Highlights: India’s forex reserves drop by $4.8 bn to $670 bn for the week ended

Feisty wrestler Vinesh Phogat on Saturday said that under “different circumstances” she could see herself competing till 2032 because she still has a lot of wrestling left in her but is now unsure about her future as things “might never be same again”.
 

Vinesh had announced her retirement from the sport after her disqualification from the women’s 50kg final for being overweight by 100gms. She had challenged the decision in the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) but her appeal was dismissed.
 

In an emotional post on social media, Vinesh shared her childhood dream, the hardships she faced after losing her father and also put on record the contribution made by people in her extraordinary journey that ended in heartbreak in Paris.
 

“….all I want to say is that we did not give up, our efforts did not stop, and we did not surrender but the clock stopped and the time was not fair. So was my fate,” she wrote, referring to the work she did with her team before the second day weigh-in.
 

“To my team, my fellow Indians and my family, it feels like: the goal that we were working towards and what we had planned to achieve is unfinished, that something might always remain missing, and that things might never be the same again.
 

“Maybe under different circumstances, I could see myself playing till 2032, because the fight in me and wrestling in me will always be there. I can’t predict what the future holds for me, and what awaits me in this journey next, but I am sure that I will continue to fight always for what I believe in and for the right thing,” she wrote.

Law enforcement agencies on Friday arrested former Inspector General of Prisons of Punjab province Shahid Saleem Baig for his alleged links with former ISI chief retired Gen Faiz Hameed, who is facing court-martial proceedings in a housing scam.
 

Baig served as IG Prisons Punjab for five years and retired before Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) founder Imran Khan was jailed over a year ago.
 

Baig has reportedly been arrested from his Lahore’s Shadman residence. “Officials of an intelligence agency raided the residence of Baig and took him into custody in connection with his links with Gen Faiz,” an official said.

An Indian student at University College London (UCL) is working on a new construction biomaterial that uses living microorganisms to extract carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, which has the potential to dramatically reduce carbon footprint if mass-produced and widely adopted by the building industry.
 

Prantar Tamuli, a Master’s degree student in the Biochemical Engineering Department at UCL, recently unveiled the material as part of an art installation at St Andrews Botanic Garden in Scotland. It incorporates living cyanobacteria into translucent panels that can be mounted on to the interior walls of buildings and as the microorganisms embedded within the panels grow using photosynthesis, they pull carbon dioxide out of the air.

The Election Commission will “preferably” hold 47 bypolls due in one go, Chief Election Rajiv Kumar said on Friday, stressing that these cannot be held immediately due to the weather condition prevailing in various states, including the landslide in Kerala’s Wayanad.
 

Responding to a question on when the poll panel plans to hold bypolls — 46 to the state assemblies and one to the Lok Sabha — Kumar said there are some states where the bypolls cannot be held due to the prevailing weather conditions.
 

Referring to Wayanad, he said the Lok Sabha bypoll cannot be held there immediately due to the landslides.
 

The seat fell vacant after Congress leader Rahul Gandhi resigned from there while retaining Rae Bareli.
 

Kumar said the flood situation continues in states such as Bihar and Assam.
 

“We will hold all (the bypolls) together and well within six months (the period in which vacancies are to be filled as per law). We are waiting…