The Iranian youth outfit overcame Armenia 45-41 in the first encounter before they were subdued by Belarus 45-32 in the final.
Overall, Iran’s epee and foil squads finished the tournament with two gold, one silver, and one bronze medal.
An international fencing tournament was held in Yerevan, Armenia, with the participation of athletes from Iran, Georgia, Russia, Armenia, Uzbekistan, and Belarus.
AMK/IRIB3997350
A populist party that wants to stop military aid to Ukraine and is critical of the EU and NATO has won Slovakia’s election, results have showed.
The Smer-SD party led by former prime minister Robert Fico scored 23.3 percent, beating the centrist Progressive Slovakia on 17 percent, with almost all votes counted.
Experts see Fico’s party’s rise to power signaling a radical change in Slovakia’s foreign policy, resembling that of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
The 59-year-old Fico has vowed that Slovakia will not send “a single round of ammunition” to Ukraine and has called for better relations with Russia.
For Fico to become prime minister, his party needs to secure 42 seats in the 150-member parliament and so will need coalition partners for a majority.
The leftwing Hlas-SD, which emerged in 2020 when a group of Smer lawmakers quit Fico’s party, is one potential partner, with an expected 27 seats.
Fico and Pellegrini are expected to team up with the nationalist Slovak National Party (SNS), adding another 10 more seats to the coalition, for a parliamentary majority of 79 seats.
The SNS, which is also opposed to military aid for Ukraine, has twice in the past joined in coalitions with Fico.
Slovakia has been one of Europe’s biggest donors to Ukraine since Russia launched its special military operation in Donbas in 2022.
Slovakia’s Defense Minister Martin Sklenar had visited Kiev just ahead of the vote, and on election day Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky praised Slovakia for “standing with Ukraine”.
Slovakia emerged as an independent country in 1993, following a peaceful split with the Czech Republic. In 2004, it joined both the EU and NATO.
Sudha Murty said amid laughter, “There is a funny thing about this award because Narayana Murty also got it in 2014 and I got it in 2023. So we’re the first couple to get this award.”
Published Date – 01:44 PM, Sun – 1 October 23
Toronto: Renowned author, philanthropist and wife of Infosys co-founder NR Narayana Murty, Sudha Murty, was conferred with the Global Indian Award by the Canada India Foundation at the biggest Indo-Canadian gala here.
The Global Indian Award, which is worth $50,000, is given each year to a prominent Indian who has made a major mark in his or her chosen field.
“We are so pleased to present the Global Indian Award to Sudha Murty. She has spent her entire career paving the way for future generations to find success in whatever field they choose, and is passionate about giving back to society,” said Canada India Foundation chairman Satish Thakkar on Saturday night.
Accepting the award from Indian High Commissioner Sanjay Kumar Verma, Sudha Murty said, “It is my honour to get this award from your country.”
Thanking the Canada India Foundation (CIF) for choosing her for this award, Murthy said, “The CIF is like Krishna in the Mahabharata. Krishna is the son of Devki as well as Yashoda. Devki was his biological mother and Yashoda brought him up. You are born in India but settled here that is Yashoda and your mother is India. You belong to both mothers.”
Lauding the Indo-Canadian diaspora as a bridge between the two countries, she said, “You are the carriers of Indian culture in a different land. Please keep it up.”
As her husband was also given the same award in 2014, Sudha Murty said amid laughter, “There is a funny thing about this award because Narayana Murty also got it in 2014 and I got it in 2023. So we’re the first couple to get this award.”
She donated the award money to The Field Institute (University of Toronto) which is internationally renowned for strengthening collaboration, innovation, and learning in mathematics and across a broad range of disciplines.
Sudha Murty was accompanied by the parents of her son-in-law and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to the Toronto gala event.
The pair of Dipika Pallikal and Harinder Pal Singh Sandhu defeated the South Korean duo of Jaejin Yoo and Hwayeong Eum
Published Date – 02:07 PM, Sun – 1 October 23
Hangzhou: A day after the Indian men’s squash team secured a thrilling victory against Pakistan to clinch the gold medal, the mixed doubles teams won their respective pool matches at the Asian Games here on Sunday.
In Pool A, the pair of Dipika Pallikal and Harinder Pal Singh Sandhu defeated the South Korean duo of Jaejin Yoo and Hwayeong Eum 2-0, recording an 11-2, 11-5 win in 22 minutes.
