Amid an exodus of thousands of daily wage earners from Delhi-NCR to their far-flung homes, at towns and villages across North India, Nodia administration passed an order to give 28-day mandatory leave to any employees infected with coronavirus. Along with that the industries closed due to the lockdown will also have to pay their dail wagers along with leave during the 21-day nationwide lockdown due to coronavirus outbreak.

In the order passed late on Saturday night by the Gautam Buddh Nagar district administration, any worker or employee infected with the virus and quarantined either at hospital or at home will be given the paid leave by their employer across Noida and Greater Noida.

Following Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla's appeal, nearly three dozen MPs have allocated Rs 1 crore from their Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) fund to local authorities to tackle the coronavirus pandemic.

In a letter to all Lok Sabha members on Saturday, Birla said the country is passing through a tough phase due to coronavirus (Covid-19) and as public representatives it is our duty to stand with the people.

The coronavirus outbreak has led to a 900 per cent uptick in hate speech toward China and Chinese people on Twitter, according to a report by a tech startup.

People are spending more and more time on social networks, communication apps, chat rooms and gaming services, and the problems endemic to these platforms -- hate, abuse, toxicity and bullying -- have become accentuated, the Israel-based company L1ght said in its report.

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Friday said it has enrolled first patients from Norway and Spain in the Solidarity Trial, which will compare the safety and effectiveness of four different drugs or drug combinations against COVID-19.

More than 45 countries are contributing to the Solidarity Trial, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Director-General of the WHO, said at a presser in Geneva.

Hundreds of people, most of them migrant labourers and semi-skilled workers, were seen on Friday crossing the Delhi border on foot at Ghazipur in an effort to reach their homes in different districts of Uttar Pradesh in the wake of the coronavirus lockdown. Notably, this comes at a time of when social distancing is being repeatedly emphasised to contain the spread of the virus, but conditions have forced the working class to traverse the distance by foot, braving the risk of the disease, when they see no other option.

Amid nationwide lockdown over the coronavirus crisis, National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) 2020 for admission into medical colleges across the country has been postponed.

In view of the hardships faced by the parents and the students due to COVID-19 epidemic, the National Testing Agency has postponed the ensuing NEET (UG) May 2020 examination scheduled to be held on May 3, 2020, the Ministry of Human Resource Development said.

Indian IT giant Infosys on Friday said it has terminated the services of an employee for a social media post where he urged people to go out and sneeze and spread the novel coronavirus which has infected over 800 people in the country so far.

The man, identified as Mujeeb Mohammed, has been arrested by Bengaluru Police for the post.

Oil prices slumped anew on Friday with Brent North Sea crude plumbing a 17-year low owing to massive oversupply as the coronavirus crisis paralyses global demand.

Around 1435 GMT, Brent for May delivery was down 7.33 percent from Thursday, at USD 24.41 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate fell 5.97 percent to USD 21.25.

President of India Ram Nath Kovind along with Vice President of India M. Venkaiah Naidu on Friday through video-conferencing held a meeting with all the governors, lieutenant Governors and administrators of all states and Union Territories in an effort to tackle the COVID-19 outbreak.

In the conference, the President urged the governors, lieutenant governors and administrators of all states and Union Territories to mobilise volunteers of Indian Red Cross society, voluntary and religious organisations to contain the pandemic.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) chief Kristalina Georgieva on Friday said that the coronavirus pandemic has hit the global economy so hard that the world has entered into a recession. The economy will require massive funding to help the developing nations turn around from the downturn resulting from the pandemic, the IMF chief said.

It is clear that we have entered a recession that will be worse than in 2009 following the global financial crisis, she said in an online press briefing.

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