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From Elon Musk's Twitter layoffs to AAP announcing its CM candidate in Gujarat, catch all the live updates from across the globe here

12:41 PM

Air purifier sales surge as Delhi grapples with 'severe' pollution

Once a luxury product, air purifiers have increasingly become a necessity as sales surge amid a rise in Delhi's pollution levels that are now just a notch below the 'Severe Plus' category.

According to Central Pollution Control Board data, Delhi's overall Air Quality Index (AQI) stood at 426 at 9.30 am on Friday. An AQI of above 400 is considered 'Severe' and can affect healthy people and seriously impact those with existing illnesses. On Thursday, the 24-hour average AQI stood at 450 at 4 pm, just a notch below the 'Severe Plus' category.

Demand for air purifiers have risen in the national capital, particularly after Diwali, which witnessed widespread bursting of firecrackers despite a ban.

12:32 PM

Scindia digs up Kejriwal's statements on stubble burning, says 'then do it'

Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Friday took a swipe at Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for his past statements regarding the stubble burning leading to pollution in the national capital.

This comes after Delhi woke up to the air quality falling in the 'severe' category for the second consecutive day. According to SAFAR (System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research), the stubble-burning contributed 34 per cent to Delhi's PM 2.5 pollution.

Taking a jibe at the Delhi CM who has been vocal about the stubble burning and was seen blaming the state governments of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana and Punjab (now ruled by AAP) in the past, Scindia shared a compiled video of Kejriwal's statements that he made in the past on the issue, and said, "Then do it!!! Expert in talks, slow in work."

12:21 PM

SC agrees to hear on Nov 10 plea raising air pollution issue in Delhi

The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to examine on November 10 a plea seeking urgent steps in connection with air pollution in Delhi.

A lawyer mentioned the matter before a bench headed by Chief Justice U.U. Lalit and sought an urgent hearing in the matter. The lawyer pointed out that air pollution in the capital is in severe category due to increase in stubble burning.

The top court said it agrees that the matter requires intervention and scheduled the plea for hearing on November 10.

12:04 PM

Gujarat: Morbi Municipality's Chief Officer suspended days after bridge collapse incident

The Gujarat government has suspended Morbi Municipality's Chief Officer Sandipsinh Zala in the wake of the bridge collapse incident that claimed 135 lives, a senior official said on Friday.

The British-era suspension bridge, built on the river Machchhu in Morbi town, had collapsed on Sunday evening. The people who died in the tragedy included women and children.

"The state Urban Development Department has suspended Chief Officer of Morbi Municipality Sandipsinh Zala," said Morbi District Collector G T Pandya.

11:55 AM

Amazon freezes corporate hirings amid rough global economic conditions

Amazon has announced to freeze new hirings in its corporate workforce, with the global economy "in an uncertain place".

Beth Galetti, Amazon's senior vice president of people experience and technology, confirmed the move in a memo that the company had already begun pausing or slowing hiring in various corporate departments in "recent weeks".

"We're facing an unusual macro-economic environment, and want to balance our hiring and investments with being thoughtful about this economy," Galetti wrote.

11:35 AM

Primary schools to be shut in Delhi from tomorrow, says CM Kejriwal

Delhi CM Kejriwal in a joint press conference with Punjab CM Bhagwant Mann announced that primary schools in Delhi will remain shut form tomorrow due to air pollution in Delhi.

As the air quality in Delhi continues to remain 'severe', a decision on the odd-even scheme in Delhi is being considered.

Amid critisicm over the pollution, Delhi CM also said, " This is not the time for blame game and finger pointing”.

11:02 AM

Twitter back after suffering brief outage for some Indian users: Reports

Twitter suffered a brief outage for some Indian users on Friday morning and came back to life soon, as the new CEO Elon Musk prepared to sack several employees starting Friday.

Twitter on mobile was working fine but users on the desktop version had some troubles logging into the platform.

The Twitter website also went down for some users, with a message saying "Something went wrong, but don't fret - let's give it another shot".

