5 THINGS FIRST Supreme Court to hear case against RBI's cryptocurrency ban; Election Commission to review poll preparedness in Telangana; Amit Shah to visit poll-bound Rajasthan; Russiaholds largest military exercises since the Cold War; Committee of Administrators to assess cricket team's England tour performance

1. Will Bond come to rupee's rescue again? The record: Continuing its fall, rupee touched a new low of 72.67 on Monday, depreciating by almost a rupee in a day. The problem: We aren't earning more dollars as exports haven't picked up but we are paying a lot more in dollars as imports have become expensive (crude import bill has surged 76% in a year). So, the difference between the value of imports and exports has widened to a five-year high (it's called current account deficit). RBI has enough dollars for now but efforts to save the rupee (by selling dollars) have taken a toll on our foreign exchange reserves — they've fallen from a record high of $426 billion in mid-April to $400 billion now. The name's Bond: Foreign currency deposits by NRIs have been used at least thrice in the past (in 1998, 2000 and 2013) to shore up RBI's reserves. The first was in 1998 after Pokhran nuclear tests when $5 billion was raised through Resurgent India Bonds. The last in 2013 when RBI lured inflows of about $34 billion through a discounted deposit scheme, helping lift the rupee from a record low. Reports say, that option is the on the table now too and government may be looking to raise about $60 billion. Cost of nationalism: It's not nationalism but the high interest rates offered on the deposits that attracted NRIs in the past, and this time may be no different. Rupee & oil: Meanwhile, Centre is unlikely to cut taxes on petrol and diesel. The reason: Rupee. "A cut in oil taxes will add to the fiscal deficit. Fiscal deficit determines bond yield and with a higher fiscal deficit the rupee becomes shakier," says a government official.

2. This case shows no one knows how to regulate data Google is searching for answers. The search giant on Tuesday goes to an EU court to appeal against a "right to be forgotten" rule France had passed in 2015. The ruling of the case will have a global implication, including in India. What: In 2015, French regulator CNIL asked Google to expand Europe's "right to be forgotten" directive to its websites across the world. As per the order, if a website has been directed to be removed from France, by extension, it should be removed from across the world. Google contends that such a directive should be restricted geographically, and a blanket ban would be against US' First Amendment that guarantees freedom of expression. And Google has found an unlikely source of support: journalists. If the CNIL directive is in place, governments, officials, businessmen and even criminals across the world could use the "right to be forgotten" to get news stories unfavourable to them removed from the worldwide web. For instance, a convict who has served his term could argue for his "right to be forgotten". France says a worldwide ban is necessary as a region-specific removal would be ineffective when using VPN or a tunnel website that masks server location. The case embodies the contradictions of privacy and freedom of expression facing regulators across the world when policing data— an asset that is, practically, unbounded. India's draft privacy policy too demands the need for the right to be forgotten. Besides that, payment companies such as VISA and even Google, which operates a UPI-based app, are in the cross hairs of Indian regulators over the need to localise financial data. Google on Monday agreed to savefinancial data locally but asked for two months' time to comply.

3. How Babri Masjid case is holding up a promotion The case: Supreme Court on Monday asked the judge hearing the Babri Masjid demolition case against BJP veterans L K Advani and M M Joshi and others to file a report on how proceedings can be completed by April 2019, the deadline fixed by it. The promotion: The court was hearing an application filed by special CBI judge SK Yadav who alleged he is not being promoted as his transfer has been stalled till the pendency of the Babri case. To expedite the 26-year-old case SC had earlier ordered that the judge could not be changed till the trial is on. That was after it was told that the case was adjourned for 101 times in 2016 and 13 times till April 2017. The target: When the judge was handed over the case, 655 witnesses were yet to be examined. The examination has to be followed by granting the accused opportunity to cross-examine witnesses before delivering the judgement. Meanwhile, the top court will hear an unusual mercy petition today — that of a tigress who has killed 13 people and has been sentenced to be shot dead.

