Live: Parliament session from Jan 31, Budget presentation on Feb 1

Live news updates: Parliament will meet January 31 for its Budget session. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will give her Budget speech on February 1, said the government on Friday.

PTI reports the first part of the session ends on February 11. After a month-long recess, the second part will begin March 14 and end on April 8.

India reported 264,202 new cases of the coronavirus in the last 24 hours, taking its total tally to 36.58 million, the health ministry said on Friday. Deaths from Covid-19 rose by 315, with total mortalities now at 485,350.

Daily infections increased by 6.7 per cent since Thursday and the positivity rate—the percentage of Covid-19 tests that come out as positive—is almost 15 per cent.

India’s preparations for the coronavirus pandemic have to take into account variants of coronavirus that might emerge, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday. We are in the third year of our fight against the biggest pandemic in a hundred years … Hard work is our only path and victory is our only option,” he said in a meeting with Chief Ministers.

The death toll has increased to nine since Thursday after seven coaches of the Guwahati-Bikaner Express train derailed near Maynaguri town of Jalpaiguri district in West Bengal. Many passengers are feared trapped inside the derailed coaches and gas cutters are being used to cut open the mangled coaches, according to PTI.