Morning Digest: Cyclone Dana makes landfall along Odisha coast; two jawans among four injured in J&K terror attack, and more

The Hindu Morning Digest gives a select list of stories to start the day. Read the top news today on October 25, 2024

The landfall process of severe cyclonic storm Dana began on Thursday (October 24, 2024) night and was expected to continue till Friday morning, the Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said. The storm moved north-northwest at a speed of 15 kmph over the past six hours before making landfall between Bhitarkanika in Kendrapara district and Dhamra in Bhadrak district, with wind speeds of around 110 kmph, a senior IMD official said.

Two Army personnel and two porters were injured in a firefight with militants in north Kashmir’s Baramulla on Thursday, officials said. In a separate incident, a non-local worker was injured after being fired at by suspected militants in south Kashmir’s Pulwama, as the valley witnessed a sudden spurt in terror attacks over the past one week.

India and China have begun disengaging from Depsang and Demchok, the last two friction points of the 2020 standoff along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh, two official sources confirmed independently on Thursday (October 24, 2024). The process started on Tuesday and it will take few days to remove the structures erected during the stand-off and restore the landforms, one of the sources said.

Former Maharashtra Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, Leader of Opposition in the outgoing Assembly Vijay Wadettiwar and State unit chief Nana Patole are among 48 candidates that the Congress announced on Thursday (October 24, 2024) for the upcoming Assembly election in Maharashtra. The party has retained 25 sitting MLAs in the first list.

The Union government on Thursday notified the appointment of Justice Sanjiv Khanna as the 51st Chief Justice of India with effect from November 11. Chief Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, who is scheduled to retire on November 10, had recommended Justice Khanna as his successor in office, on October 17.

Calling Canada’s behaviour “the pits”, India’s recalled High Commissioner Sanjay Verma says India was backstabbed and treated in a most unprofessional manner by a country that is supposed to be a friendly democracy. He said that “a handful” of supporters of Khalistan have turned the ideology into a criminal enterprise, which indulges in a range of activities such as gun-running and human trafficking and yet the Canadian authorities turn a blind eye because they comprise a vocal electoral bank for local politicians.

Speculation about changes in the exam pattern for the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET-UG) 2025 continues, with the National Testing Agency (NTA) only maintaining that it is awaiting a report of the high-powered expert committee, which was formed on the directions of the Supreme Court. The committee was constituted to look into measures to enhance the NEET exam process.