iPhone 18 Pro Burgundy Red Models Reportedly Showing Discolouration, Users Share Photos

iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max users have reportedly started noticing discolouration on some units. On Reddit and X, many users have shared images of affected devices. The issue appears to be particularly noticeable on the Burgundy Red colour variant. Some Black models of the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max have also reportedly been facing the issue. Apple has not yet commented on this discolouration issue.

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Gemini AI Paywall: Google Restricts Free Users To Flash-Lite Model From October 9

Google is reworking which Gemini models are available on each of its plans. Starting October 9, users on the free tier and the AI Plus plan will lose access to some models, while AI Pro subscribers are set to gain a feature that was previously exclusive to the top tier. The company also appears to be working on new reasoning controls for the Gemini app.

What Changes for Free and AI Plus Users

According to an updated Google support document, people without a Google AI subscription will be left with only Flash-Lite from October 9. Flash and Pro will no longer be part of the free plan.

AI Plus, which costs $4.99 (roughly Rs 500) a month, will keep Flash-Lite and Flash but drop the Pro model. Google said affected AI Plus users will get an email telling them when their accounts will switch over.

AI Pro and AI Ultra subscribers keep all three models: Flash-Lite, Flash and Pro.

ALSO READ | Gemini 4 Argon: Google Unveils New Frontier AI Model — Prices, Features And Key Things Explained

Why Usage Limits Matter More Now

The changes come after Google started measuring Gemini usage earlier this year based on how much computing power each request requires. This means that heavier requests, such as tricky questions, long back-and-forth chats or the more advanced models, draw down a user's quota more quickly.

Deep Think Arrives on AI Pro

Until now, Deep Think was available only to AI Ultra subscribers. It is now coming to the AI Pro plan, priced at $19.99 (roughly Rs 1,900) a month. AI Ultra users, on either the $99.99 (roughly Rs 9,600) or $199.99 (roughly Rs 19,300) monthly plan, will still have it. Deep Think tackles complex tasks using parallel reasoning and works only with the Pro model.

ALSO READ | Google Photos Gets An AI Boost With Redact Tool, 'Vintage' Moods And Expanded AI Wardrobe

New Thinking Levels May Be On The Way

Gemini could let users pick from Low, Medium and High thinking settings to decide how much effort the chatbot puts into a response. Choosing a higher level could use up more of a user's allowance. Right now, the Gemini app has an Extended Thinking option for harder problems. Google AI Studio and Antigravity already give users comparable controls.

Gemini 4 Argon Testing Continues

Google is also preparing to roll out Gemini 4 Argon more widely. The model is currently being tested by trusted cybersecurity professionals under the company's Fairwind programme. AI Ultra subscribers and paying API customers will get access at a later stage. It's still unclear whether Argon will sit within the Pro tier or in a separate, higher tier.

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Oppo F35 Pro 5G First Impressions

Oppo F35 Pro 5G has been launched in India, marking 10 years of the company’s F series in the country. Here are our first impressions. The Oppo F35 Pro 5G is offered in three colour options, including Sunset Orange, Twilight Brown, and Wave Blue. I got the orange option, which appears to be the most eye-catching and appealing out of the lot. The smartphone feels light to hold and offers a good in-hand feel. It continues to sport the Smile Curve Design rear camera module, which was also seen last year on the Oppo F33 Pro 5G.

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'Disappointing' As South Korea Flag Mishap Sees Asian Games End On Sour Note

South Korea's Asian Games football captain called it "disappointing" after the country's flag appeared to get stuck during the victory ceremony following their win over hosts Japan. Eom Ji-sung scored the only goal as South Korea won a fourth straight title with a 1-0 victory over Japan in the final at Toyota Stadium near Nagoya on Saturday evening. However, footage of the victory ceremony afterwards showed ceremonial officials struggling to raise South Korea's flag on the flagpole, sparking boos from Korean fans.

"I believe an awards ceremony should be an occasion for celebration," said captain Lee Gi-hyuk, according to Yonhap News Agency.

