RBI issues revised Calendar for issuance of Marketable Dated Securities for the remaining period of H1 (11 May - 30 September 2020)

Transaction expected to close in Q3 2020

On 08 May 2020

US stock market ended sharply higher on Friday (8 May) despite grim monthly jobs report as investors bet the worst of the coronavirus crisis has passed. Investors also hoped for an eventual reopening of the economy.

Adani Enterprises on Friday (8 May) said it has incorporated a wholly-owned subsidiary company, "Nanasa Pidgaon Road" on 8 May 2020.

The US-based private equity investor will buy shares at Rs 86 each and the transaction is expected to close in the third quarter of 2020.

ICICI Bank on Saturday (9 May 2020) said its net profit rose 26.04% to Rs 1,221.36 crore on 12.09% rise in total income to Rs 23,443.66 crore in Q4 March 2020 over Q4 March 2019.

Nepal police on Friday arrested 45 Chinese nationals stranded in the country because of coronavirus restrictions after a protest turned violent, authorities said. Holding placards such as "I want to go home!" they attempted to push towards a prohibited zone near the prime minister's office in Kathmandu. Some police as well as demonstrators were injured after police used batons to stop them and the protesters threw stones. "They may face charges of protesting in the restricted zone and violating the lockdown under existing laws," police spokeswoman Kiran Bajracharya told AFP. Nepal suspended international flights on March 22 as part of precautionary measures against the spread of the coronavirus, and remain so until at least May 31. While several countries, including the US, the UK, Australia and France have chartered evacuation flights for their citizens in Nepal, no official flights have been made to rescue stranded Chinese nationals.

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Friday that although a market in the Chinese city of Wuhan selling live animals likely played a significant role in the emergence of the new coronavirus, it does not recommend that such markets be shut down globally. In a press briefing, WHO food safety and animal diseases expert Peter Ben Embarek said live animal markets are critical to providing food and livelihoods for millions of people globally and that authorities should focus on improving them rather than outlawing them -- even though they can sometimes spark epidemics in humans. "Food safety in these environments is rather difficult and therefore, it is not surprising that sometimes we also have these events happening within markets," Ben Embarek said. He said reducing the risk of disease transmission from animals to humans in these often overcrowded markets could be addressed in many cases by improving hygiene and food safety standards, including separating live animals from ...

Arguing that a one-time payment of USD 1,200 to most of the Americans during the coronavirus outbreak is not enough, three top Democratic senators introduced a legislation on Friday to provide a recurring USD-2,000 monthly check to those struggling to make ends meet during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Monthly Economic Crisis Support Act, introduced by former presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders, Indian-origin Senator Kamala Harris and Senator Ed Markey, proposes to provide a monthly USD-2,000 check to every individual with an income below USD 120,000 throughout and for three months following the coronavirus pandemic. According to the proposal, married couples who file jointly would receive USD 4,000; USD 2,000 per child up to three children and it would be implemented retroactively from March. The coronavirus pandemic has caused millions to struggle to pay the bills or feed their families, Harris said. The previous CARES Act, she argued, gave Americans an important one-time ...

US lawmakers have introduced a legislation in Congress to give unused green cards or permanent legal residency status to thousands of foreign nurses and doctors to meet the urgent needs of the overstretched healthcare sector in the country. The Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act would allow for recapturing green cards that were approved by Congress but unused in past years, allowing thousands of additional medical professionals to serve permanently in the United States. The legislation would send green cards to 25,000 nurses and 15,000 doctors during the COVID-19 pandemic and ensure that places like Iowa have the professionals they need to serve patients for years to come, a media release said. The move is likely to benefit a large number of Indian nurses and doctors, who are either on H-1B or J2 visas. In the House of Representatives, it has been introduced by lawmakers Abby Finkenauer, Brad Schneider, Tom Cole and Don Bacon. The bipartisan Senate companion bill is led by Senators ..