On the other hand, the pair of Anahat Singh and Abhay Singh crushed the pair of David William Pelino and Yvonne Alyssa Dalida from the Philippines 2-0.
Anahat and Abhay won 11-7, 11-5 in their Pool D contest lasting 15 minutes.
India’s Mahesh Mangaonkar will take on Jonathan Reyes of the Philippines in the men’s round of 32.
Also in action are Pallikal and Sandhu, who will take on the Pakistani duo of Noor Zaman and Mehwish Ali in mixed doubles Pool A match.
In Pool D, Anahat and Abhay will face the Pakistani pair of Sadia Gul and Farhan Zaman.
In efforts to address a prolonged supply glut, Samsung, the global leader in memory chip production, followed suit with peers SK hynix Inc. and Micron Technology Inc. by significantly reducing chip production earlier this year.
Published Date – 02:00 PM, Sun – 1 October 23
Seoul: Samsung Electronics is expected to reduce its chip deficit in the third quarter, thanks largely to a continued cut in its chip output, according to analysts.
Samsung, the world’s largest memory chip maker, slashed its chip production early this year, belatedly joining its peers, like SK hynix Inc. and Micron Technology Inc., which started to cut production late last year, to resolve a persistent supply glut.
Analyst Kim Dong-won at KB Securities forecast Samsung’s Device Solutions (DS) division, which oversees its cash cow chip business, to make losses of around 4 trillion won ($2.96 billion) in the third quarter, lower than the 4.35 trillion won of the second quarter, reports Yonhap news agency.
He said Samsung has raised its production cut since the second half to 30 percent for DRAM and 40 percent for NAND Flash, from 20 percent and 30 percent, respectively, in the first half.
Samsung’s DS division logged an operating loss of 4.6 trillion won in the first quarter, its first financial loss in 14 years, as chip inventories grew significantly amid tapering global demand. Prior to that, the division recorded losses in the first quarter of 2009.
While the production cut, and more balanced supply and demand dynamics have started to boost memory chip prices, elevated fixed prices to cope with manufacturing facilities sitting idle also weighed on profits, Choi Bo-young, an analyst at Kyobo Securities, said.
Analyst Kim Kwang-jin from Hanwha Investment & Securities forecast Samsung’s chip performance to come short of market expectations, as the company seemed to take more time to fully recover its chip business than previously expected. Kim estimated the DS division’s loss at 3.7 trillion won in the third quarter.
Greg Roh, head of research at Hyundai Motor Securities, said Samsung’s production cut has had “minimal” impact so far, and a rise in depreciation costs arising from the ramp-up of a new chip production line in its Pyeongtaek Campus has eaten away profits. He estimated the DS division’s loss similarly at 3.6 trillion won.
Market tracker TrendForce said Samsung moved farther than previously expected to tackle the oversupply issue.
Samsung took “a decisive step” to make a 50 percent production cut for NAND Flash to deal with persistent softening in demand, which is likely to help stabilise chip prices and boost demand in the coming months, TrendForce said earlier this month.
“Samsung’s aggressive production cuts are likely to set off a ripple effect: a potential price uplift for their primary products,” it added.
“This ripple is anticipated to propel the overall bit shipment volume of NAND Flash in Q4, gradually narrowing the deficit gap for suppliers. Simultaneously, this shift will likely improve the profit outlook for module makers.”
An emphatic performance in the Asia Cup followed by a dominant show with the willow against Australia placed the Indian team in good headspace going into the World Cup but problems remain when it comes to zeroing in on the ideal playing XI. India begin their campaign against Australia on October 8 in Chennai.
Here’s the SWOT analysis.
STRENGTH:
Let there be no doubt in anyone’s mind that this batting line-up is the best India have had since the historic batch of 2011.
A line-up comprising Rohit Sharma, Shubman Gill, Virat Kohli, KL Rahul, Shreyas Iyer and Hardik Pandya is as formidable as it gets. And there will be Ishan Kishan and Suryakumar Yadav in the dug-out in case there is requirement to replace anyone.
India haven’t had such a galaxy of stars in one line-up for the longest time. And with most batters hitting the straps at the right time, the fans could be in for a run-feast on flat batting decks, which are expected to be on offer.
Gill’s ODI form, with more than 1200 plus runs in past one year, has been the biggest plus and he didn’t let the team feel the absence of a player of Shikhar Dhawan’s calibre.
