Good morning. The cost of a war far away is now showing up at the fuel pump, and a quieter Sunday is a good moment to catch up on a busy week.
In today's newsletter: a ₹5 petrol hike at private pumps, a fresh India-Pakistan border row, and a messaging app pulled from India's App Store.
The Week in Five
| 1. | Flydubai attack. An Indian captain was attacked in the cockpit of an Israel-bound flydubai jet this week, and the UAE now says the co-pilot used a crash axe in an attempted terrorist act. |
| 2. | Asian Games. India finished the Asian Games with 85 medals, closing with cricket gold over Pakistan and a men's hockey gold that secured a place at the LA Olympics. |
| 3. | Poll body row. Protests demanding the chief election commissioner's resignation grew in Delhi, with 160 detained on the second day and a march called for October 4. |
| 4. | Ukraine war. Russian attacks killed six in Ukraine and damaged Kyiv's Northern Bridge, while Ukraine's foreign minister called India's ceasefire proposal the broadest of four on the table. |
| 5. | Money leaving. Data this week showed foreign investors sold ₹35,860 crore of Indian shares in September, reversing August's inflows. |
Nayara Energy raises petrol by ₹5 and diesel by ₹3 a litre
Nayara Energy, India's largest private fuel retailer, raised petrol by ₹5 a litre and diesel by ₹3 from the early hours of Saturday, October 3. The new rates apply at its 7,108 petrol pumps across the country.
The company is passing on higher global energy prices linked to the US-Iran war, as pressure keeps building on fuel retailers. Brent crude closed at $102.25 a barrel on Friday.
This is not the first time this year. Nayara made the same ₹5 and ₹3 increase in March, when state-owned retailers, who control about 90% of the market, kept their prices frozen.
If you fill up at a Nayara pump, a 40-litre petrol tank now costs about ₹200 more and a 40-litre diesel fill about ₹120 more. Pumps run by state-owned companies have not announced a change, so it pays to check which brand you are filling at.
The ₹5 headline is not exactly what you pay: in March, Nayara's petrol increase worked out to as much as ₹5.30 a litre in some states, because local VAT is charged on top.
India and Pakistan summon each other's diplomats over Punjab border killings
Pakistan summoned an Indian diplomat after the BSF shot dead two men on the Punjab border. Islamabad accused Indian forces of using "unprovoked lethal force against unarmed civilians".
India hit back by summoning Pakistan's Chargé d'Affaires to protest what it called continued facilitation of illegal cross-border infiltration, and rejected the claim that the dead were civilians.
New Delhi asked Pakistan to respect the sanctity of the International Border and stop unauthorised movement from its side. India also told the UN that Pakistan's civilian governments serve at the mercy of its Army.
Apple pulls Jack Dorsey's Bitchat from its India App Store on government order
Bitchat, the offline messaging app built by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, has been removed from Apple's India App Store. Dorsey posted Apple's notice saying the "government of India officially removes bitchat from the App Store."
The IT ministry had flagged the app's offline messaging earlier. In July, GitHub was told to remove its code over fears it could organise gatherings during internet shutdowns.
With the restrictions, Bitchat is now largely unavailable in India, a test case for how far takedown orders can reach apps built to work without a network.
Breaking.exe
OpenAI exit. David Robinson, who wrote the safety reports for OpenAI's major model releases, resigned and said the company's culture is broken. |
WhatsApp for teens. WhatsApp has rolled out optional parental controls that let parents manage a teen's privacy settings, groups, Channels, Status and Meta AI access. |
US AI policy. Donald Trump has picked Director of National Intelligence Jay Clayton to lead his administration's AI policy. |
Kuku in the black. Kuku Technologies, the IPO-bound parent of audio app Kuku FM, turned profitable in FY26 as revenue rose six times to ₹1,484 crore. |
Finance 101
D-Mart sales. Avenue Supermarts, which runs D-Mart, said revenue rose 18.4% to ₹19,206 crore in the July to September quarter. |
RCom charged. The CBI has filed a charge sheet against Reliance Communications and others for cheating and conspiracy in a ₹3,750 crore fraud case involving LIC. |
Pricier homes. Average home prices in Delhi-NCR rose 12% from a year earlier in July to September, the most among major cities, Anarock data shows. |
Petronet CEO. GAIL's marketing director Sanjay Kumar will become CEO of Petronet LNG, India's largest LNG importer, for five years from May 2027. |
Pangaea Revisited
Jobs in Russia. The government told a parliamentary panel that Russia has agreed to take around 70,000 Indian skilled workers this year. |
Saudi oil hit. Yemen's Houthis said they attacked an Aramco facility in Riyadh with missiles and drones, the latest strike on Saudi energy infrastructure. |
Ethiopia war. Tigray's rebels abandoned the regional capital as Ethiopian government forces advanced, after fighting that began on September 23. |
France protests. French police have arrested some 5,000 people, mostly teenagers, as student protests over overcrowded classrooms and missing teachers spread across the country. |
Also, Also, Also
Food safety. The FSSAI has ordered an immediate ban on sales of Nestle Low Fat Dairy Whitener after a sample from a New Delhi hotel was found unsafe and substandard. |
Cinema loss. Film director and writer Singeetham Srinivasa Rao has died; he made his debut at 41 with the 1972 Telugu film Neeti Nijayati. |
Cricket. Shai Hope's unbeaten 162 took West Indies to a record chase of 352 in the third ODI, denying India a series sweep despite KL Rahul's 129 not out. |
No PUC, no fuel. Petrol, diesel and CNG pumps in Haryana's NCR districts must now refuse fuel to vehicles without a valid pollution certificate. |