Three sisters who worked in Mexico's government hospital system were found murdered by strangling, authorities in the northern border state of Coahuila announced on Friday, stirring new alarm in a country where attacks on healthcare workers have occurred across the nation amid the coronavirus outbreak. Two of the sisters were nurses for the Mexican Social Security Institute and the third was a hospital administrator, but there was no immediate evidence the attack was related to their work. The state prosecutor told local media the motive might have been robbery. State police said the bodies were found in a house in the city of Torreon. The Social Security Institute said they were killed on Thursday. The National Union of Social Security Employees called the killings "outrageous and incomprehensible". In other parts of Mexico, nurses have had been hit, kicked off public transport or had cleaning fluids poured on them amid fears they might spread the coronavirus. Mexican health ...

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. President Donald Trump, who publicly identified the affected Pence aide, said he was "not worried" about the virus spreading in the White House. Nonetheless, officials said they were stepping up safety protocols for the complex. Pence spokeswoman Katie Miller, who tested positive on Friday, had been in recent contact with Pence but not with the president. She is married to Stephen Miller, a top Trump adviser. The White House had no immediate comment on whether Stephen Miller had been tested or if he was still working out of the White House. Katie Miller had tested negative on Thursday, a day before her positive result. "This is why the whole concept of tests are not necessarily great," Trump said. "The tests are perfect but something can happen between a test where it is ...

North Korea says leader Kim Jong Un sent a letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin to congratulate him on the 75th anniversary of the allied victory in World War II and wishing Russia success in fighting its coronavirus outbreak. The report by Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency on Saturday came a day after it reported Kim sent a personal message to Chinese President Xi Jinping to praise what he described as China's success in getting its COVID-19 epidemic under control. Some experts say the North could intensify its diplomatic outreach to neighbors, particularly China, as it seeks economic help after closing its border for months to fend off the virus. KCNA says Kim's message sincerely wished the president and people of Russia sure victory in their struggle to build a powerful Russia by carrying forward the tradition of the great victory in the war and to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus infection.

South Korea has reported 18 fresh cases of the new coronavirus in the past 24 hours, including 12 in the capital of Seoul, as health workers scramble to trace contacts after detecting a slew of transmissions linked to clubgoers. Figures released by South Korea's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Saturday brought national totals to 10,840 cases and 256 deaths. While the KCDC didn't immediately release specific details, most of the new cases were likely linked to the nightclubs in Seoul's Itaewon leisure district, which was brought to a sudden standstill Friday night following reports of the transmissions. Officials on Friday said they detected at least 15 infections linked to a 29-year-old man who visited three Itaewon clubs on Saturday before testing positive on Wednesday. The infections raised concern about a broader spread of the virus in the Seoul metropolitan area, where about half of South Korea's 51 million people live. South Korean Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun in a

Carolina Vasquez lost track of days and nights, unable to see the sunlight while stuck for two weeks in a windowless cruise ship cabin as a fever took hold of her body. On the worst night of her encounter with COVID-19, the Chilean woman, a line cook on the Greg Mortimer ship, summoned the strength to take a cold shower fearing the worst: losing consciousness while isolated from others. Vasquez, 36, and tens of thousands of other crew members have been trapped for weeks aboard dozens of cruise ships around the world long after governments and cruise lines negotiated their passengers' disembarkation. Some have gotten ill and died; others have survived but are no longer getting paid. Both national and local governments have stopped crews from disembarking in order to prevent new cases of COVID-19 in their territories. Some of the ships, including 20 in US waters, have seen infections and deaths among the crew. But most ships have had no confirmed cases. "I never thought this would turn

In Texas, where the Republican governor was praised by President Donald Trump for loosening restrictions, hair salons and barber shops were allowed to reopen Friday, following earlier restarts of restaurants and retailers. Republican Senator Ted Cruz flew up from Houston to get his hair cut at a Dallas salon that became a rallying cry for conservative protests against lockdown orders after the owner refused to shut down and was jailed. She was later ordered released. California, which imposed the first statewide stay-home order in the U.S., was taking more modest steps. Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom allowed clothing stores, sporting goods shops, florists and other retailers to start operating curbside pickup Friday, with many employees required to wear masks. Pennsylvania announced that 13 counties, including much of the Pittsburgh area, can loosen restrictions next week, following a similar move for a swath of rural northern Pennsylvania. South Carolina restaurants can reopen with

