The government on Thursday said one Indian nurse working in Saudi Arabia was found infected by novel coronavirus that has so far claimed 17 lives in China.

Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan said Indian nurses were quarantined at Al-Hayat Hospital in Saudi Arabia's Khamis Mushait city and after testing, one was found to be infected with the virus.

President of Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro, will be on a state visit to India from January 24-27, and he will be the Chief Guest at the Republic Day celebrations on January 26. This will be the first high-level visit of the year to India. Bolsonaro will be accompanied by 8 Ministers, 4 members of the Brazilian Parliament, senior officials and a large business delegation.

This is the third time that a Brazilian President will be the Chief Guest at the Republic Day parade. The last time India had a Brazilian President as chief guest was in 2004.

A total of 10 cities in China's central Hubei province have suspended some public transportation over the coronavirus outbreak, the Hubei Daily reported on Friday.

Buses in cities of Chibi, Xiantao, Zhijiang, Qianjiang, Xianning, Huangshi and Enshi have suspended services.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has recommended to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman that the Union Budget should strive to shift the focus from macroeconomic parameters, such as reining in fiscal deficit and inflation, to real problems facing the economy.

The party has diagnosed that emphasis on meeting fiscal targets and controlling inflation needs to be overcome to spur growth.

Shares of cement companies were trading firm on the BSE on Thursday amid hopes of earnings improvement with Ramco Cements hitting a 52-week high, while Heidelberg Cement rallied 5 per cent intra-day.

In the past month, the share prices of JK Cements, Shree Cement, JK Lakshmi Cement, India Cements, Orient Cement, Birla Corporation, Ramco Cements and Heidelberg Cement have all soared over 10 per cent.

Malaysia's top sugar refiner said it will increase purchases of the commodity from India, which according to two sources is part of efforts to placate New Delhi amid an ongoing spat over palm oil imports.

MSM Malaysia Holdings Berhad will buy 130,000 tonnes of raw sugar from India worth 200 million ringgit ($49.20 million) in the first quarter, the company told Reuters. It bought around 88,000 tonnes of raw sugar from India in 2019.

India has once again slammed Pakistan for spewing venom and false narratives of monumental proportions in the United Nations about Jammu and Kashmir.

Speaking at a session of the General Assembly on Report of the Secretary-General on the Work of the Organization on Wednesday, India's Deputy Permanent Representative to UN, Nagaraj Naidu, said that Islamabad is indulged in hate speech against New Delhi and spreads false propaganda about J&K at global level every time it speaks at UN or any other international forum.

A case has been registered against former Indian cricketer Mohammed Azharuddin and two others in Aurangabad in Maharashtra after a travel agent lodged a police complaint alleging that they cheated him to the tune of Rs 20.96 lakh, an official said on Thursday.

Azharuddin, however, dismissed the allegation as "baseless", and said he will take legal action against the complainant, Mohammed Shahab.

Private lender Axis Bank surged as much as 3.4 per cent, to Rs 737.3 on the BSE, in the early trade on Thursday after the bank's loan growth touched a 7 quarter high during the December quarter of FY20 despite the slowdown in the economy. That apart, the bank's provisions declined 1.34 per cent sequentially to Rs 3,470.92 crore in Q3FY20.

The bank's loan book for the quarter ended December 31, 2019 stood at Rs 5.5 lakh crore, up 16 per cent year-on-year.

Oil prices fell to their lowest in seven weeks on Thursday on concerns that the spread of a newly identified respiratory virus from China may lower fuel demand at the same time a report showed oil inventories in the United States rose last week.

The so-called novel coronavirus has killed 17 people because of respiratory illness since it emerged late last year in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

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