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Supreme Court on Thursday put an end to caste-based discrimination in prisons dubbing it unconstitutional. A bench, headed by CJI DY Chandrachud, directed the central government to make changes in the jail manuals that perpetuate such practices. The bench ordered that the caste column and any reference to caste in undertrial and/or convicts /prisoners/ registers inside the prisons shall be removed. The bench ruled that such a jail manual, which discriminates by assigning cleaning and sweeping tasks to lower castes and cooking to higher castes, is in violation of Article 15 (which prohibits discrimination against citizens). SC directed the Centre to make necessary changes to address caste-based discrimination in the Model Prison Manual 2016 and Model Prisons and Correctional Services Act 2023. The Centre has been given three months' time to make the said changes.

India Ratings has said. The agency is seeing continuing pressure on cash flows in certain end-borrower segments, on-field attrition, lower-than-expected recoveries leading to higher write-offs and overleveraging of borrowers in the unsecured business loan portfolio. “While the denominator effect was playing out over most of FY24, the need to recognise the rising delinquencies, provide for them and write-off the same has increased the credit cost pain since 4QFY24,” the agency said.

Reserve Bank of India research paper has suggested reforms in agricultural marketing, including increase of private mandis to help farmers realize better value for their produce. The paper on vegetable inflation studying Tomato, Onion and Potato (TOP) prices noted that onion farmers get only 36 pc of consumers' spends, for tomato it stood at 33 per cent and for potato it was 37 per cent. «As vegetables are perishable commodities, private mandis may be increased to improve transparency in marketing of TOP vegetables,» the paper said, adding that the competition may also help improve the local-level agricultural produce market committee infrastructure. The research suggested that there is «a significant negative relationship» between monthly availability/availability to usage ratio and consumer price inflation of the three vegetables, while controlling for other factors like input costs, rainfall and wages.

Its trip that spring came as Western authorities were frantically trying to piece together the network to which it belonged: one of shadowy ships with hidden owners on whom powerful Russians relied to transport the nation's valuable oil. But by a quirk of the shipping industry, the Jaguar had ties to the West. The tanker flew the flag of St. Kitts and Nevis, which has its maritime registry just outside London — some 20 miles from the very British authorities who chase Russia's assets around the world and chart its oil shipments.

In recent months, some of the biggest would-be developers of the fuel have canceled projects, axed orders and scaled back investment plans. The low-carbon fuel is simply too expensive to stimulate demand in many sectors of the economy. On Thursday, Origin Energy Ltd. canceled a project to produce the clean-burning fuel in an industrial area of eastern Australia.

Will Smith, the charismatic star renowned for his role as the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and his action-packed legacy, has been at the center of a rather unusual anecdote from the set of the iconic 1997 film Men in Black. Director Barry Sonnenfeld revealed a humorous incident during an appearance on the podcast Let's Talk Off-Camera With Kelly Ripa, where he recounted how a single fart led to the evacuation of the entire movie set for three hours, as mentioned in a report by Movieweb. Sonnenfeld recounted the story of a particular filming sequence that involved Smith and his co-star Tommy Lee Jones being sealed inside a pod for a scene featuring the film's transforming car.

ceasefire with Pakistan along the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir has sustained and exceptions to any activity taken by the other side is brought to notice through various means, a top Army officer said on Thursday. Speaking at a press conference, General Officer Commanding (GoC) of the Army's strategic Srinagar-based Chinar Corps, Lt Gen Rajiv Ghai, said when the ceasefire understanding with Pakistan came into effect at the beginning of the year 2021, the situation was tenuous on the northern borders with China. «At that point in time, the two countries (India and Pakistan) felt that it was the most apt thing to do so that tensions could be kept under the threshold as far as the LoC (Line of Control) and the western borders are concerned,» he said. Lt Gen Ghai, who is relinquishing the command of Chinar Corps, said the ceasefire understanding has sustained.

southern Lebanon that are north of a UN-declared buffer zone, signaling that it may widen a ground operation launched earlier this week against the Hezbollah militant group. Israel has told people to leave Nabatieh, a provincial capital, and other communities north of the Litani River, which formed the northern edge of the border zone established by the UN Security Council after the 2006 war in a resolution that both sides accuse the other of violating. At least eight Israeli soldiers have been killed in clashes with Hezbollah in southern Lebanon, where Israel announced the start of what it says is a limited ground incursion earlier this week. The region was meanwhile bracing for Israeli retaliation following an Iranian ballistic missile attack.

