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Two 17-year-old girls allegedly engaged in a tussle over a boy in public in Maharashtra's Paithan district, police said on Wednesday.

Attorney General KK Venugopal on Friday termed as "remarkable" the efforts of Chief Justice of India (CJI) N V Ramana in filling up vacancies in higher judiciary and tribunals, saying that for the first time, the Supreme Court worked at full strength of 34 judges during his tenure as head of the institution. “I understand that more than 224 vacancies were filled up in high courts and I think more than 100 members were appointed to tribunals,” the top law officer said to the CJI who was sitting on the ceremonial bench along with CJI-designate Justice U U Lalit and Justice Hima Kohli. Venugopal, who was usually asked by the CJI-led bench to inform about the status of appointments, said, “I was at the receiving end from time to time.” He said the vacancies were filled up during his tenure and for the first time, "we have had a full court of 34 judges in the Supreme Court."

Gujarat Congress in-charge Raghu Sharma said on Friday that the party gave everything to Ghulam Nabi Azad and it did not behove him to make allegations while quitting. Azad, a senior leader and former Union minister, resigned from all Congress positions earlier in the day and accused the leadership of committing "fraud" on the party in the name of "sham" internal polls. Asked if Azad's exit would be a setback for the Congress, Sharma repeated Rajasthan Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot's recent statement that those who were joining the party were welcome, and those who were leaving were welcome to leave. "Starting from the time of Indira Gandhi to Rahul Gandhi's era today, I have seen Azad progressing without looking back. The party made him a chief minister, central minister, Rajya Sabha MP, Lok Sabha MP and also AICC general secretary," said Sharma. "It does not behove Azad to make allegations against the party while quitting, that too when you know very well that the party has given you so much," the Congress leader added.

A 30-year-old man was killed and five others injured when a jeep hit a truck on a highway in Maharashtra's Nashik district on Friday, police said. The accident took place around 2.45 am near Vilholi on Mumbai-Agra Highway, an official said. The jeep was on its way to Nashik from Mumbai when it rammed into the truck, he said. Vishwajeet Sogra, a resident of Indore in neighbouring Madhya Pradesh, who was driving the jeep died on the spot, while five other occupants of the vehicle sustained serious injuries, the official said. Locals and police personnel took the injured to the district hospital, where they are undergoing treatment, he added. 

The Delhi High Court has held that WhatsApp's 2021 privacy policy places its users in a “take it or leave it” situation, virtually forcing them into an agreement by providing a “mirage” of choices and then sharing their sensitive data with its parent company Facebook. The high court's verdict came while dismissing the appeals of WhatsApp and Facebook against an order rejecting their challenge to a probe ordered by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) into the instant messaging platform's updated privacy policy of 2021. A bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad said the single judge's April 22, 2021 order was well-reasoned and the appeals are devoid of merit and substance that would warrant the interference of this court. While the judgement was pronounced by the division bench on Thursday, it was uploaded on the court's website on Friday.

More than 50 cows died after water from a river in spate flooded a gaushala (cow shelter) in Madhya Pradesh's Rajgarh district, an official said on Friday. An FIR was registered against the management of the cow shelter after right-wing organisations alleged negligence by employees of the facility at Nidra Khedi village in Talen tehsil. According to eye-witnesses, employees of the gaushala had locked up the facility and left, as heavy rains lashed the area earlier this week. The cows got trapped and died when water from Ugal river nearby entered the facility. The employees later dumped the carcasses in the river, they alleged. The deaths came to light when the water level receded in the river on Wednesday, following which the police and naib tehsildar Sourabh Sharma reached the spot, an official said.

GAIL (India) Ltd, the nation's largest gas firm, is targeting net-zero carbon emission from its operations by 2040, ahead of targets by other state-owned firms, chairman Manoj Jain said on Friday. Net zero, or becoming carbon neutral, means not adding to the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. India, the world's fourth biggest emitter of carbon dioxide after China, the US and the EU, has committed to cut its emissions to net zero by 2070. And GAIL's target for 2040 is a step in aiding that. GAIL "is committed to reduce its carbon footprint by diversifying into the renewable energy sector," Jain said at the firm's annual shareholders' meeting. "In line with India's vision to achieve net zero by 2070, GAIL has completed a comprehensive study on science-based net-zero ambition and intends to achieve a 100 per cent reduction in Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions and a 35 per cent reduction in Scope 3 emissions by 2040".

