ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY

• 2011 The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster strikes Japan
• 1990 Lithuania becomes the first Soviet republic to declare its independence
• 1851 Giuseppe Verdi's opera, Rigoletto, receives its premiere

NATIONAL

• Jyotiraditya Scindia set to begin new innings with BJP, bids bitter bye to Congress. Within hours of Scindia's exit, more than 20 party MLAs close to him submitted their resignation from the assembly putting the Congress in an apparent minority in Madhya Pradesh. This was known after a meeting of the BJP's Central Election Committee chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

INTERNATIONAL

• Saudi Arabia increases oil output to a record high of 12.3 mbpd. The clash of oil titans Saudi Arabia and Russia sparked a 25% slump in crude prices on Monday, triggering panic selling and heavy losses on Wall Street’s main stock indexes, already hit badly by the coronavirus outbreak.
• Italian premier locks down entire country to stop coronavirus. Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte has taken strict measures to combat the coronavirus, banning all but the most important travel and putting the final kibosh on social gatherings after Italians failed to take previous warnings to heart amid skyrocketing infections.

ECONOMY

• Mukesh Ambani lost Asia wealth crown to Jack Ma in $5.8-billion rout. Jack Ma, the Alibaba Group Holding founder, who ceded the No. 1 ranking in mid-2018, is back on top with a $44.5 billion fortune, about $2.6 billion more than Ambani. This was after oil prices collapsed along with global stocks.
• Hero chairman Pawan Munjal to pump USD 950,000 into Ola Electric. Munjal is investing in India’s only Electric Vehicle (EV) unicorn, Ola Electric under the entity name Pawan Munjal Family Trust, the regulatory filing sourced from financial data platform, paper.vc, indicated and Ola E. is likely to receive investment in Series-B funding in a bid to consolidate its fast-growing EV business.

SPORTS

• Vikas Krishan and Simranjit Kaur enter finals of Asian Qualifiers. M C Mary Kom and Amit Panghal, Lovlina Borgohain and Pooja Rani signed off with bronze medals at the Qualifiers in Amman. All the six boxers have already secured their tickets to the Olympic Games by making the semifinals but Krishan and Kaur will come back with at least silver medals after entering the finals.