A seven-member Inter-Ministerial Central Team is in Odisha to assess the damage caused by cyclone Bulbul. The team will visit Bhadrak, Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara and Balasore districts to evaluate the extent of damage and submit a report to the Centre, officials said. Soon after arriving here on Thursday, the team led by Saheli Ghosh Roy, Joint Secretary (CIC), Ministry of Home Affairs, visited some of the affected areas at Chandbali in Bhadrak district.

A day after a meeting of Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and Congress to discuss a Common Minimum Programme (CMP) for a coalition government with the Shiv Sena, the three parties got together on Thursday for the same.

The leaders of the three parties have finalised the draft of CMP for a coalition government in Maharashtra after several rounds consultations over the last two days and the same will be submitted to their respective party presidents.

Union Minister Nitin Gadkari on Thursday, while asked to comment on the ongoing political crisis in Maharashtra, made an interesting analogy between politics and the game of cricket, highlighting the fact that in both, a scenario can be unpredictable and the future can change in ways that were not foreseen earlier.

Anything can happen in cricket and politics. Sometimes you feel you are losing the match, but the result is exactly the opposite, Nitin Gadkari was quoted as saying by news agency ANI on Thursday.

Amazon has challenged the awarding of a USD 10 billion Pentagon cloud computing contract to Microsoft, alleging unmistakable bias in the process.

The 10-year contract for the Joint Enterprise Defense Infrastructure program, better known as JEDI, ultimately will see all military branches sharing information in a system boosted by artificial intelligence.

The Narendra Modi government on Thursday indicated it may not need to bring a legislation to set up a trust to oversee construction of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, even as seers continued to demand that the existing Ramjanbhoomi Nyas should be entrusted with the task of construction of the proposed temple.

According to a top government official, the Supreme Court's order last Saturday stated that Section 6 of the Acquisition of Certain Area at the Ayodhya Act 1993 empowers the central government to set up a trust or an authority to whom the land would be handed over.

The record losses posted by Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea and the resulting erosion in their net worth have led to an immediate rise in the leverage ratio of these two operators. While Vodafone Idea has taken the maximum hit, Bharti Airtel has escaped with a minor deterioration in its balance sheet ratios.

Vodafone Idea’s net debt to equity ratio has jumped to a record level of 4.5x at the end of September this year, as against 1.24x at the end of June and 1.8x at March-end.

Following the Supreme Court guideline to incentivise farmers for stopping the burning of paddy crop stubble to check air pollution, the governments of Punjab and Haryana have announced a bonus of Rs 2,500 an acre for small and marginal farmers who are yet to start such activity.

Farmer groups say the incentives could have prevented farmers from burning stubble if it had come on time. More, they want the incentive to be a permanent feature.

In a relief for Rahul Gandhi, the Supreme Court on Thursday closed a contempt plea filed by BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi against the former Congress chief for wrongly attributing to the court his "chowkidar chor hai' slogan against Prime Minister Narendra Modi in the Rafale case.

The Supreme Court said, "Mr Rahul Gandhi needs to be more careful in future," for attributing to the court his remarks.

The schools in the national capital will be closed on Thursday and Friday, the Delhi government announced on Wednesday.

The city’s air quality reached the higher end of the ‘severe’ category on Wednesday, even as the Centre’s Task Force, meant to advise on implementing the Graded Response Action Plan, recommended that schools be shut and industrial activities be curbed till November 15.

Shares of VST Industries jumped up to 7.5 per cent to hit a new high of Rs 4,600 apiece on the BSE on Thursday, a day after Radhakishan Damani bought 2,70,000 shares at Rs 4,259.99 apiece on the BSE, according to bulk deal data. The data also showed HDFC Mutual Fund sold 273,706 shares at Rs 4,260 apiece.

At 10:53 am, the stock was trading at Rs 4,573.70, up nearly 7 per cent. In comparison, the S&P BSE Sensex was trading flat at 40,182 levels, up just 0.16 per cent.

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