A look at the top headlines right now:

  1. Delhi logs 28,867 new Covid-19 cases – highest in a day ever: The test positivity rate rose to 29.21% up from Wednesday’s 26.22%. There are 94,160 active cases in the city of which 2,424 people are admitted to hospitals. As many as 628 patients are in intensive care unit wards, while 98 are on ventilator support, government data showed.
  2. Third minister quits Adityanth’s Cabinet ahead of Uttar Pradesh elections: Dharam Singh Saini said he was resigning due to the ‘gross neglect’ of Dalits, backward castes, farmers, unemployed youth and small traders. Meanwhile, two more Bharatiya Janata Party MLAs in Uttar Pradesh – Mukesh Verma and Vinay Shakya – also resigned from the party. As many as 10 leaders, including three ministers have quit in the last three days.
  3. Police arrest former UP Shia Waqf board chief Jitendra Tyagi in Haridwar hate speech case: Tyagi had recently converted to Hinduism and changed his name from Wasim Rizvi. He is the first person to be arrested in the case.
  4. At least three dead as Guwahati-Bikaner Express derails in West Bengal’s Jalpaiguri district: The train was headed to Guwahati in Assam via Patna. The accident took place around 5.15 pm when the train was passing through Moynaguri town. The Indian Railways said 12 coaches have suffered damages.
  5. Delhi HC agrees to look into MJ Akbar’s plea against Priya Ramani’s acquittal in defamation case: Ramani, a journalist, had accused Akbar of sexual harassment during the #MeToo movement in India in 2018, after which Akbar resigned from the Union Council of Ministers and filed a defamation case against the journalist.
  6. India, China agree to work on resolving conflicts along LAC at 14th military commander-level talks: Both sides also agreed to take effective measures to maintain security and stability in the Western Sector of the Line of Actual Control.
  7. Hyderabad Police book actor Siddharth for tweet about Saina Nehwal: The complaint against him was filed by the vice president of Hindutva orgnisation of Hindu Jana Shakti. The actor made a seemingly sexual slur at Nehwal while responding to her tweet in which the badminton player had expressed concern about Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s convoy being stuck for several minutes on a flyover in Punjab.
  8. Unnao rape complainant’s mother among first list of 125 candidates released by Congress for UP polls: Fifty of the candidates are women, in accordance with the party’s announcement from October 19 that it will give 40% of the tickets to women. “Our attempt has been to choose candidates will work towards a new form of politics,” Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra said in a virtual press conference.
  9. Rocket scientist S Somanath appointed as ISRO chief: Somanath has played a key role in developing the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle and the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mk III, or GSLV Mk III. He joined the project in 2003 and served as its director between 2010 and 2014.
  10. India and UK begin negotiations on free trade agreement: The agreement is expected to facilitate the target of doubling bilateral trade between India and United Kingdom by 2030, the commerce ministry said.