With seven countries in the South-East Asia Region confirming cases of new COVID-19 variant Omicron, the World Health Organization on Saturday stressed on urgent scale-up of public health and social measures to curtail its further spread.

Countries can and must prevent the spread of Omicron with proven health and social measures, Regional Director, WHO South-East Asia Region, Poonam Khetrapal Singh said.

The shares of RateGain Travel Technologies made a weak debut on the bourses on Friday. The stock listed at Rs 360, a 15 per cent discount to its issue price. It ended the session at Rs 337.55, a 20.5 per cent discount to its issue price.

After listing, the company commands a market capitalisation of Rs 3,603 crore.

India logged 7,145 new coronavirus infections taking the total tally of COVID-19 cases to 3,47,33,194, while the active cases declined to 84,565, according to the Union health ministry data updated on Saturday.

The death toll climbed to 4,77,158 with 289 more fatalities, according to the data updated at 8 am.

The price of 10 gram of gold increased by Rs 370 on Saturday, with 24 carat gold trading at Rs 48,720 and 22 carat at Rs 47,720.

The price of 1 kg of silver increased by Rs 900 from yesterday to Rs 62,300 this morning.

The UK reported 93,045 cases of coronavirus on Friday, another record high for daily infections for the third consecutive day, as Omicron overtook Delta to become the dominant variant in London and Scotland.

Of the daily figure, 3,201 new cases were of Omicron compared to Thursday's 1,691 to take the UK's total for the new surging variant to 14,909.

South Korean auto major Hyundai Motor Company on Friday announced a top level change in its Indian operations with Unsoo Kim slated to take over as Managing Director from January 1, 2022.

Unsoo Kim, currently with the parent company in South Korea, will replace Seon Seob Kim (SS Kim) who will lead a global role at Hyundai Motor Company headquarters in Seoul after his successful stint of three years in India, Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL) said in a statement.

India logged 7,447 new coronavirus infections taking the total tally of COVID-19 cases to 3,47,26,049, while the active cases declined to 86,415, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Friday.

The death toll climbed to 4,76,869 with 391 fresh fatalities, according to the data updated at 8 am.

A one-and-a-half-year-old girl, who had fallen into a borewell in Doni village of Madhya Pradesh's Chhatarpur district, was rescued in the wee hours of Friday, in an operation that lasted nearly 10 hours, a senior official said.

The girl, Divyanshi, had slipped into the borewell around 3 pm on Thursday and was rescued at 12.47 am on Friday, the official said.

Shares of Kopran were locked at the 5 per cent upper circuit for a second straight day, at Rs 318.95 on the BSE in Friday’s trade, in an otherwise weak market.

The stock of the pharmaceutical company was trading at its highest level since 1994. It had hit a record high of Rs 559 on December 5, 1994, data shows. In the past 21 months, the market price of Kopran has zoomed 1,874 per cent from a level of Rs 20.50 hit on March 17, 2020.

Shares of Bajaj Electricals hit a two-month high of Rs 1,329.75, ralling 6 per cent on the BSE in Friday's intra-day trade, in an otherwise weak market. The stock of the household appliances companies has surged 26 per cent in the past six trading days, after the company said it will review its existing corporate structure due to the nature and potential opportunities of each of its business segments.

The stock was quoting at its highest level since October 4, 2021. It had hit a 52-week high of Rs 1,588.55 on September 17, 2021. At 01:34 pm, Bajaj Electricals was trading 4 per cent higher at Rs 1,307, as compared to a per cent decline in the S&P BSE Sensex.

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