This is the Catch Up on 3 Things for the Indian Express and I'm Flora Swain.
It’s the 18th of January and here are the headlines.

In the latest in a series of attacks on commercial vessels in the Western Arabian Sea since last month, a vessel came under a drone attack late on Wednesday. It elicited a prompt response from the Navy’s Guided Missile Destroyer INS Visakhapatnam. In a statement, the Navy said that INS Visakhapatnam, a mission deployed in the Gulf of Aden for anti-piracy operations, swiftly responded to a distress call by Marshall Island flagged MV Genco Picardy following a drone attack. MV Genco Picardy, with 22 crew including nine Indians, reported nil casualties.

With five days to go to the inauguration of the Ram temple in Ayodhya, the idol of Ram Lalla sculpted by Arjun Yogiraj will be placed in the Sanctum Sanctorum today.The idol was gently lowered into the 'grabh grah' or sanctum sanctorum of the Ram temple with the help of a crane early this morning. Later in the day, the idol will be placed on a throne following 'mandap pravesh' rituals.

The Pakistani military conducted a series of "highly coordinated" retaliatory strikes against "terrorist hideouts" in Iran this morning, As per reports, at least nine people have been killed in the assault. The strikes came two days after Iran's missile and drone strikes in Pakistan's Balochistan province. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement, quote, "This morning Pakistan undertook a series of highly coordinated and specifically targeted precision military strikes against terrorist hideouts in Siestan-o-Baluchistan province of Iran." Unquote. It said a number of terrorists were killed during the intelligence-based operation — codenamed "Marg Bar Sarmachar".

Several train and flight operations were disrupted as dense to very dense fog conditions prevailed over Delhi and parts of North India, including Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh, early today. The fog conditions were accompanied by a cold wave which is likely to continue over some parts of Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh over the next four days. Meanwhile, the minimum temperature in Delhi was recorded at 6.6 degrees Celsius.

An Army soldier was killed and two others injured on Thursday in a landmine explosion near the Line of Control in Rajouri district’s Nowshera sector of Jammu and Kashmir. Pointing out that the deceased was an Agniveer, sources said that all the three were evacuated to Army’s Command Hospital at Udhampur where he succumbed.

This was the Catch-Up on the 3 Things by The Indian Express.