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Chinese leader Xi Jinping warned against playing with fire over Taiwan in a call with U.S. President Joe Biden on Thursday, highlighting Beijing's concerns about a possible visit to the Chinese-claimed island by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

"Those who play with fire will perish by it," China's foreign ministry quoted Xi as telling Biden in their fifth call as leaders. "It is hoped that the U.S. will be clear-eyed about this."

Xi said Washington should abide by the "one-China principle" and stressed that China firmly opposes Taiwanese independence and outside interference.

Wondering why the Centre “is hesitating to spell out its stand” on a plea seeking directions to regulate distribution of freebies by political parties using public money, the Supreme Court Tuesday asked it to consult the Finance Commission whether it is possible to check this by regulating allocation of revenue to states.

“Please find out from the Finance Commission,” Chief Justice of India N V Ramana, heading a three-judge bench hearing a petition that seeks directions to stop distribution of freebies since it is draining the exchequer, told Additional Solicitor General K M Nataraj after Senior Advocate Kapil Sibal suggested that the Finance Commission would be the appropriate body to do something on the issue.

The Tamil Nadu government has been told by the Madras High Court not to plant any more eucalyptus trees in the state.

Cases related to the removal of invasive trees encroaching on Tamil Nadu forest reserves came up for hearing on July 25 on the bench of Justices Sathish Kumar and Bharatha Chakravarthy. The state government submitted a report about the removal of invasive species of trees from Tamil Nadu’s forested areas.

Days after transferring the cyber cell case, in which IPS officer Rashmi Shukla was allegedly involved, to CBI, the Union Home Secretary sought to withdraw the plea that was filed against Magistrate court order which had directed the Secretary to hand over documents and a pen drive to the Mumbai police.

Special Public Prosecutor Shreeram Shirsat representing the Union Home Secretary informed the court that the case was transferred to CBI from Cyber police station and thus the "revision may be disposed of." However, since there was no lawyer representing the cyber police in court at that time so the hearing was adjourned.

West Bengal Minister Partha Chatterjee and his aide Arpita Mukherjee — both arrested in connection with the teacher recruitment scam last week — were on Monday sent to ED Custody till August 3 even as the probe agency prayed for a 14-day custody for the TMC leader.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED), probing the alleged scam, prayed for 14 days’ custody of Partha Chatterjee before a special court of the agency, pointing out that AIIMS-Bhubaneswar, after a check-up, ruled out the minister’s hospital admission.

In its submission, the ED said that Chatterjee had taken admission in Bengal government-run SSKM hospital faking illness and the agency could not question him during the two-day remand granted by a chief metropolitan magistrate on Saturday.