China has reported 15 new asymptomatic coronavirus cases, taking their total to 836 while one new imported COVID-19 infection was confirmed, health officials said on Saturday. According to China's National Health Commission (NHC), as for Friday 836 asymptomatic cases, including 63 from overseas, were still under medical observation. The NHC said one imported case of coronavirus was reported on Friday and 15 new asymptomatic cases, all domestic ones, were confirmed in the country. Most of the asymptomatic cases were being reported from first coronavirus epicentres Hubei province and its capital Wuhan where no confirmed cases were reported for the 35 days, the local health commission said. Normalcy is returning to the province as the lockdown has been lifted and offices, business and factories have been opened since last month. The province still has 628 asymptomatic cases under medical observation, after 13 new cases were reported on Friday, the commission said. Death toll in China ...

President Donald Trump, who's taken to calling the US the king of ventilators, is making plans to ship 8,000 of the breathing machines to foreign countries by the end of July to help in their fight against the coronavirus. That's a long way from the early days of the virus when US medical workers were wondering if a shortage of ventilators would force them to make painful decisions about which patients would get them. Now, the US has a surplus and the president is sharing them with other countries a goodwill gesture that also helps him offset criticism about his own early response to the pandemic. The White House did not respond to a request for specifics about how many ventilators have been sent so far, or the criteria for determining which countries will get them. But an administration official familiar with the effort provided the 8,000 figure as part of a list of actions aimed at supporting health systems abroad. The official was not authorized to discuss the projection publicly .

Amazon Prime Video has given a second season order for Greg Daniels' show "Upload". The season two renewal comes just a week after the show premiered on Amazon Prime Video, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The single-camera sitcom, featuring Robbie Amell and Andy Allo, takes place in the near future, where people who are near death can be "uploaded" into a virtual afterlife of their choice. "I am thrilled to continue a great relationship with Amazon Studios and this wonderful cast and find out what happens next to Nora and Nathan and Ingrid and their 2033 world. With this news I can stop drawing my season 2 flip book," Daniels said in a statement. "Upload" is executive produced by Daniels and his producing partner Howard Klein.

Ruchi Ghanashyam retired as the Indian High Commissioner to the UK early this month in an unusually discreet way given the constraints related to the coronavirus lockdown, bidding farewell to her team at the India House in London virtually over a conference call. However, there has been little impact on her workload as she continues to be flooded with queries and requests as the first repatriation flight for Indian nationals takes off from London for Mumbai on Saturday. The 60-year-old former diplomat, who is yet to fully pack her bags or say all her goodbyes, is confident that her tenure comes to a close at a time when India-UK relations are poised for real take-off. "India and the UK have strategic ties and a deep relationship which spans almost every area we can think of," said Ghanashyam in a farewell interview. "This depth was even more visible during this time of crisis, when we worked closely together to assist with the repatriation of each other's nationals, facilitated the ...

Vice President Mike Pence's press secretary has the coronavirus, the White House said, making her the second person who works at the White House complex known to test positive for the virus this week. President Donald Trump, who publicly identified the affected Pence aide, said he was not worried about the virus spreading in the White House. Nonetheless, officials said they were stepping up safety protocols for the complex. Pence spokeswoman Katie Miller, who tested positive Friday, had been in recent contact with Pence but not with the president. She is married to Stephen Miller, a top Trump adviser. The White House had no immediate comment on whether Stephen Miller had been tested or if he was still working in the White House. Katie Miller had tested negative Thursday, a day before her positive result. This is why the whole concept of tests aren't necessarily great, Trump said. The tests are perfect but something can happen between a test where it's good and then something ...

Several American lawmakers have introduced a legislation in Congress to offer the 40,000 unused green cards to thousands of foreign nurses and doctors to meet the urgent needs of the overstretched healthcare sector in the US, the worst hit nation by the coronavirus pandemic. The US has nearly 1,284,000 cases of confirmed COVID-19 cases and over 77,000 people have died due to the highly contagious disease. The Healthcare Workforce Resilience Act would allow for recapturing green cards that were approved by Congress but unused in past years, allowing thousands of additional medical professionals to serve permanently in the United States. The legislation would send green cards to 25,000 nurses and 15,000 doctors during the COVID-19 pandemic and ensure that states like Iowa have the professionals they need to serve patients for years to come, a media release said. The move is likely to benefit a large number of Indian nurses and doctors in the US, who are either on H-1B or J2 visas. The ..

