China's Hong Kong affairs office on Wednesday condemned Hong Kong protesters as a "political virus" who seek independence, warning that the city will never be calm unless what it said were violent black-clad protesters were all removed.

China on Wednesday dared US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to show "enormous evidence" he claimed to have to prove Covid-19 originated from a lab in Wuhan. "Pompeo cannot present any evidence because he does not have any," Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying said. "This matter should be handled by scientists..instead of politicians," Hua said.

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.

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.

The country's largest lender, State Bank of India (SBI), is offering emergency loans to its customers amid coronavirus lockdown under its 'Emergency Loan Scheme'. SBI users can get up to Rs 5 lakh as loan within "45 minutes". The interest rate of the loan is at 10.5 per cent and EMIs will start after a period of six months.

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.

For Air India officials and passengers, a major cause of concern with the ongoing repatriation flights to and from different countries are the visa regulations and immigration policies of different lands. Late on Thursday night, Air India was informed by an official from an Indian ministry that US visa rules have changed to restrict passengers with student visa and Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card holders from entering the US.

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 govt on Friday said it will borrow about Rs 12 lakh crore from the market in fiscal year 2020-21, an increase of Rs 4.2 lakh crore, or 54% jump over the Budget estimate of Rs 7.8 lakh crore. This, the economists said will push the fiscal deficit from 3.5% for 2020-21 to 5.5%. The decision for higher borrowing has also been prompted by severe loss of govt revenues.

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.

The Pune labour commissioner’s office recently issued a notice to technology giant Wipro after receiving complaints of the alleged benching of 300 employees, and salary cuts of an undisclosed number of entry-level staffers, most of whom are BPO employees. The May 1 notice of labour office told the company to “refrain from laying off any employee or face legal action.

Three promoters of Ram Dev International, recently booked by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for allegedly cheating a consortium of six banks to the tune of Rs 411 crore, have already fled the country before the State Bank of India (SBI) reached the agency with the complaint, officials said on Saturday.

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.

Anecdotally, it is often said that engineers tend to lean rightwards in their politics. In their new book, Engineers of Jihad, sociologist Diego Gambetta and political scientist Steffen Hertog back up that gut sense with data. They find that Islamist radicalism and other far-right movements are dominated by engineers, doctors and those with tech backgrounds, while left-wing movements draw people from the humanities and social sciences. They tell TOI why this may be the case

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 Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is expecting a windfall from the Indian Premier League (IPL) media rights auction, which gets underway here on Monday with top companies from across the globe participating.

Days after Congress president Sonia Gandhi offered to pay for the travel of stranded migrant workers by trains to their homes, a Bihari NGO has offered to pay for the travel cost of 50 trains to carry Bihari migrants and students stranded in Mumbai.

Former NCP MP Ranjitsinh Mohite Patil and three others figure in the list of BJP candidates for the May 21 Maharashtra legislative council poll.

A fire brigade personnel in Pune city in Maharashtra has tested positive for novel coronavirus, a senior official said on Friday. The fireman went to a private hospital on Monday to get himself checked for some other ailment, and as part of procedure, his samples were sent for coronavirus testing and the report returned positive on Thursday, Pune fire brigade chief Prashant Ranpise said.

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

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.

Following allegations of alleged torture and illegal confinement of two dalit youths at Sandaur police station in Sangrur district, Punjab Police on Friday suspended two cops, including an assistant sub-inspector and a home guard, and transferred three other policemen.

Despite a slow start, the stubble burning cases were drastically increased in the last two days. This harvesting season is started with one fourth of the burning cases than the previous season, according to the data released by Punjab Remote Sensing Centre(PRSC) on Friday.

The police have booked four persons after a 62-year-old man died following the alleged assault.

Machhiwara police on Friday booked a woman and her alleged lover for abetment to suicide after her husband died in a road accident while going to commit suicide. The deceased was identified as Gurwinder Singh — a labourer in his thirties — from Indra Colony in Machhiwara.