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Boeing has identified a previously undisclosed software glitch in some 737 MAX aircraft that can knock out automated flight guidance during a specific landing scenario, a disclosure that has put roughly 96 planes flying in India — operated by Air India Express and Akasa Air — under the spotlight. The issue was first reported by the Wall Street Journal on September 26, citing company documents. According to the report, the glitch emerged from a cockpit software update and can occur when flight crews alter their planned flight path after a missed approach — the go-around manoeuvre used to abort a landing attempt. In that sequence, the flight management computer may drop the automated vertical navigation guidance pilots would normally...

The Supreme Court on Monday tightened the timeline on two political legal battles in West Bengal, directing the Election Commission to decide the dispute over the Trinamool Congress's name and symbol within a strict schedule and nudging the state Assembly Speaker to settle long-pending defection petitions within three months. The twin orders came in hearings on Monday, September 28, and were detailed to the media by TMC (Mamata Banerjee-led faction) leader Kalyan Banerjee. The developments follow an Article 32 petition filed by former West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee challenging the Election Commission's handling of the party dispute. EC told to stick to a schedule On the Trinamool Congress factional dispute, the Supreme...

New Delhi — Tired of watching traffic fines pile up unpaid, the Supreme Court on Monday floated a novel recovery idea: if motorists will not clear their e-challans, the dues could simply be added to their electricity bills. "If people are not paying traffic challans, add it to their electricity dues bill. They'll have to pay electricity bills else power line will be disconnected. Work it out. In this country, you have to find a way out," a bench of Justices J.B. Pardiwala and K.V. Viswanathan said. The bench was hearing a plea on the electronic enforcement of traffic violations and the recovery of unpaid e-challans. It was told that Rs 45,000 crore worth of e-challan fines had been raised across states and Union Territories, of which...

A senior Iranian cleric has claimed that Iran's Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei was pulled from the rubble of a Tehran hospital after US and Israeli strikes hit the building where he was recovering, in remarks that add to the mystery over the leader's fate. The claim was made by Mohsen Heydari, a member of Iran's Assembly of Experts, in an interview with Qatari channel Al Araby, first reported by the New York Post and carried by Indian Express on September 28. The claim According to Heydari, Khamenei had been wounded in earlier attacks and taken to hospital, after which three hospitals in Tehran were bombed. "Mojtaba Khamenei was in the third hospital and was pulled from the rubble," he said. The New York Post reported that the...

The Congress party sharpened its attack on Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar on Monday, holding protest marches across Maharashtra and demonstrations elsewhere in the country over alleged irregularities in the voter rolls and the conduct of the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) exercise. Party workers marched outside district collectorates in Pune, Nagpur, Nashik, Kolhapur, Solapur, Thane, Amravati and Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar, submitting memoranda demanding Kumar's removal and arrest. The agitation comes amid a running political row over the SIR, which the opposition has branded "vote theft". Protests across the state In Amravati, Congress workers paraded an effigy of the Chief Election Commissioner on a donkey, while in...

Pennsylvania's measles outbreak continued to worsen on Monday, with 68 new infections reported since last Wednesday, bringing the total to 903 — the worst measles resurgence the state has seen in decades, according to state health department data reported by Reuters. The toll According to the Pennsylvania Department of Health, 176 measles patients had been hospitalized, up from 164 reported on September 23. Lancaster County, with the highest number of cases, remains the hardest-hit area in the state. The pace of the outbreak is striking: 68 new infections in just five days, underscoring how quickly the highly contagious virus continues to spread through under-vaccinated pockets. Health officials have repeatedly pointed to the MMR...

Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath on Saturday held a high-level review meeting with state health department authorities on the rising dengue cases and issued sweeping directives, including setting up dedicated dengue hospitals in every district with doctors, health workers, investigation facilities and treatment arrangements. The directives Expressing concern over the increased impact of dengue and other infectious diseases in recent weeks, the Chief Minister instructed health officials to improve screening and surveillance. He asked officials to take the help of ASHA workers and conduct door-to-door screening to identify people with symptoms and arrange treatment. He also directed officials to ensure the availability of...

