Supreme Court likely to decide if mosque is integral to Islam while hearing Ayodhya case; SC will also look into legality of adultery law; Sushma Swaraj to attend meeting of SAARC council on the sidelines of UNGA in New York; Congress protest march to demand Joint Parliamentary Committee over Rafale deal; World Tourism Day

1. You will be part of world's largest biometric database if ... The Supreme Court has upheld the constitutional validity of Aadhaar but limited the scope of the controversial biometric identity project by quashing some provisions. Who needs Aadhaar: Those who file income tax returns and those who want to avail government subsidies. However, no benefit under welfare schemes can be denied if you don't have Aadhaar. Who doesn't: Kids and students. Aadhaar is not needed for school admissions or for appearing in exams conducted by CBSE, NEET or UGC. A child will have the option of exiting Aadhaar when he turns 18. No child can be denied benefits of any government scheme on not being able to bring Aadhaar. Who can ask for Aadhaar: Government. The finance minister has said that there are "two-three prohibited areas, (we) need to see if they are totally prohibited or need legal backing". Basically, don't be surprised if Aadhaar is made mandatory for some more services. Who can't: Private companies. So, you don't have to have Aadhaar for getting phone connections, credit cards, booking air tickets, for using mobile payment apps and mobile wallets or for shopping online. Companies can't ask for Aadhaar for verification. Banks too can't ask for Aadhaar for opening an account but they need PAN, which has to be mandatorily linked to Aadhaar. What happens to data already shared? It's still not clear but SC has also ruled that Aadhaar authentication data cannot be stored for more than six months, which means either companies will be asked to delete it or will do so after the six-month period gets over. Who has Aadhaar: There are 122 crore people in India who have Aadhaar cards. Over 41 crore have permanent account numbers (PANs), out of which 21.08 crore have been linked with Aadhaar till now. Read the full story here

2. Those against Aadhaar have a point too While a five-judge constitution bench (by 4-1 majority) upheld the validity of the Aadhaar Act, the lone dissenter, Justice D Y Chandrachud, penned a powerful opposition to it. He pointed out: Aadhaar allows constructing profiles of individuals which is against right to privacy, enables potential surveillance. There is no institutional responsibility of the UIDAI to protect the data of citizens, he said, adding that there was an absence of a regulatory mechanism to provide robust data protection. The Speaker illegally categorised an ordinary Aadhaar Bill, which had limited traces of money bill characteristics, as a money bill to bypass Rajya Sabha. The successful attempt to bypass Rajya Sabha hit at the root of federal democratic constitutional governance. Among the questions raised by the bench were: Why should the state suspect every citizen of amassing black money by asking for linkage with bank account? For the possibility of misuse of SIM card by a few, can the entire population be subjected to intrusion of their private lives? Had this judgement come after a couple of weeks, it would have been streamed live to you — the Supreme Court has decided to bring its court proceedings under public gaze by agreeing to live-streaming of court functioning.

3. Flying, washing and chilling gets dearer Cheap falls in a heap: A falling rupee, vis-a-vis the US dollar, and rising crude oil prices have prompted the government to make your life needs a bit more expensive, as it hiked the customs duties on imported washing machines, ACs, refrigerators, aviation turbine fuel (which means costlier air tickets), footwear and radial tyres. Midnight runs: The duty hike, which came into effect last midnight, will see prices of 19 items increased — in some cases being doubled from 10% to 20% — with the total bill on import of these items pegged at Rs 86,000 crore as the Centre struggles to control the rising current account deficit. The new gold: Electronic items overtook gold as the second most imported item in India after oil — with $57.8 billion worth of electronic goods imported in 13 months ended May 2018, way ahead of $37.8 billion worth of gold imports in the same period. Read the full story here

