India's third home-built 700 MWe nuclear power reactor has achieved criticality and is expected to start commercial electricity generation soon, operator NPCIL said on Friday. The nuclear power reactor that achieved criticality on Thursday night is the first of a new series of Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) to be built at Rajasthan Atomic Power Project in Rawatbhata.

Earlier, two 700 MWe PHWRs started commercial operation at Kakrapar Atomic Power Station (KAPS) in Gujarat.

"The Unit 7 of the 2 X 700 MW Rajasthan Atomic Power Project 7&8 (RAPP 7&8) at Rawatbhata, achieved the important milestone of criticality (start of controlled fission chain reaction) on September 19, 2024, at 22:42 hrs," the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) said in a statement on Friday.

The largest known black hole jets, 23 million light years across, have been discovered in the distant universe. This pair of particle beams launched by a supermassive black hole is over a hundred times larger than our galaxy, the Milky Way.

In 2022, we announced the discovery of one of the largest black hole jets in the night sky, launched from a (relatively) nearby galaxy called NGC2663. Using CSIRO’s Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) in Western Australia, we confirmed that NGC2663’s jet is one of the largest in the sky. In other words, it appears to be the largest when viewed from Earth.

The new jet, announced in the journal Nature, has been dubbed “Porphyrion” (a giant in Greek mythology) by its discoverers at the California Institute of Technology in the United States. It dwarfs NGC2663’s jet in actual size and is over 20 times larger – a true colossus.

LIC Mutual Fund has launched the LIC MF Manufacturing Fund, an open-ended equity program designed to capitalize on manufacturing themes in India. The new fund offer (NFO) is already open for subscriptions and will end on October 4, with units distributed on October 11.

The scheme is managed by Yogesh Patil and Mahesh Bendre, the scheme will be benchmarked against the Nifty India Manufacturing Index (Total Return Index). Its primary objective is to achieve long-term capital appreciation by predominantly investing in equity and equity-related instruments of companies involved in manufacturing.

The scheme requires a minimum investment of Rs 5,000, with future investments allowed in multiples of Re 1. The LIC MF Manufacturing Fund seeks to construct a diverse portfolio of companies from a variety of industries, including automobiles, pharmaceuticals, chemicals, heavy engineering, metals, shipbuilding, and petroleum products.

Homegrown automaker Tata Motors, on Friday, signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with ESAF Small Finance Bank to deliver tailored financing solutions for its commercial vehicle customers.

According to $44 billion company, this collaboration will initially focus on Small Commercial Vehicles (SCVs) and Light Commercial Vehicles (LCVs), with plans to extend financing options across Tata Motors' entire commercial vehicle range.

Vinay Pathak, Vice President & Business Head – SCV&PU at Tata Motors, in a company statement, said, “Our partnership with ESAF Small Finance Bank enhances access to seamless financing solutions for our customers in deeper pockets of the country.”

PayU, one of India's leading digital financial services providers, has introduced an industry-first biometric authentication solution for card payments - Flash Pay. Designed to simplify the payment experience, increase transaction success rates, and significantly enhance security, FlashPay was unveiled at the prestigious Global Fintech Festival (GFF) 2024. This cutting-edge solution combines the ease of seamless payment experience with robust security measures, meeting both customer aspirations for convenience and banks' stringent authentication requirements.

Flash Pay leverages advanced device-based biometric technology, such as fingerprint or facial recognition, to authenticate payments swiftly and securely. With transactions completed in under 10 seconds, customers no longer need to rely on traditional OTP-based authentication. This removes the wait for OTP delivery, reduces the potential for manual errors, and eliminates the risk of frauds associated with OTP sharing.

Gujarat — also the host state — won the maximum number of awards during the three-day 4th Global Renewable Energy Investors Meet and Expo. This is the first time the meet was organised outside Delhi.

Gujarat was ranked among the top three states in multiple categories such as overall renewable energy capacity, solar power capacity and wind power capacity among others.

While Gujarat was ranked on top under overall renewable energy capacity achieved and overall wind power capacity achieved categories, it was ranked second under overall solar power capacity achieved as Rajasthan pipped Gujarat to be at the top.

After an exciting eleven days of action-packed performance in the 14th Hockey India Junior Men National Championship 2024, Hockey Punjab clinched the title after defeating Uttar Pradesh Hockey 3-3 (4-3 SO) in the final at the Olympian Surjit Singh Hockey Stadium in Jalandhar.

Hockey Punjab defeated Uttar Pradesh Hockey 3-3 (4-3 SO) in a closely contested final of the 14th Hockey India Junior Men National Championship 2024. Sukhwinder Singh (5'), Jarman Singh (33'), and Jobanpreet Singh (39') scored for Hockey Punjab.

Ajeet Yadav (31') Suraj Pal (48') and Akash Pal (54') scored one goal each for Uttar Pradesh Hockey. In the shootout, Akash Pal, Nitish Bhardwaj and Ajeet Yadav scored for Uttar Pradesh Hockey whereas Hockey Punjab proved out to the better one on the day of the final as Japnit Singh, Sukhwinder Singh, Jarman Singh and Lovenoor Singh scored for Hockey Punjab to lift the trophy.

The World Health Organization WHO today declared Jordan as the first country in the world to eliminate leprosy, marking a significant milestone in global public health efforts. Congratulating Jordan on this milestone, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said, Leprosy has afflicted humanity for millennia, but efforts have been made to stop its transmission and freeing individuals, families, and communities from its suffering and stigma country-by-country. WHO said that Jordan has not reported any autochthonous cases of leprosy for over two decades. The declaration was made after commissioning an independent team to assess this situation. The disease continues to occur in more than 120 countries. More than two lakh new cases are reported every year.

Scotland has rescued the Commonwealth Games that were in jeopardy after Australia's Victoria state backed out of plans to host the 2026 sporting event.

Glasgow, which hosted the event 10 years ago, will do so again, though some sports will need to be dropped as the Commonwealth Games Federation aims to reduce costs to make the competition more sustainable in the future.

“It will be scaled back compared to 2014 but will be a celebration of sporting achievement," Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney posted on X on Tuesday. "Excited about Glasgow 2026.”

The Union government has approved ₹31,000 crore to fence the Myanmar border, a senior Home Ministry official said on Wednesday.

The 1,643-km Myanmar border runs along the States of Arunachal Pradesh (520 km), Nagaland (215 km), Manipur (398 km) and Mizoram (510 km).

On Tuesday, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said fencing work had been completed on 30 km of the border, which, he termed the root cause of the ethnic violence in Manipur.