NEW DELHI: Smriti Mandhana has officially confirmed that her wedding with music composer Palash Muchhal has been “called off”, putting an end to weeks of speculation and social media discussions. The Indian women’s team vice-captain shared a statement on Instagram, marking her first public acknowledgment of the situation.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!“I need to clarify that the wedding is called off. I would like to close this matter here and implore all of you to do the same,” she wrote.

Mandhana also said she felt compelled to speak after persistent speculation.“Over the past few weeks there has been plenty of speculation around my life and I feel it is important for me to speak out at this time,” she said in her post.Calling herself a “very private person,” she urged restraint and understanding from the public.She requested fans and followers to “respect the privacy of both families” and give them the “space to process and move on”.Mandhana added that her focus now shifts back to cricket and India’s upcoming season.

“I believe there is a higher purpose driving us all and for me that has always been representing my country at the highest level. I hope to continue to play and win trophies for India for as long as possible,” she said.The note concluded with a message of gratitude:“Thank you for all your support. It’s time to move forward.”

Smriti Mandhana – Palash Muchhal wedding cancelled: TIMELINE of the relationship

July 2024Mandhana and Palash Muchhal made their relationship public by sharing an Instagram post celebrating five years together, featuring a cake marked with a “5”.October 2025At a press event, Palash hinted at marriage, saying, “She will soon become the daughter-in-law of Indore.” The statement went viral among fans.November 2025 – Stadium proposalPalash proposed to Mandhana at Mumbai’s DY Patil Stadium — the venue of India’s Women’s World Cup triumph. Videos of the moment, including Mandhana removing a blindfold before saying yes, quickly spread across social media.Soon after, Muchhal revealed a tattoo of Mandhana’s initials and jersey number. Their engagement was later confirmed through playful reels featuring her teammates.Mid-November 2025Pre-wedding rituals, including the Haldi ceremony, began with photos circulating widely online.November 24, 2025On the day the wedding was scheduled, Mandhana’s manager announced a postponement after her father was hospitalised due to a heart ailment.December 7, 2025Mandhana issued her final statement calling off the wedding and asking for privacy.

Veteran Indian off-spinner Ravichandran Ashwin has offered a detailed analysis of Chennai Super Kings’ (CSK) auction strategy for the Indian Premier League (IPL) 2026 auction, which is defined by their need to reinforce the squad after a dismal previous season. With a sizable purse of INR 43.40 crore, the five-time champions are expected to make aggressive bids for players who fit their specific requirements, particularly after the withdrawal of key international names like Glenn Maxwell from the auction.

Ravichandran Ashwin picks CSK’s top priority for the IPL 2026 auction

Ashwin pinpointed which players he believes CSK will prioritize to fill the voids in their squad, focusing first on an Indian all-rounder who was released after a lackluster 2025 season. He also identified an England’s power-hitter as the perfect overseas replacement for a vacant slot.

“CSK’s first priority will be Venkatesh Iyer. They would have thought of Maxwell in the other slot. Now that he’s out, it’ll be Livingstone,” Ashwin said on his YouTube channel, making clear the tactical shifts dictated by player availability.

This prediction comes despite Iyer’s underwhelming IPL 2025 campaign with KKR, following a whopping INR 23.75 crore mega-auction price, and Iyer registering a maximum base price of INR 2 crore for the current auction. Meanwhile, Liam Livingstone (released by RCB) has shown his form by smashing an unbeaten 82 in the ILT20 2025, making him a prime overseas target. The space for these big buys was created by the release of players like Matheesha Pathirana, a move Ashwin termed a very calculative call. He explained the goal was to free up funds to chase marquee all-rounders:

“Most teams felt Andre Russell would be in the auction even before release. With that in mind, CSK wanted to pick Russell or Cameron Green. But they had no chance with 30 crores, and hence, Matheesha Pathirana looked like a very obvious release.”  Ashwin concluded.

Also READ: Ravichandran Ashwin names uncapped youngster CSK should target in the IPL 2026 auction

Chennai Super Kings’ IPL 2025 performance under MS Dhoni

The need for a significant strategic overhaul, as outlined by Ashwin, stems directly from the Chennai Super Kings’ disastrous performance in the 2025 season, one of the worst in the franchise’s celebrated history. The team struggled with consistency, both home and away, culminating in a historically poor finish in the league standings.

The poor showing led to an urgent need for an aggressive reset:

• Final Position: 10th Place (Last)
• Matches Played: 14
• Matches Won: 4
• Matches Lost: 10
• Key Stat: For the first time in their history, CSK lost five matches at their home ground, the M. A. Chidambaram Stadium.
• Elimination: They were the first team to be officially eliminated from playoff contention.

