The Madras High Court on Friday ordered the closure of state-run Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corporation (TASMAC) liquor outlets across Tamil Nadu after violations of social distancing norms amid the COVID-19 lockdown were reported. The High Court, however, allowed online sale of liquor.

The court had earlier permitted liquor shops to open only under certain conditions and warned them against violation of norms.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday expressed his condolences over the death of 16 migrant labourers who were crushed by a goods train at Aurangabad's Karmad in Maharashtra on this day. The group was sleeping on the railway tracks when the incident took place.

Modi took to his official handle on Twitter and wrote that he was "extremely anguished" by the loss of lives due to the rail accident.

The total number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 infection in India crossed the 56,000-mark on Friday, while the death toll has already topped the 1,800-mark as well. At 9:15 AM on Friday, the COVID-19 tally in India stood at 56,342 cases, of which 37,916 are active cases, 16,540 are cured, discharged, or migrated patients, and 1,886 deaths.

According to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, as many as 3,390 new COVID-19-positive cases and 103 deaths were reported in the country in the last 24 hours.

16 migrant labourers died after being crushed by a goods train at Aurangabad's Karmad in Maharashtra on Friday.

The group was sleeping on the railway tracks when the incident took place.

A police official told a news agency that the migrant workers were returning to their native place in Madhya Pradesh.

Teaneck-based IT major Cognizant has reported a decline of 16.78 per cent in net income at $367 million for the quarter ended March 31, 2020, as compared to $441 million in the same period a year ago.

The company is aiming to invest in business and would onboard around 20,000 entry-level executives in 2020.

Reliance Jio Platforms, part of Mukesh Ambani-controlled Reliance Industries group, has sold a 2.32 per cent stake to US-based private equity firm Vista Equity on a fully diluted basis for Rs 11,637 crore. This is a third major equity deal for Jio Platforms in three weeks — it previously sold a 9.9 per cent stake to Facebook for Rs 43,534 crore, and then 1.5 per cent to Silver Lake for Rs 5,655 crore.

Hours after the US Justice Department dropped its prosecution of former National Security Advisor Gen. (retd), Michael Flynn, over the Russian investigation, US President Donald Trump on Thursday slammed newspapers which had won the Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the alleged Russia collusion in US Presidential elections of 2016.

Trump said that now that the story has been proved untrue, these newspapers who had reported on the Russian investigation and had won the coveted Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the same should return the highest award in journalism.

In what comes as an alarming move, a housing society in Ghaziabad has now barred the entry of residents who are health practitioners, asking them to stay in Delhi instead, causing major distress for the society's resident doctors and other healthcare personnel. The Neelpadam Kunj Society Apartment Owners Association in Ghaziabad has asked its residents who are doctors working in Delhi to make temporary arrangements for their stay in the national capital out of fears that they may spread coronavirus back home.

Indian Navy ship Jalashwa entered Male port in the Maldives on Thursday to evacuate Indian citizens stranded in the country as part of India's national effort to repatriate its citizens from abroad.

Indian Naval Ships Jalashwa and Magar are part of the first phase of evacuation operations from May 8, 2020. The navy has named its evacuation operation as Samudra Setu (Sea Bridge).

As COVID-19 cases in Mumbai continue to spike, civic body BMC on Thursday constituted a committee to investigate a viral video that showed COVID-19 patients lying next to dead bodies at the city's Sion Hospital.

The video was shared by BJP leader Nitesh Rane among others.

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