A look at the headlines right now:

  1. GST Council exempts sanitary napkins from taxation, removes a number of items from 28% tax slab: A number of items such as marbles, rakhi, wooden deities and sal leaves also will not be taxed, Finance Minister Piyush Goyal announced.  
  2. Mob lynches man on suspicion of cow smuggling in Rajasthan’s Alwar district: Police said villagers in Ramgarh allegedly attacked two men while they were transporting cattle to Haryana. 
  3. Bullet-riddled body of abducted constable found in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kulgam: Saleem Ahmed Shah was kidnapped by suspected militants on Friday night from his home in Muthalhama village.  
  4. One dead, 29 injured as scaffold, girders of under-construction hospital collapse in Chennai: One of the rescued workers said that 50 of them were at the site during the accident.
  5. Mamata Banerjee says she will launch ‘BJP hatao’ campaign: The West Bengal chief minister confirmed that Chandan Mitra, who resigned from the BJP this week, has joined Trinamool Congress.
  6. One killed as man barricades himself in store after shooting grandmother, girlfriend in LA: After a police chase, the suspect crashed his car near the Trader Joe’s supermarket in Silver Lake area, entered the store and took hostages.
  7. Haryana priest arrested for allegedly raping multiple disciples, blackmailing them with videos: The police said they have recovered around 120 videos of sexual acts from his house during a raid.
  8. 19-year-old man sentenced to death for raping infant in Rajasthan: This is the first death sentence ordered under a new law passed by the state Assembly in March.
  9. China is waging a cold war to replace United States as leading superpower, says top CIA official: Michael Collins, who works at the intelligence agency’s East Asia mission centre, talked of concerns in the US about China’s efforts to steal business secrets.  
  10. Malayalam novelist S Hareesh withdraws his novel citing threats on social media: Hareesh said his family had received threats from followers of Hindutva organisations and that he cannot take on ‘the people who rule the country’.