5 THINGS FIRST PM Modi to address a rally in Ajmer, Rajasthan; Rahul Gandhi and Amit Shah in Madhya Pradesh; CPM Central Committee begins 3-day meeting to firm up its stand vis-a-vis Congress for 2019 LS polls; President Kovind to inaugurate India International Science Festival; Asian Para Games begin in Jakarta

1. A missile deal that isn't about missiles alone Deal & missiles: It was the most high-profile deal but neither the Russian President nor the Indian Prime Minister spoke about it in their speech. It was officials who confirmed that the S-400 missile deal has been signed. The deal worth over $5 billion gives Indian defence forces the ability to shoot down enemy aircraft and missiles at unprecedented ranges. The new friend: US, India's new ally in geopolitics, has threatened to impose sanctions against countries that make 'significant' deals with Iran and Russia. India is hoping to avoid that in a tough diplomatic balancing act. Last month, US had imposed sanctions on China's military for its purchase of fighter jets as well as S-400 missile system from Russia. The strategy: The S-400 can engage aerial targets within a range of 400 kilometres and up to an altitude of up to 30 kilometres. India is buying five units of the system for now. That means it will have to choose where to deploy these (though the systems are mobile and can be moved around) - it is likely to along the Indo-Pak and Indo-China borders. The neighbour: The S-400 will give India an edge over Pakistan. However, China, a big reason for India buying the shield, has also bought the same system. It signed the deal in 2015 and deliveries started this year (two years before India gets its first missiles). China also has about 15 divisions of S-400's predecessor, the S-300. The cost: One problem with defence acquisitions from Russia has been cost escalations, which means what India signs up for and what it pays is rarely the same. The biggest one was the deal for purchasing INS Vikramaditya. The warship was offered free to India in 2004 and the only cost was $950 million for the refurbishment of the warship that was decommissioned in 1996. This was increased to $2.35 billion in 2010. Meanwhile, in another clear indication that India plans to continue buying oil from Iran despite US sanctions, Indian refiners have contracted 1.25 million tonnes of crude oil from the country and is preparing to make payments in rupee instead of dollar. More here

2. A Nobel for NO to rape as a weapon of war The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded this year's Peace Prize to 25-year-old Nadia Murad, an activist against sexual violence who was herself assaulted by ISIS, and Denis Mukwege, 63, a Congolese gynaecologist. The Committee said the award is "for their efforts to end the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war and armed conflict". Murad, who becomes the second youngest Peace awardee after Malala Yousafzai won it in 2014, when 17, was also the joint winner of EU's Sakharov human rights prize in 2016. After surviving the abduction (with other Yazidi women) and rape by ISIS in Iraq in 2014, Murad insisted reporters that she wanted to be identified and photographed and later embarked on a worldwide campaign against sexual violence in conflict. Mukwege has relentlessly campaigned for victims of conflict-related sexual violence in Congo. The surgeon has treatedmany sexually assaulted women (and founded a hospital for the cause) and has campaigned against such atrocities in war-ravaged regions beyond Congo, even after nearly escaping an assassination attempt. Here’s why it matters: A 2018 UN report says "wars are still being fought on and over the bodies of women, to control their production and reproduction by force." It highlighted Afghanistan, Central African Republic, Colombia, Congo, Iraq, Libya, Mali, Yemen and Myanmar in the report. The UN says most victims are politically and economically marginalised women and girls, living beyond the reach and protection of the institutions that ensure the rule of law, and thus such crimes are underreported. Such crimes also lead to mass migration, and children born of rape are often considered "children of the enemy" and ostracised in their community. According to Sexual Violence in Armed Conflict Dataset, by Harvard University's Kennedy School and Peace Research Institute of Oslo, such crimes occur in more stable countries as well — it has recorded many instances of sexual violence in conflict in India as well, including those committed by Naxals and Salwa Judum, the militia force Supreme Court said is illegal.

3. World's top cop goes missing Homecoming gone wrong: Interpol's President, Meng Hongwei, a former deputy minister in charge of public security in China, has been reported missing by his family, while on a trip to China, prompting the French police to launch an investigation to find the global police body's chief. French miss: Hongwei, who, along with his wife and children, is based in Lyon, where Interpol's headquarters are located, was reported missing after his family was unable to contact him or locate his whereabouts since he left for his home country on September 29. Not a favourite: Hongwei's ascension to the top office of the global police body in November 2016 for a four-year-term had prompted Amnesty International to express fears of China using the Interpol to track down and arrest dissidents. A report, citing an anonymous source, said Hongwei was arrested and "taken away" for questioning by discipline authorities "as soon as he landed in China" last week.