The US women's national team has filed an appeal against a legal setback in their equal pay lawsuit, saying they are being paid less than the men even though they win twice as much. In dismissing their equal pay claim last Friday, Judge Gary Klausner said the case was unwarranted because they had previously turned down an offer in the Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations to be paid along the lines of the US men's team. "The argument that women gave up a right to equal pay by accepting the best collective bargaining agreement possible in response to the Federation's refusal to put equal pay on the table is not a legitimate reason for continuing to discriminate against them," said USWNT spokesperson Molly Levinson on Friday night. She listed a series of grievances in the motion to appeal which was filed in a federal district court in California and is part of a larger lawsuit for equal pay. Levinson said the women are being discriminated against because they are not getting as ..

The WHO and the UN's postal agency have released a commemorative postage stamp on the 40th anniversary of the eradication of smallpox, with the head of the global health body expressing gratitude to a top Indian-origin UN official. In May 1980, the 33rd World Health Assembly issued its official declaration that "the world and all its peoples have won freedom from smallpox." It was ended on the back of a 10-year WHO-spearheaded global effort that involved thousands of health workers around the world to administer half a billion vaccinations to stamp out smallpox. "When WHO's smallpox eradication campaign was launched in 1967, one of the ways countries raised awareness about smallpox was through postage stamps when social media like Twitter and Facebook was not even on the horizon," World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. "I especially want to thank my friend Mr Atul Khare, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Operational Support, for ...

Adult animated comedy series Santa Inc, featuring Seth Rogen and Sarah Silverman, has been picked up by upcoming streaming platform HBO Max. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the eight-episode series comes from writer, showrunner, and executive producer Alexandra Rushfield. It follows Candy Smalls (Silverman), the highest-ranking female elf in the North Pole. When the successor to Santa Claus (Rogen) is poached by Amazon on Christmas Eve, Candy goes for her ultimate dream -- to become the first woman Santa Claus in the history of Christmas, the plotline read. The project comes from Lionsgate and Rogen, Evan Goldberg and James Weaver's Point Grey Pictures. Rushfield, Silverman, Amy Zvi and Rosa Tran will serve as executive producers. I have long dreamed of a taking a beloved holiday tradition and adding a feminist agenda and some R rated comedy and when I read this script from Ali, with Seth and Sarah attached to voice, I knew that it was a perfect fit for us at Max, said Suzanna ...

Nepal has reported seven new coronavirus cases, taking the number of infections in the country to 109, the health ministry said on Saturday. Nepal is among the nations that has the least number of cases of the deadly coronavirus. The new cases involve three women and four men aged between 17 and 65 years. The women belonged to Udayapur district, while three men are from Kapilavastu district and one from Parsa district. With this, the total number of infections in the Himalayan nation has reached 109, it said. So far, 30 people have recovered from the disease, the ministry said. According to the Johns Hopkins University data, the virus has infected over 3.9 million people and claimed over 270,000 people worldwide.

Pakistan on Saturday began easing the month-long lockdown despite a steady rise in the number of the coronavirus cases which rose to 27,474 after health authorities reported a big jump of 1,637 infections and 24 deaths in a single day. Prime Minister Imran Khan on Thursday said that Pakistan would begin easing its nationwide lockdown in a phase-wise manner by allowing various businesses to open up from Saturday, citing the economic crisis due to the shutdown, which was enforced in the country in March end. The first phase of easing lockdown began as the government announced removing restrictions by allowing more business to open and operate from dawn to 5pm. The federal government was trying to provide maximum relief to the people but due to the current economic conditions of the country, the lockdown must be eased, the Express Tribune quoted Khan as saying. Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah and Adviser to Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa chief minister Ajmal Wazir said the provincial government .

