The first special train, carrying as many as 1,140 guest workers stranded in the district, left for Bihar from the Coimbatore Railway Junction on Friday. It is expected to reach Saharsa district on Sunday.

Satellite imagery analysis suggests North Korea may be preparing a long-range ballistic missile launch, Japan's Kyodo News reported. The report came as the international community discusses further sanctions against Pyongyang for conducting its fourth nuclear test earlier this month.

North Korea fired five short-range projectiles into the sea on Monday, Seoul officials said, in a continuation of weapon launches it has carried out in an apparent response to ongoing South Korea-US military drills it sees as a provocation.

Nuh district gave a sigh of relief for health authorities who were continued to be disappointed as 22 new more cases were found in Haryana which took state total tally to 647. Besides Gurugram, other districts from where fresh cases were reported include Faridabad, Sonipat, Jhajjar, Panipat, Jind and Fatehabad.

Just three days after its last order notifying containment zones, the district administration on Friday added 11 new containment zones in the Gurugram block. Most are in old Gurugram. The district now has 32 containment zones.

Thousands of migrant labourers on way to their home state Uttar Pradesh from Ludhiana in Punjab on Friday reached here on foot. But, halting their march, the district administration sent most of them back to Punjab, while the rest were accommodated in shelter homes of Ambala.

Extreme heat events such as those observed in Western Europe in 2003 and in Russia in 2010, which led to the death of nearly 1,000 people and multiple crop failures, are becoming more common in India, according to a study.

Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has suffered “very widespread” damage after rising sea temperatures caused the third mass coral bleaching events in five years. Its northern reaches suffered an unprecedented two successive years of severe bleaching in 2016 and 2017. Some previously untouched areas had now suffered "moderate or severe bleaching".

Drone video footage released by the department of national parks shows a 30-strong herd of dugongs on Wednesday off Libong island in Trang province. They were feeding on sea grass and occasionally surfaced to breathe.

China reported one new case of coronavirus on Tuesday and no deaths, marking three weeks since it recorded a Covid-19 fatality. The National Health Commission said 395 people remained under treatment in the hospital, while 949 were under isolation and observation for suspected cases or after testing positive despite showing no symptoms.

As China limps back to normalcy after COVID-19 outbreak, job prospects in the country seem to be truly bleak especially for the nine million students or so who are due to graduate in June.

North Korea says leader Kim Jong Un sent a personal message to Chinese President Xi Jinping praising what he described as China's success in getting its coronavirus epidemic under control. The report by North Korea's state media followed an assessment by South Korea's spy agency that the pandemic is hurting the North's economy.

The coronavirus outbreak exposed "shortcomings" in China's public healthcare system, a top health official admitted Saturday, saying that reforms are underway to improve the country's disease prevention and control mechanisms.

Five prominent labour activists have returned to their homes more than a year after they were arrested in coordinated raids in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, according to people close to them and a Hong Kong-based rights group.

Aarogya Setu, a government app developed for tracking Covid-19 patients, has become the most downloaded healthcare application and also featured among the top 10 downloaded apps in the world in April, Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said on Friday. Close to nine crore users had downloaded the Aarogya Setu mobile application till May 4.

The Vande Bharat Mission gained momentum, with two flights — one from Singapore and another from Riyadh — landing in Delhi and Kairapur airport in Kerala. The Operation Samudra Setu by the Indian Navy to evacuate Indians stranded abroad using naval ships kicked off from the Maldives on Friday. ​​The ship of the Eastern Naval Command is scheduled to reach Kochi by Sunday.

Many have argued that while India’s lockdown has been the harshest, its stimulus package is one of the smallest — so far. To fund bigger public spending programme, the govt can either ask the RBI to print more money or raise money through borrowing. Former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan has explained how the two paths work and why ‘monetisation’ is a good option.

Reliance Jio has come up with new top-up plans to support extra data usage at up to 75 per cent lower rates and also made annual recharge plans 33 per cent cheaper compared to rivals by enhancing data usage limit at 4G speed to 2 GB per day.

University students not in the final semester of graduation and postgraduation will be promoted automatically without having to appear for any exam, state higher and technical education minister Uday Samant announced on Friday.

The Pune Municipal Corporation is likely to seek help from the State Reserve Police Force to intensify the monitoring at the containment zones following the recent spurt in coronavirus infection cases in the city.

(This story originally appeared in PuneMirror on May 9, 2020)