For the first time since its inception, the Supreme Court on Friday will live stream proceedings. The proceeding of the bench headed by CJI NV Ramana will be live streamed through a webcast portal. Incumbent Ramana is to demit office Friday. “Please take notice that on the eve of laying down the office of the Hon'ble Chief Justice of India, the proceedings of the Hon'ble Chief Justice' Court i.e., Ceremonial Bench on August 26, 2022, 10:30 A.M. onwards shall be lives streamed through the NIC webcast portal," a notice said. The top court in 2018 had allowed live streaming of court proceedings of cases of constitutional and national importance, saying this openness was like "sunlight" which is the "best disinfectant". It had said as a pilot project, only a specified category of cases which are of constitutional or national importance and are being argued before a constitution bench, should be live streamed. Attorney General KK Venugopal had earlier suggested that live streaming of important cases in the Chief Justice's court can be started on a pilot basis. The Attorney General had said the process can be adopted in other court rooms depending on the success of the pilot project.

The Delhi Assembly on Friday observed a two-minute silence to pay homage to the ITBP soldiers, who were killed in a bus accident in Pahalgam last month. Seven Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) jawans died and 32 security personnel were injured when the bus in which they were returning from the Amarnath Yatra duty fell into a deep gorge. The one-day special session started on a sour note as the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAs started shouting slogans against the BJP and entered the well of the House in protest against alleged horse trading attempts to topple the Delhi government. The BJP legislators resorted to counter sloganeering. Deputy Speaker of the House Rakhi Birla order AAP MLA Rituraj Jha to leave the House for 15 minutes. 

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Senior advocate Dushyant Dave broke into tears on Friday while bidding adieu to outgoing Chief Justice N V Ramana, saying he maintained checks and balances between the judiciary, executive and the parliament and did so "with a spine". While Dave described Ramana as a citizen's judge, his colleague, senior advocate Kapil Sibal, said the court will remember him for "maintaining balance even in turbulent times". "I speak on behalf of vast multitude of citizens of this country.You stood up for them. You upheld their rights and the constitution. When you took over, I was sceptical of what the court had gone through. I must say, you excelled our expectations. You maintained checks and balances between judiciary, executive and the parliament. You did with a spine,” Dave said. Sibal added that Ramana has also taken care of the family of judges.

For the first time since its inception, the Supreme Court on Friday will live stream proceedings. The proceeding of the bench headed by CJI NV Ramana will be live streamed through a webcast portal. Incumbent Ramana is to demit office Friday. “Please take notice that on the eve of laying down the office of the Hon'ble Chief Justice of India, the proceedings of the Hon'ble Chief Justice' Court i.e., Ceremonial Bench on August 26, 2022, 10:30 A.M. onwards shall be lives streamed through the NIC webcast portal," a notice said. The top court in 2018 had allowed live streaming of court proceedings of cases of constitutional and national importance, saying this openness was like "sunlight" which is the "best disinfectant".

Two associates of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader from Haryana Sonali Phogat were questioned overnight by Goa Police in connection with her alleged murder, an official said on Friday. Sudhir Sagwan and Sukhwinder Wasi, whose names figure as accused in the First Information Report (FIR) for murder, have been detained but not arrested yet, he added. On Thursday, Deputy Superintendent of Police Jivba Dalvi had told PTI that they were arrested following autopsy on Phogat's body. “They have been detained, not arrested,” said inspector Prashal P N Desai of Anjuna police station in North Goa district. Both were questioned overnight, he said, refusing to disclose more details. Anjuna police added the murder charge to the case of `unnatural death' after forensic experts at the Goa Medical College and Hospital conducted autopsy on Phogat's body on Thursday morning and said in the report that there were multiple "blunt force injuries".

The body of a police constable who had been washed away while bathing in a river six days ago was found on Friday morning in Madhya Pradesh's Umaria district, an official said. Constable Pritam Baiga (23) and two others had been swept away in the strong current in the Mahanadi river on August 20. One of them was rescued while the constable and a 12-year-old boy named Sahil Singh went missing. Baiga's body was found on the riverbank near a forest barrier about 30 km from here, said inspector Raghvendra Tiwari of Chandia police station. Search is on for the boy, he added. 

The rupee appreciated 6 paise to 79.86 against the US dollar in opening trade on Friday, driven by foreign fund inflows and a firm trend in domestic equities. At the interbank foreign exchange, the domestic unit opened at 79.87 against the dollar and inched higher to touch 79.86, registering a gain of 6 paise over its previous close. In the previous session, the rupee declined by 6 paise to close at 79.92 against the American currency. The dollar index, which gauges the greenback's strength against a basket of six currencies, advanced 0.05 per cent to 108.51.

