Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday said India will soon announce fresh relief measures and economic stimulus to help the poor and industry fight the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Participating in the 101st meeting of the Development Committee Plenary of the World Bank through video conference, Sitharaman also assured the global community that India would continue to supply critical medicines to needy countries for the treatment of Covid-19 patients.

In a move that may help at least 41 companies, which were part of the ninth and tenth rounds of city gas distribution (CGD) bids, the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board (PNGRB) is likely to extend the deadline for completing the committed works by at least three months. This comes after several companies had approached the downstream regulator to invoke the force majeure clause.

A total of 136 geographical areas (GAs) were on offer in the ninth and tenth rounds of CGD bids.

The global coronavirus deaths on Saturday crossed the 1.5 lakh mark with the United States registering the highest death toll of over 37,000.

As of 8 AM Saturday (IST), 154,209 deaths have been recorded with 2,243,512 global cases of COVID-19, John Hopkins University's coronavirus tracker showed.

Chabahar port is the connecting link that has helped India send its humanitarian aid of 5,022 MT of the wheat consignment to help Afghanistan deal with the fall out of the COVID-19 crisis. The vessel that set sail from the Kandla port in Gujarat reached the Shahid Beheshti Port of Chabahar on 15th April 2020.

Dr. Behruz Aghaei, Chabhar Port General Director on the arrival of Indian aid said, "One of the unique advantages of Chabahar is its transit capabilities. Today, Chabahar is one of the most flourishing southern ports of Iran on the transit domain, which can play a vital role in regional trade connectivity."

The government on Friday added collection, harvesting of minor forest produce, non-timber forest produce by Scheduled Tribes and other forest dwellers in the list of exempted activities diring the coronavirus lockdown.

The Ministry of Home Affairs added several items to the list of exempted activities in the consolidated guidelines for lockdown which was issued on Wednesday.

A medical college in Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram has developed a diagnostic test kit that can confirm COVID-19 in 2 hours at a low cost, Union Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan announced on Friday.

Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology in Trivandrum is an Institute of National Importance of the Department of Science and Technology.

As the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis exacerbates in India, the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus climbed to 13,387 on Friday with the death toll reaching 437.

At 8:30 AM in the morning, the 13,387 total coronavirus-positive cases in India included 11,201 active cases, 1,749 cured, discharged, or migrated patients and 437 deaths. In the last 24 hours, 1,007 new cases and 23 deaths were reported.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday came with another round of measures to ease a slowdown caused by the COVID-19, which includes discouraging banks from parking their excess liquidity with the central bank and mandating the lenders to buy debt papers of small and medium sized non-banking financial companies (NBFC).

In a streamed address to the media on Friday morning, RBI governor Shaktikanta Das said the measures are taken to ensure financial stability.

As the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic outbreak spreads like wildfire across the globe, the entire world is laying in anxious wait for a cure or a vaccine to combat the virus which has brought normal life to a standstill as almost the entirety of human race have been forced to go into self-isolation and home-quarantine as major cities remain in strict lockdown, all in fear of the virus.

The growth rate in new Covid-19 cases has shown a decline during the period of the lockdown, which started in the last week of March. This first phase of the lockdown ended on April 14. It has since been extended to May 3.

The five-day moving average rate in the growth of confirmed cases was in excess of 20 per cent every day in the period leading up to the lockdown in March. It has since dropped to under 12 per cent shows data as of April 16.

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