Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate and dedicate to the nation several key projects of the Railways in Gujarat on Friday via video conferencing.

He will also inaugurate the Aquatics and Robotics Gallery, and Nature Park in Gujarat Science City during the event.

The capital of the United Arab Emirates has announced a sudden overnight lockdown over the coronavirus pandemic, even as the rest of the country remains open for tourism.

The state-run WAM news agency announced late Thursday the lockdown would begin Monday and last each day from 12 a.m. to 5 a.m. It comes just ahead of the long Eid al-Adha holidays in the UAE, which begins Monday as well.

YSRCP parliamentary party leader V Vijayasai Reddy on Thursday informed that his party will raise the issues of privatisation of the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP) and special category status for Andhra Pradesh during the monsoon session of the Parliament beginning July 19.

Addressing a press conference on Wednesday after a meeting of the YSRCP parliamentary party at the camp office of party president and Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy, Vijayasai Reddy said: YSRCP Chief Jagan Reddy guided us on various issues to be mentioned in the house... We have been opposing the central government's decision of privatising the Visakhapatnam Steel Plant.

International Finance Corporation, member of the World Bank Group, is investing USD 16.5 million (around Rs 123 crore) in genetic diagnostics and research company MedGenome to increase access to COVID-19 testing in India.

The partnership, apart from increasing the access to COVID-19 testing, will also support research to better help understand the virus, its variants and manage future outbreaks, IFC and MedGenome said in a statement on Thursday.

Uttar Pradesh's handling of the second wave of Covid-19 cases was unparalleled, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday during a visit to his constituency of Varanasi.

Kashi (Varanasi) has shown that it doesn’t stop in troubled times. Coronavirus attacked Kasi and Uttar Pradesh (UP) but the state fought back, he said a day after the Supreme Court sent a notice to the state government for allowing the Kanwar Yatra from next week despite the Covid-19 threat.

India recorded 41,806 new coronavirus cases, taking the infection tally to 3,09,87,880, while the active cases increased to 4,32,041, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Thursday.

An increase of 2,095 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.

The COVID-19 curve in the US is rising again after months of decline, with the number of new cases per day doubling over the past three weeks, driven by the fast-spreading delta variant, lagging vaccination rates and Fourth of July gatherings.

Confirmed infections climbed to an average of about 23,600 a day on Monday, up from 11,300 on June 23, according to Johns Hopkins University data.

Shares of information technology (IT) companies continued their northward movement for the second day in a row, with Nifty IT index hitting a new high on Thursday, after Mindtree and L&T Technology Services (LTTS) reported strong earnings for the quarter ended June 2021 (Q1FY22). Their large-cap counterpart Infosys, too, has raised its revenue growth guidance for financial year 2021-22 (FY22) which buoyed the overall sentiment.

Nifty IT index hit a new high of 29,745 in the intra-day trade today, having rallied nearly 5 per cent in the past two trading days.

Shares of KNR Constructions (KNRCL) rose 5 per cent to Rs 254.35 on the BSE in intra-day trade on Thursday after CRISIL Ratings revised its outlook on the long-term bank facilities of the company to 'Positive' from 'Stable' and reaffirmed the rating at 'CRISIL AA-'. The stock of the construction and engineering company had hit a 52-week high of Rs 260 on June 30, 2021.

The revision in outlook factors in expected improvement in scale of operations in KNRCL’s business risk profile with the sustenance of revenue growth of over 15 per cent annually in the medium term while maintaining its healthy financial risk profile, CRISIL said in a rating rationale.

Shares of private lender RBL Bank declined 3.1 per cent to Rs 212 a piece on the BSE on Thursday after banking regulator Reserve bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday barred global card player Mastercard Asia/Pacific Pte Ltd from onboarding new domestic customers on its network from July 22 over non-compliance with local data storage guidelines.

RBL Bank currently issues credit cards only on Mastercard payment network and has approximately 3 million credit card customers.

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