A meeting chaired by Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba reviewed India's preparedness to deal with the virus amid mounting global concern over increasing number of cases in China and several other countries.

India on Sunday opened a third hotline in view of 'large number' of phone calls from the Indians who are mostly students, the Indian Embassy in Beijing said.

While Wuhan and 17 others cities in Hubei province remained the epicentre of the viral disease outbreak with most of the deaths having taken place there, the cases have started rising steadily in most of the Chinese provinces and cities, including Beijing.

It has triggered a cause of concern for India too as many of the 700 odd Indian students studying in universities of Wuhan and Hubei provinces are still stuck up there.

By Thursday, 830 confirmed cases of pneumonia, caused by the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV), had been reported in 29 provincial-level regions in the country.

According to the latest reports, the death toll in the deadly coronavirus has climbed to 25 with confirmed cases rising sharply to 830, mostly in Hubei province. Beijing has reported 26 cases so far.

The confirmed cases climbed to 571 mostly from the city of Wuhan with 17 deaths so far. The Wuhan government required all people in public places such as hotels, restaurants, cinemas, parks, shopping centres and public transports to wear masks to prevent the spread of the virus, according to an announcement on Wednesday night. The rule took effect immediately.

Several countries started screening travellers coming from China, especially from Wuhan to detect symptoms like fever.

The new data comes a day after China and the US signed a long-awaited phase one deal, marking a ceasefire in the 18-month-long trade war which saw the world's two largest economies slap 25 per cent tariffs on about half a trillion-dollar worth of each other's exports. The world's second-largest economy grew by 6.1 per cent last year, its worst performance since 1990, but it remained above the psychologically important mark of six per cent, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

'We should carefully handle issues concerning each other's core interests. We should properly manage and control problems that cannot be solved for the time being'

The aircraft carrier is China first domestically-built ship. Shandong is bigger than China's first aircraft carrier Liaoning and could house 36 fighter jets.

Singh visited Tawang on Thursday for the 'Maitree Diwas' celebrations to boost civil-military friendship in the region bordering China.

Asked for China's comments on India not joining the RCEP deal over concern of cheap Chinese products potentially harming its domestic industry, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Geng Shuang told the media in Beijing on Tuesday that China welcomes India joining the deal.

'Xi's meeting with Modi in the southern Indian city of Chennai on Friday and Saturday is expected to focus more on the two countries' historical and present differences, and how to move beyond them to realise their cooperation potential'

Xi will attend the second informal meeting with Modi at Mahabalipuram near Chennai from October 11 to 12 and pay a state visit to Nepal on October 13, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Hua Chunying announced on Wednesday.

Xi said China is ready to work with Pakistan to forge a closer China-Pakistan community of shared future in the new era.

'For this kind of informal summit, I think it is better to leave the leaders much time to discuss whatever they would like to discuss'

"Our relationship is so big that it is no longer a bilateral relationship. It has global dimensions," the report quoted Jaishankar as saying.

Welcoming Jaishankar, Foreign Minister Wang referred to the Indo-Pak tensions without directly mentioning about India scrapping the Article 370 of the Constitution that gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir.

Goyal was to visit Beijing from August 2 to 3 to take part in the RCEP Intersessional Ministerial meet.