The Reserve Bank on 0ct 7  said it will soon commence the pilot launch of e-rupee for specific use cases with a view to bolstering India's digital economy, making payment systems more efficient, and checking money laundering.

In a concept note on Central Bank Digital Currency, the RBI said CBDC is aimed to complement, rather than replace, current forms of money and is envisaged to provide an additional payment avenue to users, not to replace the existing payment systems.

CBDC is a digital form of currency notes issued by a central bank.

While most central banks across the globe are exploring the issuance of CBDC, the key motivations for its issuance are specific to each country's unique requirements.

The Government of India had announced the launch of the Digital Rupee — a Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) from fiscal year 2022-23 onwards in the Union Budget placed in Parliament on February 1, 2022.

CBDC can be classified into two broad types -- general purpose or retail (CBDC-R) and wholesale (CBDC-W).

Retail CBDC would be potentially available for use by all and while wholesale CBDC is designed for restricted access to select financial institutions.

Across the globe, the note said more than 60 central banks have expressed interest in CBDC with a few implementations already under pilot across both Retail and Wholesale categories and many others are researching, testing, and/or launching their own CBDC framework.

The concept note presents the background, motivation, choices of design features and other policy frameworks for e-rupee system for the country.

The aim is to build an open, inclusive, interoperable and innovative CBDC system which will meet the aspirations of the modern digital economy of India, it said.

The paper also noted that the potential impact on monetary policy from an introduction of CBDC is still unclear and is purely speculative given that only limited CBDCs are currently in existence as few nations have issued till date.

After factoring in the concerns related to anonymity, appropriate analytics of Big Data generated from CBDC can assist in evidence-based policy making.

The purpose behind the issue of this concept note is to create awareness about CBDCs in general and the planned features of the digital rupee, in particular, the RBI said.

The note also seeks to explain Reserve Bank's approach towards introduction of the digital Rupee.

The Centre has appointed a commission headed by former CJI K G Balakrishnan to examine the matter of giving Scheduled Caste status to new people who claim to “historically” have belonged to the SCs, but have converted to a religion other than those mentioned in the Presidential orders.

The Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950 (amended from time to time) says that no person professing a religion other than Hinduism or Sikhism, or Buddhism can be deemed to be a member of a Scheduled Caste.

However, Muslim, and Christian groups have often demanded similar status for Dalits who have converted to their religions.

The BJP has been opposed to their demand.

The three-member team also includes retired IAS officer Dr Ravinder Kumar Jain and member UGC Professor Sushma Yadav.

The panel will examine the matter of giving Scheduled Caste status to new persons, who claim to historically have belonged to the Scheduled Castes, but have converted to religion other than those mentioned in the Presidential Orders issued from time to time under article 341 of the Constitution.

The panel will also examine the implications of the decision, if it comes to be,– on the existing Scheduled Castes, besides taking into account the changes in customs, traditions, and their status of social discrimination and deprivation, after these people converted to other religions.

The commission will also examine any other related questions that the Commission deems appropriate in consultation with the Centre and with its consent.

K G Balakrishnan is the Supreme Court's first Dalit Chief Justice.

He was also the chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission of India.

This year’s Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to jailed Belarus rights activist Ales Bialiatski, the Russian group Memorial and the Ukrainian organization Center for Civil Liberties.

The winner was announced  on 0ct 7  in Oslo by Berit Reiss-Andersen, chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee.

The Russian human rights organisation Memorial was established in 1987 by human rights activists in the former Soviet Union who wanted to ensure that the victims of the communist regime's oppression would never be forgotten.

The Center for Civil Liberties, another awardee of the 2022 Nobel Peace Prize, was founded for the purpose of advancing human rights and democracy in Ukraine. It has taken a stand to strengthen Ukrainian civil society and pressure the authorities to make Ukraine a full-fledged democracy.

After Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the centre has engaged in efforts to identify and document Russian war crimes against the Ukrainian population. The centre is playing a pioneering role in holding guilty parties accountable for their crimes.

