There is an 'atmosphere' for BJP to form govt in Karnataka: BSY

Global oil markets remained under intense pressure on Tuesday, with Brent crude dropping below $20 per barrel for the first time in 18 years while other major benchmarks across the world tumbled. 

Brent, the international crude marker, slipped to $18.10, indicating that markets see no immediate let-up to the collapse in oil demand that sent some US oil benchmarks plunging under $0 for the first time on Monday, leaving producers paying for buyers to take their oil away while available storage is scarce.

Coronavirus has sent the oil sector into a state of crisis, with lockdowns implemented by authorities to smother the outbreak slashing demand for crude by as much as a third.

Contracts for the US benchmark West Texas Intermediate for delivery next month tumbled as low as minus $40 a barrel on Monday. Analysts at Citi warned that “if global storage worsens more quickly, Brent could chase WTI down to the bottom”.

The collapse in the May WTI contract was partly a technical product of the fact that it expires on Tuesday, meaning trading volumes were low and making the contract for June delivery more noteworthy, analysts said. That contract held above $20 a barrel on Monday but slid as much as 42 per cent on Tuesday to trade at lows of $11.79, suggesting the blowout in the May contract was more than a blip and that the entire global oil market faced challenges.

Goldman Sachs analysts said the June contact was likely to face downward pressure in the coming weeks, pointing to the “still unresolved market surplus”.

“As storage becomes saturated, price volatility will remain exceptionally high in coming weeks,” they said. “But with ultimately a finite amount of storage left to fill, production will soon need to fall sizeably to bring the market into balance, finally setting the stage for higher prices once demand gradually recovers.”

Warren Patterson, head of commodities strategy at ING, said it was likely that “storage this time next month will be even more of an issue, given the surplus environment”.

“And so in the absence of a meaningful demand recovery, negative prices could return for June,” he added.

European equities traded lower, partly dragged down by weaker energy stocks. The continent-wide Stoxx 600 was down 1.9 per cent, with its oil and gas sub-index dropping 3.3 per cent. In London the FTSE shed 1.7 per cent, while Frankfurt’s Dax slid 2.3 per cent. 

Equities were also broadly lower in Asia, with futures tipping US stocks to fall 1 per cent when trading in New York begins later.

On Wall Street overnight, the S&P 500 closed down 1.8 per cent, partly because of weakness in energy shares, but also due to increased pessimism over the time it will take for countries to emerge from lockdowns.

In fixed income, the yield on the 10-year US Treasury fell 0.03 percentage points to 0.585 per cent as investors retreated to the safety of the debt.

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has rationalised by up to 30 per cent the syllabus for classes 9 to 12 for the academic year 2020-21 to reduce course load on students amid the COVID-19 crisis, Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' announced on Tuesday.

The curriculum has been rationalised while retaining the core elements, the Human Resource Development said.

Among the chapters dropped after the rationalisation exercise are lessons on democracy and diversity, demonetisation, nationalism, secularism, India's relations with its neighbours and growth of local governments in India, among others.

"Looking at the extraordinary situation prevailing in the country and the world, CBSE was advised to revise the curriculum and reduce course load for the students of classes 9 to 12.

"To aid the decision, a few weeks back I also invited suggestions from all educationists on the reduction of syllabus for students and I am glad to share that we received more than 1.5K suggestions. Thank you, everyone, for the overwhelming response," Nishank tweeted.

"Considering the importance of learning achievement, it has been decided to rationalise syllabus up to 30 per cent by retaining the core concepts," he added.

The Union minister said the changes made in the syllabi have been finalised by the respective course committees with the approval of the curriculum committee and the Governing Body of the Board.

"The heads of schools and teachers have been advised by the board to ensure that the topics that have been reduced are also explained to the students to the extent required to connect different topics. However, the reduced syllabus will not be part of the topics for internal assessment and year-end board examination.

"Alternative academic calendar and inputs from the NCERT on transacting the curriculum using different strategies shall also be part of the teaching pedagogy in the affiliated schools," a senior official of the HRD ministry said.

For classes 1 to 8, the National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT) has already notified an alternative calendar and learning outcomes.

According to the updated curriculum, among the chapters deleted from class 10 syllabus are-- democracy and diversity, gender, religion and caste, popular struggles and movement, challenges to democracy

For class 11, the deleted portions included chapters on federalism, citizenship, nationalism, secularism, growth of local governments in India.

Similarly, class 12 students will not be required to study chapters on India's relations with its neighbours, changing nature of India's economic development, social movements in India and demonetisation, among others.

Universities and schools across the country have been closed since March 16 when the central government announced a nationwide classroom shutdown as one of the measures to contain the COVID-19 outbreak.

A nationwide lockdown was announced on March 24, which came into effect the next day. While the government has eased several restrictions, schools and colleges continue to remain closed.

Bengaluru, May 23: It was a stampede-like situation near Palace Grounds in Bengaluru on Saturday afternoon. The incident took place after hundreds of migrants gathered and jostled to gain entry. The situation raises concerns as no social distancing norms were followed.

According to Chetan Singh Rathore, DCP Central, the reason behind the stampede-like situation was an en masse message. "What we heard was that an en masse message has been conveyed to the people of Manipur and Odisha that they would be able to go home on trains on Saturday. The message did not consider the capacity of the train which is only 1500 seating capacity for Manipur train and 1500 for Odisha train," he told media.

Singh further added, "But the people gathered were around 3000 in number for the Manipur train and 5000 for the Odisha train. Passengers with tickets and requisites were allowed to travel while others were asked to return home and wait for their turn to travel back home."

The state of Karnataka has eased lockdown restrictions across, allowing state transport services to run. Lately, the government has been running special Shramik trains from Karnataka to ferry migrant workers back to their hometowns.