4. Internet is your new birthright, and ye shall have it! The cabinet on Wednesday approved India's new telecom policy, The National Digital Communications Policy 2018, that aims to achieve by 2022: Broadband for all, $100 billion investment in digital communication sector and 4 million additional jobs, among others. A glance of what it envisions: Some things new A Rashtriya Broadband Abhiyan to provide universal broadband coverage at 50 Mbps to every citizen by 2022. This will be done through BharatNet (1 Gbps — upgradable to 10 Gbps — to gram panchayats), GramNet (10Mbps — upgradable to 100 Mbps — to all key rural development institutions), NagarNet (1 million public Wi-Fi Hotspots in cities) and JanWiFi (2 million Wi-Fi hotspots in rural area). These projects will be carried out through a public-private partnership model and financed through a public fund. (India had near 18 million fixed-line broadband users by the end of this March.) The policy will accord telecom optic fibre the status of public utility (a la power). A National Fibre Grid (once again, a la Power Grid) will be established to, among other things, collaborate between the Centre, states and local bodies on fibre installation. Also: A Broadband Readiness Index (like the development index) for states/ UTs, and tax incentive for broadband projects. Some things change Spectrum to be recognised as a key natural resource for public benefit. This could mean that spectrum need not always be auctioned if the requirement is greater good, i.e. affordable data to all. The policy also calls for coordinating with the government departments for freeing underutilised/substitutable spectrum, and "its auctioning and/ or assignment" for efficient and productive use. (India's defence and railways department hold sizeable spectrum). The Union Cabinet also cleared a proposal to convert GST Network (GSTN), which provides IT infrastructure for the new indirect tax regime, into a 100% government-owned company.

NEWS IN CLUES 5. Which firm powers 80% of Android Wear devices globally? Clue 1: It was founded in 1985 by seven communications industry veterans: Franklin Antonio, Adelia Coffman, Andrew Cohen, Klein Gilhousen, Irwin Jacobs, Andrew Viterbi and Harvey White. Clue 2: The US recently stopped a takeover bid for this company on the grounds of national security. Clue 3: Headquartered in San Diego, California, USA, it boasts 224 locations worldwide. Scroll below for answer

6. India's doctors get new temporary monitors Kill bill: The government, through President Ram Nath Kovind, signed an ordinance setting up a three-member committee to govern the Medical Council of India (MCI), which will be in place till a replacement bill, the National Medical Commission (NMC) act, is passed by the Parliament — following the ordinance, the health ministry issued a notification asking the president, vice-president and other members of the MCI to vacate their offices immediately. Surgical strike: The need to replace MCI with NMC arose after allegations of corruption and a lack of accountability were levelled against the governing body of India's doctors — a former president of the MCI was accused of corruption and accepting bribes while granting permits for medical colleges, which led to the MCI being dissolved for three years, from 2010-2013, before it was reconstituted for its last hurrah. The treatment: The NMC will consist of nominated members, unlike the elected members of the MCI, which had the regulated choosing their regulators. The other major overhaul brought in by the proposed NMC bill is the introduction of a National Licentiate Examination for students graduating from a medical institution in order to obtain a licence to practice as a medical professional. More inclusion: Unlike the MCI, which had only doctors in the governing body, the NMC will include stakeholders like public health experts, social scientists, and health economists in the 25-member governing body, though the majority — 17 members — will be doctors. FYI: The UK's 12-member General Medical Council has a 50:50 mix of doctors and laypersons.

7. Two states behind Centre's love for sugar Sugar, sugar: Centre has more than doubled the production assistance paid to farmers and the transport subsidy paid to sugar exporting mills at a cost of Rs 5,500 crore. The idea is to clear the sugar stock that India doesn't need. Sweet deals: Earlier this month, the government had approved over 25% hike in the price of ethanol produced from sugarcane juice. In June, the Centre announced a 'bailout package' of Rs 8,000 crore for the industry. A month earlier, it had announced a Rs 1,540 crore subsidy to allow millers to clear some dues. In March, it had waived 20% customs duty on sugar to clear surplus stock before the next season. The votes: About 5 crore sugarcane farmers and around 5 lakh workers are directly employed in sugar mills. The biggest beneficiaries of any sugarcane package are Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra, coincidentally both BJP ruled. While UP contributes almost half of India's total sugarcane (47.3%) and 36% of sugar production, Maharashtra accounts for 20% of sugarcane and 34.3% of sugar. The vote bank: Sugarcane farmers have an impact in up to 30 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh and about 20 in the sugar belt of Western Maharashtra. The two states account for 128 seats. A majority of sugar units in UP are private mills that account for a bulk of the Rs 13,500 crore arrears to be paid to farmers (the total dues are Rs 22,000 crore across India). That's why the stress on clearing dues. In Maharashtra, sugar factories are based on the cooperative model with each having a network of sugarcane farmers as members. Controlling the network gives access to a captive vote bank and that's why politicians have a heavy presence on boards of these cooperatives.