"We worked so hard to get here, so it was disappointing that they couldn't even properly unfurl the flag.

"I imagine the players, as well as the fans who came all this way to support us, must have been unhappy about it too."

According to South Korean media, the flag was eventually raised properly, but only after the national anthem ended.

The Games in Aichi-Nagoya, which close later Sunday, have been dogged by organisational issues over accommodation and transport.

South Korea were also victims of a mix-up when the national anthem for North Korea was played for the South's hockey team.

South Korean Olympic officials have been outspoken in their criticism of how the Games have been run. 

Ryu Seung-min, president of the Korean Sport and Olympic Committee, said during the first week: "If I were to give them a grade, it would be an F."

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

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Congress Falls Back On A Fullback: Where Pargat Singh Fits In Punjab Poll Play

Perth, 1985. India were trailing West Germany 1-5 at hockey's Champions Trophy with about eight minutes left when a 20-year-old fullback picked up the ball near the halfway line, ran at the defence, skipped past four defenders, and lifted it over the goalkeeper. It sparked a comeback still counted among Indian hockey's greatest. India scored four times in that spell to draw 5-5.

Forty-one years later, the Congress has handed him the ball in Punjab with lots to defend against, and everything to play for.

"It all happened so fast. Maybe the Germans did not expect it from me," Pargat Singh recalled about that match in Australia in a 1991 interview.

On Friday, the party named the former Olympic captain its state unit chief, two days after Amarinder Singh Raja Warring resigned and months before the 2027 Assembly elections.

Picking Pargat was a fallback, though not purely defensive. Former minister Vijay Inder Singla, a Hindu from the Bania (trader) community who heads the party's election management committee, was reportedly the frontrunner in two rounds of deliberation. Instead, the high command replaced one Jat Sikh with another, keeping the community equation intact and bringing a measured, issue-driven skipper to the top.

Lokniti-CSDS survey data from the last few elections shows why the Congress is worried about the numbers. The same data, read against Punjab's history, shows that arithmetic rarely decides the final score, least of all in a contest that's five-cornered this time.

READ | Hockey Legend Pargat Singh Named Punjab Congress Chief After Raja Warring Quits

Pargat Singh, 61, is seen as a measured speaker, unlike the more irreverent Raja Warring whom he replaces.
Photo: FB/@pargatsofficial

Holding The Line

Sikhs make up around 58 per cent of Punjab's population, and every chief minister since the state's reorganisation in 1966 has been a Sikh. Most have been Jat Sikhs, a largely rural, landowning community estimated at 22 per cent of the population. The incumbent, Aam Aadmi Party's Bhagwant Mann, is one.

Not all, though. Giani Zail Singh in the 1970s came from a Ramgarhia Sikh background, of traditional artisans, and Charanjit Singh Channi, who served briefly before the Congress lost in 2022, is a Dalit Sikh.

The Jat Sikh vote is where the Congress is weakest. Only 16 per cent of Jat Sikhs voted for it in 2022, down from 29 per cent in 2017, according to the Lokniti-CSDS post-poll survey. AAP took 46 per cent.

The state chief of every major party is a Jat Sikh this time, except AAP, which has a Hindu state unit chief and a Jat Sikh chief minister. Sections of the Congress are learnt to have argued that dropping the community from the top would have left it the odd one out. The poll field still carries Sikh issues, such as the alleged inaction by the then SAD-BJP government over sacrilege incidents in the mid-2010s.

Flank That Remains Open

The party has to, however, tackle how to give representation to Hindus, about 39 per cent of the population and the majority in most towns and cities. They have been a Congress stronghold in the not-so-distant past.

Pargat Singh started his innings by visiting prominent religious places of both Hindus and Sikhs in Delhi, where he was at the time of his appointment.

Among upper-caste Hindus, the Congress got 49 per cent of the votes in 2017, which halved by 2022, while the BJP's share tripled to reach 20 per cent, Lokniti-CSDS data showed. AAP was the main gainer across Hindu groups in 2022. Still, the Congress held on to more of its Hindu vote than its Sikh vote.

