Virus: In US, retailers are seeing less browsing and more intentional purchasing

• Shoppers aren’t behaving as they were before the coronavirus pandemic
• Part of the business challenge is making customers feel comfortable in stores

New rules seek to make tax return processing, assessments more effective

The Income-tax (11th Amendment) Rules, 2020 notified on Thursday will come into force from 1 June

Islamic State calls covid-19 God's punishment for foes

• The SITE Intelligence Group monitoring website said the tape looked authentic
• Islamic State has struggled to regroup and develop new strategy since the killing of Baghdadi

Donald Trump says he’s signing order to limit Twitter’s legal protections

• The social media companies 'will not be able to keep their liability shield' under the order, Trump told reporters at the White House.
• US President is raged after fact checks added to two of his tweets

Chinese graduate students may be next hit by US-China tensions

• The proposal to revoke the visas is not directly related to the dispute over Hong Kong, nor is it tied to US criticism of China for its handling of the coronavirus outbreak
• President Donald Trump is currently considering a months-old proposal to revoke the visas of Chinese students

Private airlines included in second phase of 'Vande Bharat' mission

So far India had brought back more than 45,000 Indians since 'Vande Bharat' started on 7 May, Indian foreign ministry spokesman Anurag Srivastava told reporters in New Delhi

India reaches out to Pakistan to convene a meeting to deal with locust menace

Indian foreign ministry spokesman Anurag Srivastava said India had asked Pakistan to hold a meeting of the concerned officials so that the two countries could jointly tackle the menace

Covid-19: Maharashtra reports 2,598 new cases, tally up at 59,546

Of the total cases Mumbai's tally was at 35485. Active cases in Mumbai are at 25,694. The city's death toll stood at 1,135.

Covid-19 impact: India set for deepest recession yet in FY21, warn economists

• Economists paint a grim picture of the Indian economy for FY21 ahead of the statistics department’s release of the March quarter GDP print today
• Rating agencies, investment banks and multilateral agencies have sharply downgraded their full-year growth forecasts for the Indian economy in the wake of the shutdown

Trump singles out Twitter employee for fact-checking his tweets

• Trump directed his 80 million Twitter followers to 'tell that to your hater,' and included the Twitter handle of an employee who runs Twitter’s site integrity team
• A Twitter spokesperson also said the decision to label Trump’s tweets was made by a number of high ranking executives on Twitter’s policy and legal teams

Slim chances of Locusts reaching Karnataka: State agriculture minister

'The good thing is that the wind is not blowing in the direction towards Karnataka according to the MET department and 99.9% (locusts) will not come to the state,' BC Patil said in Bengaluru on Thursday

Kochi is waking up to the trouble with winning solo against the coronavirus

• Even in a state like Kerala where very few items are produced locally, inter-linkage of businesses are hard to ignore
• Local demand, within Kerala, is heavily reliant on two sources, remittances and tourism, which contribute ₹35,000 cr annually to state exchequer, but both sectors have been hit hard

India open to engaging with all its neighbours: Foreign ministry

The comment was in response to questions on tensions between India and Nepal over their boundary and what the two sides were doing to defuse the tensions

Govt makes onshore management of offshore funds easier

• The finance ministry on Wednesday amended the income tax rules making it easier for offshore funds to relocate fund management to India
• This was done to ensure that more fund management is done in India without adverse tax implications

SC orders free travel, food for migrant workers going home

• State to provide food and water at stations or bus stands, Indian Railways responsible for other needs
• SC directs that railway fares have to be borne by the states and Union territories

Highest single day spike in Delhi with 1024 new cases

The sharp spike has led to the neighbouring Haryana government announcing a closure of their borders to reduce the spread

Covid-19 may infect 50% Indians by 2020-end if lockdown lifted: Virologist

• V. Ravi, the head of neurovirology at Nimhans, says massive spreading of the virus is 'inevitable' in the near future
• Ravi says that the H1N1 had a mortality rate of over 6% but did not necessitate a lockdown since there was no social media to create this sort of panic a few years ago

India slams Pakistan for statement on commencement of Ram temple

'India is a nation served by the rule of law and which guarantees equal rights to all faiths. Pakistan’s Foreign Office may take the time out and read their own constitution to realize the difference,' Indian foreign ministry spokesman Anurag Srivastava said

What will India's recovery be like? Three letters hold key

There is growing concern about India’s slowing economy, which has weakened further due to the covid-19 pandemic. Some experts worry recovery will be slow; others say normalization could be swift as curbs are lifted. Mint explains the different kinds of economic recovery

Karnataka calls for less air traffic from 5 covid-afflicted states

The state said that this was being done with the 'sacred intention that there may not be adequate quarantine facilities' if too many people turn up at the same time.