The number of deaths from China’s new coronavirus epidemic jumped to 722 on Saturday, surpassing the toll from the SARS outbreak on the mainland and Hong Kong almost two decades ago.

Another 86 people died from the virus, according to the national health commission, with all but five in hard-hit Hubei province, where the disease emerged in December.

In another conspiracy to instigate trouble in India, Pakistan is training a group of terrorists in Balakot to carry out attacks in India, sources quoted by Zee News have said.

According to the information, at least 27 terrorists are being trained at a Jaish-e-Mohammad camp in Balakot to infiltrate India. Eight of them are said to be from Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK). The sources also said that the camp is being run by Yusuf Azhar, son of terrorist Maulana Masood Azhar.

Twitter confirmed on Friday that the official Twitter accounts of social media giant Facebook Inc and its Messenger platform were hacked.

A Twitter spokesperson said in an emailed statement that the accounts were hacked through a third-party platform.

The Mumbai Police on Thursday busted illegal VOIP exchanges that were used to call defence persons seeking information related to key military installations.

The raid was carried out in a joint operation with military intelligence.

Two functional sim boxes were recovered with 100 slots each along with 200 SIM cards, two routers, three modems, antennas, batteries and connectors.

The polling for the 70-member Delhi Assembly got underway on Saturday morning, an election that saw the ruling AAP, opposition BJP and the Congress engaged in a bitterly fought high-octane campaign.

Over 14.7 million people are eligible to exercise their franchise in the polls that will decide the fate of 672 candidates.

The polling began at 8 am and will end at 6 pm, an official said.

The Supreme Court said it would hear on February 10 the pleas against protests at Shaheen Bagh as it did not want to influence the Delhi assembly elections by hearing the matter on Friday.

Polls in the national capital will be held on Saturday.

We understand there is a problem and we have to see how to resolve it. We will take it up on Monday. We will be in a better position by then, a bench comprising justices S K Kaul and K M Joseph said.

The High Court of England and Wales here on Friday will set the terms for the conditional order of a payment into court it had granted to three Chinese banks last year against Reliance Communications boss Anil Ambani.

The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China Ltd Mumbai Branch, on behalf of itself, China Development Bank and Exim Bank of China, had sought summary judgment against Ambani over an alleged breach of a personal guarantee on a debt refinancing loan of around $925 million in February 2012.

Shares of Aurobindo Pharma gained 5 per cent to Rs 538 on the BSE on Friday after the company’s operational revenues witnessed a strong growth of 11.9 per cent year-on-year (YoY) at Rs 5,895 crore in December quarter (Q3FY20). US revenue for Q3FY20 witnessed a growth of 22 per cent YoY to Rs 2,969 crore, accounting for 50.4 per cent of consolidated revenue.

The stock of the drug company was trading higher for the fifth straight day, up 14 per cent, against a 4 per cent rise in the S&P BSE Sensex during the period.

India's largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) has decided to reduce its Marginal Cost of Funds based Lending Rate (MCLR) by five bps across all tenors. The one year MCLR comes down to 7.85 per cent per annum (p.a) from 7.90 per cent per annum with effect from 10th February 2020. This is the ninth consecutive cut in MCLR in FY 2019-20, SBI said in statement. This will lead to a reduction in home and auto loan rates.

The lender also decided to slash interest rate on term deposits – retail and bulk – by 10-50 basis points (bps) across various tenors as it is sitting on a pool of surplus funds. The revised rates will come into effect from February 10, 2020.

Campaigning for the Delhi Assembly election ended on Thursday, with the two major parties - AAP and BJP - focusing on contrasting issues to sway the minds of the voters in the national capital.

The campaign ended at 6 pm on Thursday.

In the last day of the election campaign, Union Home Minister Amit Shah held three roadshows in Seemapuri constituency, Hari Nagar and Madipur assembly constituencies.

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