A look at the headlines right now:

  1. Nirmala Sitharaman announces Rs 25,000-crore fund for completing stalled housing projects: More than 1,600 housing projects are stuck at present, including about 4.58 lakh housing units, the Union finance minister told reporters.
  2. Modi asks Agriculture Ministry to give machines to farmers to stop stubble burning: This is the first time the prime minister has directly intervened in the matter. The Supreme Court on Tuesday pulled up states for failing to curb crop burning and gave them seven days to buy stubble. Punjab CM Amarinder Singh welcomed the order. Meanwhile, idols at a temple in Varanasi got anti-pollution masks as air quality worsened.
  3. BJP should form government in Maharashtra when they meet governor on Thursday, says Sanjay Raut: Shiv Sena ministers attended Devendra Fadnavis’ meeting on farmer aid, and called him the ‘caretaker CM’. Meanwhile, Sharad Pawar said there was only one option in Maharashtra – BJP and Shiv Sena must form government.
  4. Bail pleas of six activists in Elgar Parishad case rejected by Pune court: The court said the evidence suggested that the accused were members of CPI (Maoist) and were actively involved in furthering the cause of the banned outfit.
  5. ‘Reconsider decision to scrap Tipu Jayanti celebrations,’ Karnataka High Court tells BJP government: The court said the decision was taken in a single day in July when the government did not even have a Cabinet in place.
  6. Delhi High Court rejects Centre’s plea seeking clarification on order not to act against lawyers: Even as two protesting lawyers attempted suicide, Bar Council of India chief warned advocates against indulging in violence.
  7. Kannan Gopinathan, who quit IAS in protest against J&K lockdown, receives chargesheet from Centre: The former bureaucrat listed the charges against him, and said the memo for departmental inquiry was sent two months after his resignation.
  8. In US impeachment inquiry, diplomat admits to link between Ukraine military aid and Biden investigation: The impeachment inquiry is looking into allegations that Trump tried to force Ukraine’s president into investigating his political rival Joe Biden and his son.
  9. Arundhati Roy, Salman Rushdie’s books among BBC’s 100 ‘novels that shaped our world’: The list also included RK Narayan, Vikram Seth and VS Naipaul.
  10. Khalistani leaders, Sikh referendum date seen in Pakistan’s Kartarpur welcome video: Separatist leaders Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, Major General Shabeg Singh and Amrik Singh Khalsa, who were killed in 1984, are seen in a poster in the video.