In the 2024 Lok Sabha polls, the Hindutva-focused BJP, contesting without the traditionally Sikh party Shiromani Akali Dal, took 18.56 per cent of the vote, its highest ever.

The Congress has had Hindu faces at the top before. Sunil Jakhar, state chief from 2017 to 2021, was even in the reckoning for chief minister when the party replaced Captain Amarinder Singh in 2021, before it made Channi the state's first Dalit chief minister. Jakhar later said advisers in Delhi had made his candidacy a Hindu-Sikh issue, and he quit the party in 2022 and went on to lead the BJP's state unit. The BJP recently replaced him with Kewal Singh Dhillon, its first Jat Sikh state president.

AAP has paired a Jat Sikh, Bhagwant Mann, with Aman Arora, a Hindu, as its state unit chief. The Congress has yet to find that balance.

Voters, however, may be more open than the parties. In the 2022 Lokniti-CSDS survey, 73.7 per cent of respondents said Punjab's chief minister can also be a non-Sikh.

Who's The Playmaker?

Dalits, from both Sikh and Hindu Scheduled Castes, make up about a third of Punjab's population, the highest such share in any state; 34 of the 117 Assembly seats are reserved for them. But making Channi chief minister in 2021, months before the polls, did not bring the Congress their votes. The party's share among Dalit Sikhs fell from 42 per cent in 2017 to 27 per cent in 2022, while AAP's rose from 21 to 46 per cent, Lokniti-CSDS found.

AAP won 28 of the 34 reserved seats, and Channi lost both seats he contested.

Channi, now the Jalandhar MP, remains the party's most prominent face, and his camp led the push to remove Warring. "Channi saheb has won," Warring said after his removal.

Channi served briefly as CM, the first Dalit to hold the post in Punjab, before the 2022 debacle of the Congress. Photo: IANS

READ | 'Charanjit Channi Saheb Has Won': Raja Warring Meets Rahul Gandhi After Exit As Punjab Congress Chief

Formally, the party has no chief ministerial face, but Channi is its campaign committee chief. The Congress has had a tradition of the campaign committee chief becoming chief minister in several states. "When we get the majority, the high command will decide," Leader of the Opposition Partap Singh Bajwa, another Jat Sikh contender, has said. Tradition dictates that the high command in Delhi decides.

As it stands today, the Congress has a Dalit Sikh as the de facto face and a Jat Sikh running the organisation, covering the state's two largest Sikh groups.

Geography adds another layer. Malwa, with 69 of the 117 seats, has traditionally decided who governs Punjab. The AAP won 66 of those seats in 2022. With Warring gone, none of the Congress's three most prominent leaders is from Malwa. Pargat and Channi are Jalandhar-based in Doaba, and Bajwa represents Qadian in Majha.

Does A Formula Work?

"Caste and community in Punjab is a current, not a container," historian and political commentator Harjeshwar Pal Singh said, however.

"Leaders win by riding moods, not by filling quotas," he opined.

AAP's 2022 victory cut across groups, described as "a bouquet of support from all castes and communities". In the Lokniti survey, 46 per cent said a candidate's caste mattered "not at all" to their vote.

Clear, rooted, and firm leadership is what matters, according to Harjeshwar. "In a multi-cornered fight, anti-incumbency does not automatically land in the challenger's lap; it has to be harvested, and that needs a sickle in one firm hand," he said.

In 2022, AAP declared Bhagwant Mann its CM face and won by a landslide. The Congress won in 2017 with Captain Amarinder Singh firmly in the saddle; it removed him before the 2022 elections and ended up presenting a fragmented leadership to voters.

In 2024, the vote splintered as the Congress and AAP were level at about 26 per cent, the BJP rose to 18.56, and two independents who campaigned on hardline Sikh platforms, including a jailed Amritpal Singh, won seats.

