The GST Council on Thursday (October 8, 2026) approved scrapping the arrest powers of GST officers and raised the threshold to launch prosecution to ₹5 crore from ₹1 crore. “The rate structure is settled, so the Council has turned to how the tax works day to day,” the Finance Ministry said, adding that GST rate changes will now happen once a year.

On input tax credit claims, the 57th GST Council decided to set up a Committee of Officers to examine how to protect a genuine buyer who holds a proper invoice, has received the goods, and has paid his supplier in full. “The Committee of Officers will complete its study within three months, and an agenda will be placed before the next Council meeting,” the Ministry said. The GST Council revoked GST officers’ arrest powers.

Cockroach Janata Party founder Abhijeet Dipke and YouTuber Dhruv Rathee participated in the “people’s tribunal” on the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in Bengaluru’s Freedom Park. Mr. Dipke accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of “murdering democracy and vote theft,” and said protests will go on till CEC Gyanesh Kumar resigns from his post. Meanwhile, INDIA bloc MPs have reached Raj Ghat to stage a sit-in protest against CEC Gyanesh Kumar.

Presiding over a protest held by civil society group and CJP against SIR, he alleged that voter deletions under the SIR were aimed at disenfranchising those opposed to the BJP and accused PM Modi and the Election Commission of murdering democracy and causing vote theft.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday (October 8, 2026) called for a global framework to tackle cyber frauds and deepfakes, saying digital threats have crossed national boundaries and require coordinated action by all stakeholders.

Inaugurating the tenth edition of the India Mobile Congress (IMC) 2026, Mr. Modi said governments, technology companies, telecom operators and financial institutions should create mechanisms to curb digital frauds.

At least two fresh FIRs have been registered against Congress leaders, including Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi and Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, in connection with the INDIA bloc’s protest in central Delhi on Wednesday (October 7, 2026) against the revision of electoral rolls and demanding the removal of Chief Election Commissioner Gyanesh Kumar, Delhi Police sources said.

The latest cases relate to allegations of assaulting and obstructing police personnel deployed during the protest and damaging a police vehicle, a police source close to the matter told The Hindu. The police are also registering another case over the staging of an unauthorised protest.

The 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature is awarded to the Canadian author Anne Carson “for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature,” the Swedish Academy, Stockholm, said on Thursday (October 8, 2026).

Anne Carson published a series of notable works in the 1990s. Throughout her entire authorship, Ms. Carson, with a light touch, explores the possibilities of writing, a process by which the literary sketch has become of particular value to her.

Veteran actor Nana Patekar passed away at his Goa residence during the early hours of Thursday (October 8, 2026), after suffering from cardiac arrest, a Goa doctor suggested. Mr. Patekar was 75 years old, brought to a private hospital after he was found unconscious at his apartment in Dona Paula, near Goa’s Panaji region.

Dr. Shekhar Salkar, Chief of Oncology Department at Manipal Hospital, said, “He was in unresponsive state when the medical team was called at home. The team found him in unconscious state and he gave CPR for almost 45 minutes to 1 hour. He was declared dead at 5:20 am.” A medico-legal case has been registered in this connection, and a postmortem would be conducted, he added.

Delhi HC agrees to hear Indian Youth Congress’s plea seeking permission to protest at Jantar Mantar on October 9

Indian Youth Congress moves the Delhi High Court over Delhi police’s refusal to allow its Jantar Mantar protest against CEC Gyanesh Kumar over alleged irregularities in the SIR exercise. The Court has agreed to hear the plea tomorrow.

The plea was mentioned for urgent listing before a bench of Acting Chief Justice Nitin Wasudeo Sambre and Justice Sanjay Sharma on Thursday (October 8, 2026). The court said the plea will be listed on Friday (October 9, 2026), and in case it does not happen, the petitioner can again mention the matter.

Over 40 former Supreme Court and High Court judges have raised concerns over a “calculated campaign driven by vested political interests, with little regard for the potentially devastating consequences of destabilising the world’s largest democracy”.

“A party that governed this nation for over five decades now claims that the very system which elected it is rigged. It does not act alone. Activist outfits with a long record of selective litigation lend these claims a veneer of legality,” said 42 former judges in an open letter, without naming the party.

Twenty rebel TMC MPs, who aligned themselves with the NCPI, have sought an additional 15 days to respond to notices issued by Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla on a petition seeking their disqualification under the anti-defection law, parliamentarian Kakoli Ghosh Dastidar said on Thursday (October 8, 2026). The move comes as the deadline granted to them to send replies to the notices is to end on October 8.

Ghosh Dastidar, among the rebels, said the MPs had not yet collated all the documents required to prepare their response and had therefore sought another extension from the Lok Sabha secretariat. “Our deadline to send a reply is about to end today. We are writing to the Lok Sabha Speaker requesting 15 days more time,” Ghosh Dastidar told PTI.

The Supreme Court on Thursday (October 8, 2026) directed the Union government to constitute an expert committee to examine whether pharmaceutical companies should be brought under a legally enforceable framework to curb unethical marketing practices. A Bench of Justices Vikram Nath and Sandeep Mehta directed the Centre to constitute the committee in line with its earlier directions and observations.

“We have directed the Union of India to constitute the committee and give its recommendations in terms of our previous directives and observations. The matter will be placed before the Court on January 29, 2027, to show compliance with the orders of the Court,” Justice Mehta said, reading out the operative part of the order in open court.

The Joint Action Council (JAC), representing nine Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) employees’ associations, have sought a meeting with the Chairperson of the space agency, Dr. V. Narayanan, to discuss key issues, like emerging threats of privatisation and transfer of technology, among others.

In a letter dated October 7, the nine associations requested an early structured personal interaction or meeting to discuss the future role of ISRO, emerging threats of privatisation, transfer of technology, and operational functions of launch vehicles and facilities.

Exposing Pakistan’s doublespeak on terrorism at the UN, India has called out Islamabad’s efforts to gloss over its state support for terror by announcing rewards for Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) chief Masood Azahar, underlining that the world has not forgotten 9/11, 26/11 and Pahalgam attacks. India on Wednesday (October 7, 2026) exercised its Right of Reply in response to the Pakistan representative’s statement in the Sixth Committee of the UN General Assembly on the Agenda Item: Measures to Eliminate International Terrorism.

“Pakistan speaks of combating terrorism while seeking to obscure the very question that this committee must confront — What happens when terrorists are financed, facilitated, trained, sheltered, or supported from the territory of a State?,” First Secretary in the Permanent Mission of India to the UN Raghoo Puri said.