China is set to cut tariffs on a broad range of American agricultural goods, from corn and wheat to meat and dairy, but soybeans — its top US farm import — were excluded from a tariff-reduction list issued by China's Commerce Ministry on Monday, September 28, 2026. The list covers sorghum, vegetable oils and meals including soyoil and soymeal, along with meat, dairy products and other items. More than 90 per cent of the covered products will be exempt from all additional tariffs imposed by the two countries on each other and will instead face most-favoured-nation tariff rates, the Commerce Ministry said in a statement. The proposal does not specify when the cuts will take effect. The agricultural tariff cuts are part of a $60 billion...

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister C. Joseph Vijay on Monday rolled out the 'Thaimaman Thanga Mothiram Thittam' — a flagship welfare scheme that gifts a one-gram, 22-carat gold ring to every newborn delivered in a government hospital — launching it at the Government Rajaji Hospital in Madurai and fulfilling one of his ruling Tamilaga Vettri Kazhagam's key poll promises. The scheme covers babies born in government hospitals and primary health centres on or after June 22, 2026, the chief minister's birthday. The rings will be BIS hallmarked and will carry the Tamil Nadu government logo, an image of Vijay and the scheme's name, according to reports. The state government has earmarked Rs 755.83 crore for the initiative and has already procured...

At least four people were killed and 12 are missing after an avalanche struck the base camp of Mount Himlung in Nepal's Manang district on Sunday, with rescue teams digging through deep snow on Monday, the Associated Press reported. The avalanche buried tents at the base camp of the 7,126-metre peak in north-central Nepal during severe weather. Rescuers from the Nepal National Mountain Guide Association, which is leading the effort, said they recovered two more bodies on Monday in addition to two found on Sunday. Eight experienced mountain guides took advantage of improving weather to dig through the snow that had covered the tents, and ten people were rescued. All victims Nepali nationals All those killed or missing were Nepali...

Air India will resume direct flights between Delhi and Tel Aviv from December 1, 2026, restoring the only non-stop air link between India and Israel, the Israel Ministry of Tourism said on Monday. The airline will operate five weekly flights from Sunday through Thursday using Boeing 777 aircraft, the ministry said in a statement reported by PTI. The return of the service is expected to give momentum to tourism ties between the two countries and make Israel more accessible to new segments of Indian travellers. Only non-stop connection "The return of Air India's direct flights is an important development for tourism between India and Israel," Galit Hoffman, the ministry's Consul for Tourism Affairs in India, said in the statement. "For...

US President Donald Trump asked Chinese leader Xi Jinping whether China would be interested in buying American weapons, the United States' ambassador to Beijing revealed in a television interview on September 28. "President Trump continues to say, 'Hey, we sell arms to other people around the world,'" Ambassador David Perdue said on Fox News Sunday while discussing Xi's state visit to Washington last week. "He actually asked President Xi, would he like to buy some at one point." Perdue did not say whether the reported offer came during Xi's recent visit to Washington, during Trump's trip to Beijing in May, or at another time. He also did not mention whether the Chinese leader had responded. The remark and the Taiwan question...

The Indian Navy's biannual Commanders' Conference gets underway at Nausena Bhawan in New Delhi on September 29, with three days of deliberations centred on maritime security, operational preparedness and the induction of emerging technologies, according to the Navy's announcement reported on September 28. The conference, the second edition of the Navy's apex-level commanders' meeting this year, will bring together senior naval leadership, including operational and area commanders, to review preparedness at the military-strategic level. The discussions are expected to assess the force's combat readiness in line with the three pillars of jointness, self-reliance and innovation. Protecting energy supplies A major focus of the conference...

