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Washington: US President Donald Trump said Russia will supply diesel to the United States and other global markets after a phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, with the two leaders also discussing Iran and Ukraine. The diesel claim Trump told reporters that Russia would send more than 300,000 tonnes of diesel "immediately," followed by 500,000 tonnes in November and a further 1 million tonnes soon after. The announcement comes as fuel prices in the US are rising. The Kremlin said the two leaders also spoke about Iran and Ukraine during the call. Iran: 'over soon, one way or the other' Trump said the situation with Iran was "going to be over soon, one way or the other," as the conflict involving Iran and its...

India's foreign exchange reserves declined by $12.95 billion to $734.61 billion in the week ended October 2, data released by the Reserve Bank of India on Friday showed, marking the fourth consecutive weekly fall as the central bank continued selling dollars to steady the rupee. The RBI's Weekly Statistical Supplement showed total reserves dropped by $12.952 billion during the week. Foreign currency assets, the largest component of the reserves, fell by $10.664 billion to $604.747 billion, accounting for the bulk of the decline. Gold reserves also decreased by $2.288 billion to $106.413 billion, while Special Drawing Rights rose marginally by $15 million to $18.656 billion and the reserve position with the IMF slipped $15 million to...

A parliamentary panel has called for a sweeping overhaul of the National Testing Agency, saying the cancellation of NEET-UG 2026 despite upgraded security exposed deep structural weaknesses in how India's biggest examinations are run. A report with 35 recommendations The department-related parliamentary standing committee on education, chaired by Rajya Sabha member Mukul Wasnik, presented its 382nd report on Friday, October 9, titled "Reforms and Strengthening of the National Testing Agency". The report carries 35 observations and recommendations aimed at rebuilding public trust in the country's largest examination body. The immediate trigger was the cancellation of NEET-UG 2026, held on May 3 and called off on May 12 amid...

President Donald Trump on Friday established a "committee of inquiry" to investigate allegations that Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook made false statements in mortgage applications — his latest move to remove her from the central bank's board. A White House memo says Cook "shall" attend a hearing at the White House on November 5 that will not be open to the public, though a transcript will be published. The memo states: "As President, it is my job to ensure the laws are faithfully executed, including by firing subordinates who cannot be trusted to tell the truth and follow the law." The committee will include National Economic Council head Kevin Hassett, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission chair Andrea Lucas and acting Office...

Opposition leaders from the INDIA bloc met President Droupadi Murmu at Rashtrapati Bhavan on Friday evening and submitted a memorandum alleging "vote chori", demanding the resignation of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar and a return to paper ballots in place of electronic voting machines. The delegation included Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge, Leader of Opposition Rahul Gandhi, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah, NCP-SP leader Supriya Sule, RJD's Manoj Jha, VCK's Thol. Thirumavalavan, IUML's ET Mohammed Basheer, CPI-M's M A Baby and CPI's D Raja. Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Gandhi said the President had asked the opposition to furnish evidence...

The United States on Thursday suspended eight major technology and IT services companies — including Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL, Capgemini, Microsoft and Adobe — from the Permanent Labour Certification Programme (PERM), a key stage in the process through which foreign workers, including H-1B visa holders, obtain employment-based green cards. Sweeping suspension US Labour Secretary Keith Sonderling announced the move alongside Vice-President J.D. Vance and the head of the US Anti-Fraud Task Force. "I am hereby suspending from the Permanent Labour Certification Programme some of the largest IT outsourcing firms in the world, Cognizant, Infosys, Tata, Wipro, HCL, and Capgemini," Sonderling said, adding that the department was...

The Bharatiya Janata Party swept the West Bengal Assembly bypolls on Friday, winning Nandigram by a record margin and scoring a surprise victory in the Muslim-majority Rejinagar seat, barely five months after ending the Trinamool Congress's 15-year rule in the state. Record margin in Nandigram In Nandigram, BJP candidate Hasirani Rath — the mother of Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari's slain personal assistant Chandranath Rath — defeated Congress nominee Milan Pradhan by a record 1,22,753 votes, according to the Election Commission of India. The bypoll was necessitated after Adhikari relinquished the seat, which he had won by 9,665 votes in the Assembly polls, choosing to retain Bhabanipur instead. The BJP also registered a major...