4. Why no 'new' news from RBI was bad news for rupee No action: Reserve Bank of India kept key lending rate unchanged in its monetary policy announcement on Friday. Action: Sensex lost 792 points wiping out nearly Rs 3.8 lakh crore of investor money. Rupee, which was already trading near all-time lows, plunged past the 74-mark against the dollar Why: Market was expecting a rate hike. Most analyst polls ahead of RBI policy had hinted at a possible 0.25% hike to arrest the rupee's tumble. Rising US interest rates resulting in capital outflows from emerging markets, including India, was another reason for the expectation. A rate hike would have made domestic debt more attractive for foreign investors and also helped contain inflation that is expected from high crude oil prices. Central banks of other emerging markets (like Indonesia, Argentina, Philippines and Turkey) that have seen their currency tumble against the dollar have raised too. But: The central bank, however, was in a wait-and-watch mode as the road ahead is full of uncertainties for domestic as well as global markets. On rupee's fall, the RBI governor said, it is "moderate in comparison to several other emerging market peers". Basically saying, there's nothing to worry much. Plus, he pointed out, the mandate of the central bank's monetary policy was to target inflation while its forex operations only sought to eliminate volatility. Read the full story here

NEWS IN CLUES 5. Among carmakers, who's got the maximum patents? Clue 1: Originally a textile business, it counts Hino and Ranz among its brands. Clue 2: It was the world's first carmaker to produce more than 10 million vehicles per year, which it has done since 2012. Clue 3: According to the Fortune Global 500, it's the sixth-largest company in the world by revenue. Scroll below for answer

6. Kohli's Test century #24. Or is it #11? Or #17? Virat Kohli helped himself to yet another Test hundred, on the second day of the first Test versus the West Indies, as India declared their first innings on 649 — their highest total in Tests against the Windies. Here's making sense of the captain's latest triple figure score: 2nd against the West Indies 2nd-fastest to 24 Test centuries. Kohli did it in 123 innings, Don Bradman in 66. 4th this year 8th slowest hundred by Kohli 10th different ground in India 11th at home 17th as skipper 19th while batting in the 1st innings of a Test 20th while batting at No. 4 20th different venue overall (home & away) 24th of his Test career 31st in first-class cricket Check the series page here.

7. After awarding the PM, the UN is upset with India Access denied: A day after India deported seven Rohingyaimmigrants, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) slammed the decision and said it had been denied access to legal counsel and a chance to have their asylum claims assessed. Warning issued: Earlier, the UN special rapporteur on racism, Tendayi Achiume, had said that the deportation would break international laws on refoulement, adding that the Indian government had an "international legal obligation to fully acknowledge the institutionalised discrimination, persecution, hate and gross human rights violations these people have faced in their country of origin and provide them the necessary protection." How many more? According to the UNHCR, there are about 18,000 UN registered Rohingya refugees in India — they have been issued identity cards by the UNHCR to prevent arbitrary arrests, detention and deportation. PM Modi was earlier this week awarded the Champions of Earth award by the UN.

8. South Korea, where former Presidents go to jail A South Korean court on Friday jailed former President Lee Myung-bak (In office: 2008-2013) for 15 years for corruption. Lee faced charges that he accepted around $10 million in illegal funds from companies like Samsung and his own intelligence service. The President's post has been a poison chalice — Lee is the fourth President to be sent to jail in the country; a former President, Roh Moo-hyun, took his life in 2009 while under investigation for receiving bribes; other Presidents have either been exiled, ousted in a coup, or saw family members jailed. The most recent and high-profile case before Lee is the 33-year jail sentence awarded to Park Geun-hye (Presidential term 2013-2017) for abuse of power and coercion. The corruption cases in South Korea engender from the politicians' cosy relationship with the large family-run corporations that dominate the economy — called chaebol. The case that convicted Park also saw a Samsung vice chairman receive a five-year jail term, though he was released after the sentence was suspended. The chairman of Samsung Electronics — it contributes around 15% of Korea’s GDP — was recently indicted for sabotaging union activities. None of these seems to have affected Samsung's business as the company forecast a record profit for the July-September quarter.