Singapore on Saturday saw a drop in its daily tally of new coronavirus cases as the city-state reported 753 new COVID-19 cases, taking the country's total to 22,460, majority of them foreign nationals, including Indians, living in dormitories. On Friday, Singapore reported 768 new cases of coronavirus. The Health Ministry said the vast majority of the 753 new cases reported on Saturday are work permit holders (foreigners) residing in worker dormitories. Nine cases are Singapore citizens or permanent residents (foreigners). As of Friday, 19,232 of the 323,000 foreign workers living in dormitories, or nearly six per cent, have tested positive for COVID-19, reported The Straits Times. Singapore had placed 18,402 coronavirus patients in isolation while 1,245 are hospitalised by Friday, according to a data from the Health Ministry. The Ministry said 1,245 cases were still in hospital while 20 people have died of the disease. Singapore currently has the highest number of coronavirus cases ..

An Indian teenager here has recorded songs in over 20 languages, including Arabic, to spread awareness on the COVID-19, saying music has always been her choice for effective communication, according to a media report on Saturday. Suchetha Satish's songs advise the people to keep distance, maintain cleanliness and practice hand washing regularly, the Khaleej Times reported on Saturday. Satish, who hails from Kerala, released her first coronavirus awareness song on March 16 in English, titled 'Say No To Panic', the daily reported. Since then, 14-year-old Satish, who holds the world record for singing in most number of languages in a concert, has recorded the awareness songs in Malayalam, Bengali, Arabic, Kannada, Tulu, Konkani, Marathi, Gujrati, Rajasthani, Sindhi, Himachali, Odiya, Manipuri, Nepali, Urdu, Punjabi, Bhojpuri, Telugu, Kashmiri and Sanskrit. Her songs in Malayalam, Hindi, Bengali, Tamil and Assamese were used by the Kerala government in its 'Break the Chain' campaign, the .

Crouching over the sun-drenched soil, Alfred Abayev picks up a charred fragment of a Soviet warplane downed in a World War II battle with advancing Nazi forces. You can see it was burning, he says, pointing at the weathered trace of a red star. Abayev and members of his search team rummage the steppe for remains of the Red Army soldiers who fell in the autumn of 1942 in fierce fighting with Nazi troops pushing toward the Caspian Sea south of Stalingrad. Stiff resistance by the Red Army stopped the Wehrmacht onslaught in the steppes of Kalmykia, and months later the enemy's forces were encircled in Stalingrad and surrendered, a major defeat for the Nazis that marked a turning point in World War II. The search for remains of fallen Red Army soldiers near Khulkhuta, in Kalmykia, a southern province that lies between the Volga River and the Caspian Sea, is part of a broad effort by myriad volunteer groups across Russia to pay tribute to fallen World War II soldiers. Russia's losses stood .

A two-week course of an antiviral therapy, started within seven days of experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, may improve clinical recovery of patients and reduce their hospital stay duration, according to the first randomised trial of this triple drug combination. The study, published in the journal The Lancet, involved 127 adults from six public hospitals in Hong Kong, and tested the effectiveness of an antiviral drug combination in reducing the load of the novel coronavirus in their bodies. According to the researchers, including those from the University of Hong Kong, treatment involving combination of the drugs interferon beta-1b, plus the antiviral therapy lopinavir-ritonavir and ribavirin, is better at reducing the viral load than lopinavir-ritonavir alone. They stressed on the need for larger phase 3 trials to examine the effectiveness of this triple combination in critically ill patients, adding that these early findings were only observed in patients with mild to moderate ...

The number of people dying from the coronavirus in Ohio's nursing homes has continued to increase at an alarming pace. Close to 500 residents of long-term care centers have died of COVID-19 in the past three weeks, according to data released by the state this week. That's nearly double the total reported for the previous two weeks. The increase in deaths could be attributed to a significant jump or a backlog of cases being added over the past week, said Melanie Amato, a spokeswoman for the state health department. Since mid-April, more than 4,300 nursing home residents and staff members have tested positive for the virus. The numbers don't tell the entire story of how the virus has devastated nursing homes during the pandemic because the Ohio Department of Health has only released the totals for just the past three weeks. Before that, the state didn't require local health departments to report nursing home deaths linked to the virus.

