5 THINGS FIRST Vladimir Putin and Narendra Modi to hold 19th India-Russiasummit in New Delhi; RBI's Monetary Policy Committee to announce policy review; Akhlaq lynching case hearing in a UP fast-track court; Nobel Peace Prize will be announced; Final day of the UN General Assembly

1. Government cut petrol price coz you got a pay hike Give up some: Centre on Thursday announced a Rs 2.50 a litre cut in petrol and diesel prices, factoring in excise duty reduction of Rs 1.50 per litre and asking oil companies to absorb another Re 1. It also asked state governments to cut sales tax or VAT by a similar amount. In the 12 states that responded, fuel will be cheaper by Rs 5. The duty cut means Centre giving up Rs 10,500 crore in tax revenues. The relief followed petrol and diesel prices touching new highs. After earning lots: Almost half the fuel price is made up of taxes. The centre levies a total of Rs 19.48 per litre of excise duty on petrol and Rs 15.33 per litre on diesel. On top of this, states levy value added tax (VAT) of 6% to 38%. Centre had raised excise duty on petrol by Rs 11.77 a litre and that on diesel by Rs 13.47 a litre in nine instalments between November 2014 and January 2016 as oil prices fell, but then cut tax just once in October last year, by Rs 2 a litre. This led to its excise collections more than doubling in last four years (from Rs 99,184 crore in 2014-15 to Rs 2.3 lakh crore in 2017-18). States saw their VAT revenue rise from Rs 1.3 lakh crore in 2014-15 to Rs 1.8 lakh crore in 2017-18. Earn and pay: Indians have paid Rs 5.47 lakh crore in direct taxes between April and September. That's an increase of 17% from the first six months of last year. Personal and corporate income tax collections have grown by about 19%. When Indians pay more tax it means more people (and companies) are paying tax and also that we are earning more than earlier. Advance tax (which gives an indication of the earnings ahead) paid by corporates is up by 16% and by individuals by 30%. The link: One of the reasons for the price cut according to the finance minister was "higher direct tax collections give comfort with regard to fiscal deficit". Read the full story here

2. Just when it's time for polls, a rupee crisis shows up Last three crises for the rupee have come on pre-election years though the reasons have varied. 2018: Rupee hit another record low of 73.58 against the US dollar on Thursday, taking the fall so far this year to more than 13%. It's been one of Asia's worst-performing currencies. Rising crude oil price (which forces India to spend more dollars), strengthening of the dollar against most other currencies (which has weakened the rupee), foreign investors pulling out of the market (Rs 21,000 cr was sucked out in September) are some of the big factors. Government had announced some measures to contain the slide but that has yet to reflect on the rupee. 2013: Rupee had hit a record low. The similarity with the current crisis is that rising oil prices and emerging markets were a factor in rupee's fall too. Oil prices had soared because of the threat of a military action against Syria. Investors had also been pulling out money worried by India's current account deficit and that populist measures taken before elections could worsen the fiscal deficit. Talk of a tighter US monetary policy had affected other emerging market currencies too. India had then reacted by limiting imports (of gold, oil and other commodities) and placing restrictions on money companies and individuals could take out. 2008: The epicentre wasn't emerging markets, like now, but Wall Street. The global financial crisis had hit Indian markets hard. Rupee had depreciated to a six-year low around October. The reasons: global dollar liquidity shortage, heavy outflows by foreign investors who were taking funds home and purchases of dollars by Indian banks to fund overseas operations.

3. He came, he Shaw, he broke! Here are ALL the records that boy wonder Prithvi Shaw smashed with his 134 against West Indies on the opening day of the first Test in Rajkot. 1st At 18 years and 329 days, he's the youngest Indian to score a 50 on Test debut, beating Abbas Ali Baig (20 y, 126 d) in 1959. First Indian teenager to score a half-century on Test debut. Youngest Indian to face the first ball of a Test match. 2nd India's second-youngest opener after Vijay Mehra (17 y, 265 d) vs New Zealand in 1955. Second-youngest Indian to score a Test hundred, after Sachin Tendulkar. Second youngest Indian to score 50+ in India, behind Ravi Shastri (19 y, 210 d) vs England in 1981-82. 3rd Third-fastest century on debut — Shaw's ton came in 99 balls, behind Shikhar Dhawan (85) and West Indian Dwayne Bravo (93).  Third-youngest centurion in Tests in India, after Hanif Mohammad and Mushtaq Mohammad (both Pakistan). 4th Fourth-youngest Test debutant to score a hundred, behind Bangladesh's Mohammad Ashraful, Zimbabwe's Hamilton Masakadza and Pakistan's Saleem Malik. Fourth batsman in the world to score a ton in his first-class debut as well as Test debut. Before Shaw there were Gundappa Viswanath, Australia's Dirk Wellham and Virender Sehwag. Fourth-youngest batsman in the world to face the first ball of a Test match, after Masakadza, Bangladesh's Tamim Iqbal and Pakistan's Imran Farhat. 7th Seventh-youngest player in the world to hit a Test ton. 13th Thirteenth-youngest Indian Test debutant. 15th Fifteenth Indian player to reach three figures on his Test debut.

