Amid the lockdown, around 39 crore poor people have received financial assistance of Rs 34,800 crore under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package (PMGKP).

"I will be able to report on that at the end of next week," he told reporters at the White House, when asked if China is fulfilling its obligations as detailed out in Phase I of the trade deal signed between the two countries in January.

The government’s surprise move to increase excise duty and cess on petrol and diesel may not help the exchequer in raising tax revenues by much.

The record excise duty hike on petrol and diesel will not help the government bridge the fiscal gap as planned, nor will it help boost economic growth as consumption demand will further be crippled, warns a report. Despite crude prices trading at a two decades low, the government had earlier this week hiked excise duty […]

Fourteen people were rescued from under the debris of a house that collapsed in Mumbai's Kandivali this morning.

A fire broke out in a cardboard factory in outer Delhi's Bawana today morning, Delhi Fire Service officials said.

Belarus defies coronavirus concerns with VE Day parade, mayor of Milan issues warning, while football returns ... in the Faroe Islands

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As coronavirus infections approached 4 million worldwide, and Russia became a new hotspot for the outbreak, Belarus defied worries to hold a parade marking the 75th anniversary of victory over the Nazis, with thousands of people in attendance including elderly veterans.

South Korea, which is trying to relax physical distancing regulations, on Saturday shut down more than 2,100 clubs and bars in the capital after a new cluster of cases emerged, apparently linked to a single individual who had gone out while infected.

The Chinese president Xi Jinping has offered the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, support in tackling the coronavirus, state media said on Saturday.

As debates rage in other countries about the return of professional football, games will be played in the Faroe Islands on Saturday for the first time since the coronavirus outbreak.

Indonesia has reported its biggest daily increase in infections, with 533 new confirmed cases, taking the total to 13,645.

A French MP has failed in her bid to to get “love” added to the list of “compelling reasons” that must be given for anyone to travel more than 100km (62 miles) in the country.

Egypt’s president, Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi, approved amendments to the country’s state of emergency that granted him and security agencies additional powers, saying they were needed to combat the coronavirus outbreak.

Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, said on Friday that he aimed to present plans next week to reopen the economy, as key sectors like car-making look to begin business again after over a month of quarantine measures.

Argentina will extend a quarantine covering its capital Buenos Aires but relax restrictions in the rest of the country.

The renewable energy market is fast-paced and growing with each passing day. It’s hard to keep up with every industry announcement and insight, so we decided to highlight interesting developments that took place during the past few weeks, and some valuable insights that are worth revisiting.

Last year the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed its aggressive Clean Power Plan (CPP), which calls to reduce carbon emissions 30 percent by 2030 over 2005 levels. States are required to submit reduction plans that can include increasing renewables, efficiency, and cap and trade programs by June 2016.

Investors have spent more than $2 trillion on clean-energy plants in the past decade and last year added more renewable capacity than ever before.

The World Bank indicated in its new report "Building Competitive Green Industries: The Climate and Clean Technology Opportunity for Developing Countries" that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries are set to undergo significant growth and create more jobs in the field of clean technology. Anabel Gonzalez, senior director for the World Bank's Global Practice on Trade and Competitiveness, said developing home-grown clean-tech industries will help developing countries more effectively increase the adoption of low-cost clean energy and drive sustainable economic development.

According to the most recent issue of the "Monthly Energy Review" by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), with data through June 30, 2013, renewable energy sources (i.e., biofuels, biomass, hydropower, geothermal, solar, and wind) provided 9.81 percent of U.S. energy consumption and 11.82 percent of domestic energy production for the first half of 2013.

Coal contributes 60 percent to India's power mix today; solar is less than 1 percent. But what was a factor-of-seven difference between the cost of coal and solar two years ago shrank this summer to just a 1.8x gap. Can solar catch up within the next ten years?

Brazil's latest A-3 auction, matching up developers and power purchasers to prepare renewable energy projects to meet the nation's electricity demand by 2016, was a landslide win for wind energy -- but a shutout for solar, which was included in the process for the first time.

India's solar market is on track to be roughly the same in 2013 as it was in 2012, which is surprising given the ~20 percent overall growth projected for global solar demand. But optimism and expectations continue to emerge for India's solar potential.

The U.S. market for wind energy is something of a contradiction: it's one of the world's larger markets and fastest growing with its own supply chain, yet it's still heavily reliant upon a production tax credit, which was renewed at the last minute last December (yet late with enough uncertainty to chill many projects in the pipeline), and this time its renewal is even less certain.

After being shut out of previous renewable energy auctions, and delaying its own auction by two weeks, the state government of Pernambuco held the nation's first solar energy auction on December 27, registering 122.82 MW of energy, six times the country's current entire solar energy output (20 MW). The auction involved 34 bidders proposing roughly 1 GW of capacity; at the end it was narrowed to six companies from Brazil, Italy, Germany, China and Spain. Average price of power finished trading at 228.63 Brazilian reais/MWh (just under U.S. $97), about 9 percent lower than the starting price of R 250.