Russia struck the headquarters of Kyivstar, Ukraine's largest mobile service provider, in Kyiv on Sunday, the company told local media, as Moscow continued a bombardment of Ukrainian data centres and communications infrastructure, Reuters reported. Kyivstar told the Interfax Ukraine news agency that its head office in the capital had been hit but that there were no casualties. Russia's Defence Ministry said on Sunday that it had also hit a data centre belonging to Vodafone Ukraine, the country's second-largest mobile network; Vodafone Ukraine did not respond to a request for comment. Strikes across the capital's networks Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia struck a data centre in Kyiv twice on Sunday morning, wounding...

The Maharashtra Public Service Commission has postponed the State Services Main Examination 2026, which was scheduled to begin on October 3, following weeks of protests and growing demands from aspirants and political groups for a review of the commission's examination process, PTI reported. The decision comes after sustained agitation over a paper leak controversy linked to the Drug Inspector examination. Aspirants have alleged irregularities in several recruitment processes conducted by the commission, and the protests have escalated into demands for the resignation of chairman Vivek Bhimanwar and the commission's secretary. Protests and the paper leak row The unrest has been led in part by Abhijeet Dipke, leader of the Chhatrapati...

Taiwan is pushing back against what it sees as Beijing's attempt to rewrite the history of World War Two, after Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Donald Trump publicly highlighted the wartime alliance between their countries at a summit last week, according to a Reuters report by Ben Blanchard. At their state dinner in Washington on Thursday, both leaders lauded the way their nations fought together in the war. A White House fact sheet issued after the summit said Trump and Xi recalled that the United States and China "were allies in World War Two and fought side by side to win the war". That framing has rattled Taipei, which fears Washington could be drawn toward Beijing's version of history — potentially weakening support...

An Indian delegation touched down in Islamabad on Monday, September 28, 2026, to take part in a three-day session of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation's Council of National Coordinators, marking a rare moment of engagement between the two neighbours on multilateral ground. The delegation is being led by Joint Secretary Alok Dimri, who serves as India's National Coordinator for the SCO. According to ABP Live, the visit is the first time since 2024 that an Indian delegation has travelled to Pakistan, underscoring how infrequent such cross-border movement remains even within multilateral frameworks. The meeting, which runs from September 28 to 30, is the first major engagement under Pakistan's 2026–27 chairmanship of the SCO, a role...

The Supreme Court on Monday refused to grant an interim stay on the Centre's decision to impose a 0.4 per cent Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) on specified UPI person-to-merchant transactions above Rs 2,000, clearing the way for the rollout from October 15. A bench headed by Chief Justice of India Surya Kant, along with Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana, declined interim relief but issued notices to the Centre, the Reserve Bank of India, the National Payments Corporation of India and other respondents. The court directed them to file counter affidavits within four weeks. The PIL, filed by advocate Anjan Datta, challenges the Centre's September 14 notification and the MDR framework announced on September 15. The plea alleged the levy...

The National High Speed Rail Corporation Limited (NHSRCL) has launched the first steel bridge for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project in Maharashtra, marking a key construction milestone on India's first high-speed rail corridor. The 100-metre-long steel bridge, weighing around 1,405 tonnes, was launched over NH-3 (Nashik Highway) at Dive-Anjur village in Bhiwandi, Thane district, on Monday. According to NHSRCL, it is the first steel bridge completed for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad High Speed Rail (MAHSR) project in Maharashtra. 28 steel bridges planned on the corridor A total of 28 steel bridges are planned along the bullet train corridor, of which 16 have been completed. Steel bridges are used at locations where the line crosses...

Delhi Police on Monday took legal action against Delhi PWD Minister Parvesh Verma over the slapping of a youth during a road inspection in Tilak Nagar a day earlier, capping a day of escalating political confrontation between the BJP and the Aam Aadmi Party. The controversy broke out on Sunday after AAP leaders shared a video purportedly showing Verma slapping a young man who was filming road work during an inspection in Tilak Nagar. The AAP held a protest in the area over the alleged incident, with party leaders demanding action. Five complaints, no FIR yet Delhi Police said on Monday that five complaints had been received in connection with the controversy. One complaint was filed by Sahib Singh, an associate of AAP MLA Jarnail...