The inaugural edition of the AIFF U15 Women’s Youth League is set to kick off on October 15, 2026, at the Sporting Planet Sports Complex in Belagavi, Karnataka.

The tournament will see a total of 16 teams participating from across the country, divided into four groups of four. The top two teams from each group will progress to the quarter-finals, followed by the semi-finals. The final will be played on October 31, according to a press release from AIFF Media.

The 16 competing teams are SESA Football Academy, HOPS FC, Roots FC, Krida Prabodhini Pune, Juba Sangha FC, Sethu FC, PFC Kerala, Project Mahadeva FC, MGM Ambush Club, DKR Football Academy, SAG Football Academy, Community FC India, Portais Sporting Club, RKM Football Academy, Mumbai Knights FC, and hosts Belgaum United Football Academy.

NASA said Friday that the agency had given SpaceX a $946 million contract to fly three more astronaut missions to the International Space Station, ‌extending the company's crewed flights to the station through 2030.

The deal brings SpaceX's ⁠total number of NASA astronaut flights under the contract to 17 and raises the contract's total value to $5.92 billion. ‌NASA is relying heavily on SpaceX to keep astronauts traveling to and from the ‌station while it works to maintain a ‌second ⁠US option through Boeing.

The contract covers preparing ⁠astronauts and spacecraft on the ground, launching them, operating the mission in space, bringing crews home and recovering the capsule. It also includes carrying supplies ‌and keeping the spacecraft at the station as an emergency escape vehicle.

The UN's World Food Programme, the world's biggest ‌humanitarian agency, on Friday named US President ⁠Donald Trump's nominee, Luke Lindberg, as its next executive ‌director, a statement said.

Lindberg, currently ‌a senior US ‌agricultural ⁠official, was appointed by ⁠UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and Qu Dongyu, head of the ‌UN's Food and Agriculture Organization, after consultation with the WFP board.

He ‌succeeds Cindy McCain, who stepped down for health reasons from ⁠the Rome-based agency and was succeeded ‌on an interim basis by her deputy, Carl Skau.

Indian Air Force Flight Lieutenant Alfred Tyrone Cooke, a gallantry awardee of the 1965 war against Pakistan, died of natural causes in New Delhi on Friday.

Flight Lt Cooke was awarded the Vir Chakra — the country’s third-highest wartime gallantry award — for his role in the air battle over Kalaikunda, West Bengal, during an air attack launched from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) on September 7, 1965.

After his retirement, the IAF pilot settled in Australia. He was visiting India to attend an event organised by his former unit, the 14 Squadron, authorities confirmed on Saturday.

Indian Embassies and Consulates across the world launched the 'Swachhata Hi Seva 2026' campaign yesterday. During this, officers and staff took the Swachhata pledge and carried out cleanliness drives in their premises. Indian Missions in Azerbaijan, Iceland, Saudi Arabia, Liberia and Tanzania also launched the campaign. Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri launched the campaign at the Ministry of External Affairs headquarters in New Delhi. The campaign is being run from September 17 to October 2 with the theme 'Swachhata Mein Sanitation, Clean India, Developed India'.

India’s agricultural carbon market has moved from policy discussions to farm-level payments, with more than 2,500 farmers in Punjab and Haryana receiving over Rs 2.9 crore for adopting regenerative farming practices.

The first payments were released at Punjab Agricultural University (PAU), Ludhiana, where M L Jat, Director General, Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), initiated direct benefit transfers to the farmers.

“The payments are part of ‘Aadi’, a Grow Indigo farmer-carbon programme launched in 2019, with technical guidance from ICAR. Farmers participating in the programme adopted practices such as direct-seeded rice (DSR), reduced tillage and crop-residue management between 2019 and 2022,” an official of the Ministry of Agriculture told The Tribune.

N Chandrasekaran has been reappointed as Tata Sons chairman for another five-year term, but questions remain over whether the board's vote was enough to complete his reappointment. The issue stems from a disagreement between Tata Trusts' two nominee directors.

Tata Trusts and its affiliated trusts hold around 66% of Tata Sons' equity and have two nominee directors on the company's board, which are Tata Trusts chairman Noel Tata and Venu Srinivasan.

At Thursday's meeting, Noel Tata voted against Chandrasekaran's reappointment, while the other Trusts nominee, Venu Srinivasan, voted in favour.

With the two Trusts nominees voting differently, the board vote ended in a tie. Independent director Harish Manwani, who was chairing the meeting, then used his casting vote in favour of Chandrasekaran, and the resolution was passed.

US drone company Powerus has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Pakistan Army, and has already secured its first order under the arrangement, the firm’s co-founder Brett Velicovich has confirmed. Speaking to Reuters, Velicovich said the deal falls under the category of unmanned aerial systems, though he declined to give further details or reveal the value of the order, citing security sensitivities and confidentiality. Neither the signing of the MoU nor the initial order had been reported before now.

The deal is significant for two reasons: it marks a fresh step in warming defence ties between Washington and Islamabad, and it lands just weeks before Powerus merges with a US-listed firm backed by two of President Trump’s sons.

Astronomers have discovered the youngest exoplanet ever recorded, finding the “newborn” world hidden in archival data.

About as massive as Jupiter, Elias 2-24 b is less than a million years old and lies about 450 light-years from Earth. Unlike most known exoplanets, it is still embedded in the swirling disc of gas and dust from which it formed.

The previous record-holder for the youngest known exoplanet was more than five million years old. “Elias 2-24 b shows us that even our best planet-formation models are still missing some important processes,” said Lucas Cieza, co-author of the study and a professor at the Instituto de Estudios Astrofísicos in Chile.

Now motorists would not have to change their FASTags while changing the issuing banks. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) on Thursday announced the rollout of ‘OneTag’, a FASTag portability service on its Rajmargyatra app, allowing users to change issuing banks while keeping the same physical tag on their vehicle.

The initiative enables FASTag users to change their issuer while retaining the existing FASTag affixed to their vehicle, eliminating the need to obtain a new physical tag. The availability of ‘OneTag’ FASTag portability has expanded citizen centric services available for National Highway users on Rajmargyatra App, which include FASTag Annual Pass, FASTag Local Pass, Emergency Helpline 1033 among other services, said a PIB release.

The Rajmargyatra app guides users through the FASTag portability process. FASTag users can login to the App and enter their vehicle registration number to check eligibility. The user will receive a verification six-digit Mobile Verification Code (MVC) from the current issuer bank.