Sri Lankan President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Friday declared island-wide curfew in the country till March 23 morning as a part of preventive measure to contain the coronavirus spread.

The island nation has reported 53 cases so far.

Island-wide curfew declared from 6 pm today (20) till 6 am Monday (23), Rajapaksa tweeted.

Amid the political turmoil in Madhya Pradesh, chief minister Kamal Nath announced his resignation on Friday, just hours before the floor test ordered by the Supreme Court. Nath blamed BJP for triggering a political crisis and betraying people in the state.

I will meet the governor and tender my resignation, he said while addressing a press conference.

Shares of Ashok Leyland were under pressure for the second straight day on Friday, plunging 15 per cent to hit an over five-year low of Rs 41.10, on the BSE, after the company announced acquisition of around 19 per cent stake in its subsidiary Hinduja Leyland Finance (HLFL). The stock has tanked 36 per cent in the past two trading days, and was quoting at its lowest level since September 2014.

State-owned Bank of Baroda (BoB) surpassed IndusInd Bank in market capitalisation (market-cap) ranking, after the sharp correction in the private sector lender's stock price.
At 10:34 am, BoB was up 2 per cent at Rs 62.90 with market-cap of Rs 29,063 crore, becoming the eighth largest bank by market cap. In comparison, IndusInd Bank, down 5.7 per cent to Rs 419, had market-cap of Rs 29,024 crore, BSE data shows.

As crisis looms for Congress in the Madhya Pradesh, Assembly Speaker NP Prajapati onn Friday accepted the resignations of 16 rebel MLAs who are presently lodged in a Bengaluru resort and sent their resignations on March 10.

Confirming the development, Prajapati said, The resignations of all the MLAs who are in Bengaluru and are not willing to come back, and who had submitted their resignation on March 10, have been accepted.

Italy on Thursday surpassed China in terms of most number of deaths due to novel coronavirus after recording 427 deaths in the last 24 hours.

The death toll in Italy rose to 3,405, against China's 3,245 even though the number of infections recorded in the European nation is half than that of the world's most populated country.

The Supreme Court directed the Speaker of Madhya Pradesh’s legislative Assembly that a vote test of the government’s majority be done on Friday and the proceedings be complete before 5 pm.

The test, which will be the only agenda item before the Assembly, is to be by raising of hands, said a Bench of judges D Y Chandrachud and Hemant Gupta. The proceeding are to also be recorded on video.

The Kerala government has announced a Rs 20,000-crore financial package for the state to tide over the present crisis being faced by the southern state in the wake of the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. This includes Rs 14,000 crore to clear all arrears pending in various sectors and a Rs 500-crore health package.

On Thursday, the state has reported one more positive case, taking the total confirmed COVID-19 cases to 28, of which 25 patients are under treatment, said state Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

The four death-row convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape case were hanged in Delhi’s Tihar jail at 5:30 am on Friday. This was after the Supreme Court, in a pre-dawn hearing, brought the curtains down on the gangrape and murder case by dismissing a plea by one of the four against rejection of his second mercy plea by President Ram Nath Kovind.

In an indication of public outrage over the case that had shaken the conscience of an entire nation, several posters were seen outside the Tihar premises in the wee hours on Friday ahead of the hanging with placards and posters reading thanks to judiciary and the morning of justice.

The Indian rupee touched almost 75 a dollar, a record low, in morning trade as equities witnessed a rout on Coronavirus fear.

At 10 40 a.m., the partially convertible currency was trading at 74.95 a dollar, from its previous close of 74.26 a dollar. The RBI let the rupee to depreciate, but intervened once it reached the 75 mark to bring it down below the level, currency dealers say.

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