The Supreme Court Wednesday directed the Centre to submit the pricing and strategic details of the Rafale aircraft deal in a sealed cover by November 10. A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi was hearing a batch of petitions, including the joint plea filed by former Union Ministers Yashwant Sinha and Arun Shourie along with activist lawyer Prashant Bhushan, into the Rafale fighter jet deal between India and France.

Attorney General KK Venugopal, appearing for the Centre, said the strategic and pricing details are covered under the Official Secrets Act and cannot be shared. The court then asked him to file an affidavit stating so. The matter has been adjourned till November 14.

The bench had earlier directed the Centre to provide in a sealed cover the “details of the steps” taken in the decision making process leading to the deal, but clarified that it did not want information on “pricing” and “technical suitability” of the fighter jets for the Indian Air Force (IAF).

Statue of Unity Inauguration LIVE Updates: Eight years after proposing the ambitious project, Prime Minister Narendra Modi Wednesday unveiled the Statue of Unity – the world’s tallest statue at 182 metres -built in honour of freedom fighter Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel. The statue stands on Sadhu island on the Narmada in Gujarat and is said to be twice the height of the Statue of Liberty in the US.

PM Modi also did a virtual “abhishek” of the statue with the help of a lever. Also present at the venue are BJP chief Amit Shah, Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, Deputy CM Nitinbhai Patel. The guests were also presented with mementoes that were made of the same metal that was used to clad the statue. Just like Patel’s idol, the mementoes will not age for the next 100 years.

The prime minister will perform a special prayer at the feet of the Statue of Unity and visit the museum and exhibition, and the viewers’ gallery. The gallery, at 153 metres, can accommodate up to 200 people at a time and offers a spectacular view of the Sardar Sarovar Dam, its reservoir, and the Satpura and Vindhya mountain ranges.

Exposure to toxic air both indoors and out kills some 600,000 children under the age of 15 each year, the World Health Organization warned Monday. Data from the UN health body shows that every day, 93 percent of children under the age of 15 – a full 1.8 billion youngsters, including 630 million under the age of five – breath dangerously polluted air. This has tragic consequences: In 2016 alone, some 600,000 children died from acute lower respiratory infections caused by polluted air, the WHO report found.

“Polluted air is poisoning millions of children and ruining their lives,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a statement. “This is inexcusable. Every child should be able to breathe clean air so they can grow and fulfil their full potential.” According to WHO data, more than nine out of 10 people on the planet breath dangerously toxic air, causing some seven million premature deaths each year. Air pollution is especially dangerous for children, and accounts for nearly one in 10 deaths among children under five around the globe, the report found.

Swapna Barman, who became the first Indian to secure a gold medal in heptathlon at the Asian Games, left for Nuremberg, Germany for her customised shoes, on Monday night, which will be designed by a sportswear giant based in the country. Swapna, who hails from West Bengal, is born with six toes in both her feet, and her condition garnered attraction when she clinched a gold at the Jakarta Games held earlier this year.

After her glory at the Asian Games, the athlete had made an emotional appeal for customised shoes, which saw an immediate response from the Sports Minister Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, who directed the concerned authorities to take up the matter on an urgent basis.

Before heading to Germany, the heptathlete said the customised shoes will help her improve her performance. “This step is really important for me as a custom-made shoe will help me deal with the pain I feel on the track. My coach (Subhash Sarkar) and I are working on improving my speed in the 200m sprint event, this should help in that too,” Swapna was quoted as saying by Mail Today.

Her coach, who accompanied her to Germany said that they are currently looking for a sprint coach to help her better her timing and she will resume her training when she returns from Germany.

Modifying its previous order on the timings of bursting firecrackers on Diwali, the Supreme Court Tuesday said states can fix the timings but it should not exceed two hours. “Timing for bursting firecrackers in places like Tamil Nadu, Puducherry will be changed but not exceed 2 hours a day,” the court said.

The direction came after the Tamil Nadu government moved court saying the festival in the state will be celebrated on the morning of November 6. It requested the court to extend the permitted time for bursting of firecrackers on Diwali, arguing that people of the state will be deprived of their right to celebrate the festival by bursting crackers.

The court also said its order on use of green crackers  during Diwali was meant for Delhi-NCR and not pan-India.

On October 23, the top court had fixed 8 pm to 10 pm for bursting firecrackers on Diwali as it ruled out a complete ban. Applying the “precautionary principle” of environmental law, a bench of Justices A K Sikri and Ashok Bhushan had ordered that only crackers with reduced emission and “green crackers” can be manufactured and sold. They will also have to stick to permissible noise emission standards.

