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1. The oath ceremony of the new cabinet of Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel, slated to be held on Wednesday, was deferred for Thursday at the last minute after elaborate arrangements were made at the Governor's house and large hoardings were put up. Sources indicated that differences over the new council of ministers are at the bottom of the sudden reschedule. 2. Covid will start becoming endemic in India in the next six months, a top expert has said, asserting that a new variant can't alone bring a third wave of infections. 'This pandemic has defied most of our predictions but in the next six months, we will approach endemic status,' Sujeet Singh, the Director of the National Centre for Disease Control told NDTV in an exclusive interview. 3. Actor Sonu Sood's offices in Mumbai and a company in Lucknow linked to him were raided by the Income Tax department on Wednesday. Taxmen arrived on Wednesday afternoon at the premises of the actor, who receives crowds of people seeking help at his doorstep daily. This is not the first time Sonu Sood has been raided. He was among Bollywood personalities raided in 2012 over alleged tax evasion. 4. Nearly 77 rape cases were reported across India on an average every day in 2020, totalling to 28,046 such incidents during the year, the latest National Crime Records Bureau data issued on Wednesday showed. 5. The United States announced a new alliance Wednesday with Australia and Britain to strengthen military capabilities in the face of growing rivalry with China, including a new Australian nuclear submarine fleet and cruise missiles. 6. A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying four space tourists blasted off Wednesday night from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida for the first mission to orbit the globe with an all-civilian crew.