Italy and Spain, the two European nations with the highest coronavirus death toll, saw a significant drop in the daily casualty numbers on Sunday, with officials hoping the trend to continue.

In Italy, daily coronavirus death toll plunge to its lowest in over two weeks. The 525 official COVID-19 fatalities were the lowest in the country since 427 deaths were registered on March 19.

The goods and services tax network (GSTN), the IT backbone of GST, has enabled more than 1,700 tax officers to work from their homes using a secure virtual private network (VPN) facility amid the lockdown.

This has provided officers a secured access to work on various GST applications such as processing of registration application, refund application, audit, assessment, appeal etc.

The Gautam Buddh Nagar police has extended for another nine days the restrictions imposed in the district under CrPC section 144, in view of the nationwide lockdown which will continue till April 14, officials said on Sunday.

All gatherings, including political, social and religious, protest rallies and sports events will remain banned across Noida and Greater Noida during the lockdown period, a senior officer said.

The Central government is scrambling to address distress calls of workers across the country, with the authorities intervening with employers to address concerns on layoffs or unpaid leave during the nationwide lockdown, which is aimed at minimising the spread of Covid-19.

The office of the chief labour commissioner, under the Union Labour and Employment Ministry, has written to SpiceJet Chairman and Managing Director Ajay Singh to comply with the instructions of the government and not deduct the salaries of workers in the lockdown period.

As Indians switched off lights for nine minutes at 9 pm on Sunday to show solidarity amid lockdown, power demand went down by close to 32 gigawatt (Gw). Official estimates indicated that power demand during the nine minutes was down to 85.3 Gw from 117 Gw earlier. Post the event, power demand restored to 110 Gw.

The power grid at national and at regional level did not face any glitch, as was being feared. The grid frequency remained normal at 49-50 gigahertz, indicating no major fluctuation in the grid.

Will a non-resident stuck in India for over 182 days because of the Covid-19 lockdown be liable to be taxed in India? Will cross-border workers stuck in India for a longer duration impact the tax residency or result in permanent establishment- (PE-) related tax concerns for his overseas employer?

These situations should be treated as ‘exceptional and temporary’ and should not trigger a change in residency or PE status, according to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in its guidance note.

Railways has begun preparing to resume all its services from April 15 after a 21-day suspension of its passenger trains in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak.

Sources said all railway safety personnel, running staff, guards, TTE and other officials have been told to be ready to join their posts from April 15. Trains, however, will begin operations only after a green signal from the government which had formed a Group of Ministers (GoM) on the issue.

Amazon.com Inc is postponing its major summer shopping event Prime Day until at least August and expects a potential $100-million hit from excess devices it may now have to sell at a discount, according to internal meeting notes seen by Reuters.

Amazon declined to comment. Prime Day, a marketing event Amazon started in 2015 to drum up sales during the summer shopping lull, has previously occurred in July, though the company never publishes the date far in advance.

The number of coronavirus cases worldwide has crossed 11 lakh with close to 59,000 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker.

The tracker recorded 1,100,283 cases worldwide and 58,929 deaths as of 12 pm on Saturday.

Out of the 11 lakh COVID-19 patients, 226,669 have recovered from the disease.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday morning asked people to turn off the lights for 9 minutes at 9 pm on this Sunday and burn a candle, flashlight or an earthen lamp. He gave a video message to the nation.

Following the message, rumours have been doing the rounds on social media that power grids may fail due to a sudden decrease in demand. Through this article, we will try to clear any doubts regarding that.

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