Polish novelist Olga Tokarczuk and Austrian writer Peter Handke won the 2018 and 2019 Nobel Prizes for literature on October 10, after a year’s hiatus in awarding the prize due to sex abuse allegations that rocked the secretive Swedish Academy, which selects the laureates.

NATIONAL

• Former Fortis promoter Shivinder Singh arrested in fraud case
• Will speak to RBI Governor, Nirmala Sitharaman assures PMC bank depositors
• Abid Ansari, Yawar Mir, Noor Mohammed and Shoiab Lone have been released by J&K administration
• In keeping with the trend, the BJP kept for itself the Chair of five out of 11 Lok Sabha panels constituted on Wednesday. From Ethics to Privileges, these panels are mostly for housekeeping work of the Parliament.
• ED moves Delhi HC challenging anticipatory bail granted to P Chidambaram, Karti
• RSS worker murder: BJP’s Rahul Sinha targets WB govt over law and order situation.BJP leader Rahul Sinha said, ‘The man who was murdered with his wife and son was an RSS worker. Mamata Banerjee must resign. There is no proper law and order in West Bengal. There is jungle raj in the state.’
• National Commission for Women (NCW) chairperson Rekha Sharma on Thursday demanded the immediate arrest of the miscreants who murdered three members of a family in Murshidabad district.

Scotland Yard on Thursday charged the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) founder Altaf Hussain, living in exile in the U.K., with an offence of encouraging terrorism in connection with a speech relayed to followers in Pakistan. The Metropolitan Police Counter-Terrorism Command said Hussain will appear before the Westminster Magistrates’ Court in London charged under Section 1(2) of the U.K.’s Terrorism Act 2006 with encouraging terrorism.

INTERNATIONAL

• Chinese Ambassador Sun Weidong said a “new set of consensus” including “guiding principles” on the development direction of bilateral ties between the two nations are expected to emerge from two-day informal summit beginning Friday.
• India has strongly condemned any direct or indirect financial assistance to terrorists and terror groups by nations that enables them to pursue their activities, including in defending criminal cases against them.
• Joe Biden calls for US President Donald Trump’s impeachment.“He’s shooting holes in the constitution, and we cannot let him get away with it,” added Biden.

The latest edition of the Global Competitiveness Report, which was first launched in 1979, ranks India at 68th position among 141 countries – that’s 10 ranks below its 2018 position in the same index. The slippage this year, however, is not just because India’s score in the Global Competitiveness Index fell, albeit marginally, but also because several other close competitors surged ahead. This is the fourth version of the global competitiveness index – hence referred to as GCI 4.0 – and it was introduced in 2018. The 141 countries mapped by this year’s GCI account for 99 per cent of the world’s GDP.

ECONOMICS

• The US Treasury Department Thursday announced sanctions against South Africa’s high-profile Indian-origin Gupta family for allegedly running a “corruption network” by leveraging its political connections to engage in bribery, capture government contracts and misappropriate state assets.
• Moody’s slashes India’s GDP growth forecast for FY20 to 5.8%
• IIMs roll out specific post-graduate programmes in business, data analytics

MARKET TODAY10 Oct, 19

• SENSEX- 37880.40 (-297.55)
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• GOLD (MCX 10 GM)-38134.00 (-363.00)
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• USD ($) / INR(Rupees Icon)-70.90 (0.13)