Seoul has shut down more than 2,100 nightclubs, hostess bars, and discos after dozens of infections were linked to clubgoers who went out last weekend as the country relaxed social distancing guidelines. The measures imposed by Mayor Park Won-soon on Saturday came after the national government urged entertainment venues around the nation to close or otherwise enforce anti-virus measures, including distancing, temperature checks, keeping customer lists and requiring employees to wear masks. Park said that the entry bans on the facilities will be maintained until the city concludes the infections risks as meaningfully lowered. South Korea's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention earlier said 18 fresh cases were reported in the 24 hours to midnight Friday, all but one of them linked to a 29-year-old man who visited three clubs in Seoul's Itaewon district last Saturday before testing positive on Tuesday. But Park said 16 more cases were confirmed in Seoul alone in the following hours .

Watford chairman Scott Duxbury says at least six of the 20 English Premier League clubs are concerned about the plan to use neutral stadiums to finish the season. Duxbury says there is no altruism in the Premier League and that there are 20 different vested interests, which sometimes align but more often than not work purely to protect each individual club. Ahead of Monday's crunch meeting of topflight clubs, the Hornets have joined Brighton and Aston Villa in making clear their opposition to the current Project Restart plans. With nine rounds left, Watford is 17th in the league and looking to fight off relegation amid a challenging backdrop brought on by the coronavirus outbreak. Duxbury says some clubs are happy to sign up to 'Project Restart' because arguably there is only an upside in participating in this compromised format. It means Liverpool can win the title, other clubs can book their place in Europe next season or potentially fight their way up the table from a position of ..

Iran warned Saturday that coronavirus infections were rising in the southwest despite falls in other regions, as it announced more than 1,500 new confirmed cases. "All provinces are showing a gradual drop in new infections... except for Khuzestan, where the situation is still concerning," health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said in televised remarks. The health ministry stopped publishing provincial figures for the coronavirus last month. It has instead opted for a colour-coded system of white for low-risk parts of the country, yellow for medium-risk and red for high-risk areas. Latest reports have shown Khuzestan red along with a few other provinces, including the capital Tehran and the Shiite clerical centre of Qom, where Iran reported its first cases in February. Early last week, Iran's official daily caseload hit its lowest level since March 10, but it has since climbed again steadily. Jahanpour said 1,529 new cases were confirmed in the past 24 hours, taking the ...

Many people saw more than the last moments of Ahmaud Arbery's life when a video emerged this week of white men armed with guns confronting the black man, a struggle with punches thrown, three shots fired and Arbery collapsing dead. The February 23 shooting in coastal Georgia is drawing comparisons to a much darker period of US history when extrajudicial killings of black people, almost exclusively at the hands of white male vigilantes, inflicted racial terror on African Americans. It frequently happened with law enforcement complicity or feigned ignorance. The footage of Arbery's death was not the only thing that rattled the nation's conscience. It took more than two months for his pursuers who told police they suspected he was a burglar to be arrested and taken into custody. That is fuelling calls for the resignation of local authorities who initially investigated the case and reforms of Georgia's criminal justice system. The modern-day lynching of Mr. Arbery is yet another ...

Nepal on Saturday raised objection over India inaugurating a strategically crucial link road connecting the Lipulekh pass at a height of 17,000 feet along the border with China in Uttarakhand with Dharchula, saying this "unilateral act" runs against the understanding reached between the two countries on resolving the border issues. Nepal's Foreign Affairs Ministry in a statement said the government "has learnt with regret" about the inauguration of the link road connecting to Lipulekh pass, which Nepal claims to be part of its territory. The 80-Km new road inaugurated by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday is expected to help pilgrims visiting Kailash-Mansarovar in Tibet in China as it is around 90 kms from the Lipulekh pass. After inaugurating the road through video-conferencing, Singh said pilgrims going to Kailash-Mansarovar will now be able to complete their journey in one week instead of up to three weeks. The road originates at Ghatiabagarh and ends at Lipulekh pass, the ...

A church in Pakistan's Punjab province was allegedly vandalised by a group of armed men over a land dispute on Saturday, police said. The incident came at a time when the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) in its latest report has pointed out that religious minorities in Pakistan, including the Hindu and Christian communities, continued to suffer in 2019, facing forced conversions and persecution under blasphemy laws. The minorities remained unable to enjoy the freedom of religion or belief guaranteed to them under the country's Constitution, the HRCP had said in its annual report -- State of Human Rights 2019 -- released recently in Islamabad. Local Christian leader Aslam Parvez Sahotra told PTI that a group of armed men led by a person named Malik Aun Abbas demolished the gate and boundary wall of the church in Kalashah Kaku, some 40 km from Lahore, over a land dispute. Following the incident, community leaders lodged a police complaint. Ferozwala Station House Office (SHO) .

