A look at the headlines right now:

  1. India jumps 23 ranks to 77 in World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business index: Union minister Arun Jaitley said focusing on registering property, starting a business, insolvency, and taxation will help India break into the top 50.  
  2. Subject matter of government’s consultations with RBI are not made public, says Finance Ministry: Several reports said that the government has initiated talks with the RBI to consider invoking a provision never used before, which could empower it to issue directions to the central bank on certain matters.
  3. Modi unveils Statue of Unity on Sardar Patel’s birth anniversary, calls it a historic day for India: Opposition parties criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP, calling the unveiling of the statue a stunt.
  4. Another agency official moves Delhi High Court against CBI Special Director Rakesh Asthana: The Patiala House Court in Delhi granted bail to CBI’s Deputy Superintendent of Police Devender Kumar on a personal bond of Rs 50,000 and one surety in the same amount. 
  5. Shashi Tharoor sends legal notice to Ravi Shankar Prasad for calling him an ‘accused in murder case’: At a press conference last week, the Union minister said the Congress parliamentarian had been ‘chargesheeted in a serious allegation of murder’.  
  6. Anupam Kher resigns as FTII chairman citing busy international schedule: The actor said he won’t have time to devote to the institute’s operations as he will be based in the United States for almost nine months between 2018 and 2019.  
  7. RSS asks Centre to introduce law to expedite construction of Ram temple in Ayodhya: The organisation’s joint secretary, Manmohan Vaidya, said the matter was now about the ‘restoration of the nation’s pride’.  
  8. Supreme Court-appointed body urges NCR residents to use public transport till November 10: The Environment Pollution Control Authority said it was important to curb local sources of pollution to manage the crisis.  
  9. NASA retires planet hunter Kepler space telescope after it runs out of fuel a decade after launch: The unmanned telescope, launched in March 2009, helped to discover more than 2,600 planets, some of which may hold life.  
  10. At least 20 people killed after Army helicopter crashes in Farah province in Afghanistan: The Taliban claimed its militants had shot down the chopper but the provincial governor’s spokesperson said it had crashed due to bad weather.