Week ending 18 October 2026

Specific intelligence developed by Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI), indicated that illicit cultivation of cannabis (ganja) was being carried out over a large area within a wildlife sanctuary near village Jamniapani, Shirpur, District Dhule, Maharashtra.

Acting on the intelligence, a joint team officers of DRI, and Central Bureau of Narcotics (CBN), reached the wildlife sanctuary near village Jamniapani, Shirpur, District Dhule, Maharashtra on 14.10.2026.

Schelcher said teams had been mobilized to fix the issue and promised an investigation into the incident, which he described as "extremely serious."

Lebanon's Prime Minister Nawaf Salam said there would be “no leniency” in the investigation and the government “will not tolerate anyone who dares to toy with the country's security, safety and stability”.

In an extremely disappointing ruling, a California trial court dismissed SIREN v.

EFF and the ACLU of Northern California represent SIREN and CAIR California, two non-profits that serve San Jose residents, in this case.

The ruling ignores the importance of landmark rulings from the U.S. Supreme Court regarding the invasiveness of aggregating collected data on an individual over time, including one issued just months ago.

Abu Dhabi has established TAMM Global, a new company that will export the emirate's AI-powered unified government services platform to international markets.

TAMM Global will develop, manage and deliver an integrated system of digital government services, owning and operating specialised digital platforms while holding the associated intellectual property rights.

As an independent private-sector company, TAMM Global will team up directly with governments, organisations and institutions worldwide, licensing the platform's architecture and implementation methodologies.

A 2025 analysis found that the six AI developers studied — Amazon, Anthropic, Google, Meta, Microsoft and OpenAI — trained their models on users’ input data by default (J.

Ahmed Farooq, a computer scientist at Tampere University in Finland, built a local system called TAUCHI-GPT, so that papers, reports and study data protected under the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation could be searched without leaving the university’s network.

The corpus is public, so she could send it to a remote, commercial AI system.

The update to the EU’s list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes was made by EU Finance Ministers last week, and comes a decade after Panama dealt with the fallout from the Panama Papers, an investigation led by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists and German newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung into 11.5 million financial and legal records.

The Hon’ble Supreme Court of India had constituted a High Powered Enquiry Committee (HPEC) to enquire into all aspects of the incidents relating to violence at Jantar Mantar, Delhi, and at places outside Delhi, during the month of July 2026.

For the convenience of the affected people, including the affected police personnel , the HPEC has launched a portal http://hpec.nic.in.

Home services marketplace Urban Company is considering raising fresh capital a year after its initial public offering, as its new business line InstaHelp, which connects users with house helpers within 10 minutes, continues to be a drag on the company’s overall profitability.

While Urban Company has not disclosed the size or type of fundraising it will do, the Economic Times reported the platform is planning to raise Rs 2,000-2,500 crore via the QIB route.

Plus, how butterflies trick the eye and what could be the oldest shipwreck ever found.

Artificial-intelligence graduates in China are increasingly choosing to stay instead of pursuing opportunities abroad, a move that could help the country catch up to the United States in AI research.

After huge successes with GLP-1 obesity drugs, several pharmaceutical companies are turning their efforts to developing similar drugs to treat brain disorders.

What’s more, the working paper, which has not been peer reviewed, found that PhD graduates who use artificial intelligence to help write their dissertations are more likely to work in industry and less likely to enter academia.

Researchers at the US-based non-profit organization the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) wanted to understand how PhD students use AI because insights into students’ training and capabilities will shape science over the next several decades.

ArXiv versus AI slop: will capping preprint submissions work?

The bench of Justice P Velmurugan and Justice R Poornima has called for a status report from the authorities and adjourned the hearing by two weeks.

The issue relates to an incident that occurred in the Manoor Panchayat Union Primary School, situated near Palani in Dindigul District.

On October 5, 2026, upon noticing that water was not flowing from the tap, the school staff members inspected the water storage tank and found human faeces inside the tank.

