The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), a subsidiary of the Indian Railways, has suspended bookings its three private trains till April 30 in wake of the coronavirus situation in the country, that has killed 124 people in the country till 7 PM on Monday.

It also said that people who have already booked their tickets for these trains will get a full refund.

India's largest lender State Bank of India on Tuesday announced that it will slash the marginal cost of funds based lending rate (MCLR) by 35 bps across all tenors. Effective from April 10, SBI's one-year MCLR will be 7.40% from 7.75%.

This is the 11th consecutive cut in MCLR by SBI in FY 2019-20.

The move will be beneficial for borrowers who have MCLR-linked floated rate loans, such as home loans.

Shares of Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M) jumped 12 per cent at Rs 316 on the BSE on Tuesday after the company’s board turned down a proposal to pump in fresh equity of $406 million in its ailing South Korean subsidiary SsangYong Motor Co (SYMC) amid the ongoing Covid-19 crisis.

Given the current and projected cash flows, the M&M Board took a decision that the company will not be able to inject any fresh equity into SYMC and has urged SYMC to find alternate sources of funding, the company said in a regulatory filing on Friday after market hours.

Shares of Bajaj Finance slipped 5.7 per cent to a fresh 52-week low of Rs 2,081.50 on the NSE on Tuesday in an otherwise strong market after the company's management team said that over the past 10 days, the company had lost nearly 350,000 customers, impacting its assets under management (AUM) by Rs 4,750 crore.

Overall, the company reported a 27 per cent AUM growth in the March 2020 quarter (Q4) compared to its 7-quarter average growth of 37 per cent.

French IT services and consulting firm Capgemini has tweaked its leave policy in India temporarily apart from deferring increments and promotions of senior-level employees by one quarter.

While the company did not specify the reason behind such steps, the Forum for IT Employees (FITE), a self-proclaimed union for IT employees, has alleged that the company has taken such steps in order to compensate for business loss owing to the nationwide lockdown.

Equity benchmark Sensex rallied over 1,100 points in early trade on Tuesday as banks, IT and auto stocks led the gains on global cues.

After hitting a high of 28,963.25, the 30-share BSE barometer was trading 1,165.92 points or 4.23% higher at 28,756.87. The NSE Nifty soared 337.20 points, or 4.17%, to 8,421.00.

IndusInd Bank, Mahindra and Mahindra, HCL Tech, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and Infosys were the top gainers in the Sensex pack. Bajaj Finance was the sole loser.

US President Donald Trump has said he would be surprised if India did not allow the export of Hydroxychloroquine tablets to the United States and there may be retaliation if the supply is not allowed.

Last week, Trump said that he had sought help from Prime Minister Narendra Modi to allow the sale of Hydroxychloroquine tablets, a decades-old malaria drug, as scientists explore its use in the treatment of COVID-19.

Indian authorities have partially lifted the ban on the export of Hydroxychloroquine which is being pushed by US President Donald Trump as a gamechanger for the treatment of COVID-19 patients.

The US has placed a huge order for hydroxychloroquine as the number of coronavirus cases rise in the country.

As confusion around the extension of the lockdown continues to trouble people, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Monday Prime Minister Narendra Modi to extend the lockdown beyond April 14 to so that the spread of coronavirus in India can be contained.

I'm requesting the PM to talk to all CMs and take a call to extend the nationwide lockdown up to the first week of June, otherwise we cannot control coronavirus pandemic. Even a small country like Singapore is extending lockdown for one more month. Ours is a huge country, Rao said.

The number of coronavirus cases worldwide has crossed 13 lakh with more than 74,000 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University tracker.

The tracker recorded 1,347,676 cases worldwide and 74,744 deaths. Out of the 13 lakh COVID-19 patients, 277,331 have recovered from the disease.

The United States, which has now become the epicentre of the coronavirus, recorded over 20,000 new cases and 1100 new deaths from COVID-19 between Sunday and Monday, according to the university tracker.

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