Serbia has protested to the European Union after one of its publications described inventor and electricity pioneer Nikola Tesla as a Croat. Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic said on Saturday he has sent the protest note to Brussels after the EU's Learning Corner site for children described Tesla as a famous Croatian who was one of the first people to discover X-ray imaging. An ethnic Serb born in 1856 in the Austrian Empire in present-day Croatia, Tesla spent most of his life abroad, working in Budapest and Paris before emigrating to the US in 1884 where he assumed American citizenship. He died in New York in 1943. History books quote him as saying that he was proud of his Serb origin and his Croat homeland. Tesla's ethnicity has long been just one of many disputes and points of contention between neighbouring Balkan rivals Serbia and Croatia, which once were both part of the Yugoslav federation that broke up in a civil war in the 1990s. Croatia is an EU member, while Serbia is seeking ...

South Korea's capital has shut down more than 2,100 nightclubs, hostess bars and discos after dozens of coronavirus infections were linked to club goers who went out last weekend as the country relaxed social distancing guidelines. The measures imposed Saturday by Seoul Mayor Park Won-soon came after the national government urged entertainment venues around the nation to close or otherwise enforce anti-virus measures, including distancing, temperature checks, keeping customer lists and requiring employees to wear masks. Park said the entry bans on the facilities will be maintained until the city concludes that risks of infection have been meaningfully lowered. South Korea's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or KCDC, said earlier in the day that 18 new cases were reported in the 24 hours to midnight Friday, all but one of them linked to a 29-year-old man who visited three clubs in Seoul's Itaewon district last Saturday before testing positive days later. But Park said 16 more

The Maldives, an Indian Ocean archipelago nation with one of the world's most congested capitals, has seen a rapid rise in coronavirus cases over the past few weeks. Health officials predict that more than 77,000 people or a fourth of those currently living in the country could become infected, with more than 5,000 possibly needing intensive care treatment. Official figures updated Saturday showed 766 cases, including 743 that are still active. A vast majority of the patients are residents of Male, the capital. Three people have died so far. The Maldives, known for its luxury tourist resorts, reported its first case of COVID-19 in March, and until mid-April appeared to have contained the virus within the isolated resort islands that had been converted into quarantine centers. Male is highly congested, housing more than 150,000 people in a 5.8-square-kilometer (2.3-square-mile) area. The government had taken precautions to stop the virus from entering the capital by suspending ...

A case has been registered against office-bearers of Bandra Gymkhana in the city for violation of lockdown after a video purportedly showed members celebrating its completion of 85 years despite the lockdown restrictions. A lawyer filed a complaint saying that a video on social media showed Gymkhana members singing and dancing during the celebration of completion of 85 years of the club, a police officer said. A case under IPC sections 188 (defying public servant's order) and 269 (act which may spread infection) was registered against office-bearers and some members, he said, adding that probe was on.

Indian Navy Ship Jalashwa has set sail from Male to Kochi in Kerala with 698 Indians nationals who were stranded in Maldives amid the coronavirus-triggered lockdown, senior Navy officials said. This repatriation is part of the Vande Bharat Mission that began on Thursday to bring stranded Indians home from various countries like the UK, the UAE, the US, Maldives, Bahrain and Singapore. "Total 595 males and 103 females have boarded INS Jalashwa. 19 women are pregnant. The ship has departed from Male," the Navy officials added. When the ship arrived at the port of Male, the Defence Attache visited it to discuss and coordinate procedures for embarkation, they said. "Baggage disinfection stations, medical screening and reception desks at the jetty were set up to ensure safe embarkation while following social distancing norms," the officials said. Priority was accorded to pregnant women and children to embark the ship first and bunk allocation was also undertaken by the ship's crew catering

The Assam government has decided to increase the excise duty on Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) by 25 per cent, state Industry Minister Chandra Mohan Patowary said after a Cabinet meeting on Friday. This will generate an additional income of Rs 1,000 crore for the state to meet the unexpected financial burden and expenditure arising out of the COVID-19 crisis, he said. Many states, such as Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and Delhi have already hiked liquor prices to give boost to their fledging revenue income. The Cabinet also decided that the tea industry will start operation in full strength maintaining social distancing norms as against the 50 per cent work force deployed since April 13. At meeting the Cabinet also decided to give nod to the Assam Agricultural Produce and Livestock Marketing (Promotion and Facilitation) Ordinance, 2020, and repeal the Assam Agricultural Produce Marketing Act 1972. It further decided that the government will release fund for salary of Assam ...

