FACTORS TO WATCH 12:00 pm: NITI Aayog Adviser Alok Kumar will participate in ‘Charcha 2020’ webinar in New . 4:00 pm: The Health ministry will brief on the COVID-19 situation in . 6:00 pm: DBS Bank Senior VP & Economist Radhika Rao and Former U.K. Treasury Minister Jim O’Neill will speak at the Treasury Elite Conclave in Mumbai.

INDIA TOP NEWS Clogged cooling system likely cause of gas leak in , three investigators say A clogged cooling system was the likely cause of a temperature surge in a storage tank which led to a gas leak at a chemical plant in India, killing 12 people, three state government investigators told Reuters.

UN labour agency warns Indian states on scrapping of workers' rights The U.N. labour agency urged Indian states thinking of relaxing workers' rights to help industry survive the coronavirus to consult workers first as a union linked to India's ruling party said it would protest the planned moves.

India to provide free food grains to millions of migrant workers India will provide free food grains to millions of migrant workers hardest hit by a weeks-long lockdown as well as offer employment under a rural jobs programme, Finance Minister said on Thursday.

Health groups ask India to rescind Gilead's patents for COVID-19 drug remdesivir Two health advocacy groups have written to the Indian government asking it to rescind patents given to Gilead Sciences for the drug remdesivir so it can be distributed more fairly to coronavirus patients around the world, particularly in poorer nations.

India follows China's lead to widen use of coronavirus tracing app aggressively pushing a state-backed contact tracing app to fight the spread of COVID-19, raising fears that the world's second -most populous nation is on its way to Chinese-style methods of high tech social control.

INSIGHT India's farmers gather record wheat crop, but cannot move it Late last month, Sukrampal had to beg and borrow farmhands from nearby villages to gather his part of the country's largest-ever wheat harvest in Haryana state near New Delhi. Now the 50-year-old Indian farmer has a bigger problem: how to sell his crops when the three wholesale grain markets serving growers in his hometown of Gharaunda, near the heart of what is known as India's breadbasket, are operating with a skeleton staff.

GLOBAL TOP STORIES Trump says he doesn't want to talk to Xi right now, could even cut China ties U.S. President Donald Trump signaled a further deterioration of his relationship with China over the novel coronavirus, saying he has no interest in speaking to President Xi Jinping right now and going so far as to suggest he could even cut ties with the world's second largest economy.

China's factory output posts first increase for 2020 but consumption still weak China's industrial output rose 3.9% in April from a year earlier, data showed, expanding for the first time this year as the world's second-largest economy slowly emerged from its coronavirus lockdown.

Taiwan's TSMC announces $12 billion U.S. chip factory Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, a major supplier to Apple, announced it will build a $12 billion chip factory in Arizona, in what the company called a "strong partnership" with the U.S. government.

STATE OF THE MARKETS SGX Nifty nearest-month futures were trading 0.6% lower at 9,102.25.-NewsRise

The is expected to trade little changed against the dollar with market participants focusing on regional risk appetite and fund flows. -NewsRise

Indian government bond yields are likely to edge higher in early session, as the weekly auction today and debt switch on Monday will boost supply. The yield on the benchmark 6.45% bond maturing in 2029 is likely to trade in a range of 6.02%-6.10%. -NewsRise

Wall Street surged on Thursday as investors weighed the prospect of economic recovery against bellicose remarks from President Donald Trump regarding U.S.-China trade and a whistleblower's dire warnings about the U.S. response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The dollar eased from a three-week high but looked set for a modest weekly gain as rising Sino-U.S. tensions and worries about a second wave of coronavirus infections rattled investors.

Investors pushed U.S. Treasury yields lower on Thursday as they took stock of another grim jobs report and tried to gauge the success of efforts to reopen the economy in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Oil prices were mixed after big gains a day earlier when the International Energy Agency predicted crude stockpiles would start to shrink in second-half 2020 after surging while the coronavirus pandemic slashed fuel demand.

Gold rose to hover below a three-week high hit in the previous session, underpinned by talks of further U.S. stimulus and worsening U.S.-China relations.

CLOSE FII INVESTMENTS EQUITIES DEBT

PNDF spot 75.49/75.52 May 14 131.05 crore (382.05) crore

10-yr bond yield 6.05 pct Month-to-date 19,732 crore (13,208) crore

Year-to-date (35,182) crore (95,687) crore

(FII investment numbers are in Indian rupees. Source: National Securities Depository Limited)

2 PICTURE OF THE DAY

Migrant workers hold a bedsheet to protect themselves from the sun on a national highway as they walk towards their home state of Uttar Pradesh, during an extended nationwide lockdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Ghaziabad, in the outskirts of New Delhi, May 14. REUTERS/Anushree Fadnavis

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