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9. Is the PM's new scholarship broke in its first year? Show them the money: The first batch of candidates selected for the 5-year Prime Minister's Research Fellowship (PMRF) programme are still awaiting their stipend three months after they were selected, even though only 135 fellowswere selected despite an intake capacity of 1,000 annually. Vanishing moolah: The scheme, launched earlier this year in a bid to stem brain drain, entitles each fellow a stipend of Rs 70,000 a month in the first two years, Rs 75,000 a month in the third year and Rs 80,000 a month in the fourth and fifth year — it also provisions another Rs 2 lakh per year for contingency and foreign travel expenses, bringing the total to Rs 55 lakh for the five years. Small mercies? If the government is struggling to pay a little over Rs 2.83 crore to the 135 scholars it selected, consider the situation if it had to pay for the full house of a thousand, which would have taken the stipend bill for three months to Rs 21 crore; although, the government allocationfor the PMRF was Rs 1,650 crore for 7 years starting from 2018-19.

10. The headquarters that caused a headache...for company & country Beating the retreat: Unilever has officially backed downfrom its plan to shift its global headquarters to a sole location, Rotterdam in The Netherlands, after facing strident British shareholder opposition to the move that was announced in March — the shareholders' concern being the delisting of the Anglo-Dutch conglomerate's shares from the FTSE 100 index on the London Stock Exchange. Cost to company, and country: The backing down by the company has been described as humiliating by market analysts, who expect replacements in not just the Unilever board but also a hastening of its CEO Paul Polman's retirement. Politically, it has come as a shot in the arm for the UK PM Theresa May, who's trying to stem a corporate exodus in view of Brexit, but for the Dutch PM, Mark Rutte, incidentally a former Unilever employee, it's a blow to his efforts at scrapping a corporate tax on dividends to make The Netherlands an attractive destination for MNCs such as Unilever. Always Janus faced: Ever since the merger between Margarine Unie of The Netherlands and the Lever Brothers of UK in 1930, Unilever has maintained a dual headquarters structure, with one on London and the other in Rotterdam. Its move for a single HQ was prompted by the hostile $143 billion Warren Buffett-backed takeover bid by Kraft Heinz last year as UK's takeover laws are lenient compared to those in The Netherlands.

PLUS When ignorance about money isn't bliss Shred of evidence: A 2-year-old American toddler in Utah, in the US, literally made confetti of his parents' dreams to buy the season tickets for an American football match when he shredded $1,060 in cash, contained in an envelope — something he had watched, and helped, his mother do to discarded postal mails. Redemption floats: The parents of the toddler however, aren't without hope — an official from the US Department of Treasury Mutilated Currency Division informed them that mutilated currency notes could be exchanged for their entire value, advising the toddler's parents to put the shredded pieces in ziploc bags and be sent to the department, which will then put together the pieces to ascertain their value and pay them back, say in about one to three years. The meltdown: Meanwhile, 13,000 kilometres away from Utah, in Pakistan's port city of Karachi, an ice cream vendor discovered just how close he had come to becoming an overnight millionaire — after being summoned by the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) to explain how he came in possession of $31 million lying in his bank account for over a year. On discovering that the 52-year-old vendor, who earns about $3 a day selling ice creams, was illiterate, the FIA concluded the money was part of a money laundering scam in which accounts were created fraudulently, and as such, seized the entire amount — leaving the vendor as penniless as he had been.

3 CURATED WEEKEND READS 1. Why technology favours tyranny Artificial intelligence could erase many practical advantages of democracy, and erode the ideals of liberty and equality. It will further concentrate power among a small elite if we don't take steps to stop it. 2. How to be a good man A year after the first Harvey Weinstein revelations, how can men show solidarity with women? One Swedish professor decided it was time for some deep reading. 3. The queen Aretha Franklin She was a traumatised child, a teenage mother, a gospel prodigy and a civil-rights champion. She channeled a world of pain into a sound all her own.

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Answer To NEWS IN CLUES Toyota Motor Corp. The Japanese automotive manufacturer is recalling more than 2 million of its iconic Prius hybrids globally on the risk that a software malfunction could end in a crash. It’s the second recall for the Prius in the space of a month, with the previous one involving more than 1 million hybrid cars due to the risk of fire. The vehicles in the current recall had been called back before, in February 2014 and July 2015, for a related issue.