Ongoing improvements in demand for the Indian services continued to support the growth of total new orders, international sales and output in the month of July, a report said on Tuesday.

At 60.5 in July, the seasonally adjusted Services PMI Business Activity Index was little-changed from 60.4 in June and, therefore, signalled another sharp increase in output, according to the HSBC India Services PMI for the month.

The rate of expansion was the best seen since August 2024, the report said.

Union Minister Jyotiraditya Scindia on Tuesday said that 29 people have lost their lives due to rain in Madhya Pradesh in the last week of July.

The Union Communications Minister said that during a survey conducted by the Madhya Pradesh government, it was found that Shivpuri had witnessed disasters due to floods, where 22 people died, while seven people lost their lives in Guna district.

He further stated that more than 3,000 people were rescued in Guna, Shivpuri, and Ashoknagar districts after 72 hours of rainfall caused floods in several areas.

"Armed forces, NDRF and SDRF teams have airlifted around 400 people and shifted them to relief camps, set up at multiple locations in Guna, Shivpuri and Ashoknagar districts," the Union Minister told media persons.

The daily unified payments interface (UPI)-based transactions have crossed 700 million for the first time, touching 707 million, according to the latest National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) data.

The feat was achieved on August 2. Over the past two years, the number of daily transactions has doubled, even though growth has slowed down in comparison to previous years.

In August 2023, UPI was registering around 350 million transactions a day, which increased to 500 million daily transactions in August 2024.

The government has set a goal of achieving 100 crore transactions per day for UPI, and the platform is projected to reach this target next year at the current growth rate.

The business model of UPI should reintroduce merchant discount rates (MDR) to attain a billion transactions by the next year, according to fintech companies and payment associations. They asked the government to establish a marginal MDR for major merchants and high-value transactions.

Following a healthy diet to lose weight? Make sure it's minimally processed, suggests a study, which showed that reducing processing could help to sustain a healthy weight.

In a first, researchers from the University College London (UCL) nutritionally matched minimally processed (MPF) and ultra-processed (UPF) diets.

The results, published in the journal Nature Medicine, showed that participants lost twice as much weight eating minimally processed foods compared to ultra-processed foods.

“The primary outcome of the trial was to assess percentage changes in weight, and on both diets, we saw a significant reduction, but the effect was nearly double on the minimally processed diet,” said Dr Samuel Dicken, first author of the study from the UCL Centre for Obesity Research.

Klyuchevskoy volcano in Russia's far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula ejected an ash plume reaching 7 kilometres above sea level on Tuesday, with the cloud drifting southeast toward the Pacific Ocean, local authorities reported.

"There are no settlements in the path of the ash cloud, and no ash fallout has been recorded in populated areas. No registered tourist groups are currently in the vicinity of the volcano," the Kamchatka branch of the Ministry of Emergency Situations said on its Telegram channel.

The volcano has been assigned an orange aviation colour code, indicating a high likelihood of ash emissions and potential hazards to aviation.

The eruption activity intensified on Monday, when the Kamchatka branch of the Geophysical Service of the Russian Academy of Sciences recorded four separate ash plumes from Klyuchevskoy, with the highest reaching 9 kilometres above sea level, reports news agency.

Hollywood star Chris Hemsworth talked about the surreal experience he had on performing alongside Grammy-winner Ed Sheeran in front of 70,000 fans after learning how to play the drums for his new series titled “Limitless: Live Better Now.”

The actor joined the singer on stage at a concert in Bucharest, Romania and recalled how he felt as if he was "floating" during the gig.

Speaking at a Q+A for the show, Hemsworth said: "(It was) very much a kind of out of body experience and there's something about being in unison and in time with, not just a band, but a mass group of people.

Many households in Brunei continue to express concerns about the prices of groceries, even as overall inflation has moderated or turned negative, according to the local daily Borneo Bulletin on Tuesday.

Recent data comparing average prices in June 2025 to levels in 2019 shows that food prices have risen significantly across a range of essential items, with notable increases including frozen minced beef, fresh lamb, chillies, tomatoes, and cooking oils, the Department of Economic Planning and Statistics (DEPS) was quoted as saying by the newspaper.

The DEPS, under Brunei's Ministry of Finance and Economy, said in a statement that the price hikes reflect both global factors, such as supply chain disruptions, climate-related impacts, and geopolitical tensions, and local market conditions, including production costs and a smaller scale of production, reports news agency.

Chronic inflammation may be associated with an increased risk of frailty, social disadvantage, and cardiovascular disease (CVD), according to a study.

The study, published in the journal Communications Medicine, looked at 74 inflammation-related proteins in blood samples from more than 2,000 women aged between 37 and 84 years and explored how inflammation was linked to frailty, area-level social deprivation, and CVD risk.

The researchers identified 10 inflammatory proteins that were associated with both frailty and living in a deprived area.

Of these, four proteins that are involved in cellular signaling, growth, and movement (TNFSF14, HGF, CDCP1, and CCL11) were also linked to increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

The government has refuted media reports which raised concerns about the potential negative impact of 20 per cent ethanol blending (E20) in petrol, particularly with regard to older vehicles and customer experience.

“These concerns, however, are largely unfounded and not supported by scientific evidence or expert analysis,” the Petroleum Ministry said in a statement, adding that the narrative that ethanol blending in petrol is harming vehicles or causing undue hardship to consumers is “not based on real facts and lacks technical foundation”.

International studies on the effect of using Ethanol-Petrol Blends on Mechanical, Energy and Environmental Performance of Vehicles through testing of carbureted and fuel-injected vehicles every 10,000 km during their first 100,000 km showed statistically no significant differences in power and torque generated and fuel consumption.

Top seed Alexander Zverev ended Alexei Popyrin's title defence at the Canadian Open with a 6-7(8), 6-4, 6-3 victory and sailed into the semifinals.

Now into his 75th tour-level semi-final, Zverev joins Novak Djokovic (196) among the only two active men to reach that mark. By advancing to his 21st semi-final at the Masters 1000s, his first since last year's Rolex Paris Masters, Zverev moved ahead of Roddick for seventh-most in series history (since 1990), according to ATP.

Both men had minibreak leads and set points, but a generous netcord handed the opening frame to Popyrin. Zverev secured the first break of the match on his way to a 3-0 lead in the second and led the rest of the way. The defending champion did break back in the second but was broken to send the match to a decider, where Zverev again took a 3-0 lead which he did not relinquish.