Even more heartening is KL Rahul’s full fitness, and the hundred against Pakistan in Asia Cup, which has been the biggest gain ahead of World Cup.
WEAKNESSES:
The spin bowling department might be looking good on paper but there is no way to judge how the two veterans Ravichandran Ashwin and Ravindra Jadeja will perform on the tracks that will be heavily loaded in favour of batters.
Axar Patel’s injury might have given India a chance to get a right-arm finger spinner in but dropping Yuzvendra Chahal, after carrying him in 50-over cricket for a better part of last one year, and selecting three left-arm spinners does speak a lot about the lack of options.
Going by form, Kuldeep Yadav is expected to feature in every playing XI unless he suddenly loses his touch or there is an injury.
Ashwin’s presence on Indian tracks might cheer many but truth remains that on good decks, he has had a tendency of struggling. Yet, for some teams like Australia, Ashwin plays with the minds of batters and that’s his advantage.
In case of Jadeja, he is still a good bowler on helpful tracks but on flat decks, he could go for plenty. Also, both Jadeja and Ashwin are competent Test batters, but the former lost a bit of mojo when it comes to batting in ODIs, if one looks at his current strike-rate. Ashwin also isn’t a consistent power-hitter.
OPPORTUNITIES:
Home advantage is a reality even if it’s an ICC event where the global body’s curators are always doing a recce of various venues and conditions.
In these conditions, Rohit Sharma will have the perfect setting and best chance of winning the World Cup.
There will be heavy dew in some of the venues and if it comes down to chasing totals, there is no country like India which would make every other team have sleepless nights.
At the end of the day, the Indian team has chase master Virat Kohli in its ranks who is breathing down Sachin Tendulkar’s neck with 47 ODI hundreds, and needs three more to get past India’s greatest ever batter.
THREAT:
At times, too many options aren’t a good thing to have and that could be a problem for the team going into the tournament.
While the bowling attack would certainly be tweaked a bit looking at surfaces, Shreyas Iyer getting the likely nod above Ishan Kishan isn’t the most easiest of decisions.
Kishan has performed whatever role has been assigned to him by the team management but now it seems that he might have to sit out as KL Rahul is set to keep wickets and bat at No.5.
Dropping Kishan also means that the only viable left-handed option in the top five is done away with and there would be no variation in the top-order in terms of making opposition bowlers think about changing the line of attack for every second delivery.
Hopefully, India can get the top-order combination right unlike last time when, despite a semi-final appearance, the No.4 batting slot was a complete mess.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Iranian President Ebrahim Raeisi has censured the normalization agreements by certain Arab countries with the Israeli regime, underlining that the liberation of the occupied al-Quds is the “most important issue’ in the Muslim world.
Raeisi made the remark in an address to the opening ceremony of the 37th International Islamic Unity Conference in the Iranian capital of Tehran on Sunday.
This is a developing story…
The US occupation forces used dozens of tankers to smuggle a new consignment of crude oil from the country’s northeastern province of Hasakah to their bases in northern Iraq last week, footage shows.
The convoy of tankers, as seen in the footage, looted Syrian oil from the city of Qamishli in Hasakah through the Semalka border crossing into Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region.
“New footage from 26 September [is] showing a US convoy, roughly 2 kilometers long, looting Syrian oil near Qamishli, moving east towards the Semalka border crossing and heading for Iraqi Kurdistan,” said the online news magazine The Cradle in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
New footage from 26 September showing a US convoy, roughly 2 kilometers long, looting Syrian oil near Qamishli, moving east towards the Semalka border crossing and heading for Iraqi Kurdistan. pic.twitter.com/6E1d8CwTXh
— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) September 29, 2023
Trucks and tankers belonging to the US occupation forces have been consistently smuggling tons of grain and crude oil from Hasakah to the Kurdistan region as part of Washington’s systematic plundering of Syria’s basic commodities.
Earlier in the month, an Iraqi political faction affirmed that the continued presence of US occupation forces in Syria and the plunder of the Arab nation’s oil resources are part of efforts to provide support and funding for terrorist groups.
A’ed al-Helali, a member of the Fatah (Conquest) Alliance in the Iraqi parliament, underlined that the United States was working on schemes aimed at investing in Syrian oil in order to “finance the terrorist groups that it had created.”
In a statement released in August 2022, the Syrian Oil Ministry accused occupying US forces and their mercenaries of “stealing up to 66,000 barrels every single day from the fields occupied in the eastern region,” amounting to around 83 percent of Syria’s daily oil production.