Priyank Kharge on Thursday said Bengaluru was suffering an annual loss of Rs 20,000 crore because of congestion on roads. «But this is consistent across all urban cities worldwide,» the minister said after launching traffic quality index (TQI), a dashboard developed by employee commute platform MoveInSync. The index will provide an indicative score of the traffic problem in an area or in a city, the Bengaluru-based startup said. Traffic congenstion, he added, was a global issue especially in rapidly growing cities where this phenomena was cosistent. «Cognestion is not only about slow movingtraffic, but it can have serious economic and and development impact,» Kharge explained, adding that the initative is commendable bringing all stakeholder together. Currently up and running in Bengaluru, Mumbai, NCR, Hyderabad, and Chennai, the TQI is built on 15 years of data that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance decongestion efforts and make commuting safer to unlock the further growth potential of businesses and livability in a region, the company said in a statement.

railway unions launched a social media campaign on Thursday demanding productivity-linked bonuses based on the Seventh Pay Commission instead of the sixth. IREF had written to Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw a fortnight ago in support of its demand, but its office-bearers said they didn't receive any response from the government. Hence to press for their demand, the railway unions launched a social media campaign on X from Thursday. During the countrywide lockdown forced by the COVID-19 pandemic, people were afraid to step out of their homes but the railway employees successfully operated trains and registered a sharp increase in earnings as is evident in the quarterly bulletin of Indian Railways, they said.

deposit growth in the banking system has narrowed by more than half a percentage point toward the end of September, mirroring the impact of the regulatory nudge to boost deposits and de-risk the broader financial system where demand for loans remains undiminished. The gap narrowed to 162 basis points in the fortnight ended September 20, the latest Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data showed, from 220 basis points two weeks ago. One basis point is a hundredth of a percentage point. As on September 20, year-on-year credit growth print was at 13.02% against 13.3% a fortnight ago, while the latest deposit growth was higher — at 11.4% versus 11.1%.

Netflix’s popular series Bridgerton is officially in production for its fourth season, which promises to deliver another enthralling chapter in the lives of the Bridgerton family. This time, the focus will be on the romance between the second-eldest sibling, Benedict Bridgerton, played by Luke Thompson, and his love interest, Lady in Silver, Sophie Baek, portrayed by Yerin Ha. With fans excited to watch the story of Bendict and Sophie, the streaming platform has confirmed several returning stars and introduced new characters to the mix, as per a report by TV Insider.

Union Cabinet approved the second phase of the Chennai Metro Rail Project at a financial outlay of Rs 63,246 crore Thursday. There will be three corridors in this phase spanning 118.9 kilometres (kms) covering 128 stations, an official statement said. The Cabinet also approved Productivity Linked Bonus (PLB) worth Rs 2028.57 crore for 78 days to 11.72 crore railway employees. In addition to these, a modified Productivity Linked Reward (PLR) Scheme for the major ports and dock labour board employees got the cabinet nod. “Chennai’s population is expected to reach 1.8 crore (from 1.2 crore in 2026) by 2048, so it is very important to create infrastructure for this city,” Union Minister for Railways, Information Broadcasting, and Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw told journalists after the Cabinet meeting. The approved metro corridors will connect North to South and East to the West of Chennai. Once Phase-II is fully operational, Chennai city will have a metro rail network of 173 kms, the statement said.