NASA’s historic Parker Solar Probe – enroute to the Sun to unravel its mysteries – has become the closest spacecraft to it. The spacecraft passed the current record of 26.55 million miles from the Sun’s surface on October 29, as calculated by the Parker Solar Probe team, NASA said in a statement on Monday. The previous record for closest solar approach was set by the German-American Helios 2 spacecraft in April 1976.

As the Parker Solar Probe mission progresses, the spacecraft will repeatedly break its own records, with a final close approach of 3.83 million miles from the Sun’s surface expected in 2024. “It’s been just 78 days since Parker Solar Probe launched, and we’ve now come closer to our star than any other spacecraft in history,” said Project Manager Andy Driesman from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. “It’s a proud moment for the team, though we remain focused on our first solar encounter, which begins on October 31,” Driesman added.

Apple sold only 9 million units of the recently launched iPhone XR, which was one million lower than the 10 million mark predicted by analysts. The iPhone XR is supposed to be the most budget friendly option in the list, and went on sale on October 26. In India, the phone starts at Rs 76,900.

According to a report by Apple Insider, analyst Jun Zhang of Rosenblatt Securities said that Apple’s iPhone XR did not meet analyst expectations terms of sale. The analyst also expects that Apple will reduce iPhone XR and iPhone XS production in November and December.

His prediction is that for iPhone XR this reduction will be around two million units, while iPhone XS will see a drop of one million in the production cycle. The firm has put the prediction estimate for iPhone from at 88 million for this quarter.

Days after RBI Deputy Governor publicly spoke about the tussle between the government and the Reserve Bank of India, the Centre is reportedly upset about the rift being out in open. Senior officials who spoke to news agency Reuters told the government fears it could tarnish the country’s image among investors.

On Friday night, the RBI Deputy Governor Viral Acharya warned that undermining a central bank’s independence could be “potentially catastrophic”, in an indication that it is pushing back hard against government pressure to relax its policies and reduce its powers. Delivering the A D Shroff Memorial Lecture in Mumbai, Acharya said that “governments that do not respect central bank independence will sooner or later incur the wrath of financial markets, ignite economic fire, and come to rue the day they undermined an important regulatory institution.” He cited the Argentine government’s meddling in its central bank’s affairs in 2010 as an example of what can go wrong. That led to a surge in bond yields that badly hurt the South American economy.

The government officials, who did not wish to be named, said the Centre wanted to keep things confidential. An official, based in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office, said it was “very unfortunate” that the RBI took the matters public. “The government is very upset. It was not expected from the RBI,” the official told Reuters. “The government respects the autonomy and independence of the RBI but they must understand their responsibility,” a second official said. An RBI spokesman was not immediately available for comments after business hours.

All 15-year-old petrol and 10-year-old diesel vehicles need to be impounded in Delhi-NCR, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday as air quality became more dangerous. Politicians, however, continued to do what they do best - play the blame game. The judicial intervention came on a day when pollution in 10 areas in Delhi hit the severe mark - the sixth and the last stage on the air quality index. Overall, air quality was in the second most alarming category: very poor. "If you take a walk in the evening to Old Delhi railway station, you will see poor people on cycle rickshaws. They have no option..." the court said. "Hundreds of people are earning their livelihood like that... Will you tell them to kill themselves by working in this pollution?" it asked Delhi government authorities.

Chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, however, blamed Congress-ruled Punjab and BJP-ruled Haryana, saying crop stubble burning in the two states had triggered the crisis. He also blamed the Centre for "inaction". Union environment minister Harsh Vardhan hit back at the AAP chief and said, "I would like to say to him that there are a few things on which politics should not be played." The BJP leader referred to NASA images to claim fewer crop stubble burning incidences this season.

The joint commission being set up in pursuance of the decision taken by Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al-Thani, Amir of the State of Qatar and Shri Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of the Republic of India during the visit of the latter to Doha on 4-5 June 2016.

The joint declaration signed by External Affairs Minister of India Sushma Swaraj and Foreign Minister of Qatar Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani in Doha today highlights the decision to set up the joint commission.

The joint declaration said that the joint commission had been tasked with formulating the basis to strengthen the relations between India and Qatar.

The proposed joint commission will focus on various areas including economic, commercial, cultural, scientific, technological, Information Technology and educational fields.

The proposed joint commission has also been tasked to facilitate the exchange of information and expertise in different areas.

It will be co-chaired by ministers of External Affairs and Foreign Affairs of the two countries or their representatives.

The joint commission will hold a meeting at a time agreed by both countries alternately in each country.

Earlier the External Affairs Minister held delegation-level talks with Deputy Prime Minister of Foreign Minister of Qatar Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani.