India's projected economic growth for 2022 has been downgraded by over two per cent to 4.6% by the United Nations, a decrease attributed to the ongoing war in Ukraine, with New Delhi expected to face restraints on energy access and prices, reflexes from trade sanctions, food inflation, tightening policies and financial instability, according to a UN report released on Thursday. The UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) report downgraded its global economic growth projection for 2022 to 2.6 per cent from 3.6 per cent due to shocks from the Ukraine war and changes in macroeconomic policies that put developing countries particularly at risk. The report said while Russia will experience a deep recession this year, significant slowdowns in growth are expected in parts of Western Europe and Central, South and South-East Asia.

The 193-member UN General Assembly adopted the draft resolution 'Humanitarian consequences of the aggression against Ukraine' by Ukraine and its western allies, with 140 nations voting in favour, five against and 38 abstentions. India abstained on the resolution.

India, along with 12 other United Nations Security Council members, abstained on a resolution by Russia on the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine.

Fresh cases of Covid-19 are again spiking globally, especially in parts of Asia, after several weeks of decline and this rise is "just the tip of the iceberg", World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has warned.

The 193-member UN General Assembly adopted a resolution, introduced by Pakistan's ambassador Munir Akram under agenda item culture of peace, to proclaim March 15 as the International Day to Combat Islamophobia.

Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the UN Ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya told the UN Security Council briefing on the humanitarian situation in Ukraine on Monday that "Ukraine deeply regrets that more than 2,000 citizens of India, China, Turkey, Pakistan and other countries suffer today along with Ukrainians from Russian aggression."

"We have also assisted nationals from other countries, who approached us, in their return to their respective countries. And we will remain open to doing so in the coming days."

Russia has informed the United Nations Security Council that Russian buses are ready at crossing points to go to the eastern Ukrainian cities of Kharkiv and Sumy to evacuate Indian students and other foreign nationals who are stranded there, amidst the raging conflict in the East European country.

Russia's Permanent Representative Vassily Nebenzia told an emergency UN Security Council meeting following the attack on the Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant in Ukraine, that radicals and extremists in Ukraine 'were and are' under the 'close guardianship and protection' of Western nations.

The countries voting in favour included France, Germany, Japan, Nepal, The United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States.

"India has been deeply concerned over the rapidly deteriorating situation in Ukraine and the ensuing humanitarian crisis," India's Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador T S Tirumurti said.

Tirumurti voiced deep concern for the safety and security of thousands of Indian citizens, including students, stranded in Ukraine.

India has said that it was deeply concerned over the deteriorating situation in Ukraine and reiterated its call for immediate cessation of violence and end to hostilities.

With the adoption of the UNSC resolution on Sunday, it was for the first time in 40 years that the council decided to call for an emergency special session in the General Assembly.

India abstained from a procedural vote taken in the United Nations Security Council to call for a rare special emergency session of the UN General Assembly on Russia's aggression against Ukraine, even as New Delhi welcomed Moscow and Kyiv's decision to hold talks at the Belarus border.

Tirumurti also said India is 'deeply concerned' about the welfare and security of the Indian community, including a large number of Indian students, in Ukraine.

"I am saddened, however, that there is a small, handful of members that seem to be still tolerating the war," Sergiy Kyslytsya said after the Security Council voted on the United States-led draft resolution.

Eleven countries voted in favour of the resolution while three countries - India, China and the UAE abstained.

The Council will vote on the draft resolution at 3 pm Friday (New York time), two days after it held an emergency meeting on the situation in Ukraine just as Putin had announced Moscow's invasion of Ukraine.

Guterres, who opened an emergency meeting of the 15-nation Security Council on Ukraine late Wednesday, in his brief off-the-cuff remarks said 'if indeed an operation is being prepared, I have only one thing to say from the bottom of my heart: President Putin, stop your troops from attacking Ukraine. Give peace a chance. Too many people have already died'.