Kumkum, 17, makes history at Asian Games
NEW DELHI, 3 October: Kumkum Anil Mohod is seventeen. In two days at the Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya she has won a gold with the women’s recurve team, a silver in the mixed team with Dhiraj Bommadevara, and, on the morning of 3 October, the women’s individual recurve gold against Oh Yejin of South Korea. No Indian woman had won a medal of any colour in that event before. The Prime Minister’s Office, in its releases of 2 October 2026, had already congratulated her twice, for the team gold and the mixed silver; the individual title came too late in the Indian morning for a third.
An Asian Games individual recurve final is also an Olympic qualifier. Reaching it secures the archer’s country a quota place at Los Angeles 2028, and Kumkum’s run to the final did that for India in the women’s recurve. Neeraj Chauhan took the men’s individual recurve bronze on the same morning, beating his teammate Dhiraj Bommadevara in the match for third. Two Indians in one bronze match is the sort of problem Indian archery has not had before.
Put the two days together and the recurve squad, which went to Japan without Deepika Kumari and Atanu Das, has come back with a team gold, an individual gold, a mixed silver and an individual bronze. The compound archers had already defended their team titles earlier in the fortnight, according to World Archery’s report of 30 September 2026.
India beat Pak in crickets
At Korogi Sports Park in Nisshin the Indian men’s cricket team beat Pakistan by 19 runs in the gold-medal match and kept the title it had won at Hangzhou in 2023. Abhishek Sharma’s fifty came in 20 balls, bettering his own 24-ball fifty against Pakistan in Dubai in 2025, by the agency count carried in the match report. Pakistan’s chase was carried almost alone by Hasan Nawaz, who finished unbeaten in the nineties.
The two published scorecards differ by one run on India’s total, so Blitz does not print it. The margin, the result and the defended gold are not in dispute.
At a glance
Women’s individual recurve: gold, Kumkum Anil Mohod, 17 — India’s first medal in the event
Men’s individual recurve: bronze, Neeraj Chauhan
Men’s cricket: gold, India beat Pakistan by 19 runs — title defended from Hangzhou 2023
Women’s golf: individual gold, Pranavi Urs; team silver
Olympic quota secured: women’s individual recurve, Los Angeles 2028
What India gains
An Olympic archery quota two years early, a seventeen-year-old who has beaten Korea in a final, and a cricket side that has now won both Asian Games men’s titles contested since the sport returned in 2023.
GST registrations jump 148pc to 16.5 million
NEW DELHI, 3 October: The number that carried the Vice-President’s argument was 16.5 million. That is how many businesses were registered under the Goods and Services Tax in May 2026, against about 6.65 million when the tax began in 2017, according to the Vice-President’s Secretariat release of 3 October 2026 on his inaugural address at the fifth Kautilya Economic Conclave. Blitz’s arithmetic: an increase of 148%, or just under two and a half times, in nine years. Each registration is a business that files returns, claims credit and can borrow against a record.
The conclave, organised by the Institute of Economic Growth around the theme “Resilience in an Age of Flux”, was addressed by Vice-President C. P. Radhakrishnan in New Delhi on 3 October. The Institute’s trustees’ president N. K. Singh and its governors’ chairman Michael Debabrata Patra were present.
The Vice-President said more than 590 million Jan Dhan accounts had been opened by August 2026. He put the number of self-help groups at about 9.2 million, covering more than 100 million rural women — which works out, by Blitz’s division, to roughly eleven women a group. And he said more than 34.6 million women had become Lakhpati Didis, members of self-help groups earning a lakh of rupees or more a year. If both figures hold, a little over a third of the women in self-help groups have crossed that line.
At a glance
GST registrations: about 6.65 million in 2017; 16.5 million in May 2026
Jan Dhan accounts opened: more than 590 million, to August 2026
Self-help groups: about 9.2 million, covering more than 100 million rural women
Lakhpati Didis: more than 34.6 million
Moved out of extreme poverty: more than 250 million Indians, as stated by the Vice-President
What India gains
A tax base two and a half times its starting size and a third of self-help-group women above a lakh a year — the two numbers that let a government plan on revenue it can see and households it can reach.