The Swedish scientist  who has received  the award in medicine for unlocking secrets of Neanderthal DNA that provided key insights into our immune system----- Svante Paabo

The three scientists  who had shown that tiny particles can retain a connection with each other even when separated, a phenomenon known as quantum entanglement, that can be used for specialized computing and to encrypt information and who have jointly won the prize in physics ----- Frenchman Alain Aspect, American John F. Clauser and Austrian Anton Zeilinger

The The three scientists  who have been  awarded Nobel Prize in chemistry for developing a way of “snapping molecules together” that can be used to explore cells, map DNA and design drugs that can target diseases such as cancer more precisely---- Americans Carolyn R. Bertozzi and K. Barry Sharpless, and Danish scientist Morten Meldal.

The French author  who has won this year’s Nobel Prize in literature ----- Annie Ernaux

----The panel commended her for blending fiction and autobiography in books that fearlessly mine her experiences as a working-class woman to explore life in France since the------- 1940s.

India has been one of the leaders in digitisation that empowers and expands the social safety net, World Bank President David Malpass said on 0ct 7.

Malpass, during a conference call  in Washington , told reporters that India, like other developing countries, suffers from rising interest rates in the world environment and from inflation also from being impacted by climate change as seen recently in terms of the flooding impacts.

But during the Covid-19 crisis, India was able to expand its social safety net.

He said poor people in the country have more money in their hand that showed up in the recent poverty report of the World Bank.

The World Bank worked extensively with India to have a targeted social safety net, he said, observing that effectiveness of social safety net is important when it comes to poverty in other parts of the world.

Referring to a recently held conference at the United Nations, which was co-hosted by the World Bank, Malpass said digitalisation empowers social safety net, and is very helpful in leapfrogging technology for developing countries.

Responding to a question on India taking over the presidency of G-20 in December, Malpass said there is a potential focus on debt.

India on 0ct 6 abstained from voting on a draft resolution in the UN Human Rights Council on holding a debate on the human rights situation in China's restive Xinjiang region.

Human rights groups have been sounding the alarm over what is happening in the resource-rich north-western Chinese province for years, alleging that more than one million Uyghurs had been detained against their will in a large network of what Beijing calls "re-education camps".

The draft resolution on "holding a debate on the situation of human rights in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China" was rejected in the 47-member Council after 17 members voted in favour, 19 members voted against, including China, and 11 abstentions, including India, Brazil, Mexico and Ukraine.

The draft resolution was presented by a core group consisting of Canada, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, UK and USA, and co-sponsored by a range of states, including Turkey.

For the first time in 20 years, a Russian cosmonaut rocketed from the U.S. on 0ct 5, launching to the International Space Station alongside NASA and Japanese astronauts despite tensions over the war in Ukraine.

“We’re so glad to do it together," said Anna Kikina, Russia’s lone female cosmonaut, offering thanks in both English and Russian. “Spasibo!”

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange, may have lost more than $100 million following a hack of its Binance Smart Chain blockchain network.

A Reddit post by Binance discussing the incident said that the company temporarily suspended transactions and the transfer of funds after detecting an exploit between two blockchains.

Binance believes that $100 million to $110 million in funds were taken, but it was able to freeze approximately $7 million.

Binance is just the latest crypto company to experience a targeted hack. In August Nomad was struck, with media reports saying it was for nearly $200 million. Harmony lost about $100 million in a hack in June.

Oil prices increased on  Oct 5 after OPEC+ countries decided to slash crude production by nearly 2 million barrels a day, the largest reduction since 2020. The Brent Crude Future, the benchmark of crude price, was trading at $94.00 per barrel, up 0.67% (IST 8.19 PM) and the US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures was trading at $88.29 per barrel, up 0.60%.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies including Russia announced the production cut following its first meeting in person since March 2020. According to the reports, the reduction is equivalent to nearly 2% of global oil demand. 

They will cut production from November and OPEC and its allies will meet again in December. The group said the decision to cut production was made in light of the uncertainty that surrounds the global economic and oil market outlooks.

Oil prices in the international market inflated in the first half of the year, owing to the Ukraine and Russia war. The global benchmark had hit a peak of $139 a barrel in March.  However, crude prices came down sharply on fears that a global recession will depress demand.

Brent crude is down 20% since the end of June.  OPEC and its allies, which control more than 40% of global oil production, are hoping to pre-empt a drop in demand for their crude from a sharp economic slowdown in China, the US and Europe.