A look at the headlines right now:

  1. ‘Liquidity is not a problem for any bank,’ says Nirmala Sitharaman after meeting private lenders: The finance minister said the festival season would help revive the economy.
  2. Pakistan foreign minister boycotts S Jaishankar’s SAARC address as protest against Kashmir move: Shah Mahmood Qureshi said he ‘will not engage with India until and unless they lift the siege and put an end to atrocities in Kashmir’.
  3. Supreme Court sets October 18 deadline for concluding arguments in Ayodhya case: Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, who is set to retire on November 17, said ‘it will be miraculous’ if the court delivers the judgement in four weeks.
  4. Asian Development Bank cuts India’s GDP growth forecast for 2019-’20 from 7% to 6.5%: However, the funding body said India will remain one of the fastest-growing economies in the world this year as well as the next.
  5. Election Commission agrees to defer Karnataka bye-polls until SC decides on disqualified MLAs’ pleas: The bye-elections were scheduled to be held on October 21, and results announced were due on October 24.
  6. Top bureaucrats and politicians being investigated in connection with sex scandal in Madhya Pradesh: The police arrested six people, including five women, on Wednesday.
  7. Social media platforms agree to follow code of ethics in all future polls, says Election Commission: The platforms had followed the code during the Lok Sabha elections as well, and had taken action in 909 cases of violation.
  8. At least 17 killed, nearly 16,000 rescued amid heavy rain in Pune: Schools and colleges in various tehsils have declared a holiday on Thursday.
  9. Former French President Jacques Chirac dies at 86: He was only western leader who supported India after the nuclear test in 1998.
  10. New snake species named after Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray’s younger son: Tejas Thackeray made an immense contribution to the find, so the newly found species has been named ‘Thackeray’s cat snake’.