Jharkhand on Friday reported its highest single-day spike in COVID-19 cases with 21 people testing positive, taking the total number of infections to 153 in the state, officials said. Of the total 455 swab samples tested during the day, 21 tested positive for COVID-19, said the Director of the Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS), Dr D K Singh. He said 25 more people recovered from the infection, bringing the total number of cured people in the state to 77. The officials did not provide any details of the 21 people who tested positive for COVID-19 in the state on Friday. Since the outbreak of the pandemic on March 31 in the state, two persons have died of the infection while one COVID-19 patient died due to underlying health condition after testing negative.

With Gujarat reporting a large number of COVID-19 cases and fatalities, medical experts from AIIMS, including its Director Dr Randeep Guleria, have rushed to Ahmedabad to provide expert guidance to doctors there on COVID-19 management. Following directions from the Centre, Dr Guleria, who is a pulmonologist, and Dr Manish Soneja from the AIIMS department of medicine left for Ahmedabad on special Indian Air Force flight on Friday evening, official sources said. With 390 more people testing positive for COVID-19 and 24 fatalities, the total number of cases in Gujarat climbed to 7,403 and the death toll reached 449 on Friday. Of the total coronavirus cases in the state, 5,260 have been reported from Ahmedabad district alone. "They will visit the Ahmedabad Civil Hospital and SVP hospital on Saturday to provide expert guidance and advice to the doctors on treatment for coronavirus-infected patients there," a source said.

Thirty people, including 25 from BSF's 86th battalion, tested positive for COVID-19 in Tripura on Friday, taking the total number of cases to 118, Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb said. Of the 118 cases, 116 are active while two persons have been discharged from hospital after recovery from the infection. The fresh COVID cases were found among the Border Security Force (BSF) personnel of the 86 battalion and 138 battalion in Ambassa of Dhalai district, both of which were earlier declared as containment zones. A truck driver was also found to be among the new cases. Deb earlier spoke to the reporters at the civil secretariat here and said, "Even as large number of BSF personnel was infected by the deadly virus, there is no transmission among civilians. "I hope all COVID-19 patients in the state would recover," the chief minister said.

Right to peaceful protest and open criticism of government policies does not extend to disturbing public order, a Delhi court said on Friday, dismissing the bail plea of Shahrukh Pathan, who allegedly pointed a gun at a head constable during the northeast Delhi riots. Taking note of the viral video footage of the incident, Additional Sessions Judge Sanjeev Kumar Malhotra refused to grant relief to Pathan. "The right to protest is a fundamental right in a democracy but this right of peaceful protest and open criticism of government policies does not extend to disturbing the public order... Keeping in view the totality of facts and circumstances of the case at this stage, I am not inclined to grant bail to the accused. Bail application accordingly stands dismissed," the judge said in the order. During the hearing held through video conferencing, Special Public Prosecutor, appearing for the police, opposed the bail application saying Pathan was leading the mob and the whole country saw ..

Anyone home-quarantined for suspected coronavirus infection but found breaching the seclusion rules will invite home confinement for all his family members, the Kangra police warned on Friday. Kangras Senior Superintendent of Police Vimukt Ranjan said the new provisions have been made on Friday. As per the fresh orders issued today, any person who has come to the district from other districts of Himachal Predesh or other states of India and placed on home quarantine for 28 days from the date of his entry in district Kangra will be shall be dealt more strictly for its violations, said Ranjan He added that if a home-quarantined person with his other family members not confined along with him is found violating the seclusion rules, in any form, then his entire family members would be put in home0confinement along with him, he said. In Himachal around 90,000 persons returned home from other states on passes issued by state government in the past one week and another 20,000 plus are ...