US President Donald Trump has cancelled his planned visit to Saturday's Alabama-Georgia football game in Tuscaloosa as Hurricane Isaias, now a Category 3 storm, bears down on the Gulf Coast. Tuscaloosa Police confirmed that the president will not be in attendance for the SEC rivalry matchup at Bryant-Denny Stadium on October 10, according to reporting by Ryan Phillips of the Tuscaloosa Patch cited by The Tuscaloosa News. From Mobile rally to a storm-forced reversal Trump had announced his intention to attend the game during a rally in Mobile, Alabama, on Friday, October 2 — just over a week before the matchup. The president later said he had been unaware of the hurricane at the time he announced the visit, and said he would "let the...

New Delhi woke up on Saturday to an unprecedented security clampdown as the Cockroach Janata Party's (CJP) planned protest at Jantar Mantar arrived, with trains cancelled, dozens of metro stations shut, mobile internet suspended in central Delhi and thousands of security personnel deployed across the capital. Indian Railways cancelled Mail and Express trains arriving at New Delhi and Hazrat Nizamuddin stations between 4 am and 2 pm on Saturday. Trains that started from their originating stations after 2 pm on Friday and were scheduled to reach either station during that window were cancelled at source. The Howrah-New Delhi and Sealdah-New Delhi Rajdhani Express trains were among those cancelled. A railway official said the decision was...

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) on Thursday urged social media platforms to curb "manipulated or out-of-context content" circulating online, issuing an advisory that comes days ahead of the October 10 protest planned in New Delhi. The advisory, dated October 8 and signed by MeitY Joint Secretary Ajit Kumar, was issued by the ministry's Cyber Laws Division and was first reported by tech policy news portal MediaNama. It goes beyond AI-generated deepfakes, which are already liable for takedown notices under amendments to the IT Rules, 2021 passed earlier this year, and targets a wider range of misleading material. "Such content, particularly when presented as current or authentic information, has the...

British counterterrorism police have arrested two Latvian men under the UK's National Security Act after they were found inside RAF Molesworth, a sensitive military base in Cambridgeshire that houses US and NATO intelligence operations. The men, aged 32 and 36 and both residents of the United Kingdom, were discovered inside the base in the early hours of Thursday. The alarm was raised around 10 pm on Wednesday after Ministry of Defence Police officers found an abandoned vehicle during a patrol near the edge of the base. Bomb disposal specialists cleared the vehicle before a small breach was found in the perimeter fence and the men were located inside. Investigated under national security law The pair were initially detained on...

India and Liberia have jointly condemned a string of attacks on commercial ships and seafarers in the Gulf and its surrounding waters and in the Black Sea, calling for an immediate halt to the violence and expressing condolences to the families of crew members who have been killed. The two countries issued the statement on Thursday as co-chairs of the Group of Friends on Safety and Security of Shipping and Seafarers, a forum they launched on September 25. Describing the assaults as unacceptable, the statement said the attacks disrupted maritime trade and cost innocent lives, and called them simply indefensible in the interest of peace and regional stability. Call for coordination to protect seafarers The joint statement said India...

Montenegro has detained Mikhail Zvinchuk, the founder of the influential Russian war blog Rybar, along with his wife and three other Russian nationals, following warnings of attempts to destabilise the country through hybrid activity, Prime Minister Milojko Spajic said on Friday. The detention Zvinchuk was detained in the Adriatic coastal town of Risan by police and security agents in what the prime minister described as a successful operation. Montenegro's Pobjeda newspaper, citing sources, reported that the group was detained on charges of spreading "Russian influence". Zvinchuk, who previously served in the Russian Defence Ministry's press office, founded Rybar — one of the most popular blogs on Russia's war in Ukraine, with more...

