a lack of transparency in the examination process. He warned that if the demands were not met, more than one lakh students could take to Pune's streets — either enforcing a Pune bandh or marching to the Mantralaya in Mumbai. Gandhi's expected visit Adding political weight to the agitation, Pawar said Congress leader Rahul Gandhi was expected to meet the protesting candidates on October 7 or...

The Punjab and Haryana High Court on Monday directed the Central Bureau of Investigation to register a criminal case and investigate corruption allegations linked to the office of Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, ordering the agency to submit a status report within two months. A bench comprising Chief Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Justice Rohit Kapoor passed the order while hearing a public interest litigation filed by advocate Nikhil Saraf. The petitioner had approached the court after the Punjab Police allegedly failed to act on complaints raised by the Enforcement Directorate. ED's letters at the heart of the case According to reports, the Enforcement Directorate had written three letters to Punjab Director General of...

A Supreme Court bench on Monday told the Centre and the Delhi Police that preventing crimes against women in Delhi-NCR must take priority over merely acting after offences are committed. The court's message Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K. Vinod Chandran were hearing the court's suo motu case on recent rape incidents in Delhi-NCR. The bench said the authorities needed to work together to make the region safe for women at all hours. "We have to work together. We must ensure that every woman in Delhi-NCR should feel safe even at 11 pm whether travelling on the roads or the metro," the bench said, adding that the police must create fear in the minds of offenders and anti-social elements. Concrete directions Justice Pardiwala warned that...

Former Uttarakhand chief minister Harish Rawat pressed ahead on Monday with his 'Dhanyawad evam Jansamvad Yatra' in the state's Kumaon region, openly defying a warning from the Congress leadership to call off the programme. The yatra's Jaspur-to-Haldwani leg, passing through Kashipur, Ramnagar and Kaladhungi, went ahead as planned despite a strongly worded communication from the party high command objecting to what it described as Rawat's 'personal' outreach organised outside the official party machinery. Selja's letter and the summons to Delhi Uttarakhand Congress in-charge Kumari Selja had written to Rawat on October 1, pointing out that the yatra had been discussed neither with her nor with the Pradesh Congress Committee...

The 2026 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been awarded jointly to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics, the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet announced on Monday. The three laureates will share prize money of 12 million Swedish kronor equally. The Assembly said the laureates had laid the foundation of a new era in neuroscience. Their work produced optogenetics, a method that lets researchers show how nerve cells shape memories, feelings and behaviours in the living brain. From pond algae to a switch for brain cells The story began with Hegemann's curiosity about how Chlamydomonas, a single-celled alga, manages to swim toward a light...

Two people have died and another remained missing after torrential rain and flooding swept through Spain's northeastern Catalonia region over the weekend, authorities said on Sunday, as a renewed burst of heavy rainfall on Monday kept travel disrupted across the Barcelona area. Red alert and flooded streets Catalan leader Salvador Illa confirmed that a man died in Tordera, a town north of Barcelona, after a wall collapsed on him. Firefighters said a second person died in Montornès del Vallès, while emergency services were searching for a missing person in Pineda de Mar, about 52 kilometres north of Barcelona. Catalan authorities issued a red weather alert and urged residents to stay indoors from 8 p.m. on Saturday until 2 p.m. on...

Breaking: The US military said on Sunday that four people were killed in a strike on a vessel in the Caribbean Sea — the latest in a series of attacks Washington says target "narco-terrorists" but which human rights experts condemn as extrajudicial killings. The US Southern Command said on X that it "executed a lethal, kinetic strike on a go-fast vessel operating along established narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean." It cited what it called "confirmed intelligence" to allege the vessel's active involvement in narco-trafficking, without providing more details, and said four people it described as "narco-terrorists" were killed. The Trump administration has said the vessels it has struck since September 2025 were transporting...

Ukraine is facing its biggest budget crisis since Russia's full-scale invasion began in 2022, with soaring war costs and shrinking tax revenues leaving a $56-billion hole in state coffers — roughly a quarter of economic output. The strain is visible in Kryvyi Rih, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's industrial hometown of 600,000 people. Russian airstrikes have brought its huge steel plant and mines to a standstill, and last month ArcelorMittal's sprawling complex, the city's largest employer, suspended operations after missile strikes. "In Kryvyi Rih, the situation is actually worse than anywhere else, apart from the front line itself," Mayor Oleksandr Vilkul said. "It's about survival. Right now, we need to survive." War costs more...