A mere violation of bail conditions does not warrant the cancellation of bail unless it also affects the probe of the case, a court here has said while rejecting a plea against Independent MP Navneet Rana and her MLA husband Ravi Rana. "Overwhelming" circumstances are necessary for the cancellation of bail, the court said, refusing to cancel the bail granted to them. Special judge R N Rokade for the cases against MPs and MLAs on August 22 rejected the application filed by Mumbai Police against the couple. The detailed order became available on Friday. Navneet Rana, Lok Sabha member from Amravati in Maharashtra, and her husband Ravi Rana, an independent MLA from Badnera in Amravati district, were arrested on April 23 after they announced they would recite Hanuman Chalisa outside then Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray's private residence. They were booked on the charges of sedition and `prompting enmity between different groups.' The couple were granted bail on May 5 by the special court which also imposed several conditions on them, including not giving statements to the media about the case.

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The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Communications and Information Technology chaired by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor has summoned Twitter and IRCTC over the data privacy on Friday. As per the Lok Sabha, the panel will hear the views of the representatives of Twitter India and IRCTC on citizens' data security and privacy on Friday. The committee will hear the views of individuals, stakeholders and experts on issues related to digital platforms, technology and gig economy relating to the subject citizens' data security and privacy. According to reports, the IRCTC has more than 10 crore users and it wants to monetise the data. The meeting comes day after the Pegasus panel, in its report submitted in the Supreme Court, said that the presence of controversial Israeli spyware Pegasus was not conclusively established in 29 mobile phones examined, and also the Central government "has not cooperated" in the probe.

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A Delaware judge ordered both Twitter and Tesla CEO Elon Musk to turn over more information to opposing lawyers in their tussle over Musk's agreed-to-then-abandoned USD 44 billion deal to acquire the social platform. Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick on Thursday ordered Twitter to provide Musk's attorneys more data regarding the company's estimates that less than 5 per cent of the accounts on its platform are fake. The judge also rejected Musk's attempts to shield details about analyses he used in his attempt to terminate the deal.

A fire broke out at a factory in Noida on Thursday night following which fire tenders were rushed to the spot, officials said. The factory is located in Sector 80, under Phase 2 police station, they said.  "Efforts were on to douse the fire. Local police along with fire fighters are at the spot," a police official said around 12 am. Details of loss to property were yet to be assessed while there was no immediate report of any casualty, the official said. 

The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in the middle of the fighting in Ukraine was temporarily cut off from the electrical grid Thursday because of fire damage, causing a blackout in the region and heightening fears of a catastrophe in a country haunted by the Chernobyl disaster. The plant, Europe's largest, has been occupied by Russian forces since the early days of the war. The government in Kyiv alleges Russia is essentially holding the plant hostage, storing weapons there and launching attacks from around it, while Moscow accuses Ukraine of recklessly firing on the facility. On Thursday, the plant was cut off from the grid for the first time after fires damaged a transmission line, according to Ukraine's nuclear power operator. The damaged line apparently carried outgoing electricity — and thus the region lost power, according to Yevgeny Balitsky, the Russia-installed governor. As a result of the damage, the two reactors still in use went offline, he said, but one was quickly restored, as was electricity to the area.

Two sisters and mother of a fraud accused were arrested for allegedly attacking police personnel at the gates of a police station here, police said on Thursday. An FIR has been registered and police nabbed three women from the spot on Wednesday while one man managed to flee away, they said. According to the police, family members of the accused, nabbed in a fraud case, attacked a police team at the gate of New Colony police station in the district. “We have nabbed three women accused and are conducting raids to nab the fourth accused. He will also be nabbed soon”, said ASI Saroj, the investigating officer. According to the complaint filed by sub inspector Karambir, he was investigating a fraud case registered in New Colony police station a few days ago. The police team was in search of one accused Karan Samdarshi, a native of Tanda village of Uttar Pradesh but who now lives with his family in Madanpuri Colony, he said.

A federal US court has kept in abeyance for more than a year now a decision on extradition of Pakistani-origin Canadian businessman Tahawwur Rana, sought for his involvement in the 2008 Mumbai terror attack, to India. US District Court, Central District of California in Los Angeles Judge Jacqueline Chooljian held the last hearing on this issue in June 2021 and the last set of papers was filed in July 2021. But it has been more than a year now and the court is yet to give a verdict on the US government's request to extradite Rana to India. There has been no word from the court since then.

Five persons were killed after a fire broke out in a three-storey building in Moradabad district. The fire broke out at a wedding venue in the city on Thursday night. Two women and three children were among those who lost their lives.