4. Decade after subprime, economy again in its prime Firm, but unsure: Remember the subprime crisis? Yes, that's now a 10-year-old not-too-distant memory — when the world collectively lost $34.4 trillion, more than the combined 2008 GDP of the US, EU and Japan. Indian stock markets, which is where the impact was most felt, fell to nearly a third, from a peak of 21,000 in January 2008 to 8000 in a year — while the Indian economy more than doubled from $1.2 trillion to $2.6 trillion in the last 10 years, though the growth in the economy has been overshadowed by the growth in its population, according to a report by Brookings. Hitting a stocky patch: The US stock markets, which saw $6.9 trillion of investor wealth vanish during the 2008 economic meltdown, have seen their indices, particularly the S&P 500, nearly double since the pre-crisis levels — in fact, the US bourses have outperformed their counterparts in both advanced and emerging market economies in the last 10 years, with two US companies, Apple and Amazon, becoming the world's first two trillion dollar companies. Wins & losses: Compared to China, whose stock market indices are 50% below their 2007 levels, India's stock markets are up 90% since 2007 — though half of those gains, in dollar terms, have been wiped out due to the 45% depreciation of the rupee relative to the US dollar.

NEWS IN CLUES 5. Which Indian's statue is likely to be installed in a European country? Clue 1: She won her only National Film Award for Best Actress after her death. Clue 2: She will be the second Indian film personality to have her statue in the same European country. Clue 3: She also acted in a TV serial loosely based on her personal life. Scroll below for the answer

6. Pakistan thinks its friendship with China is costly On Monday, an adviser to Imran Khan said in an interviewthat Pakistan should renegotiate the $62-billion China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) programme, or even stall all the projects under it for a year, as the terms are "unfair". Abdul Razak Dawood, a senior official in PM Imran Khan's administration, said the Chinese companies "received tax breaks" and "have an undue advantage in Pakistan". This weekend China's foreign minister, Wang Yi, who was visiting Islamabad, defended the deal, saying "CPEC has not inflicted a debt burden on Pakistan". But Pakistan's rethink has a reason: Its economy is in the doldrums. Its foreign exchange reserve is under $10 billion and is considering a bailout from the IMF, its 13th from the body. CPEC, a part of China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) — the new Silk Route — involves infrastructure projects across Pakistan, including the expansion of Gwadar port in Balochistan that will connect China to the Gulf of Oman. The BRI projects are financed by China's banks, and mostly carried out by Chinese companies (Malaysia too cancelledthree China-funded pipeline projects of around $2 billion citing unequal treaties) Trump administration has warned IMF against issuing any loan that would be used to repay Pakistan's loans from China. But turning away from "all-weather ally" China is not easy, especially since BRI is Xi Jinping's pet project. Also, in the case of an IMF snub, Pakistan is considering loans from China and Saudi Arabia.

7. Teacher Jack Ma gives a lesson in management Alibaba founder and chairman Jack Ma — the richest Asian after Mukesh Ambani — announced his plan to step down from the executive role by September 10, 2019. Alibaba CEO Daniel Zhang will be elevated to the chairman's post (Ma will remain on the board, till at least 2020). The 54-year-old's planned succession is unusual in business, particularly in Asia where founders continue to be at helm late into their life. It is a lesson in management. Edited excerpts from Ma's letter: This transition demonstrates that Alibaba has stepped up... from a company that relies on individuals, to one built on systems of organisational excellence. A sustainable Alibaba would have to be built on sound governance, culture-centric philosophy, and consistency in developing talent. No company can rely solely on its founders. Having been trained as a teacher, I feel extremely proud... Teachers always want their students to exceed them, so the responsible thing to do for me and the company to do is to let younger, more talented people take over. Alibaba was never about Jack Ma, but Jack Ma will forever belong to Alibaba. What next for Asia's most famous entrepreneur? Ma, who was a teacher before he founded Alibaba in 1999, said he would like to return to teaching. But he also said: The world is big, and I am still young, so I want to try new things — because what if new dreams can be realised?