Forex reserves drop 2.4pc in a week
NEW DELHI, 3 October : India’s foreign exchange reserves stood at $747.557 billion in the week ended 25 September 2026, down $18.343 billion on the week, according to the Reserve Bank of India’s Weekly Statistical Supplement released on 2 October 2026. Blitz’s arithmetic: a fall of 2.39% from the previous week’s $765.9 billion. Foreign currency assets fell $15.57 billion to $615.411 billion and accounted for 85% of the decline; gold holdings fell $2.591 billion to $108.701 billion. Over the year the reserves are still $56.45 billion higher, a rise of 8.17%, and gold now makes up 14.5% of the total.
The weekly figure is provisional and includes the effect of revaluation when the dollar moves against other reserve currencies, so a week’s change measures both intervention and price. The business edition carries the full table.
SCI turns 65 with fleet thrice its 1961 size
NEW DELHI, 3 October: The Shipping Corporation of India began in 1961 with 19 ships. At its 65th-anniversary gathering in Mumbai, according to the Ministry of Ports, Shipping and Waterways release of 2 October 2026, Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal described a fleet of 58 vessels and 5.26 million deadweight tonnes, carrying tankers, bulk and container ships, LPG and LNG carriers and offshore services. Blitz’s arithmetic: the fleet has grown three times over, and the average ship now carries about 90,700 tonnes.
The Minister called SCI “the clearest example of India building its own strength at sea” and tied its next phase to the Maritime Amrit Kaal Vision 2047 — the aim being ships built in India, not merely owned by Indians. The release gives no order book; that is the number to ask for next.
Jawahar Dweep becomes India’s first plastic-free oil terminal
NEW DELHI, 3 October — Jawahar Dweep, the island in Mumbai harbour where the city’s crude and product tankers berth, has been declared India’s first plastic-free oil terminal by the Mumbai Port Authority.
Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal led a cleanliness drive at the Grey Gate of Indira Dock the same day, honoured the port’s sanitation workers and inaugurated oil-spill response facilities.
The claim is about single-use plastic across the terminal’s operations, and the release extends the drive to the port’s docks, residential colonies and shoreline. For a terminal that handles the fuel for the country’s largest city, the useful test is the next audit of what washes up on the island’s shore; the release does not say who will run it.
Gram sabhas launch 2026-27 Sabki Yojana campaign
NEW DELHI, 3 October: Special gram sabhas met across the country on Gandhi Jayanti to open the “Sabki Yojana, Sabka Vikas” campaign for 2026-27, under which every panchayat prepares its development plan for 2027-28, according to the Ministry of Panchayati Raj release of 2 October 2026. The agenda came from 21 ministries: rural employment, water and sanitation, food security, the digitisation of land records, and women’s economic activity.
The release gives two different counts of how many assemblies met, in its headline and in its body, so Blitz prints neither until the Ministry’s portal settles it. What is not in doubt is the mechanism: a plan written in the village in October becomes the claim on funds the following April, and the Centre’s grants to panchayats for the years to 2031 are paid against those plans.
Khadi goes on sale with discounts up to 20pc
NEW DELHI, 3 October — The Khadi and Village Industries Commission has put khadi on sale at up to 20% off and village-industry products at 10% off, from 2 October to 16 November 2026, according to the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises release of 2 October 2026. KVIC Chairman Manoj Goyal launched the discount on Gandhi Jayanti under the “Har Ghar Swadeshi” call. The window covers Dussehra and Diwali, which is where khadi makes its year.
The release calls khadi “a symbol of livelihood for millions of artisans and weavers”. It does not give last year’s festival-season sales; that figure, when KVIC publishes it in its annual report, is the one that will show whether a six-week discount moved the needle for the weaver as well as the buyer.
Harivansh to lead India at IPU Assembly
NEW DELHI, 3 October — Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman Harivansh leads a nine-member Indian parliamentary delegation to the 153rd Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in Arusha, Tanzania, from 5 to 9 October 2026, according to the Rajya Sabha Secretariat release of 3 October 2026. The assembly’s theme is good governance and the empowerment of communities through inclusion, trust and opportunity; its committees take up artificial intelligence, climate change, maritime security and counter-terrorism alongside democracy, human rights and women’s participation.
The IPU is the one forum where India’s MPs speak to other parliaments rather than to governments, and the Indian delegation has used it in recent years to press for the terrorism agenda item. Which of the nine speaks on which committee is the detail the Secretariat has not yet published.