The Omani co-pilot accused of attacking his captain and trying to bring down a flydubai passenger jet told investigators that he wanted to deliberately crash the aircraft and was "not afraid of death," according to the Wall Street Journal, citing a Saudi official briefed on his interrogation. The revelation marks the most chilling development yet in the investigation into the September 30 cockpit attack aboard flydubai Flight 1073, bound for Tel Aviv. What investigators say happened Hamam al-Hammami, 29, an Omani national, allegedly attacked Captain Smit Machchhar inside the cockpit with a crash axe before attempting to take control of the aircraft. The plane plunged more than 16,000 feet in around 30 seconds before the injured...

Trade negotiators from India and Canada began the fifth round of talks for the proposed Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) in Ottawa on Monday, with both governments pushing to wrap up the pact before the end of 2026. The five-day round, led by the chief negotiators of both countries, is scheduled to run until October 9. It follows the fourth round of negotiations, which concluded in India on September 18. Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has said both sides agreed to fast-track the discussions, and officials say the pace has picked up sharply in recent weeks. Why this round matters The talks carry weight well beyond tariff schedules. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney set...

Delhi Police have registered an FIR in connection with the death of a 40-year-old IIT Delhi PhD scholar who died at AIIMS on October 3, more than 45 days after he was found unconscious and injured inside his rented house in Munirka. What happened According to police, the scholar was found unconscious and injured inside his rented accommodation in Munirka village on August 18. The door of the house was locked from inside and had to be broken open by neighbours. Police shifted him to the AIIMS Trauma Centre, where he remained under treatment for over 45 days before he died on October 3. The FIR FIR No. 243/2026 was registered at the Kishangarh police station on October 4 under Section 108 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, which deals...

The Bharatiya Janata Party on Saturday announced its candidates for three of the five Maharashtra Legislative Council seats going to polls on October 23, naming contestants for the graduates' and teachers' constituencies in Pune and Nagpur. The BJP's picks The party fielded Smita Yogesh Jadhav for the Pune Division Graduates' constituency, Sudhakar Vitthalrao Kohle for the Nagpur Division Graduates' constituency and Kaustubh Muralidhar Gawde for the Pune Division Teachers' constituency. The announcement came a day after the Election Commission's notification, with nominations closing on October 6. The poll schedule The Election Commission issued the notification for the biennial elections on September 29. Polling will be held on...

UP's Bhadohi District Renamed as Sant Ravidas Nagar Bhadohi, Yogi Adityanath Announces Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Sunday announced that Bhadohi district would now be known as Sant Ravidas Nagar Bhadohi, restoring a name with deep political and cultural resonance in the state's eastern belt. "Now Bhadohi district will be called Sant Ravidas Nagar Bhadohi," Adityanath said while addressing a programme in the district, where he inaugurated and laid the foundation stones for 112 development projects worth over Rs 1,340 crore. The chief minister said the renaming honours Satguru Ravidas Maharaj, the medieval saint known for his spiritual teachings and message of social unity. He recalled that on Guru Purnima, the...

The United States has withdrawn all its B-1 bombers from Royal Air Force Fairford in Britain, the Pentagon confirmed on Sunday, a week after British police arrested several men near the base on suspicion of preparing terrorist acts. A dozen B-1 bombers had been stationed at Fairford, northwest of London, where they were used for US strikes on Iran. A Pentagon spokesman said the aircraft have now been flown back to their home stations in the United States. Pentagon confirms the move "While operational security precluded us from confirming the movement of our assets and forces in real-time, we can acknowledge now that all US bombers that were deployed to RAF Fairford have re-deployed to their home stations in the United States," the...

Leaders of Egypt, Sudan, Eritrea and Somalia have issued a joint declaration after a four-way consultative summit in New Alamein City, Egypt, setting out a common position on regional security, Red Sea governance and Nile waters. The Quadrilateral Consultative Summit was held on Sunday, October 4, 2026, with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi hosting Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud and the chairman of Sudan's Transitional Sovereignty Council, General Abdel Fattah Al-Burhan. A unified stance on Somaliland and the Nile In the El Alamein Joint Declaration, the four leaders rejected any recognition of or support for "Somaliland," affirming Somalia's territorial integrity. They also called...

Supporters of jailed former Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan have set off on a protest march from the country's northwest towards Islamabad after talks with the government to call off the demonstration failed, Al Jazeera reported on Sunday. More than 5,000 people were reported to have begun the rally on Sunday, October 4. The march, organised by Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, was originally scheduled for September 27 but was postponed to October 4 to allow negotiations between the government and the PTI leadership. Two rounds of talks fail Two rounds of talks over the weekend failed to break the deadlock, and the PTI decided to carry out its plan — the latest attempt to pressure the government into releasing Khan...