4. Why being a bank CEO is an unbankable job With Chanda Kochhar finally quitting as ICICI Bank's CEO and MD, which many say was inevitable after being placed on a forced leave, 2018 is turning out to be annus horribilis for bank CEOs. Kochhar's departure follows the investigation on suspected nepotism and quid pro quo in loans given to the Videocon group (which had ties to her husband). But Kochhar isn't the only top banker to be booted out unceremoniously: Big Brother's directive: Earlier this year, the RBI made known its displeasure in the continuation of Shikha Sharma as Axis Bank CEO for the fourth-consecutive three-year term, citing the bank's deteriorating asset quality — Sharma announced her decision to quit by December 2018. Costly bad loans: In the case of Rana Kapoor, founder and CMD of Yes Bank, the RBI intervened to cut short his three-year-term as the top honcho, asking him to take a permanent hike by January 31, 2019, despite pleadings by the bank's board to allow him to continue till April 2019 — apparently, Kapoor got the boot for under-reporting of NPAs by Rs 10,000 crore as per an RBI audit. Day to remember: On the day her term was to end in superannuation, Allahabad Bank MD & CEO Usha Ananthasubramanian was sacked by the government for her complicity in the Rs 14,000 crore fraud masterminded by absconding jeweller Nirav Modi, during her tenure as the MD of PNB between August 2015-May 2017 — she had been divested of all her powers a few months prior to her dismissal and placed on leave. Additionally, the CBI has also been asked to prosecute her. Bone with bonus: The RBI had also put on hold its approval for the bonuses for the top three private sector bankers — Chanda Kochhar's Rs 2.2 crore bonus, Shikha Sharma's Rs 1.35 crore bonus and MD & CEO of HDFC Bank, Aditya Puri's bonus of Rs 2.9 crore, which were due to them for the year 2016-17 — for over a year for divergence between the actual and reported bad loans. Kochhar's departure was cheered by the investors, with ICICI Bank's stock rising 4% even as the Nifty Bank index fell over 297 points on Thursday. Read more here

NEWS IN CLUES 5. Who's the 16th richest man in the world? Clue 1: His current net worth nearly equals the nominal GDP of Lithuania. Clue 2: He gifted his wife a $60 million dollar private aircraft, Airbus A-319, for her 44th birthday. Clue 3: Having enrolled for an MBA at Stanford University he had to withdraw to help build his father's enterprise. Scroll below for answer

6. When jail became better than bail in Supreme Court Murder homes: Muzaffarpur shelter home's horrific crime is not only about sexual harassment and rape, with the CBI on Thursday telling SC that there is a probability that some of the girls who went missing from the home were killed and it had found the skeleton of a 15-year old girl during the probe. Safe in jail: Supreme Court rejected the bail plea of Abhijit Iyer, who was booked for tweeting derogatory comments about the sculpture and statues of the famous Sun Temple at Konark. SC: "How are you entitled to bail? You are inciting religious feelings with your comments." Counsel: If my client is taken to Odisha to face trial, there is threat to his life. SC: "If your life is in danger, what better place than jail? Your life will be secure and there can be no threat to it." Migrants not refugees: SC also rejected an eleventh-hour plea for stalling the repatriation of seven Rohingya Muslim immigrants to Myanmar. Counsel: "It is wrong to refer to them as illegal immigrants as they are refugees... This court (SC) must discharge its role as the protector of right to life of citizens and non-citizens." SC: "We are fully aware of our responsibilities towards protecting the right to life of citizens and no one needs to remind us about our responsibilities." Defaulters can't be bidders: The top court told Rewant Ruia, who was a promoter of Rs 45,000 crore debt-ridden Essar Steel facing insolvency proceedings, that his company Numetal can bid for Essar Steel only after paying up the debt to banks. It also asked ArcelorMittal to pay up in two weeks to bid. Let bankrupt go bankrupt: SC took firm measures to prevent litigation from delaying proceedings under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code for resolution of debt-ridden companies, and said sanctity of 270 days deadline to find a resolution plan for a sick company is inviolable.