8. The cost of bragging rights of owning an iPhone XS If you have decided on buying the iPhone XS Max, this news probably would not dissuade you. Yet, it might intrigue you. The break up of the phone is as follows: Application processors and modems: $72 Battery: $9 Connectivity sensors: $18 Cameras: $44 Display: $80.50 Memory: $64.50 RF/mixed signal: $23 Power management/audio: $14.50 Other electronics: $35 Mechanical (switches)/housing: $58 Testing/assembly/support materials: $24.5 Total cost of making an iPhone XS Max (256GB): $443. That's Rs 32,166.62. If you are one of those who haven't even thought of purchasing the phone, you already know it is expensive. But how expensive? Rs 1,24,900 in India ($1,249, or Rs 90,706, in the US). Yet, XS is pronounced “ten-ess”, and not “excess”.

9. Can Mourinho get 3rd season lucky with Man United? No sooner had Premier league biggie Manchester United been knocked out of the Carabao Cup by first division outfit Derby County, 8-7 (2-2 after extra time) on penalties, than talk of growing disharmony within the squad got louder. And Manchester United coach Jose Mourinho is to blame for it, reportedly. But despite his stripping French World Cup winner Paul Pogba of the vice-captaincy, the negative approach with players and criticism of the team's transfer dealings, the board remain 100% committed to the 55-year-old. But for how long? Mourinho's third season at his previous clubs read: Chelsea: Second season: Runners-up. Third season:Sacked. Real Madrid: Second season: No Trophy. Third season:Leaves to rejoin Chelsea. Chelsea: Second season: Wins Premier League. Third season: Sacked, 1 point off relegation. Manchester Utd: Second season: Runners-up. Third season: Currently 7th and ...? Match report here.

YOU SHARE YOUR B'DAY WITH... Source: IMDB

10. And the world's largest bird is... Voromobe titan (meaning 'big bird' in Malagasy and Greek). But it's been gone 1,000 years now. On Wednesday, British scientists claimed to have finally solved the riddle of the world's largest bird. Their study suggested that the elephant bird stood 10 ft tall, weighed 650 kg on average, thereby making it the largest bird genus yet uncovered. (One specimen weighed 860 kg, about the same as a fully-grown giraffe.) And for 60 million years, the colossal Voromobe titan stalked the savannah and rainforests of Madagascar until it was hunted to extinction. A close cousin of the now-extinct moa in New Zealand, it belonged to the same family of flightless animals that today includes the kiwi, emu and ostrich. All this, after the scientists examined elephant bird bones found around the world, feeding their dimensions into a machine-learned algorithm to create a spread of expected animal sizes. Aepyornis maximus, the first elephant bird species to be identified, has often been considered the world's largest bird. But in 1894, British scientist C.W. Andrews described an even larger species, Aepyornis titan. But a French rival of Andrews dismissed the discovery, saying titan is just an outsized maximusspecimen, and for decades the debate remained deadlocked. The new discovery says titan is indeed a different species, and has now been given the name Voromobe.

PLUS With Rs 2.3 lakh an hour, sailors crowdfund colleague's release 5 hours to freedom: It took a WhatsApp group of 250-odd sailors just five hours to raise Rs 11.50 lakh to bail a fellow seaman, Umar Saleh Mohammad Thaim, who had been in prison in Iran for four years. Thaim was detained by the Iranian navy on August 4, 2014 when he and his two associates took shelter on the Iranian coast due to bad weather while returning to Eden in Yemen from Dubai in their cargo ship — he was accused of smuggling diesel and illegal intrusion. Operation liberty: The Iranian authorities had fixed the bail amount at Rs 46.50 lakh, of which Thaim's family could muster just Rs 15 lakh. They then approached Kasam Jafrabadi, former president of a Kutch shipping body, who in turn shared the story with an influential sailor in Mandvi, Abu Bakr Pathan, who then formed a WhatsApp group and sent an SOS to fellow sailors — each sailor contributed between Rs 500 and Rs 20,000 to collect Rs 11.5 lakh, and the balance Rs 20 lakh was committed by Thaim's employer. Discounted bail: Thaim, who was stuck in the prison due to some discrepancy in his paperwork, even as his two colleagues walked free earlier in February, also got some reprieve from his captors — the initial amount of the bail, set at Rs 58 lakh by the Iranian authorities, was later reduced to Rs 46.50 lakh. Full story here

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Answer To NEWS IN CLUES Qualcomm. The chip design firm has accused Apple of passing its trade secrets to rival chip developer Intel, which then replaced it as the supplier of cellular modem chips for Apple's new iPhone XS and XS Max (Axios). The claim, made in documents filed in California Superior Court in San Diego, escalates a broad legal battle that has been raging between the two technology giants since early 2017 (Apple had filed a suit that alleges Qualcomm of abusing its dominant position).