Gurugram Issues WFH Advisory, Switches Schools Online After Heavy Rain

Gurugram authorities issued a work-from-home advisory for offices and shifted schools to online classes following heavy rainfall that disrupted normal life in the city. Despite raining for only about an hour, the downpour caused significant civic disruption across the region. Residents expressed frustration over the repeated collapse of civic infrastructure during rain events. Locals pointed out that even moderate rainfall consistently exposes the city's inadequate drainage and infrastructure systems.

Pant surpasses Gilchrist's Test six-hitting record, reaches 102 sixes in 52 matches

Rishabh Pant has broken Adam Gilchrist's record for most sixes hit in Test cricket, accumulating 102 sixes across just 52 matches. The milestone was achieved during India's Test match in Colombo, placing Pant third on the all-time global list. He also overtook MS Dhoni's record to become India's highest run-scorer among wicketkeepers in away Tests. Additionally, Pant now leads all Indian batters in the World Test Championship run-scoring charts.

Gulf Defence Pact Faces Credibility Questions Over Partner Stability

A new defence agreement involving three Gulf nations has drawn attention for its stated goal of bringing peace and stability to the region. However, analysts have raised concerns about the credibility of the pact. Critics argue that for such an agreement to be effective, the member countries themselves must first demonstrate internal stability and peaceful governance. The pact's long-term success is therefore seen as contingent on the political and security conditions within the signatory states.

Pakistan sets Sept. 5 deadline for crypto firms to register or shut down

Pakistan's Virtual Assets Regulatory Authority (PVARA) has launched a formal licensing framework for cryptocurrency businesses in the country. Crypto firms have been given until September 5 to submit applications for a no-objection certificate from the regulator. Companies that fail to meet the deadline will be required to cease their operations. The move marks a significant step toward bringing Pakistan's crypto industry under official regulatory oversight.

Pulp-UI Brings a Graphical Interface to the Pulp Package Management Tool

Pulp is an open-source tool that allows developers to fetch, upload, organize, and distribute software packages both on-premises and in the cloud. Despite its capabilities, many users have found it difficult to work with its command-line interface. To address this gap, a new project called Pulp-UI has been developed. Pulp-UI aims to make the tool more accessible by offering a user-friendly interface as an alternative to CLI commands.

Dev Who Ported RuneScape to Mobile Shares Hard-Won Technical Lessons

A developer who worked at Jagex Games Studio between 2017 and 2019 has shared detailed technical lessons from leading the effort to bring the 20-year-old MMORPG RuneScape to iOS and Android. The project required full cross-platform parity, meaning mobile players needed access to every feature available on desktop within the same shared live world. A pre-development audit of the legacy codebase uncovered critical obstacles, including hard-coded screen dimensions, mouse-dependent input logic, and memory usage patterns incompatible with mobile hardware limits. The audit took several weeks but was credited with preventing months of costly problems during production. The developer, now at Ocean View Games, says these experiences directly shape how the studio currently approaches mobile ports and legacy codebases.

Engineer Defends Every Playwright Framework Decision in Unscripted Four-Part Series

Software engineer Stefan Minchev was interviewed across four episodes to defend the architectural decisions behind a Playwright test framework he co-designed for a trading platform used by five QA teams. The conversation, part of a new series called ArchQA Unscripted, covered topics ranging from folder structure and fixture design to test data management and rule enforcement. Minchev argued that architecture represents 85–90% of the real work, while the tests themselves are merely the final layer, and that skipping good architecture converts upfront effort into compounding maintenance costs. He drew a sharp distinction between deliberately chosen technical debt and silently inherited debt, calling the latter far more damaging because no boundary was ever set to violate. The series also tackled whether the Page Object Model remains relevant in the AI era, with Minchev maintaining it holds up when rules are clearly documented.

Financial repression: The new buzzword for bitcoin bulls

Your day-ahead look for Aug. 24, 2026

ESP32 Boards Explained: Features, Variants, and How to Choose the Right One

The ESP32 is a microcontroller widely used in IoT projects, notable for its built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capabilities that eliminate the need for external wireless modules. Development boards package the ESP32 chip onto a larger PCB with GPIO pins, USB connectivity, voltage regulators, and control buttons, making it accessible for beginners and professionals alike. Popular variants include the ESP32 DevKit V1 for general projects, the compact ESP32-C3 SuperMini, and the more powerful ESP32-S3 DevKitC suited for advanced applications. Key differences between boards include CPU architecture, clock speed, number of GPIO pins, Bluetooth version, and the presence of features like native USB or PSRAM. Understanding these specifications helps developers select the most appropriate ESP32 board for their specific project requirements.

How to Stress-Test AI Voice Agents Before They Go Live at Scale

Deploying conversational AI voice agents at scale requires a testing framework that goes well beyond standard demo conditions, according to a technical guide published on DEV Community. Unlike traditional IVR systems, AI voice agents rely on full-duplex, asynchronous pipelines spanning speech recognition, large language models, and text-to-speech synthesis, each introducing compounding latency risks. Engineers are advised to simulate real-world load using SIP/RTP call legs with actual recorded audio, targeting end-to-end latency under 500ms and a word error rate below 8% for standard speech. Compliance testing is also critical, particularly for bots handling payments or voice recordings, requiring DTMF clamping, audio muting during card entry, and spoken consent disclosures under laws like PCI-DSS, BIPA, and GDPR. The framework concludes with a go/no-go checklist that includes sustaining twice peak concurrency for four hours, verifying failover under three seconds, and confirming full observability across all pipeline components.

