A look at the headlines right now:

  1. After 104 days, Gorkha Janmukti Morcha calls off strike in Darjeeling: Hours earlier, Rajnath Singh had urged the group to end the indefinite shutdown and let normalcy return in the hills.
  2. Human rights commission calls police action inhuman, seeks reports on BHU campus violence: In his initial report, the Varanasi divisional commissioner blamed the university administration for the unrest on campus.
  3. Delhi High Court rejects Honeypreet Insan’s anticipatory bail petition: The bench held that Ram Rahim’s adopted daughter was not entitled to any discretionary relief as she has evaded arrest.
  4. GST revenue collection for August drops to Rs 90,669 crore: Rs 14,402 crore was collected under the Central GST, and Rs 21,067 crore under the State GST.
  5. ‘Matter of hours’ before Bali volcano erupts, says Indonesian government: The area is experiencing unprecedented levels of seismic activity, the country’s volcanology centre said.
  6. India will not deploy troops in Afghanistan, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman tells US: During delegation-level talks with her US counterpart James Mattis, the two countries agreed there would be no tolerance for terror havens.
  7. Human Rights Watch asks UN Security Council to impose sanctions on Myanmar Army, accusing it of committing crimes against humanity: BJP MP Varun Gandhi said India should give asylum to Rohingya Muslim refugees.
  8. Century’s largest uncut diamond, the size of a tennis ball, sold for $53 million: The 1,109-carat stone named Lesedi La Rona – meaning ‘Our Light’ in Botswana’s Tswana language – was bought by British diamond magnate Laurence Graff.
  9. Sonia Gandhi removes Ashok Choudhary as Bihar Congress president: This comes amid speculation that a few party members, including Choudhary, were planning to switch to Nitish Kumar’s Janata Dal (United).
  10. Japan kills 177 whales to ‘study’ whether commercially hunting them is sustainable: Japan is a signatory to an international moratorium on hunting whales, but it exploits a loophole that allows whales to be killed for scientific purposes.