Microsoft is giving all its employees a $1,500 (over Rs 1.12 lakh) pandemic bonus, in recognition of a challenging fiscal year that the tech giant just completed.

According to The Verge which has seen an internal memo, Microsoft is gifting the bonus to all staff below corporate vice president level that started on or before March 31, 2021.

Hours after taking charge as the new Railways Minister in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's cabinet, Ashwini Vaishnaw ordered officials and staffers in his office to work in two shifts.

The first shift will start at 7 am and end at 4 pm while the second shift will start at 3 pm and end at 12 am in midnight, an order by his office said on Thursday.

SpiceJet will launch 42 new domestic and international flights between July 10 and 30, according to an official statement issued on Thursday.

The carrier said it will start flights on Surat-Jabalpur and Surat-Pune routes.

The global death toll from Covid-19 has reached 4 million, as a growing disparity in vaccine access leaves poorer nations exposed to outbreaks of more infectious strains.

Even as rapid vaccine rollouts allow life to start to return to normal in countries like the U.K. and U.S., it’s taken just 82 days for the latest million deaths, compared to 92 days for the previous million, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.

India recorded 45,892 new Covid-19 cases in the past 24 hours and 817 deaths, said the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry on Thursday.

Thursday is the 30th consecutive day when India reported less than one lakh new coronavirus cases. The active cases have now come down below 5 lakh. The country has 4,60,704 active cases presently and has witnessed a total of 4,05,028 deaths so far.

Fuel prices continue to soar across India and touched a record high in the national capital as petrol price is retailing at Rs 100.56 per litre and diesel at Rs 89.62 per litre on Thursday.

As compared to Wednesday, petrol has become costlier by 35 paise per litre and diesel by 9 paise per litre.

E-commerce giant Amazon is hosting its annual flagship sale event Prime Day in India on July 26 and 27. It would feature the best Prime has to offer for its customers. Coming at the 5th anniversary of Prime in India, the two-day event starting midnight on July 26, will deliver best deals and savings. This would be across categories, including smartphones, consumer electronics, TVs, appliances and Amazon devices. The other categories include fashion and beauty, home and kitchen, furniture and everyday essentials.

Indian food delivery firm Zomato said on Thursday it would price its 93.75 billion rupees ($1.25 billion) initial public offering (IPO) at 72 to 76 rupees per share, with the IPO set to open for subscription from July 14 to 16.

The company, backed by China's Ant Group and one of India's most prominent startups, filed for its IPO in late April to cash in on a pandemic-led surge in online ordering.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is all set to gift 65 new projects worth Rs 421.54 crore to the people of Varanasi, which is his parliamentary constituency, on his next visit to the holy city.

The new gifts from the Prime Minister include a Central Institute for Petrochemicals Engineering and Technology (CIPET).

Realty firm Macrotech Developers on Thursday reported an 88 per cent rise in its sales bookings at Rs 957 crore for the quarter ended June on strong demand despite the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic.

Macrotech Developers, which got listed on the stock exchanges after a successful launch of Rs 2,500 crore IPO, informed in a regulatory filing that it achieved a sales bookings of Rs 957 crore and collections of Rs 1,714 crore in the quarter ending June 2021.

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