7. Amazon hikes pay but 'hides' fineprint Glass half full: A day after Amazon announced that it was raising hourly wages in the US to $15 — and £10.50 in London — it was brought to light that the e-commerce giant was eliminating monthly bonuses and stock options for warehouse workers and other hourly employees, which added hundreds of dollars to their take home pay. Peter pays for Paul: The company said that it was stopping the bonuses and the stock awards in order to pay for the wage increase, saying that it will actually result in a significant increase in take home pay for its 250,000 US employees and another 100,000 seasonal workers, when it comes into effect from November 1. Involuntary action: Amazon's pay hike may have been prompted by the introduction of a bill by Senator Bernie Sanders, called Stop Bad Employers by Zeroing Out Subsidies, or the Stop BEZOS Act, which called for levying a tax on large companies equal to the value of the public benefits received by their employees if the companies did not pay a decent wage.

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8. There's a moon outside our solar system Moonshot: Astronomers at the Department of Astronomy, Columbia University, are understood to have discovered an exomoon, that is, a moon outside the solar system, for the first time — the moon is about the size of Neptune, orbits a planet called Kepler-1625b, which is about the size of Jupiter, that is located 8,000 light years from Earth. The size would also make the exomoon the biggest known moon to humankind. Needle in galaxy: David Kipping and Alex Teachey, the astronomers, made the discovery after analysing data from nearly 300 distant planets discovered using the Kepler space telescope. The planets are spotted by a momentary dimming of light as they pass in front of their host star, called a transit. The duo noticed strange anomalies in the transit data of Kepler 1625b, which led them to delve deeper. (Read more on how to spot a planet here) Not cast in stone: The sheer size of the moon and its peculiar orbit raise doubts, the astronomers said. And because it is a first-of-its-kind detection, the duo are feeling a moon-size weight on their shoulder, saying this is a complicated and involved analysis where "a minor effect unaccounted for" could potentially change their interpretation — they are welcoming a long scrutiny of many years to verify the discovery.

9. When a currency crashes, ATMs spit out cryptocurrency Shrinking wallet: Fret not, we are not talking Indian Rupee — not yet, at least. Argentina's peso has lost more than 50% of its value since the turn of the year ($1 = around 37 peso today). The volatility has rattled the markets there. Expanding coins: The solution apparently is ATMs that let one buy and sell bitcoins — the country is to get 30 such ATMs by the end of the year. In fact, the first one is already operational, in a shopping mall in Buenos Aires; the ATM was launched by a US company, Athena Bitcoin. But it could be a lot more than 30 if another company, Odyssey Group, is successful in its plan to instal 150 bitcoin-operational ATMs by end of 2018. Shrinking logic: It seems Argentines do see bitcoin as a good bet. Since the beginning of the year, weekly trading volume of bitcoin has increased by 40%. But no one seems to have noticed that bitcoin itself has crashed harder — from around $18,000 a coin to near $6,000.

10. Do you often forget to buy an item on the grocery list? Does your child forget the subjects learnt? Perhaps, you and your child need to try out this... font. Researchers at Melbourne-based RMIT University's behavioural business lab and design school say they have developed a typeface that will help the reader remember information. It is called Sans Forgetica, and you have already read it — did you forget the headline? The researchers conducted the study on about 400 university students and found that 57% of them remembered the text written in Forgetica, as against 50% in text written in the common Arial font. It's no black magic. The researchers say if the font of text is a little difficult to read, the chances of you remembering it is higher — it shouldn't be too difficult though, as that too wouldn't leave a memory trace. The trick is to design the font within the 'desirable difficulty', and RMIT says Sans Forgetica achieves that. You can download the font here (Share it with your child before you forget, though)

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Answer To NEWS IN CLUES Mukesh Ambani. On Thursday, the Reliance Industries' chairman was named India's wealthiest for the 11th consecutive year with a net worth of $47.3 billion, according to Forbes’ annual India's Richest 2018 list. The 61-year-old added $9.3 billion from a year ago, amid the continuing success of his Reliance Jio broadband telecom service. Wipro’s Azim Premji and Lakshmi Mittal, the chairman and CEO of ArcelorMittal, came in second and third, respectively.