Donald Trump as a wave of polls gives him the advantage. A set of surveys released on Tuesday indicate that, in the lead-up to November's election, Donald Trump has gained a modest advantage in many important battleground states. Donald Trump leads Kamala Harris in a number of polls in the key swing states of Arizona, Nevada, North Carolina, and Georgia. Based on polling data, it appears like Harris and Trump are virtually tied as the last month of campaigning before Election Day approaches. According to a Tuesday analysis of recent polling by seasoned analyst Nate Silver, Harris led by 3.4 points, but the Electoral College system would only give her a 55% chance of winning in the end.

stock broking startup Upstox has bought back 5% of Ratan Tata's shareholding in the company. In a statement, the company said that Tata got a 23,000% return on his initial investment. Tata continues to hold 95% of his original stake in the company. Back in 2016, he had acquired a 1.33% stake in the Tiger Global-backed startup. According to data from Tracxn, after an equity round that Upstox undertook in September 2022, Tata was left with 0.9% stake in the company. This share buyback happened at a $3.5 billion valuation which the startup had achieved back in 2022.

principal auditors of listed companies in finalising financial statements under existing norms. The circular asks auditors to follow both the Standard on Auditing (SA) 600 and the Companies Act 2013 in letter and spirit, on top of other relevant norms, and act accordingly. It makes clear that any narrow interpretation by auditors of a provision to bypass their fiduciary duty to provide shareholders with a fair financial picture of the company would be unacceptable.

Amar Merani, chief investment officer and head of real estate assets of 360 One Asset, has resigned from the firm, according to informed sources. “Both parties have reached an agreement to remain with the firm until the end of the year. Post which Merani is anticipated to pursue an entrepreneurial role following his transition from the company,” said one of the source quoted above. Merani could not be reached for comment.

CareEdge Ratings, is hoping to tap into a large market of rating foreign currency loans of Indian companies after it launched its international corporate and sovereign ratings from its Gift City office called CareEdge Global IFSC Ltd. CEO Mehul Pandya said together with taking away market share from its foreign peers, Care has plans to expand into African countries giving them the option of being rated from a new perspective. «So far more than $50 billion has been raised from Gift City and most of it has been rated by foreign agencies. If we just consider a few basis points of this amount in fees, it has huge revenue potential. We have a natural advantage because of our domestic expertise which we will leverage,» Pandya said.

Ticket prices for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics range from 30 euros ($33) for men's and women's hockey preliminary games all the way up to nearly 3,000 euros ($3,300) for the most costly seats at the closing ceremony inside Verona's Arena, a large Roman amphitheater. The most expensive sports event is the men's hockey final with prices ranging from 450 to 1,400 euros ($500 to $1,545). Local organizers announced Thursday that more than 20% of the tickets for the games in February, 2026, are available for under 40 euros ($44) and more than half are priced at under 100 euros ($110).

UST said on Thursday that it has acquired the automation unit of Information Services Group (ISG), for a total consideration of $27 million. The firm said the acquisition will strengthen its position in the intelligent automation space and allow the company to deliver a broader set of services to its clients. The acquired unit is a leading provider of intelligent automation solutions, utilizing artificial intelligence (AI), robotic process automation (RPA), and automation technologies to help clients across a range of industries, said the firm in its statement. It further added that the automation unit of ISG helps optimize clients’ business processes, enhance their customer experience, and reduce their operational costs. The development comes days after the IT firm set a target of 6,000 employees in its Kochi centre, up from the current level of 2,800, in the next five years. While UST’s Thiruvananthapuram centre has about 7,500 employees and is the company’s largest centre globally, UST Bengaluru has about 6,500 employees. Across India, the IT firm has around 20,000 employees. Globally, the firm has more than 30,000 employees.

Haryana Assembly elections approach, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi is set to hold two public meetings today, marking the last day of the election campaign before the polls on October 5. He will kick off his campaign with a Vijay Sankalp rally in Nuh, followed by a second gathering in Mahendragarh. With voting scheduled for October 5, senior leaders from all major parties, including BJP, Congress, JJP, INLD, AAP, and BSP, are making a final push to rally support.