India's maiden solar mission Aditya-L1 will reach its destination, the Lagrangian point (L1) which is located 1. 5 million km from the Earth, on January 6, Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman S Somanath has said.

The mission, the first Indian space-based observatory to study the Sun from a halo orbit L1, was launched by the ISRO on September 2 from the Saticcccsh Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) at Sriharikota.

Once Aditya-L1 reaches its destination, it will help measure various events happening on the Sun for the next five years.

ISRO has made a plan to build an Indian space station, called 'Bharatiya space station' during the 'Amrit Kaal' as per Prime Minister Narendra Modi's instructions, Somanath said.

Suspected pro-Khalistan activists allegedly defaced the Swaminarayan temple in Newark, California, police said, adding that the incident came to light on  Dec 22.

The exterior wall of the Hindu temple was defaced with anti-India graffiti. The Newark Police Service has started an investigation into the vandalism.

This is not the first such incident where a temple has been defaced with such graffiti in the recent past.

The incident comes close on the heels of the US Justice Department unsealing an indictment against an Indian national for his alleged involvement in a foiled plot to assassinate India-designated terrorist Gurpatwant Singh Pannun on American soil.

The Justice Department claimed that an Indian government employee (named CC-1), who was not identified in the indictment filed in a federal court in Manhattan, recruited an Indian national named Nikhil Gupta to hire a hitman to carry out the assassination, which was foiled by US authorities, according to prosecutors.

Gupta is currently in custody and has been charged with murder-for-hire, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. Czech authorities arrested and detained Gupta on June 30, pursuant to the bilateral extradition treaty between the US and the Czech Republic.

Reacting to the Justice Department's indictment, the Ministry of External Affairs said the case filed against an individual in a US court, allegedly linking him to an Indian official, was a "matter of concern" and is contrary to government policy.

Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, who was declared a 'designated individual terrorist' by the Government of India on July 1, 2020, has been actively exhorting Punjab-based gangsters and youth over social media to fight for the cause of the independent state of Khalistan, challenging the sovereignty, integrity and security of the country, NIA investigations have shown.

Pannun has been under the NIA lens since 2019 when the anti-terror agency registered its first case against him.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi responded to the claims made by the US, saying he would 'look into' any evidence, adding that 'few incidents' would not affect US-India ties.

After many delays, the U.N. Security Council adopted a watered-down resolution  on Dec 22  calling for immediately speeding up aid deliveries to desperate civilians in Gaza but without the original call for an "urgent suspension of hostilities" between Israel and Hamas.

The vote in the 15-member council was 13-0 with the United States and Russia abstaining.

The revised text was negotiated during a week and a half of high-level diplomacy by the United States, the United Arab Emirates on behalf of Arab nations and others.

The United States said on Dec 22 that  it will impose sanctions on foreign banks that support Russia's war in Ukraine, in a new bid to exert economic pressure on Moscow as it diversifies from the West to China.

Under an executive order to be signed by President Joe Biden, the United States will impose so-called secondary sanctions against financial institutions that back companies already targeted for supporting Russia's defense industry.

China's largest banks meanwhile have extended billions of dollars worth of credit in renminbi to Russia since the war as Western institutions exit.

Three foreign nationals were among 25 wounded after a student opened fire at a university in the Czech capital, Prague, killing 14 people. The mass shooting was one of the Czech Republic’s worst attacks in recent years.

Minister Vit Rakusan said police in Prague worked overnight and 13 of those killed have been identified. He also said three of those wounded were foreigners — two from Saudi Arabia and one from the Netherlands.

The bloodshed took place on Dec 21  at the Faculty of Arts of Charles University, where the 24-year-old shooter was a student, Prague Police Chief Martin Vondrasek said. The gunman also died, authorities said. His name has not been released.

A council housing block in north London has been named after British Indian spy and descendant of Tipu Sultan, Noor Inayat Khan, following a ballot of local residents to choose from a shortlist of the area's historic inhabitants.

Camden Council unveiled the "Noor Inayat Khan House" at a ceremony attended by local Labour Party MP and Opposition leader Keir Starmer, Khan's biographer Shrabani Basu and Camden Council leaders and residents.

Camden was the borough where young Noor lived with her family before she left for Nazi-occupied France in 1943 after being recruited as an undercover radio operator for Britain's Special Operations Executive (SOE), becoming the first woman to be dropped behind enemy lines during the Second World War.

India is likely to see 1 crore Electric Vehicle (EV) sales a year and the segment is expected to generate about 5 crore jobs by 2030, Union minister Nitin Gadkari said.

The Union Road Transport and Highways minister asserted that India has the potential to become number 1 EV maker in the world and the government is committed to making India a self-reliant country in clean energy production and mass application.

Australia batter Usman Khawaja has been reprimanded by the International Cricket Council for wearing a black armband in support of Palestinians in Gaza during the first cricket test against Pakistan.

ICC regulations prevent cricketers from displaying messages of political, religious or racial causes during international matches.

Khawaja was born in Pakistan and is the first Muslim to play test cricket for Australia.