Legendary Uruguay striker Diego Forlan, who had won the Golden Ball award after being adjudged the best player of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, has announced his retirement from professional football on Wednesday. Forlan was the guiding force of Uruguayan football in the new century, taking them back to the glory days of the past, when they became world champions twice in 1930 and 1950.

“After 21 years I made the decision to end my career as a professional footballer. A beautiful stage closes full of great memories and emotions but another of new challenges will begin. Thanks to all who in one way or another accompanied me on this path!” Forlan tweeted. 

Hundreds of people, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah and veteran party leader L K Advani, bid farewell to former external affairs minister Sushma Swaraj as her mortal remains were consigned to flames in Delhi yesterday. 

Swaraj, who also served as the Leader of Opposition and chief minister of Delhi, was given full state honours after which she was cremated at the Lodhi Road crematorium. 

Bhutan's former Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay, several leaders from the NDA as well the opposition, were also present. 

The 77th anniversary of the August Kranti Din, which is considered as one of the important milestones in the history of freedom struggle of our country, is being observed today. 

On this date in 1942, Mahatma Gandhi gave a clarion call to end the British rule and launched the Quit India Movement at the session of the All-India Congress Committee in Mumbai. 

After the failure of Cripps Mission, Gandhiji gave the call to Do or Die in his Quit India speech delivered at the Gowalia Tank Maidan in Mumbai. 

The grateful country is today paying homage to the freedom fighters and remembering the supreme sacrifices of the martyrs during the freedom struggle.

SGX, the Singapore bourse, and the NSE have buried the hatchet. Both the exchanges on Tuesday received approval from SEBI to operate jointly in Gujarat International Finance Tec (GIFT) City, the international finance city under the proposed programme ‘connect’. Simply put, Nifty index, which is trading on SGX in Singapore, will be traded on a joint platform between the NSE and the SGX in GIFT City.

“The Connect model, which is subject to further approvals from relevant local authorities, will enable SGX and NSE IFSC members to access Nifty products in GIFT while managing their exposures through their respective clearing corporations,” the NSE said.

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has cut repo rate by 35 basis points to 5.40 per cent to give a fillip to the economy. This is the fourth consecutive time that the Monetary Policy Committee has reduced the rates. In the earlier three policies, RBI had reduced repo rate by 25 basis points each. 

Consequently, the reverse repo rate under the liquidity adjustment facility stands revised to 5.15 per cent, and the marginal standing facility rate and the Bank Rate to 5.65 per cent. In its third bi-monthly policy announced today, RBI has decided to maintain the accommodative stance of monetary policy.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has hailed the passing of landmark bills pertaining to Jammu and Kashmir in Parliament, with overwhelming support. 

Saluting the courage and resilience of the people of Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh, Mr Modi, in a series of tweets, said, a better tomorrow awaits them. He stated that the Bills pertaining to Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh will ensure integration and empowerment. 

Earlier, Parliament had adopted the resolution revoking the special status given to Jammu and Kashmir under Article 370 of the Constitution, with Lok Sabha approving it last evening. The Rajya Sabha had adopted a similar resolution on Monday. 

Former External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj passed away in New Delhi last night after suffering a massive cardiac arrest. She was 67. AIIMS sources said, the senior BJP leader was brought to the hospital around 9:30 last evening. They said, a team of doctors attended to her but could not revive her. 

Sushma Swaraj had a kidney transplant in 2016 and had opted out of contesting Lok Sabha polls earlier this year for health reasons. President Ram Nath Kovind, Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, BJP President and Home Minister Amit Shah and several other leaders have expressed condolence over the demise of Sushma Swaraj.

Former Fisheries Minister S. Jennifer Chandran died of renal failure on Tuesday.

The 61-year-old, who served as a Minister in the DMK government from 1996-2001, passed away at a private hospital in Madurai.

She won from the Tiruchendur Assembly constituency in 1996 and contested unsuccessfully in 2001. She switched over to the AIADMK, where she served as joint secretary of the fisheries wing.

For a brief period, she worked as the district in-charge of the AIADMK, but was removed from the post in 2010. In 2011, she was declared a candidate for the Thoothukudi Assembly constituency, but the decision was changed subsequently. She rejoined the DMK shortly before the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

Renowned educationist and founder of the Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan (PSBB) Group of Schools, Mrs. Y.G.Parthasarathy, passed away at a city hospital on Tuesday afternoon. She was 93.

Her son and actor and theatre personality Y. Gee. Mahendra, said that she had been taken to the hospital on Monday after she complained of breathlessness. “She was stable and talking to us. In the afternoon, she asked for something to eat, but then just collapsed. It was a cardiac arrest,” he said.

FRBs are mysterious and powerful flashes of radio waves from space, thought to originate billions of light years from the Earth, said researchers from Swinburne University of Technology in Australia. 

They last for only a few milliseconds or a thousandth of a second and their cause is one of astronomy's biggest puzzles. The system, described in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal

Astronomical Society, has already identified five bursts -- including one of the most energetic ever detected, as well as the broadest. 

Wael Farah from Swinburne University of Technology trained the on-site computer at the Molonglo Radio Observatory in Australia to recognise the signs and signatures of FRBs, and trigger an immediate capture of the finest details seen to date. 

The bursts were detected within seconds of their arrival at the Molonglo Radio Telescope, producing high quality data that allowed the researchers to study their structure accurately, and gather clues about their origin. 

FRBs can potentially be used to study matter around and between galaxies that is otherwise almost impossible to see, Farah said. "It is fascinating to discover that a signal that travelled halfway through the universe, reaching our telescope after a journey of a few billion years, exhibits complex structure, like peaks separated by less than a millisecond," he said. 

"Molonglo's real-time detection system allows us to fully exploit its high time and frequency resolution and probe FRB properties that were previously unobtainable," said Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow and project leader Professor Matthew Bailes.