Despite the team’s collective failure, a few players maintained their output, with Shivam Dube finishing as the top run-scorer, and Afghanistan’s spinner Noor Ahmad leading the bowling charts with 24 wickets. This final standing, coupled with the need to acquire high-impact players, validates the necessity of their current large auction purse (the second largest in the league) as they seek to rebuild the core of the squad.

Also READ: Ravichandran Ashwin suggests 3 players CSK should target in the IPL 2026 auction

Mumbai: The Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, long seen as a launchpad for India’s brightest startups, has quietly crossed an even more telling milestone. It incorporated a company of its own. This is not an incubated spinoff or a faculty-seeded venture, but an organisation owned and anchored by IIT Bombay itself. On Nov 7, 2025, BharatGen Technology Foundation was registered with the Registrar of Companies in Mumbai, carrying the Powai institution’s address as its own—an unmistakable signal of how India’s top engineering school plans to shape the future of artificial intelligence. BharatGen, the country’s first attempt to build a Large Language Model that mirrors India’s linguistic, cultural, and social diversity, first took shape last year after the Department of Science and Technology (DST) laid the groundwork with Rs 235 crore in initial support, signalling an early bet on public infrastructure for AI. The project is supported under the DST’s National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (NM-ICPS). Led by IIT Bombay, the BharatGen consortium brings together several leading institutions, including IIT Madras, IIT Kanpur, IIIT Hyderabad, IIT Mandi, IIT Hyderabad, IIM Indore, IIT Kharagpur, and IIIT Delhi. “To take the models from the lab to market requires the functional freedom and autonomy of a corporation as opposed to being just an academic project,” said Prof Ganesh Ramakrishnan, IIT Bombay’s professor who is the founder director of BharatGen Technology Foundation Designed to work across more than 22 Indian languages, BharatGen combines text, speech, and document vision, so AI can interpret information the way citizens naturally speak, read, or interact. BharatGen’s ambition is not just to build large language models, but to build ones that sound and think like India. Its strength, said Prof Ramakrishna, lies in training systems on home-grown datasets and Indian languages—an approach he believes will make them far more dependable in real-world use. He added that the foundation plans to release distilled versions of its models to developers, allowing startups and enterprises to plug into sovereign AI without the cost or expertise of training colossal systems on their own. In other words, hesaid, BharatGen will do the heavy lifting so the country’s innovators can get straight to building.The initiative has now received an additional Rs 1,058 crore from MeitY under the IndiaAI Mission, expanding BharatGen into a national sovereign AI effort.

In repeated burglary cakewalks, thieves have been raiding a Nadiad confectionery, Krishna Dairy Products, and have had criminally sweet success 10 times in nine years. The shop’s owner, Mukesh Pandit, 44, said the burglars seem to treat money only as a light dessert. “Most of the time, thieves took some cash but loads of mithai – to the tune of quintals,” he said.Pandit, who opened the shop in 2015, told TOI, “I filed complaints three times. Police merely made ‘janva jog’ (station diary entries). None of the burglaries were cracked.” He installed CCTVs to signal the sour consequences of pilferage, but burglars thought the digital video recorder is the cherry on top of their booty and nicked that too. “Before I could reinstall CCTVs, burglars struck again,” Pandit said. “I have done everything to stop burglaries, from putting up iron grills to placing high-tech cameras.” “A point outside my shop has a police picket. But during VVIP visits and festivals, the cops leave to join bandobusts. The burglaries occur on these days,” he said. The latest theft was on Nov 30, during which burglars stole 12kg of kaju katri worth Rs 12,000, 73.5kg of mixed mawa sweets worth Rs 38,200, and 35kg of shrikhand worth Rs 13,300. Other purloined items were mixed biscuits worth Rs 15,000, 70kg of namkeen worth Rs 16,800, and Rs 3,500 in cash. The total loss from the break-in was Rs 98,800, Pandit said.

