The Evening Wrap Welcome to The Evening Wrap, your guide to the day’s major news developments with concise analysis from The Hindu. Here’s what you need to know today: Preventive measures The spread of COVID-19 in India continues to dominate the news. One more case was reported today in Ghaziabad, taking the total number of cases in the country to 30. This figure, however, includes the first three patients reported from Kerala last month who have already been discharged. The Ghazibad patient is a middle-aged man with a recent travel history to Iran. Given that patients are being reported now from across the NCR, the Delhi government has acted swiftly, ordering the immediate closure of primary schools in the national capital till March 31. Amid fears that the number of reported cases could rise, the Union Health Ministry has asked States to form rapid response teams at district, block and village levels, asking them specifically to look out for instances of community transmission. There is some better news as well. Samples of two women from Hyderabad, which were sent to the National Institute of Virology (NIV), Pune, have tested negative for COVID-19. Of the two, one is an IT employee who has a travel history to Italy, and the other is a hospital worker who came in contact with the 24-year-old first COVID-19 positive patient from Hyderabad. Meanwhile, the India-EU summit, which was slated to be held later this month, will now be rescheduled in view of the coronavirus outbreak, the Ministry of External Affairs said. Stepping In A court in Delhi has ruled that the four convicts in the 2012 Delhi gangrape and murder case would be executed at 5.30 am on March 20. The court said Akshay Thakur, Vinay Sharma, Mukesh Singh and Pawan Gupta have exhausted all their legal options. Within an hour, the Supreme Court then heard an appeal from the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Delhi government for permission to separately hang each of the convicts. The Supreme Court made it clear that any delay in the scheduled execution of the four convicts will see the court itself step in on March 23 to promptly decide the government's appeal for permission to separately hang them to death. The death warrants were first issued for January 22, and then postponed to February 1 because of the mercy pleas filed by two of the convicts. After this, they were scheduled to be hanged in Delhi’s Tihar Jail on March 3 at 6 am, but another mercy plea led to a postponement. House Suspension Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla suspended seven Congress MPs from attending Parliament for the rest of the Budget Session. They were suspended for disruptive behaviour. The suspended MPs are Gaurav Gogoi, TN Prathapan, Dean Kuriakose, R Unnithan, Manickam Tagore, Benny Behnan and Gurjeet Singh Aujla. Proceedings in the Lower House were disrupted for the fourth straight day as Opposition leaders protested against the violence in North East Delhi. In Brief: The Delhi Police said it has registered over 600 cases in connection with last week’s riots in northeast Delhi. In total, 1,820 people have been either detained or arrested so far in connection with the communal violence, according to a statement. The Supreme Court has declined to hold an urgent hearing on the pleas challenging the constitutional validity of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. It said it would hear the matter only after arguments in the Sabarimala reference matter are over. The Bombay High Court dismissed former ICICI Bank Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Chanda Kochhar’s plea challenging her termination last year. The Supreme Court refused to hear an intervening plea in allegations against activist Harsh Mander that he instigated a crowd against the top court during a rally against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday encouraged his countrymen to adopt ‘Namaste’ — the Indian way of greeting — instead of the normal handshake as one of the measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19. That’s it for this edition of The Evening Wrap. We’ll see you tomorrow. | 
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