General Electric Co. is in talks to buy Alstom SA, the French builder of trains and power plants, people with knowledge of the matter said, in what would be GE’s biggest acquisition ever.

Collection of articles related to hydropower technology

Investors have spent more than $2 trillion on clean-energy plants in the past decade and last year added more renewable capacity than ever before.

By March 2016 new regulations will be in place that will require larger employers in the private and third sector to publish details of their gender pay gap ie the difference in pay between male and female employees. The new rules, which will come a...

The Chancellor set out a number of measures of interest to the property sector in his Pre-Budget Report on 24 November 2008. The key ones are: a reduction in the rate of VAT from 17.5 per cent to 15 per cent for the period 1 December 2008 to 31 D...

Yesterday the Government announced its response to the Law Commission’s report on Event Fees. “Event Fees” are common in the retirement living sector. They are  fees payable on certain events such as sale, subletting or change...

Western African maritime regions are prone to pirate activity, and it is expected that the number of incidents, notably those involving kidnapping for ransom, will increase in upcoming years. ......

The text version of this document in not available. You...

Almost 500 possible breaches of level-3 rules have been reported to police this weekend, as many Kiwis prepare for what they hope will be a move to level 2 this week.People flocked to beach suburbs and took waterfront walks in cities...

The tally of coronavirus (Covid-19) cases reported by 53 African Union (AU) members states by Saturday stood at 57 746 confirmed cases; and 2 151 deaths.

150 soldiers said to be involved in the confrontation

GAINESVILLE, Florida: The decision to shelve detailed advice from the nation’s top disease control experts for reopening communities during the coronavirus pandemic came from the highest levels of the White House, according to internal government emails obtained, reported international...

GAINESVILLE, Florida: The decision to shelve detailed advice from the nation's top disease control experts for reopening communities during the coronavirus pandemic came from the highest levels of the White House, according to internal government emails obtained, reported international media. The...

The WHO noted that China confirmed human-to-human transmision on Janurary 20, a day before the purported conversation between Jingping and Ghebreyesus

The newest outbreak has largely been traced back to a truck driver who did not self-quarantine after being tested negative when he returned to the country

1. "I thought I was going to die": Kashmera Shah, wife of Krushna Abhishek of The Kapil Sharma Show, slams Mumbai hospitals after Bigg Boss contestant Sambhavna Seth refused treatment  Janta Ka Reporter
2. Kashmera Shah says Krushna Abhishek is okay with her bold photoshoots: ‘One of the reasons he fell for...  Hindustan Times
3. Bigg Boss contestant Kashmera Shah on casting couch: I faced it, but never went through with it  Bollywood Life
4. View Full coverage on Google News

TEHRAN: Iran warned Saturday that coronavirus infections were rising in the southwest despite falls in other regions, as it announced more than 1,500 new confirmed cases."All provinces are showing a gradual drop in new infections... except for Khuzestan, where the situation is still concerning,"...

China's National Health Commission reported 14 new confirmed coronavirus cases on May 9, the highest number since April 28, including the first for more than a month in the city of Wuhan where the outbreak was first detected late last year.

The Chicago Bulls' new leaders have gotten enough negative reviews of coach Jim Boylen that they are leaning toward moving on without him, according to a report.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took a swipe at President Trump as she and fellow Democrats are plowing forward with another massive coronavirus relief package.

Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp announced Saturday that the state had the lowest number of hospitalized coronavirus patients it has seen in just over a month.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver is cautiously optimistic about finishing out the season in a two-site plan which will likely not include fans -- a condition that may carry into next season. 

Cleveland Cavaliers’ Kevin Love was one of the few players to enter a training facility Friday as the NBA slowly begins its path back to normalcy but the five-time All-Star described his first day back on the court in almost two months as any but normal. 

Shoes continue to drop in the investigation into the Trump campaign's possible connections to Russia. Yesterday, speculation that the FBI was looking into the Trump family was confirmed by reports that Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and senior advisor, is under scrutiny. More details are emerging about the investigation.

Enter the Washington Post:

Jared Kushner and Russia’s ambassador to Washington discussed the possibility of setting up a secret and secure communications channel between Trump’s transition team and the Kremlin, using Russian diplomatic facilities in an apparent move to shield their pre-inauguration discussions from monitoring, according to U.S. officials briefed on intelligence reports.

Ambassador Sergei Kislyak reported to his superiors in Moscow that Kushner, then President-elect Trump’s son-in-law and confidant, made the proposal during a meeting on Dec. 1 or 2 at Trump Tower, according to intercepts of Russian communications that were reviewed by U.S. officials. Kislyak said Kushner suggested using Russian diplomatic facilities in the United States for the communications.

The meeting also was attended by Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser.

This story hasn't been confirmed by other publications, so take it with the weight of a single report based on anonymous sources, but having said that: Yikes.

Go read the whole thing.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Saturday reported 1,274,036 cases of the new coronavirus, an increase of 25,996 cases from its previous count, and said the number of deaths had risen by 1,557 to 77,034.