The US military has since 2014 deployed its forces and equipment in northeastern Syria with no authorization from the Arab country’s government, with the Pentagon claiming that the deployment is aimed at preventing the oilfields in the area from falling into the hands of Daesh terrorists.
Damascus, however, maintains the deployment is meant to plunder the country’s natural resources. Former US President Donald Trump admitted on several occasions that American forces were in the Arab country for its oil wealth.
Moreover, there have been several reports showing Washington’s direct or indirect support through its regional allies for the Daesh terrorist group over the past years.
The Takfiri outfit has already been driven out of all its urban bastions both in Iraq and Syria, but its remnants carry out sporadic terror attacks in both Arab countries.
Aviation turbine fuel (ATF) price was increased by Rs 5,779.84 per kilolitre.
New Delhi:
Jet fuel or ATF price on Sunday was hiked by 5 per cent — the fourth straight monthly increase since July, and commercial cooking gas (LPG) rates were raised by a steep Rs 209 per 19-kg cylinder, in line with the firming up seen in international benchmarks.
However, the price of domestic LPG – the one used in household kitchens for cooking purposes – remained unchanged at Rs 903 per 14.2-kg cylinder.
Aviation turbine fuel (ATF) price was increased by Rs 5,779.84 per kilolitre, or 5.1 per cent, in the national capital to Rs 118,199.17 per kl from Rs 112,419.33, according to a price notification of state-owned fuel retailers.
The increase comes on back of the steepest-ever 14.1 per cent increase (Rs 13,911.07 per kl) effected on September 1, and a 8.5 per cent or Rs 7,728.38 per kl increase on August 1.
The fourth straight increase in prices of jet fuel, which makes up for 40 per cent of an airline’s operating cost, will increase the burden on already financially strained airlines.
On July 1, ATF price had gone up by 1.65 per cent or Rs 1,476.79 per kl. In four increases, ATF prices have gone up by a record Rs 29,391.08 per kl.
Alongside, oil firms raised the price of commercial LPG – the one used in establishments such as hotels and restaurants – by Rs 209.
A 19-kg commercial LPG cylinder will now cost Rs 1,731.50 in the national capital and Rs 1,684 in Mumbai.
The increase reserves most of the Rs 157.5 per cylinder cut in commercial LPG price effected on September 1 and Rs 100 cut effected from August 1.
Saudi contract price (CP), the benchmark used for pricing of LPG, has increased following a firming up trend in crude oil prices witnessed in last few weeks over supply concerns.
Oil companies, which had on August 30, cut domestic LPG rates by Rs 200 per 14.2-kg cylinder, did not change the price of 14.2-kg cylinders.
State-owned Indian Oil Corporation (IOC), Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) and Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL) revise cooking gas and ATF prices on the 1st of every month based on the average international price in the previous month.
Petrol and diesel prices continued to remain on freeze for a record 18th month in a row. Petrol costs Rs 96.72 per litre in the national capital and diesel comes for Rs 89.62 per litre.
State-owned fuel retailers are supposed to revise petrol and diesel prices daily, based on a 15-day rolling average of benchmark international fuel prices, but they haven’t done that since April 6, 2022.
Prices were last changed on May 22, when the government cut excise duty to give relief to consumers from a spike in retail rates that followed a surge in international oil prices.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
Following the repetition of the shameful act of insulting the Qur’an in Sweden, senior Iranian diplomat Nasser Kan’ani said that desecrating Islamic sanctities is against the basic principles of human rights and the world will not forget that such hate-mongering actions were carried out in the presence of the Swedish police.
Iran believes that the condemnations of the Swedish authorities are not enough in this regard and expects the Swedish government to strictly adhere to the fundamental principles of human rights and strive to promote ethics and the peaceful coexistence of religions, he added.
Kan’ani went on to say that the Swedish government should also respond to the most obvious demand of Muslims and monotheists in the world by taking practical and effective measures.
The Swedish media reported on Friday that Salwan Momika, an Iraqi immigrant living in Stockholm, who had desecrated the Holy Qur’an several times before, received a new permit from the Swedish authorities to repeat the sacrilege in the city of Malmö.
Following the desecration of the Holy Quran in Sweden, which was done several times, Iran did not accept the new ambassador of Sweden in Tehran, and the departure of the new ambassador of Iran in Stockholm was stopped until the Swedish government changed its approach in this regard.
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