An enzyme found in the brain could help to preserve cognitive resilience with advancing age, according to research in mice, humans and cells1.

The authors homed in on the enzyme after finding that the gene encoding it suddenly became more active when connections between some of the neurons in the brains of mice were disrupted.

The donors had all undergone cognitive testing before their death.

The Calcutta High Court has upheld the conviction of a man for possessing fake Indian currency notes (FICNs) worth ₹94,000, but reduced his three-and-a-half-year prison sentence to the period already undergone, noting that he had served three years, five months and 17 days.

The Court observed that although the appellant's counsel did not wish to press the matter further because he had nearly completed his sentence, an appeal that had already been admitted could not simply be disposed of as not pressed and had to be decided on merits.

Administrative Law — Extraordinary Jurisdiction — Article 142 Powers - The invocation of extraordinary powers under Article 142 of the Constitution to do complete justice is contextual and cannot be exercised mechanically - The Supreme Court will not invoke Article 142 to protect the services of irregularly or illegally appointed teachers at the cost of the students' future and the integrity of public employment streams.

Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USAEvan M.

Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Shri Piyush Goyal, launched the National Strategic Trade Command Centre (NSTCC) at Vanijya Bhawan, New Delhi, in the presence of Commerce Secretary, Shri Rajesh Agrawal, and Director General, Director General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), Shri Lav Agarwal.

On October 9, Ledger said it had launched an investigation into user reports of cryptocurrency losses and asked CryptoBilis to stop selling and shipping Ledger devices.

Yesterday, Ledger provided another update, confirming that all user reports of unexpected fund drains were linked to devices sold through CryptoBilis and describing the affected volume as “limited.”

The Delhi High Court on Tuesday (October 13) issued notice on Indian Youth Congress' (IYC) plea seeking reconsideration of its request to hold protest against CEC Gyanesh Kumar by undertaking fresh, reasoned assessment and examining whether security, traffic and public order concerns can be addressed through reasonable conditions.

Justice Amit Mahajan issued notice on three prayers in the petition and listed the matter in November.

The OIG found that TSA’s Credential Authentication Technology 2’s (CAT-2) vendor “was able to access and extract sensitive passenger information, including driver’s license and passport images, during system troubleshooting and enhancements, without TSA’s knowledge.”

TSA lacked clear policies, did not track when this data was extracted, could not verify that extracted information was properly deleted, and did not notify passengers when their biometric and biographic information may have been stored.

Citizens’ trust in the technologies suffers because of privacy breaches, personal data leaks, and other issues.

Since then, IEEE Smart Cities has launched services including its flagship International Smart Cities Conference, a media center with educational and technical resources, and a contest to recognize the best smart project completed by city officials.

The rules, published in the country’s Official Gazette on October 10, will take effect on November 1, 2026, and apply to social media platforms operating in or accessible from Turkey.

The token will confirm whether a user meets the minimum age thresholds of 15 or 18 without disclosing their name, exact age or other identifying information to social media platforms.

Violations may result in penalties under Turkey’s existing internet law, although regulators must first give platforms a reasonable opportunity to remedy breaches.

The 2026 report by HeatWatch on women gig workers found that even though nearly 36% reported feeling faint or fainting, 57% reported dehydration and 47% reported nausea or vomiting, only 18% sought treatment from a doctor, clinic, or hospital while 69% reduced or stopped work because of heat-related illness.

More than 60% lacked access to clean washrooms, while more than 80% said they could not find room for resting, shade or access to cooling facilities like fans.

Who will pay for loss of pay for six days?

The findings, described in nine papers published in Cell, Cell Press Blue, Molecular Cell and Current Biology on 1 October1–9, reveal dozens of proteins that are not found in humans but are shared among parasites, including some that cause malaria or sleeping sickness.

Best known as the powerhouse of the eukaryotic cell because it produces energy, the mitochondrion has its own tiny DNA, which is distinct from that of the cell’s nucleus.