TITBITS:
1. The Union government in the Supreme Court has
justified the law criminalising triple talaq, saying the "practice
legitimised and institutionalised abandonment of wives by their husbands"
and was "neither Islamic nor legal".
2. Chinese and Philippine coast guard ships collided
at sea, damaging at least two vessels, in an encounter early on Monday near a
new flashpoint in their increasingly alarming confrontations in the disputed
South China Sea.
3. The Union Health Ministry said the strain of
monkeypox virus currently in circulation in the Democratic Republic of Congo
(DRC) and more than a dozen African countries is virulent and has a death rate
of 3% as opposed to 0.1% from the less virulent strain.
4. Pakistan has confirmed at least one case of the
mpox virus, a day after Sweden confirmed an infection with a more easily spread
and deadlier variant linked to a recent outbreak in Africa.
5. Haryana has tagged 24,353 hectares of Aravali land
in five of its districts - Gurgaon, Nuh, Rewari, Mahendergarh and CharkhiDadri
- as protected forest, under the compensatory afforestation swap meant to make
up for the destruction of tropical rainforests in Great Nicobar.