Ahead of Assembly elections in Gujarat, Ahmedabad is all set to get the commercial services of the newly rolled out third rake of the country’s semi-high-speed Vande Bharat express train. The railway conducted the final test run of this new version of the Vande Bharat train on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad section on September 9 under keen observations of technical and safety experts.

The third rake of Vande Bharat train, equipped with wi-fi, ‘content on demand’ and the photo-catalytic ultra air purifier system, during its final test-run covered the distance of 492 km just in 5 hours 10 minutes.

The much-awaited Udhampur-Srinagar Baramulla Rail Link (USBRL) launched as the country’s one national rail project has set a record in generating 500 lakh mandays of employment and providing rail connectivity to over 1.5L people living in far-flung hilly areas.

Cracking the alleged rape and double murder case of two minor sisters belonging to scheduled caste (SC) under Nighasan police station area of Lakhimpur Kheri, the district police arrested six accused.

However, the autopsy carried out by a panel of three doctors in the presence of the victims’ family, confirmed the rape of both the minor sisters.

The sisters were found hanging from a tree in village Tamolinpurwa in Nighasan area of Kheri late on  Sep 14 evening.

The Jharkhand Cabinet on Sep 14 approved the proposal on domicile policy based on the 1932 ‘Khatiyan’ (land records). The Cabinet approved 43 proposals, including 77 per cent reservation for the socially, economically and weaker sections in state government jobs.

The domicile policy has been controversial since Jharkhand was formed in 2000. As per the provisions formulated by BJP government in 2016, people living in Jharkhand since or before 1985 were considered local inhabitants. However, after the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha-led alliance took over in 2019, party president Shibu Soren announced that the 1932 cut-off should be used. Chief Minister Hemant Soren called the meeting “historic”.

As per the proposed job reservation policy, local people belonging to the SC and ST will have 12 per cent and 28 per cent quota, respectively. The Extremely Backward Castes, OBCs, and Economically Weaker Section (excluding other reserved categories) will get 15 per cent, 12 per cent and 10 per cent reservation, respectively.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) will hold its first in-person summit in Samarkand in Uzbekistan on  Sep 15 after two years.

The last in-person SCO summit was held in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan in 2019.

After that, the 2020 Moscow summit was held virtually due to the Covid-19 pandemic, while the 2021 summit at Dushanbe was conducted in a hybrid mode.

Launched in Shanghai in June 2001, the SCO has eight full members, including its six founding members, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India and Pakistan joined as full members in 2017.

SCO observer states include Afghanistan, Belarus, and Mongolia, while Dialogue partners include Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Turkey, as well as Armenia and Azerbaijan.

This is the first time after the 2020 covidpandemic that Prime Minister Narendra Modi, his Pakistani counterpart Shehbaz Sharif Chinese President Xi Jinping and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin will be attending the two-day summit.

The sudden announcement of Xi's participation in the SCO summit, shedding his covid concerns has created a buzz. On Sep 14 , Xi for the first time in over two years flew out of China.

He travelled to Kazakhstan on his first state visit since January 2020 from there he would travel to neighbouring Uzbekistan to take part in the Samarkand summit.

The Samarkand SCO summit will also mark the second recent expansion of the organisation as Iran will be formally admitted into the influential Central Asian grouping after India and Pakistan's admission as full members in 2017.

Besides the eight member states, four observer countries and six dialogue partners, around 10 other nations have expressed their interest to join the political, economic and security organisation or upgrade their status within the group.

After the formalities, Iran will attend the next summit to be held in India.

Ahead of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit this week where Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines, the Kremlin said that trade turnover between New Delhi and Moscow has soared nearly 120 per cent so far this year.

The Summit will take place on  Sep 15- 16  in the Uzbek city of Samarkand.

According to Kremlin foreign policy spokesman Yury Ushakov , the two countries are currently working on bilateral measures to expand the use of national currencies, the ruble and the rupee, in mutual settlements.

India has been boosting purchases of Russian crude over the past six months, while the US has repeatedly urged New Delhi to support a price cap on Russian oil.

However, India has been reluctant to join the Western sanctions on Moscow, placing domestic energy security above geopolitical conflicts

US's trade with its top 15 partners increased over the past one year, but the single biggest jump was with India, the country's Consul General in Kolkata Melinda Pavek said.

Pavek, while addressing a session at the East India Summit 2022 organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), said India-US trade stood at USD 67 billion during the first six months of 2022.

The exports to India were USD 23 billion, while Indian exports to the US stood at USD 44 billion during January-June.

In 2021, overall US-India bilateral trade in goods and services was USD 157 billion, as per official data.

Some of the top trading partners of the US include China, Canada, Mexico, Japan, Germany, the United Kingdom and France.

Pavek also said several US agencies are involved in developmental projects in eastern India.

The US also engages with West Bengal Transport Department to find ways to support the World Bank-funded inland water transport projects in this state, Pavek added.

Lufthansa said  that the German state had sold the stake it took in the airline as part of a rescue package at the peak of the Covid pandemic, and booked a healthy profit in the process.

In the spring of 2020, borders were shutting worldwide, forcing airlines everywhere to ground planes and put staff put on forced leave.

To save Lufthansa from bankruptcy, the German government took a 20-percent stake in the group under a nine-billion-euro (dollar) state aid package.

Under the deal, the government agreed to sell the stake by October 2023.

But with the airline's finances stabilising as travel resumed, Berlin was able to start selling its holdings as early as November last year.

Lufthansa said the remaining 6.2 percent of the share capital was sold on Sep 13 .

The state paid 306 million euros for the stake and sold it for 1.07 billion euros -- a profit of 760 million.