NDTV TOP STORIES
1. US President Joe Biden defends his decision to pull troops out of Afghanistan, saying it was in the US national interest. 'We no longer had a clear purpose in an open-ended mission in Afghanistan,' he says a day after the final withdrawal. 2. Indian envoy to Qatar Deepak Mittal meets Taliban leader Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai in Doha, first high-level contact between the two sides. The Ministry of External Affairs says Ambassador Mittal raised India's concern at the meeting that Afghanistan's soil should not be used for anti-Indian activities and terrorism in any manner. 3. India's gross domestic product (GDP) shows an impressive growth as it shoots up to record a 20.1 per cent rise in the April-June period or the first quarter of 2021-22. The growth is a remarkable recovery from the negative growth which was witnessed during the corresponding period of last fiscal when it was a dismal -24.4 per cent, mainly due to Coronavirus induced lockdowns. 4. Schools reopen in several states. For classes 9 to 12, several protocols put in place like 50 per cent students allowed at a time, to prevent any Covid outbreak. Some states where schools have opened amid concerns about a third wave of the Covid pandemic, are seeing a rise in infections among children. The cases in point are in six states - Punjab, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand. In Jharkhand and Chandigarh, though, the trend is opposite. 5. India achieves a new vaccination milestone with the administering of 1.30 crore doses in the day. In total, over 65 crore doses have been administered so far in the country. 6. On a day when West Bengal vaccinates a record 11 lakh people against COVID-19, a stampede at a vaccination centre in Jalpaiguri district leaves around 20 people injured. 7. India Meteorological Department issues an orange alert for the national capital after rain lashes various parts of Delhi and its neighbouring areas this morning.
