The Supreme Court  on Jan 23 said it will hear on January 25 the petition of journalist Rana Ayyub challenging the summons issued to her by a special PMLA court in Ghaziabad in a money laundering case lodged by the ED.

Ayyub in her plea had sought quashing of the proceedings initiated by the Enforcement Directorate in Ghaziabad citing that the court didn’t have jurisdiction as the alleged offence had occurred in Mumbai.

On November 29 last year, the special PMLA court in Ghaziabad had taken cognizance of the prosecution complaint filed by the Enforcement Directorate and summoned Ayyub. The case lodged by ED alleged that the funds raised by Ayyub through the crowdfunding platform Ketto violated FCRA.

On October 12 last year, the ED had filed a charge sheet against Ayyub, accusing her of cheating the public and using Rs 2.69 crore she got in charity for creating personal assets, and also violating the foreign contribution law.

A massive power breakdown in Pakistan on  Jan 23 affected most of the country's more than 220 million people, including in the mega cities of Karachi and Lahore.

Pakistan's electricity distribution system is a complex and delicate web, and a problem in one section of the grid can lead to cascading breakdowns across the country.

The hours-long outage, the second in the past two years, was caused by a fault in the national grid at around 7:30 am (0230GMT).

A similar breakdown in January 2021 had plunged the entire country into darkness after fault occurred in southern Pakistan tripping the transmission system of the country.

Pakistan has long been hit by energy shortages because of a combination of factors including a poor economy, mismanagement and a lack of storage facilities.

Thousands of Indian IT professionals in the US, who have lost their jobs due to the series of recent layoffs at companies like Google, Microsoft and Amazon, are now struggling to find new employment within the stipulated period under their work visas following the termination of their employment to stay in the country.

According to The Washington Post, nearly 200,000 IT workers have been laid off since November last year, including some record numbers in companies like Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon.

As per some industry insiders, between 30 to 40 per cent of them are Indian IT professionals, a significant number of whom are on H-1B and L1 visas.

The H-1B visa is a non-immigrant visa that allows US companies to employ foreign workers in speciality occupations that require theoretical or technical expertise.

The hunt for a gunman who killed 10 people at a Los Angeles-area ballroom dance club ended on  Jan 23 when authorities found him dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in the van he used to flee after people thwarted his attempt at a second shooting.

Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna identified the man as 72-year-old Huu Can Tran and said no other suspects were at large. He added that the motive remained unclear for the attack, which wounded 10 more.

India's foreign exchange reserves rose by USD whopping USD 10.417 billion to USD 572.0 billion in the week ending on January 13, Reserve Bank of India's Bulletin Weekly Statistical Supplement data showed. With this sharp jump, the reserves hit over a five-month high.

During the week that ended on January 6, the country's forex reserves were at USD 561.583 billion, earlier data showed.

According to RBI's latest data, India's foreign currency assets, the biggest component of the forex reserves, rose by USD 9.078 billion to USD 505.519 billion. Gold reserves rose by USD 1.106 to USD 42.890 billion.

Notably, at the start of last year -- 2022, the overall forex reserves were at about USD 633 billion.

Twitter boss Elon Musk announced in a series of tweets that the company's subscription service would show less advertising to users, including an ad-free tier.

The announcement comes as the social network has faced major economic uncertainty since its takeover by Musk in October.

That would be a radical change in business model from Twitter, which has so far relied on targeted advertising to generate revenue, before launching a paid subscription service in mid-December.

But advertising has been a question mark for Twitter lately, after Musk fired about half of the company's 7,500-strong workforce late last year. The move sparked concern that the company was insufficiently staffed to carry out content moderation and spooking governments and advertisers.

Musk said his strategy was to massively reduce costs while building up revenue, and that a new subscription service called Twitter Blue, which grants users a sought-after blue verification tick for a fee, would help reach that goal.

The service costs $11 a month in the United States and is available on Apple's iOS and Google's Android mobile operating systems.

Web subscriptions are also available for $8 per month or, at a discount, $84 per year. Twitter Blue is currently available in the United States, Canada, Britain, New Zealand, Australia and Japan.

The Badminton Association of India (BAI) has written to the sport's world body (BWF), expressing its interest to host the Sudirman Cup Finals this year.

India was scheduled to host the mixed team championship in 2023, but the Badminton World Federation awarded the rights to Suzhou, China, while giving the 2026 World Championships to India.

Suzhou was due to host the championships in 2021 but, due to the COVID-19 situation in China, the BWF was not able to stage any tournaments in the country and the event was shifted to Vantaa in Finland.

Owing to the current COVID situation in China, there is again uncertainty regarding the Sudirman Cup, scheduled to be held there from May 14 to 21.

India hosted the World Badminton Championships in 2009 and the Thomas and Uber Cup in 2014.

The World Junior Championships was held once in 2008.

The country also hosted the Badminton Asia Championships in 1965, 1983 2005 and 2010 before hosting the Team Event in 2016.

India will host two more international badminton tournaments this season with Guwahati set to organise a BWF Super 100 event.

A junior international event is scheduled in Kerala.

The BCCI is all set to get richer by at least Rs 4000 crore with some of the top business houses set to bid aggressively for the five Women's IPL (WIPL) teams that would be auctioned on Jan 25.

The five-team WIPL will be played in the month of March in Mumbai at a couple of venues.