Oil rose on Friday, adding to sharp gains overnight that saw Brent top $50 for the first time since March, as the rollout of coronavirus vaccination programmes fed hopes that demand for fuel would rebound up next year.

Brent was up 30 cents or 0.6 per cent at $50.55 a barrel by 1:22 pm IST, after gaining nearly 3 per cent on Thursday. US oil was up 31 cents, or 0.7 per cent, at $47.09 a barrel, having also risen almost 3 per cent in the previous session.

With farmers gearing up to block the highway and picket toll plazas on the border to Delhi on Saturday in response to a call from protesting farmer unions to intensify their agitation against the three agricultural sector laws, police personnel have been deployed in strength to protect toll booths and ensure smooth flow of traffic, Faridabad Police said.

As many as 3,500 police personnel will be deployed at the five toll plazas in the area, a statement said.

Late President Pranab Mukherjee's memoir titled 'The Presidential Years', will be globally released in January 2021. The book is said to give an insight into his political career, Congress party and tussle for power. The former President who died this year in August, has apparently blamed in his book, the former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Congress President Sonia Gandhi for the party's 2014 defeat.

India will deploy its vast election machinery to deliver 60 crore doses of COVID-19 vaccines to the most vulnerable people in the next six to eight months through conventional cold chain systems, the expert leading the initiative said on Friday.

The government has lined up cold storage facilities with temperatures between 2 to 8 degrees Celsius (36 to 48°F), said VK Paul, who heads the group of experts on vaccine administration for COVID-19 that advises India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the global climate summit on Saturday on the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the landmark Paris Climate Agreement, said Prakash Javadekar, Union Minister of Environment here on Friday.

Tomorrow, the Paris Climate Agreement would complete five years. The United Kingdom has called for a global climate summit and Prime Minister Narendra Modi would also be taking part in the meeting, Javadekar said.

2020 has been a tough year for citizens across the globe. With millions losing lives since the time the coronavirus pandemic hit the human race, any help in terms of donation of PPE kits, government-approved injections or medications have been welcomed by authorities that are working day and night to bring down the count of infected people.

Amid the efforts by one and all, actor Shah Rukh Khan, who is known to have extended a helping hand in this difficult time of COVID-19 pandemic (he earlier donated 2,000 PPE kits to COVID-19 frontline health workers in Chhattisgarh) and for various causes in the past too, donated 500 Remdesivir injections for COVID-19 patients in Delhi.

With the global race for coronavirus vaccine progressing significantly, a panel of experts advising the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday recommended emergency approval for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine.

The FDA's vaccine advisory panel, composed of independent scientific experts, infectious disease doctors and statisticians, voted 17 to 4, with one member, in favour of emergency authorisation for people aged 16 years or older, reported The New York Times.

30-year-old Russian YouTuber Stas Reeflay pulled a mean prank on his girlfriend Valentina Grigoryeva during one of his live streams, which went wrong. Reeflay locked her out in the balcony in the freezing cold. Unable to bear the cold, Valentina was declared dead during the live stream.

According to a report on Zee News Hindi, Stas took up the challenge after a user offered him USD 1300. Valentina, who was carrying Stas' child in her belly, died freezing in the cold on the balcony. The pregnant girlfriend was knocking the door to let her in, while in a bikini.

Gold price today fell to Rs 52,420 from Rs 53,190 per 10 gm, while silver price was trending at Rs 63,400 per kg, according to the Good Returns website.

Gold jewellery price vary across India, the second-largest consumer of the metal, due to excise duty, state taxes, and making changes.

The overall number of global coronavirus cases has topped 69.4 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 1.58 million, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

In its latest update on Friday, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and death toll stood at 69,496,859 and 1,580,727, respectively.

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