10:57 AM

Former Pak PM Imran Khan vows to continue protest march after attack

Imran Khan is stable after an attempt on his life and the former Pakistan prime minister is determined to continue his political struggle to press the government to call for an early election, his party has said.

 

Khan, 70, suffered a bullet injury in the right leg when a gun-wielding man fired a volley of bullets at him and others mounting on a container-mounted truck in the Wazirabad area of Punjab province, where he was leading a protest march against the government.

10:41 AM

Mumbai local trains running late due to technical problems

All fast suburban locals in Mumbai region are running late by 15-20 minutes due to technical problems, said Western Railway.

 

"Due to technical problem, all up and down fast suburban locals are running late by 15-20 minutes. inconvenience caused is deeply regretted," the Divisional Railway Manager- Mumbai Division of Western Railway tweeted.

10:32 AM

Severe air pollution in Delhi: BJP demands AAP govt order closure of schools

The Delhi BJP on Friday demanded that the AAP government order closure of schools in the national capital in view of severe air pollution.

 

Addressing a press conference at the Delhi BJP office, national spokesperson of the party Shehzad Poonawala said the AAP government should stop playing with the lives of the children and close the schools.

10:19 AM

India reports 1,216 new Covid infections; active cases drop to 15,705

With 1,216 people testing positive for coronavirus infection in a day, India's tally of COVID-19 cases rose to 4,46,58,365, while the active cases declined to 15,705, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Friday.

The death toll climbed to 5,30,479 with 18 fatalities which includes 15 deaths reconciled by Kerala, the data updated at 8 am stated.

The active cases comprise 0.04 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate increased to 98.78 per cent, according to the health ministry website.

10:02 AM

Bharat Electronics partners Motorola in broadband, push-to-talk service

Navratna Defence PSU Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL) has signed an MoU with Motorola Solutions India Pvt Ltd for co-operation in the field of broadband, push-to-talk service.

The MoU aims at leveraging the complementary strengths and capabilities of BEL and Motorola, the Bengaluru-headquartered company said in a statement.

"It will enable BEL and Motorola to address the needs of professional mobile radio segment users to connect their teams with greater speed and efficiency using Motorola WAVE PTX, a push-to-talk (PTT) service," it said.

9:46 AM

Twitter down? Several users complain about login issues

On Friday morning, many Twitter users reported problems with the microblogging site.

Many stated that they're unable to log into the website. A popup that reads "Something went wrong, but don't worry - try again" appears when the feed page first loads.

"I'm unable to access Twitter and getting an error prompt...Something went wrong, but don't fret -- let's give it another shot.Try again," a social media user wrote.

Reportedly, the outage started around 3 am and saw a relatively big spike around 7 am.

9:34 AM

India's defunct surveillance satellite hits Indian Ocean near Jakarta: ISRO

India's defunct Radar Imaging Satellite-2 (RISAT-2) re-entered the earth atmosphere on October 30 in an uncontrolled manner and hit the Indian Ocean near Jakarta, said Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO).

The 300 kg RISAT-2, a surveillance satellite, was launched on April 20, 2009, using the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV).

The satellite with a design life of four years had initially carried 30 kg of fuel for operations in the space.

9:24 AM

Byju's ropes in Lionel Messi as global brand ambassador for social initiative Education For All

Edtech major BYJU's has roped in football star Lionel "Leo" Messi as the first global brand ambassador of its social impact arm Education For All, the company said on Friday.

Messi, who plays for Paris Saint-Germain and captains the Argentinian football team, has signed an agreement with BYJU'S to promote the cause of equitable education, BYJU'S said in a statement.

"We are honoured and excited to collaborate with Lionel Messi as our global ambassador. He rose from the grassroots to become one of the most successful sports persons ever. That is the kind of opportunity that BYJU'S Education For All (EFA) wants to create for the nearly 5.5 million children it currently empowers. No one represents the power of enhancing human potential more than Lionel Messi," BYJU'S co-founder Divya Gokulnath said.