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.

Taiwan will fail in its bid to take part in a key meeting of the World Health Organization (WHO) as its efforts are not based on concern for the health of Taiwan's people but are "political manipulation", China said on Friday.

Franklin Templeton Mutual Fund on Friday issued an unconditional apology to market regulator Sebi (Securities and Exchange Board of India) for remarks made by its president and CEO Jennifer M Johnson that new regulatory guidelines led to shutting down of its six debt funds last month.

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 deal will make Vista the largest shareholder of Jio after Facebook (9.99%) and parent RIL (86.54%). With this, RIL has raised a total of Rs 60,596 crore ($7.9 billion), boosting its efforts to pare debt.

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.

ICICI Bank on Saturday reported a 26 per cent rise in standalone net profit at Rs 1,221 crore for the quarter ended March 2020. The bank had posted a net profit of Rs 969 crore in the corresponding January-March period of 2018-19.

Women-only comedy shows create a safe space for female comedians and audiences to laugh out loud. Like Leddis Night, a number of comedy shows by and for women are encouraging young female comics to get on stage and more women to go out and laugh freely.

The Bombay high court on Friday directed the Maharashtra government to take an appropriate decision on sharing the transport costs of migrant workers returning homes.

Bombay high court on Friday sought a reply from the state on a public interest litigation by a Pune woman on permission to take pet dogs for their daily walks, while observing that walking them within housing society compounds for now, as permitted, was adequate for the moment.

The state government would be short of Rs1.4 lakh crore, or 40 % of the projected revenue for the 2020-21 fiscal, if any financial package were announced for the migrant workers’ assistance, sources in the finance department said on Friday.

A fire broke out in a pharmaceutical packaging factory in the Satpur industrial area on Thursday night. While there were no casualties, goods and articles, collectively amounting to over Rs 35 lakh, was gutted in the fire.

The Pune Cantonment Board (PCB) has announced a two-day complete lockdown of the entire cantonment area, starting Saturday.

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.

Migrant workers will no more be required to submit medical certificate while applying for police pass to travel to their home states, said city police commissioner Vishwas Nangare Patil on Friday.

A 51-year-old police constable who had tested positive for coronavirus died in Maharashtra's Nashik district on Saturday afternoon, an official said. This is the sixth death of a police personnel due to Covid-19 in the state, he said.

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

The rapidly increasing tally of novel coronavirus cases in the state has alerted jail authorities who are fretful of the fallouts of Covid-19 outbreak within the prison walls and are taking preventive steps besides social distancing to ensure all staff and inmates stay healthy.

Directing officials to ensure that nobody walks back home, chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Thursday said that the government was making all efforts in deploying buses and trains to bring back stranded migrant workers.