India's blue-chip Nifty 50 index hit a record high on Friday, as financials and materials stocks gained ahead of a key indirect tax related meeting by the country's finance minister later in the day.

The NSE Nifty 50 index was up 0.65% at 15,437.05 by 0347 GMT, while the benchmark S&P BSE Sensex was 0.53% higher at 51,383.43. Both the indexes have gained around 2% for the week.

French IT services major Capgemini rolled out on-premises vaccination drive for its 125,000 employees and dependents in association with health and security partner International SOS across India.

Capgemini has partnered with Aditya Birla, Reliance, Apollo, MGM and Rainbow to facilitate the vaccination drives across Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata and NCR. Capgemini is planning to expand the vaccination drive to other locations in the coming weeks, said the company in a statement.

On Friday, India recorded 179,770 fresh COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, the lowest daily count in 44 days, as infections continued to decrease in the country. The daily death toll, however, remained over the 3,000-mark, with 3,558 deaths. India's total cases now stand at 27,547,705, while total fatalities are at 318,821.

Currently, the active caseload of COVID-19 in India stands at 24.2 lakh, after a reduction of 35% from 37.4 lakh active cases recorded on May 9.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is scheduled to chair the 43rd Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council meeting through video conferencing on Friday.

According to the official Twitter account of the Ministry of Finance, the meeting is scheduled to begin at 11 am and the Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur along with Finance Ministers and senior officials of all States and Union Territories (UT) are likely to participate.

A plea has been moved in the Delhi High Court seeking an investigation into the deaths that took place at Jaipur Golden Hospital in the national capital on April 23-24.

The petition was filed by family members of nine victims through Advocate Utsav Bains. The petitioners have prayed to the Court for the direction for a Court monitored Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) or Special Investigation Teams (SIT) investigation into the deaths that took place in the respondent's hospital on April 23 and April 24 and submit a report to this Court in a time-bound manner.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will on Friday hold a review meeting to assess the impact of Cyclone Yass in West Bengal along with state Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee.

West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar will be receiving Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Kalaikunda Air Force Station in the West Midnapore district.

UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock has said that that almost half, and possibly three-quarters, of all new coronavirus cases in the country are of the B.1.617 variant.

Addresing a press conference at Downing Street on Thursday, Hancock said: We always expected cases to rise as we rolled out the roadmap, we must remain vigilant.

China is coming under increasing pressure over probe into the origins of the COVID-19, even as scientists are demanding more clarity to go into the roots of the global pandemic.

Sky News Australia host Andrew Bolt on Wednesday spoke to Professor Nikolai Petrovsky, Director of Endocrinology at Flinders Medical Centre, who said that the world's scientific community had been tricked by China, reported New York Times Post.

The Delhi government will give compensation amount of up to Rs 5 lakh to families of those COVID patients who died due to lack of oxygen.

This amount will be an add-on to the already-announced Rs 50,000 compensation to families of those who died due to COVID-19 infection.

Apollo Hospitals will start administering Russian COVID-19 vaccine Sputnik V from the second week of June, the group announced on Thursday.

In a statement to the media, Executive Vice-chairperson Shobana Kamineni of the Apollo Group of Hospitals said that the group has completed administering one million vaccine doses across 80 locations in India, prioritising frontline workers, high-risk population, and corporate employees.

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