India on Oct 6 abstained on a draft resolution in the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on promoting reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka which was adopted.

While abstaining, India stressed that it will work with Sri Lanka and the international community to attain the related objectives of legitimate aspirations of Tamils of Sri Lanka and prosperity for all Sri Lankans.

The draft resolution on --Promoting reconciliation, accountability and human rights in Sri Lanka' was adopted at the 51st Session of Human Rights Council in Geneva, with 20 nations voting in favour in the 47-member Council, seven against, including China and Pakistan, and 20 abstentions, including by India, Japan, Nepal and Qatar.

Two days after resigning from the Gujarat Legislative Assembly as a Congress legislator, Patidar community leader Harshad Ribadiya on Oct 6 joined the ruling BJP.

Ribadiya was elected from the Visavadar assembly segment, a predominantly Patel community seat, in 2017 as a Congress candidate. Before that, he had also won the 2014 bye-election from that constituency.

The 2017 Assembly elections in Gujarat were held against the backdrop of the Patidar quota agitation, and members of the Patel community in the Saurashtra region had largely voted for the Congress to express their anger against the ruling BJP.

Shiv Sena Lok Sabha member Krupal Tumane on  Oct 5 claimed two MPs and five MLAs from the Uddhav Thackeray-led Sena faction will join the group headed by Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.

At present, the Shinde faction comprises 40 MLAs, including the CM, and 12 Lok Sabha members.

The Thackeray faction is left with 15 MLAs and six Lok Sabha members. Before the split in June this year, the Shiv Sena had 18 Lok Sabha members from Maharashtra and one from Dadra and Nagar Haveli.

The crucial general body meeting of the ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi to change the party name to herald its national push in politics kicked off on  Oct 5 at the party headquarters.

This year's Nobel Prize in chemistry has been awarded in equal parts to Carolyn R. Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and K. Barry Sharpless for developing a way of "snapping molecules together" that can be used to design medicines.

Their work, known as click chemistry and bioorthogonal reactions, is used to make cancer drugs, map DNA and create materials that are tailored to a specific purpose.

Bertozzi is based at Stanford University in California, Meldal is at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and Sharpless is affiliated with Scripps Research, California. Sharpless previously won a Nobel Prize in 2001. He is the fifth person to receive the award twice.

The United Nations and Pakistan have jointly launched a fresh flash appeal seeking more than USD 800 million for the rehabilitation of millions of Pakistanis affected by the devastating floods that have so far claimed the lives of over 1,700 people.

Under the new appeal by the UN launched during a ceremony in Geneva on Oct 3, the global body revised up its humanitarian appeal for Pakistan five-fold to USD 816 million from USD 160 million as it seeks to control a surge in water-borne diseases reported from various parts of the country still reeling under the floods.

Solomon Islands said  that it had objected to the first draft of a US-Pacific partnership declaration because it was "not comfortable" with some indirect references to China.

The Solomons' foreign minister, Jeremiah Manele, was quizzed by reporters in New Zealand about his country's reported qualms over the joint statement, signed in Washington last week.

Manele said the United States and 14 Pacific islands meeting in Washington had then found "common ground" in negotiations, allowing the Solomon Islands to sign the final declaration.

The United States has been the key player in the South Pacific since its World War II victory.

But in recent years China has asserted itself strongly through investment, police training and, most controversially, a security pact with the Solomon Islands.

Countering Beijing's growing clout in the region, US President Joe Biden last week announced $810 million in new funding for the Pacific islands and signed the joint declaration with them pledging a closer US-Pacific partnership.

The foreign minister reiterated the Solomons' position that its security pact with Beijing, signed in April, would not lead to China establishing a military presence in the archipelago. 

There will be no charge for RuPay credit card use on Unified Payments Interface (UPI) for transactions up to Rs 2,000 in line with the RBI direction, a recent NPCI circular said.

RuPay credit card has been operational for the last four years, and all major banks are enabled and are issuing incremental cards for both commercial and retail segments.

For international transaction enablement, the existing process from the app will apply to credit cards too, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) said in the circular.

Nil Merchant Discount Rate (MDR) would apply for this category up to the transaction amount less than and equal to Rs 2,000, it noted.

MDR is the cost paid by a merchant to a bank for accepting payment from their customers via credit or debit cards every time a card is used for payments in their stores. The merchant discount rate is expressed in the percentage of the transaction amount.

Currently, UPI is linked through debit cards to savings accounts or current accounts," Reserve Bank Deputy Governor T Rabi Sankar had earlier said.

As per the circular, UPI apps would ensure complete transparency on transactions made by a customer using a credit card, by means of easily accessible transaction history and clearly visible user interface while making the payment.

Credit card issuers and apps will send appropriate notifications or communications to the customer during each event of the credit card lifecycle for such transactions, as per the circular.

The step will promote the homegrown payment gateway and encourage wider acceptance of RuPay cards. It further said there is a need to maintain a separate mobile number attached to an add-on card.