The 2027 field remains fragmented; it includes the AAP, Congress, SAD, BJP, and Amritpal's Akali Dal (Waris Punjab De). A SAD-BJP alliance remains under discussion. Calculating vote banks too minutely, thus, may end up confusing not just the voters but the leaders themselves.

For the Congress, presenting a united face remains the challenge. Pargat was a part of the Channi camp, though his public statements kept up with his calm but firm demeanour. He is known to write formal letters on specific issues to governments, and gives interviews focused on the public and not on factionalism.

READ | From Badals To Captain: How Pargat Singh's Dissent May Have Scored It For Him

Pargat's Long Game

The hockey champ's political journey has been winding yet moving forward, like that historic goal run in Perth. He served in the Punjab Police before entering politics to win the Jalandhar Cantonment seat for the SAD in 2012. Suspended by that party in 2016 after questioning some of its actions, he joined cricketer-turned-politician Navjot Singh Sidhu to form a group that weighed AAP versus Congress. They moved to the Congress, which won. Pargat stayed in Sidhu's corner through the Amarinder years, became a party general secretary when Sidhu rebelled and took over the state unit in 2021. Pargat served in Channi's cabinet.

In the 2022 AAP sweep, Pargat was one of only 18 Congress candidates to win. Sidhu, the six-hitting opening batter, has since drifted away. The long-run defender has stayed.

"Hockey has changed now... Everyone must learn to play in every position, to attack, defend, everything," Pargat Singh said in an interview three decades ago. That's the job he has now.

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From Mysuru To The Brink Of Glory: Pranavi Urs Eyes Historic Asian Games Gold

India's Pranavi Urs returned a superb four-under 66 in the third round to take a three-stroke lead and place herself in strong contention for an individual gold medal at the Asian Games women's golf competition on Friday. The 23-year-old from Mysuru, who is making her Games debut, has a total of 15-under 195, three shots clear of Singapore's Shannon Tan, who stumbled to a one-over 71 in the third round to surrender the lead she had held overnight. A stroke behind Shannon was China's Yin Ruoning. She signed for a flawless four-under 66 for a total of 11-under 199.

Pranavi's card was studded with five birdies against a solitary bogey on the par-four 14th hole. She played a blemish-free front nine, picking up shots on the first, third and eighth holes.

Her other two birdies came on the 13th and 18th holes.

It was a big third-day leap, traditionally known as 'Moving Day' in golf, and it also lifted the Indian women's team, comprising Pranavi (66-63-66), Aditi Ashok (71-74-70) and Diksha Dagar (71-73-71), to second place, four shots behind China.

China's total, based on the two best scores on each of the three days, is 405. India have a cumulative score of 409, while Hong Kong are at 411.

After three days of golf in Nagoya, India have given themselves two genuine opportunities to add to their Asian Games medal tally.

For the second successive Asian Games, an Indian woman holds the 54-hole lead. Aditi Ashok had done so in Hangzhou in 2023.

Despite taking a seven-shot lead into the final round in China, Aditi carded a 77 on the final day and ended up with silver.

The team finished fourth and Aditi's silver remains the only women's golf medal won by India at the Asian Games.

Pranavi, who is the only Indian woman golfer to have won a mixed professional event, achieving the feat at the IGPL Invitational Mumbai last year, was pleased with her showing but admitted she had a few regrets.

"Wish I could have holed more putts on the back nine. Hopefully, I'm saving them for tomorrow. Overall, it was pretty solid from tee to green. I just didn't hit a lot of bad shots," she said.

Pranavi has been knocking on the door of a Ladies European Tour (LET) title, and when asked if the Asian Games could help her get there, she added:

"I hope so. That's all I can hope for. I am just going to take it shot by shot. The result is not in my control anyway."

"Today, I was just focused on my game. I just played my game and stuck to my game plan. As for improving and maturing, I would like to think so. It's been three years on the LET Tour and, obviously, I haven't won yet. I'm still knocking on the door for my first win. Hopefully, I get that soon."

