The US will reportedly put a temporary ban on the issuance of some work-based visas like the H-1B, which is popular among highly-skilled Indian IT professionals, as well as visas for students and work authorisation that accompanies them, due to the high level of unemployment caused by the coronavirus COVID-19 spread.

Mike Pompeo said on Friday asserting that he has seen a significant amount of evidence suggesting that a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan was underperforming and the virus could well have emanated from there.

US Vice President Mike Pence's press secretary has the coronavirus, the White House said on Friday, making her the second person who works at the White House complex known to test positive for the virus this week.

During the curfew, public sectors will work remotely and private sector activities, excluding vital ones, will be suspended, the statement said. All banks will be closed, but will continue to provide services electronically.

The unemployment rate of 14.7 per cent is the highest rate since the Great Depression, The Washington Post reported.

Most of these patients are also experiencing a loss of the sense of taste, said a researcher from University of Cincinnati.

According to China's National Health Commission (NHC), as for Friday 836 asymptomatic cases, including 63 from overseas, were still under medical observation.

President Donald Trump says he's in no rush to negotiate another financial rescue bill, even as the government reported that more than 20 million Americans lost their jobs last month due to economic upheaval caused by the coronavirus.

Ivanka Trump's personal assistant has tested positive for the deadly coronavirus, making her the third White House staff member to be infected from COVID-19, a media report said on Saturday.

Paying his tribute to the father-daughter duo, New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy praised them for their “selfless dedication to caring for others.”

By results, the reference is to just one thing - quality of life. The voter wants to know exactly what this government will do for him/her, in real terms. No more bhashans, no empty promises, no fake assurances.

If Mahatma Gandhi is the Father of the Nation then Jawaharlal Nehru is the Father of the Modern Nation, for the alchemy of India's transformation into modern India can be sourced to the passage of the Hindu Code Bill.

The Obama law will affect their operations in all foreign countries, so it provides no incentive to shift jobs from India to other Third World competitors.

If the second edition of the T20 World Cup was held on paper, India would win it without bowling a single ball or even lifting the bat.

Advani’s early morning call, umpteen messages from unknown senders urging you to vote and the fear of being labelled a Pappu, was enough to send many to the electoral booth...

Federer, probably nudged by his own providence, sensed his opportunity: he woke up from his sleepwalk and began playing like himself again; inside-out forehands, down the line backhands and tantalising, though desperate, drop-shots.

As Archie Andrews gears up to propose to Veronica Lodge, here is a heartfelt letter to Betty Cooper...

India is ready to accept this reality. Pakistan might need persuasion. It has to be told that there is nothing to be gained by the complications of discussion, and everything to achieve through clarity.

The feeling of cultural superiority that coexisted with the exercise of power in the pre-World War II era has yielded place to a new moral relativism.

After six months of financial drought, global money is flooding into India at the rate of $1 billion a week. If sustained, this will be the mother of all financial stimuli, eclipsing the finance minister's budgetary endeavours.

Kapil Sibal, your new government is committed to affirmative action for the historically disadvantaged. This can be an excellent launching pad for school vouchers.

Both ladies are media savvy — they have perfected their sound bites. Their lives are not all that dissimilar — they make headlines for the wrong reasons.

There is nothing particularly new about the proposal of an interim balm for the wounds of Kashmir, demilitarization on both sides of the Line of Control. What is novel is the heavy Washington endorsement of this Pakistan-promoted option.

God they say is in the detail and he who has mastered the art of focusing on the minutest details, has mastered the art of blocking out the unpleasant...

It is possible the angry young men and well-dressed women in Victoria Beckham sunglasses in Tehran - the only place where Mousavi outpolled Ahmadinejad - have different ideas.

Why have finance ministers over the years not done this? Because the beedi is the poor man's smoke, and the beedi industry employs millions. Yet, these are horrifying, cruel reasons for tax concessions for proven killers.

The Left emerged out of the chaos and violence that fractured Bengal; as it dissipates, will the vacuum be filled by violence? It is tempting to see the immediate future as a mirror image, with variations, of the 1960s.

Change will not occur with the speed and thoroughness that is deemed ideal unless we accelerate the process through forceful and specific interventions.

Democracy is a volatile game played in the open. What was there left to inquire into?

The long campaign for a grand Ram temple on the site of the 16th century Babri Masjid in Ayodhya was, at a very basic level, an issue of faith.

The Nikkei Manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index, compiled by IHS Markit, plunged to 27.4 last month from March's 51.8, by far its lowest since the survey began in March 2005 and its first time below the 50-mark separating growth from contraction in nearly three years.

The percentage of people believing this to be true was especially high in Andhra Pradesh, followed by Telangana and Tamil Nadu. It was least in Kerala, followed by Punjab and Delhi. The survey also showed that about 30% of people believe that the current lockdowns will eradicate coronavirus.

After keeping the country under a 40-day lockdown to arrest the spread of coronavirus, the government extended the lockdown till May 17 with a slew of relaxations to the unaffected areas in order to kick-start economic activity.

India’s budget gap for the year ended March 31 has touched 4.4% of gross domestic product, says sources.

The official said the government would try to swiftly address supply chain hurdles, which some fear could leave retailers without stock as wholesalers in many parts of the country are unable to resume activity.

Nobody can predict if even the modest normalization of the economy will last. With nearly 43,000 Covid-19 cases and the number doubling every 12 days, the country is still struggling to flatten the curve — even with the lockdown. If loosening leads to new infections in green zones, they could slip into orange. Community outbreaks can quickly turn orange districts into red.

For the manufacturing sector - domestic demand, expensive credit, cash-strapped MSMEs, high cost of setting-up and automation are the big areas of concern. Industry veterans suggest that the only way to revive demand is for the government to keep to its spending targets and streamline policies and processes.

The grim result for the industry, the engine of growth, underlines the pandemic's impact.

The virus has brought the Indian economy to new low after new low over the past six weeks.

The IHS Markit India Services Business Activity Index plunged to 5.4 in April from 49.3 in March, an unprecedented contraction since the survey started over 14 years ago. The Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) survey, also known as Services PMI, was based responses from about 400 service sector companies collected from April 7 to 28.

Kerala govt report estimates a loss of about Rs 80,000 crore in GVA to the Kerala economy in Q1 (Apr-Jun) of 2020. For March, the shortfall in GVA could have been roughly Rs 29,000 crore. The direct and indirect losses in gross state value addition (GSVA), based on an input-output model, is estimated to be 10% in 2019-20 and 20% in 2020-21.

Moody's had, in November 2019, downgraded India's outlook to negative from stable on concerns of lower economic growth. The agency had, however, affirmed country's 'Baa2' rating. In its update to the November forecast released on Friday, the agency said India's credit profile is supported by its large and diverse economy, and stable domestic financing base.