Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday released the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) manifesto for the Bihar Assembly polls, which promised free Covid vaccine once it has been cleared by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

It also sought to reach out to the youth with the promise of 1.9 million jobs in the next five years and farmers with the assurance of bringing lentils under the minimum support price regime.

India has crossed the 10 crore-mark in conducting tests for the detection of COVID-19as on Thursday with an average testing of more than 10 lakh samples per day in the last 17 days, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said.

Till now, 74,000 tests per million population have been conducted.

A major fire erupted at a mall in south Mumbai on Thursday night where around 250-300 people were present. All of them were rescued and no injuries were reported.

The fire broke out at around 8:53 pm at the City Centre mall after which at least 20 fire tenders and seven jetties were rushed to the site to douse the flames. A fireman reportedly received burn injuries during the operation and was immediately rushed to the JJ Hospital.

In another major update for coronavirus vaccine in India, Covaxin - the drug developed by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech in collaboration with Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has been granted permission to conduct the third phase of clinical trials.

The Subject Expert Committee of Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) recommended that permission should be granted to the vaccine maker to conduct the trials. Bharat Biotech had applied to the DGCI on October 2 and sought its permission.

Democrat Joe Biden renewed his attacks on U.S. President Donald Trump's handling of the coronavirus pandemic at Thursday's final debate before the Nov. 3 election, while Trump levelled unfounded corruption accusations at Biden and his family.

Trump, a Republican, initially adopted a more restrained tone than he did during their first presidential debate in September, which was quickly derailed by his constant interruptions.

The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved Remdesivir for the treatment of coronavirus patients in hospitals.

According to the press release by the company, previously authorised by the FDA for only emergency use to treat COVID-19 patients, Veklury, the drug's brand name is now the first and only approved COVID-19 treatment in the United States.

The State Department has proposed not to issue temporary business visas for H-1B speciality occupations which allowed several companies to send their technology professionals for a short stay to complete jobs on site in the US, a move which could affect hundreds of Indians.

The number of coronavirus infections reported in a span of 24 hours remained below 60,000 for the fourth consecutive day on Thursday as India's caseload went past 77 lakh, while recoveries have crossed 68 lakh, according to data updated by the Union Health Ministry.

The COVID-19 caseload mounted to77,06,946 with55,839 new infections being reported in a day, while the death toll climbed to 1,16,616 with 702 more fatalities, the data updated at 8 am showed.

Shares of Aurobindo Pharma were down 6 per cent to Rs 755 on the BSE on Thursday after the company's arm has received a warning letter from the US health regulator for its oral solid manufacturing facility situated at Dayton, New Jersey. In comparison, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 0.34 per cent at 40,567 points at 10:40 am.

The AuroLife Pharma LLC, a wholly owned stepdown subsidiary of the Company, has received a warning letter from the US Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) for its oral solid manufacturing facility situated at Dayton, New Jersey, Aurobindo Pharma said in exchange filing.

Wipro on Thursday announced it has entered into an agreement with enterprise application software provider SAP to offer advanced customer-specific content and training assets and boost productivity.

The collaboration will deliver 'SAP Enable Now' -- the custom enablement platform by SAP -- to help organisations adapt faster to technological changes and accelerate globalisation.

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