Mumbai: The steering committee for the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, formed three years ago, has been dissolved after its last meeting in July, without any official intimation. As the first batch under the policy is now set to graduate with their three-year degrees, or even enter the fourth year, a new concept in the state, colleges continue to await directives and clarity on several aspects. Principals from several autonomous colleges, as well as some committee members, believe that the steering committee should have continued mentoring institutions until the first batch under the policy graduates.The 14-member steering committee was formed in 2022, under the chairmanship of former vice-chancellor of Savitribai Phule Pune University, Nitin Karamalkar, soon after the govt decided to implement the 2020 policy in state. Since the policy was first implemented in autonomous colleges, each of the members in the committee were assigned as mentors to at least 10 colleges. Though colleges claimed that there were deliberations happening in the first year, the frequency reduced. Since a majority of the batch is likely to exit with the three-year degrees, and even for the fourth year, there are many loose ends that need to be tied, say principals.Some colleges are open to offering lateral entry to students in the fourth year if they do not get enough numbers from their own college. In such cases, however, there is no clarity on how the names of the two colleges will reflect on the degrees. For instance, if a student from a college X moves to a top-rung city college for the fourth year, how will he/she benefit if the degree only mentions the primary college’s name, said a principal. There is also no clarity on how empowered autonomy status can be exercised, as these colleges were allowed to award degrees jointly with the parent university, said another principal. There are many queries on credit sharing, on the exit policy, honour programmes, internships and on-job training for both undergraduate and postgraduate students, said a steering committee member. He added that the state has neither dissolved or continued with the committee’s proceedings on paper.“There are a few students who want to exit after the first year of master’s programme, while these students are eligible to get PG diploma certificates, there is no clarity on whether the university will issue it or colleges can,” said another principal. He also said that there is no clarity on the work load of teachers in the fourth year, as the govt will give funds only to those courses where the master’s programmes is aided, when a vast majority of courses at PG level are unaided.While the state govt formed a Maharashtra State Academic and Research Coincil (MahaSARC) this year, an advisory body for higher education, it is yet to come out with any directive

File photo: Chief Justice of India Surya Kant

CHANDIGARH: In a significant push for modernising the country’s prison ecosystem, CJI Surya Kant has advocated bold, tech-integrated reforms, ranging from digital-skills training to UK-style inmate-monitoring systems, aimed at transforming prisons from punitive spaces into “engines of reintegration”.Highlighting the need to align prison training with the “economy of tomorrow”, the CJI stressed that inmates must be equipped with digital competencies, logistics expertise, & modern vocational skills. He urged deeper industry collaboration, proposing a model where companies “adopt” prisons, offer apprenticeships, & eventually recruit trained inmates, turning ability into opportunity.

CJI Kant was speaking on correctional reforms in Gurgaon on Saturday while inaugurating skill development and polytechnic courses inside Haryana jails.While giving one of his four “thoughtful proposals” to strengthen correctional justice framework, the CJI said that the suggestion is regarding opening or establishing either the open jails or just following paradigm shift that has taken place in the United Kingdom with the help of a software company based in Bangalore, where a chip is provided to the convicts, who are allowed to stay at homes within defined radius.“Their movements are monitored through advanced software, ensuring compliance while allowing individuals to maintain family life, emotional bonds, financial stability, and continuity for their children, often the ‘invisible victims’ of incarceration,” the CJI said.The CJI also pushed for creating or expanding open prisons in India as part of this humane rethinking of criminal justice.He concluded by reminding that data-driven reforms are essential. “A modern incarceration system must track behavioural progress and post-release trajectories, ensuring that rehabilitation is measurable, accountable, and effective. Such a system, he said, would help measure the real effectiveness of rehabilitation programmes and reduce recidivism,” he said.The CJI said that when individuals step out of prison and return to society without adequate support, their reintegration becomes not only difficult but dangerously uncertain. Without guidance, many are pulled back into a cycle of marginalisation and renewed conflict with the law. He said that in the absence of education, skills, psychological support, and structured reintegration, a prison, what he prefers to call a “correctional home”, can unintentionally become a place where disadvantages deepen and custodial cycles repeat.Reformative justice today demands clear thinking, coordinated action, and systems designed for renewal rather than return, he said.CJI Kant has long been known for championing correctional reforms for jail inmates. Even during his tenure as a judge of Punjab and Haryana high court, he delivered a landmark judgment in the Jasbir Singh case, holding that the right of convicts or jail inmates to have conjugal visits – or alternatively to seek artificial insemination for progeny – is a Fundamental Right.Justices Ahsanuddin Amanullah, Rajesh Bindal and Augustine George Masih of SC and Sheel Nagu, chief justice of Punjab and Haryana HC, HC judge Justice Lisa Gill and executive chairperson, Haryana State Legal Services Authority, along with Judges of HC and other dignitaries from the state administration, attended the programme.

NEW DELHI: Did IndiGo “waste time” till late October lobbying DGCA to either get exemption from certain rules in the new flight duty time limitation (FDTL) norms or getting its implementation deferred beyond the November 1 deadline, instead of preparing for it?The four-member government panel probing the IndiGo’s flight crisis will examine this, along with allegations that the airline wilfully didn’t assign duty to its crew and pilots in addition to several other lapses which led to a breakdown of operations, affecting other airlines as well. Short-term rosters being issued to tide over crisis The delay in moving ahead with implementation of the new flight duty rules is also seen to have delayed updating the Boeing-owned Jeppesen crew rostering software, which will be looked at by the committee comprising officials from DGCA. IndiGo did not comment on the two issues.The panel will also investigate the airline’s failure to report preparedness to DGCA, something that its rivals were doing, and how the regulator itself dealt with the implementation of the order that followed a court directive. Those familiar with the matter said that why DGCA officials continued to indulge representations from IndiGo despite a clear HC order for the rollout of FDTL would also be probed.“We will see if till late Oct IndiGo was engaging with DGCA for exemption /deferment of certain clauses of the new FDTL, primarily regarding capping of number of night landings by a pilot. If indeed the case, this time should have been used to prepare for rolling out the new system. And if this delay is found, did it have a consequential impact on updating Jeppesen software as per the new requirement post November 1,” said a person in the know.IndiGo issues the roster for pilots on every 25th for the coming month. For Nov, however, it issued it on Oct 29, for half the month, followed by another on November 13-14 for the remaining half. The same was done for Dec. But after the fiasco, very short-term rosters are being issued to tide over the crisis and operate as many flights as possible. The practice may continue till the situation stabilises, depending on whether implementation of the new FDTL’s provisions is deferred beyond Feb 10, 2026, or not.