Men Stumble

Things did not go well for the men's team, though Veer Ahlawat returned a card of five-under 65, aided by four birdies on the back nine. His rounds have been 71, 68 and 65 for a total of six-under.

Ahlawat's 65 helped him break into the top 10 at 10th place, while Saptak Talwar (66-68-71) was 11th at five-under overall. Yuvraj Sandhu (71-69-71) was one-over and tied for 23rd.

In the team competition, where the top scores each day are counted, the Indian men are 11-under and in sixth place.

Pranavi began the day with a flourish, making two birdies in the first three holes as her rival Shannon dropped a shot. A two-shot deficit quickly became a one-shot advantage for the Indian.

Tan, who was playing alongside Pranavi, then dropped another shot on the fifth, while Pranavi birdied the eighth to move three ahead at the turn. A bogey from Tan on the 10th increased the gap to four.

Throughout the round, Pranavi remained steady, striking the ball well and putting confidently, although a couple of makeable putts failed to drop.

The momentum shifted when Tan, a two-time Ladies European Tour winner, bounced back with three consecutive birdies from the 11th to the 13th. Pranavi managed only one birdie, on the 13th, reducing the gap to two.

Both players dropped shots on the 14th, while Pranavi holed a nerveless 14-footer for par on the 15th. Pars followed for both on the 16th as the tension became visible on their faces, though not in their play. Pranavi then sealed her round with a birdie on the 18th to card a 66 and take a three-shot lead.

Chasing Pranavi and Tan is the highly accomplished Yin Ruoning, who turned 24 four days ago. Playing alongside the leading pair, Yin, a six-time LPGA Tour winner, including the 2023 Women's PGA Championship, produced a bogey-free 66 to remain firmly in contention.

The men's individual competition is being led by South Korea's Tom Kim (66-67-65), who, at 12-under, is one shot ahead of Chinese Taipei's Wang Wei Hsuan (65-66-68) and Japan's Kazuki Higa (65-67-67), both of whom are at 11-under.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

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LG Electronics Shares May Rally 22%, Says Motilal Oswal - Check Target Price

According to the brokerage, LG Electronics is well placed to benefit from structural premiumisation across TVs, refrigerators, washing machines and ACs, while the expanding LG Essential portfolio provides an additional growth factor by broadening its addressable market. Over the medium term, Motilal Oswal expects Sri City capacity expansion, deeper localisation and increasing exports to further strengthen the growth and profitability profile.

NDTV Profit's special research section collates quality and in-depth equity and economy research reports from across India's top brokerages, asset managers and research agencies. These reports offer NDTV Profit's subscribers an opportunity to expand their understanding of companies, sectors and the economy.

Motilal Oswal Report

Domestic brokerage firm Motilal Oswal values LG Electronics Ltd. at 45 times Sep'28E earnings per share to arrive at a target price of Rs 2,080 and has reiterated Buy rating implying a potential upside of 22% from the reports current market price of Rs 1,711.

The brokerage's positive view on LG Electronics is supported by its diversified product portfolio, strong brand franchise, multiple avenues for sustainable revenue growth and better margin profile vs peers.

The company is well placed to benefit from structural premiumisation across TVs, refrigerators, washing machines and ACs, while the expanding LG Essential portfolio provides an additional growth factor by broadening its addressable market.

ALSO READ: Azad Engineering Gets Rating Upgrade From ICICI Securities On Higher-For-Longer Growth Visibility — Check Revised Target Price

Recent trends across large-screen TVs, French-door refrigerators and fully automatic washing machines highlight LG Electronics's ability to drive value growth even in a mixed demand environment. Over the medium term, Motilal Oswal expects Sri City capacity expansion, deeper localisation and increasing exports to further strengthen the growth and profitability profile.

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This report is authored by an external party. NDTV Profit does not vouch for the accuracy of its contents nor is responsible for them in any way. The contents of this section do not constitute investment advice. For that you must always consult an expert based on your individual needs. The views expressed in the report are that of the author entity and do not represent the views of NDTV Profit.

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