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) has arrested two alleged members of a trans-national narcotics trafficking syndicate said to be operated by Salim Ismail Dola, described by the agency as a close associate of fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim. The arrests were made by the ED's Mumbai zonal office under Section 19 of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), 2002. Who was arrested and what they allegedly did The accused are Pravin alias Nagesh Ramchandra Shinde and Brijesh Kanjibhai Moradiya. According to the ED, the investigation was initiated on the basis of multiple first information reports (FIRs) registered by various Mumbai law enforcement agencies against Dola and others over alleged offences involving the illicit...

At least seven workers were killed and more than 20 others injured in the early hours of Friday when a truck collided head-on with a Bolero Camper pickup carrying workers inside the Renewable Energy Park near Khavda in Gujarat's Kutch district, police said. Head-on collision around 4 a.m. The collision occurred around 4 a.m. when the two vehicles, travelling in opposite directions, crashed into each other. The impact badly mangled the pickup; all seven victims were occupants of the Bolero Camper and were trapped in the wreckage. Rescue teams extricated them with the help of a crane, but all had died. The injured were taken by ambulance to the District Hospital in Bhuj, where specialist doctors are treating them with necessary medical...

The Supreme Court on Friday flagged the commercial exploitation of its live-streamed hearings, saying the practice is causing serious damage to the judiciary, and asked the Centre to collect suggestions from High Courts and other stakeholders on safeguards to stop the misuse of courtroom videos. Bench examining plea on monetised courtroom clips A bench comprising Chief Justice of India Surya Kant and Justices Joymalya Bagchi and V Mohana was hearing a plea titled Harshita Grover v. Union of India, which seeks restraint on the unauthorised extraction and monetisation of videos of court proceedings. Chief Justice Kant observed that the damage caused to the Bar, the Bench and the institution itself was difficult to quantify. He...

The United States has imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court, the Trump administration announced on Friday, just hours after former ICC judge Navi Pillay was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, putting Washington on a diplomatic collision course with its European allies. "President Trump will never allow the International Criminal Court to prosecute Americans," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement. "That is why, today, the United States is sanctioning the International Criminal Court. We will ban transactions with this rogue court, cutting off their resources and crippling its ability to operate." A sharp escalation The administration had previously imposed sanctions on the court's prosecutors and judges, but...

Federal immigration agents shot and wounded a 28-year-old man during a targeted enforcement operation in the Bronx on Thursday, with the man's five-year-old son sitting in the back seat of the car, New York officials said. The shooting has triggered angry protests and a furious response from Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who demanded an end to federal immigration enforcement in the city. The shooting occurred at around 4 pm ET in the Marble Hill neighbourhood, the New York Police Department said in a post on X. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch confirmed that at least one Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent fired seven rounds. The NYPD said its officers were not involved and were not on the scene at the time. Who was shot The wounded...

Ten people were killed and 16 others injured when a riot broke out during family visiting hours at a prison in Mexico's violence-plagued state of Sinaloa on Thursday, state authorities said. The violence erupted on Thursday morning at the El Castillo Penitentiary Centre in the port city of Mazatlan, in the northwestern state. According to the Sinaloa Public Security Secretariat, nine inmates and one family visitor were killed in the incident, while 16 prisoners were taken for medical treatment after being injured. Local media reported that inmates used firearms during the fight, though authorities have not officially said how the deaths occurred and prosecutors will investigate the cause of the violence. Security forces regain control...

Jawaharlal Nehru University has dismissed its professor and Congress Lok Sabha MP from Inner Manipur, Angomcha Bimol Akoijam, after the university's internal inquiry held him guilty of sexually harassing female students. The dismissal takes effect immediately, according to an order signed by Vice-Chancellor Santishree D. Pandit. The action follows a probe by the university's Internal Committee, which investigated allegations against Akoijam, a professor at the Centre for the Study of Social Systems in the School of Social Sciences. The panel recommended a "major punishment" against him under the applicable service rules, and the university acted on that recommendation after what the order describes as due process. Eleven students had...