India’s 2011 ODI World Cup-winning team (Reuters Photo)

Former Indian cricket opener Murali Vijay has praised former captain MS Dhoni’s enduring legacy in cricket. He emphasised Dhoni’s natural leadership qualities and instinctive decision-making, particularly highlighting the memorable 2007 T20 World Cup final over given to Joginder Sharma.MS Dhoni, who now exclusively plays in the Indian Premier League (IPL), will continue with Chennai Super Kings (CSK) for the 2026 season. Murali Vijay’s connection with Dhoni spans eight IPL seasons at CSK under his leadership.

Vijay shared his thoughts about Dhoni during an appearance on Taruwar Kohli’s YouTube channel, where he discussed Dhoni’s hitting acumen and mental fortitude.“Dhoni is natural and very unique. Those personalities you cannot replicate. Anybody cannot come and do what he is doing. The way he has dominated and taken the game, he was a very strong person. The way he launched those sixes, I don’t think anyone else got that range as a right-hander,” the former batter said. “He gave that last over to Joginder, and we won it. There may not have been logic as Harbhajan had an over as a senior. But it won us the cup as he did something out of the box. We all should be proud that he was born in our country.” Murali Vijay’s international cricket journey began in 2008 when he stepped in for Gautam Gambhir in the final Test against Australia in Nagpur. His career encompassed 87 international matches across formats, including 61 Tests, 17 ODIs, and 9 T20Is.His final international appearance was against Australia in Perth in 2018. He played his last domestic matches for Tamil Nadu in 2019, with his final professional game coming in the IPL in September 2020.Throughout his international career, Vijay accumulated 4,490 runs with an average of 34.80 and a strike rate of 48.48. His achievements include 12 centuries and 16 fifties. In his IPL career, he scored 2,619 runs in 106 matches at an average of 25.93.

MUMBAI: The Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, long seen as a launchpad for India’s brightest startups, has quietly crossed an even more telling milestone. It incorporated a company of its own. This is not an incubated spinoff or a faculty-seeded venture, but an organisation owned and anchored by IIT Bombay itself.On Nov 7, 2025, BharatGen Technology Foundation was registered with the Registrar of Companies in Mumbai, carrying the Powai institution’s address as its own-an unmistakable signal of how India’s top engineering school plans to shape the future of artificial intelligence. BharatGen, the country’s first attempt to build a Large Language Model that mirrors India’s linguistic, cultural, and social diversity, first took shape last year after the Department of Science and Technology (DST) laid the groundwork with Rs 235 crore in initial support, signalling an early bet on public infrastructure for AI. The project is supported under the DST’s National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems (NM-ICPS). Led by IIT Bombay, the BharatGen consortium brings together several leading institutions, including IIT Madras, IIT Kanpur, IIIT Hyderabad, IIT Mandi, IIT Hyderabad, IIM Indore, IIT Kharagpur, and IIIT Delhi.“To take the models from the lab to market requires the functional freedom and autonomy of a corporation as opposed to being just an academic project,” said Prof Ganesh Ramakrishnan, IIT Bombay’s professor who is the founder director of BharatGen Technology Foundation Designed to work across more than 22 Indian languages, BharatGen combines text, speech, and document vision, so AI can interpret information the way citizens naturally speak, read, or interact. BharatGen’s ambition is not just to build large language models, but to build ones that sound and think like India. Its strength, said Prof Ramakrishna, lies in training systems on home-grown datasets and Indian languages-an approach he believes will make them far more dependable in real-world use.He added that the foundation plans to release distilled versions of its models to developers, allowing startups and enterprises to plug into sovereign AI without the cost or expertise of training colossal systems on their own. In other words, hesaid, BharatGen will do the heavy lifting so the country’s innovators can get straight to building.The initiative has now received an additional Rs 1,058 crore from MeitY under the IndiaAI Mission, expanding BharatGen into a national sovereign AI effort.