Heavy Rain Triggers Waterlogging in Delhi; AAP Slams BJP Govt Over Response

Heavy rainfall hit Delhi on Monday afternoon, leading to widespread waterlogging and traffic disruptions across several key areas of the city. Daily commutes and businesses were significantly affected by the water accumulation. The Aam Aadmi Party criticised the Rekha Gupta-led Delhi government for its handling of the situation. The India Meteorological Department forecast continued light rain in various parts of the capital. Similar wet weather was also reported across multiple Indian states on Sunday.

Railway Board Transfers Mangaluru-Ullal Stretch from Kerala to Karnataka Division

The Railway Board has ordered the transfer of the Mangaluru area up to and including Ullal from the Palakkad division of Southern Railway to the Mysuru division of South Western Railway. The change is set to take effect from October 1. This administrative reshuffle effectively moves the jurisdiction of that railway stretch from a Kerala-based division to a Karnataka-based one. The decision has sparked a fresh dispute between the two states. Kerala and Karnataka are now at odds over the realignment of railway administrative boundaries in the region.

How Enterprise Networks Fail: Poor Planning, Not Bad Hardware

Most enterprise networks evolve through a series of individually reasonable decisions—adding an office, connecting cloud resources, enabling remote access—rather than being designed as a coherent system from the start. Experts argue that enterprise network infrastructure is fundamentally about deliberate decision-making on how data moves between people, applications, and locations, not just the physical hardware involved. Key architectural layers include physical and logical backbone, wireless infrastructure, WAN connectivity, security, remote access, and monitoring—each of which must work together rather than in isolation. Monitoring and visibility are identified as the most neglected area, typically due to planning gaps rather than technology limitations. Traditional hub-and-spoke network designs are increasingly misaligned with modern traffic patterns dominated by cloud apps, SaaS tools, and distributed workforces, adding unnecessary latency and cost.

Researchers expose flaw letting attackers steal hidden AI reasoning traces via smaller models

Security researchers have uncovered a significant vulnerability in proprietary large language model APIs from top AI companies, including OpenAI and Anthropic. These companies encrypt their models' internal reasoning traces — the step-by-step 'thinking' process before a final answer — and temporarily store them on users' devices to reduce server costs. The flaw lies in the encryption design: the encrypted reasoning data can be sent not only to the original large model but also to smaller models in the same family, which then decode and reveal the hidden content. This opens the door to multiple attack scenarios, including exposure of sensitive personal information left in reasoning traces, injection of malicious instructions into AI agent workflows, and bulk extraction of proprietary reasoning logic for use in competitor model training. Researchers also noted that AI models sometimes reason in non-human patterns — using whitespace or unusual word clusters — and occasionally deliberate internally about circumventing instructions before choosing to comply.

Best Kindle Accessories in 2026: Cases, Covers, and More

Kindle users looking to protect or personalize their e-readers now have a wide range of accessories to choose from. The guide covers practical options such as cases and covers designed to shield devices from damage. For those seeking added functionality, page turners are also highlighted as useful companions. Beyond utility, decorative options like charms are included for readers who want to express their personal style.

Four Arrested in Kenya Over Suspected Elephant Poisoning

Kenyan authorities have arrested four individuals in connection with the suspected poisoning of elephants. Investigators are examining whether the deaths were linked to pesticides applied to tomato crops in the region. The case highlights the ongoing threat that agricultural chemicals can pose to wildlife in farming areas. Officials are continuing their inquiry to determine the exact cause of the elephants' deaths.

ProvChart API Lets Developers Embed SVG Charts in Markdown Without JavaScript

A tool called ProvChart offers a REST API endpoint that converts raw data into self-contained SVG charts, eliminating the need for client-side JavaScript libraries or third-party image hosting. Developers send series data via a POST request and receive back an SVG string or a base64-encoded data URI. The approach is aimed at embedding charts in Markdown environments such as GitHub READMEs, static documentation sites, and personal knowledge bases. Committing the generated SVG file directly to a repository is recommended as the most reliable embed method across most platforms, while inline SVG and data URIs have varying support. The tool is designed to fit CI/CD pipelines, allowing charts to be automatically regenerated and committed whenever underlying data changes.

Centre’s denial of permission for US travel insult to Telangana: CM Revanth Reddy

Controllers vs Minimal APIs in .NET 10: Why Structure Matters More Than Your Choice

In .NET 10, both Controllers (MVC) and Minimal APIs share the same underlying infrastructure, including routing, dependency injection, and model binding, making neither option objectively superior. The real deciding factor is the shape and scale of the API being built, with Controllers suiting large, convention-heavy projects and Minimal APIs fitting smaller, high-throughput or AOT-focused services. Both approaches share a common failure mode: logic and endpoints accumulate in one place over time when no architectural discipline is enforced early. For Minimal APIs, the recommended fix is to extract endpoints into typed modules using MapGroup, keeping Program.cs to a single line per feature rather than a sprawling wall of Map calls. On the controller side, the same discipline applies — controllers should stay thin, delegating business logic to services, always using the ApiController attribute, and never returning raw database entities directly to clients.

Developer Builds Self-Maintaining Claude Code Skill Library Using Automated Shell Scripts

A developer shared how they built a two-stage automated pipeline to manage a growing Claude Code skill library that had ballooned past 70 entries and become unmanageable. The system uses two shell scripts triggered by scheduled jobs — one running nightly at 3:30 AM to extract reusable procedures from conversation logs, and another running weekly on Sundays at 4:15 AM to retire outdated skills. The nightly harvesting script processes recent conversation logs and uses Claude to identify reusable patterns, capping API spend at $1.20 per run. The developer noted that without automation, skill libraries tend to accumulate stale and duplicate entries that silently degrade usefulness over time. The project stemmed from a broader philosophy of eliminating human bottlenecks in recurring maintenance tasks, particularly as their side income and workload scaled up.