8. A New York lab that continues to identify 9/11 victims This day, in 2001, suicide attackers flew hijacked passenger planes into the Pentagon and the Twin Towers of New York‘s World Trade Centre. Another hijacked airliner crashed in a field in Pennsylvania. 17 years later, a lab in the US continues to conduct tests to identify victims that died in the attacks. The 9/11 attacks killed 2,753 people in New York, and more than 1,000 are yet to be identified. A lab in New York continues to conduct DNA tests to identify the victims. They examine bone fragments found in the wreckage of the Twin Towers — they clean the bone, pulverize it into a powder, add chemicals, incubate the sample, and then place it into a machine that pulls out any recoverable DNA. It is a difficult task as identifying DNA from a bone is not easy, says an examiner. "And, on top of that, when they're exposed to things that were present at Ground Zero, fire, mould, bacteria, sunlight, jet fuel, diesel fuel, all these destroy DNA." 22,000 pieces of human remains found at the site since the attacks have all been tested, some 10 or 15 times already. So far, only 1,642 victims have been formally identified. It is not a lost cause. In July this year, the lab identified a victim: Scott Michael Johnson, a 26-year-old financial analyst who had been working on the 89th floor of the South Tower. The previous identification was a year before that.

9. Pockets of sexism abound in women's jeans Petite isn't practical: Women who felt that their pockets aren't deep enough, literally, weren't off the mark — according to a study, pockets in women's jeans are 48% shorter than pockets in men's jeans and 6.5% narrower, making it next to impossible for them to fit everyday items like even a pen. Inches that matter: The study, which measured front pockets across 80 pairs of jeans, found that while a men's jeans pocket measured 9.1" in length and 6.4" in width, the women had to be content with dimensions of 5.6" in length and 6" in width — so ridiculously short that a woman's hand can't fit into her jean's pocket, unlike a man who can fit his hand into his jean's pocket. Pockets of non-influence: Regular items like an iPhone X can fit into 40% of women's front jeans pockets while all of men's front jean's pockets can fit an iPhone X in them — while a Google Pixel can fit into just 5% of women's pockets, while the corresponding figure for men's pockets is 85%.

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10. Buy petrol, get a bike, laptop, AC & washing machine free Comic relief: What was till now just the subject of apocryphal tales of fuel being so expensive that buying it will make one eligible for a free bike, has apparently started coming true — at least in Madhya Pradesh's areas that border Maharashtra where petrol pump owners are offering ludicrous sops to entice people to buy petrol and diesel. VAT's the problem? Madhya Pradesh has the highest rate of value added tax (VAT) — 27% and 22% on petrol and diesel respectively — compared to its neighbouring states of Maharashtra, UP and Rajasthan, with the result that not just passing vehicular traffic, especially trucks, but also locals living in border areas prefer to drive and tank up in the neighbouring states. Fighting back: In a bid to counter their dwindling sales, petrol pump owners are offering freebies, ranging from free breakfast and tea for buying 100 litres of diesel, to a scooter, or a motorcycle on purchase of 1 lakh litres of diesel — however, given that there's a difference of Rs 5 per litre in the diesel price between Madhya Pradesh and its neighbouring states, it may be a tad difficult to 'sell' the sops. Read the full story here

PLUS That's the way Cookie crumples India Alastair Cook's debut Test: Against India in Nagpur in 2006. His second-innings score: 104. His last Test: The ongoing fifth Test against India at the Oval. His second-innings score: 147. Between Nagpur and Oval: 15 second-innings century, the most by any batsman in Test cricket. (33 100s in total) 12,472 Test runs, the most by any left-handed batsman (fifth highest overall). Highest score: 249 against... well, India in 2011.

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Answer To NEWS IN CLUES Sridevi. The actress, who posthumously won a National Film Award for the movie Mom, is likely to have a statue of hers installed in Switzerland — it had earlier erected a statue of film director Yash Chopra. Sridevi's TV serial Malini Iyer portrays a south Indian woman married to a Punjabi man, akin to her real life marriage to film