The northern Indian state of Bihar, which has a population around 125 million people, will go into a 15-day lockdown to combat coronavirus, its deputy chief minister said Tuesday.

India announced Monday that it had logged nearly 700,000 coronavirus cases, taking it past Russia to become the world's third-hardest-hit nation in the global pandemic.

China said Wednesday it wanted to avoid more clashes in a border dispute with India that resulted in the first deadly confrontation between the two nuclear powers in decades.

Beijing's state media on Wednesday played down a deadly border confrontation between Chinese and Indian troops and did not reveal casualties on its side even as social media users urged retaliation.

India's official coronavirus death toll leapt by more than 2,000 to reach 11,903 on Wednesday as Germany advised its nationals to consider leaving the country because of growing health risks.

Three Indian soldiers have been killed in a "violent face-off" on the Chinese border, the Indian army said Tuesday following weeks of rising tensions and the deployment of thousands of extra troops from both sides.

China said Wednesday it had reached a "positive consensus" with India over resolving tensions at the border between the two countries, where troops have faced off in recent weeks.

At least six people were killed and 1,000 hospitalised after a pre-dawn gas leak at a chemical plant in eastern India on Thursday that left unconscious victims lying in the streets, authorities said.

The gas escaped out of tanks at a complex owned by South Korea's LG Chem that had suspended operations because of India's coronavirus lockdown.

India has embarked on a "massive" operation involving naval ships and aircraft to bring back some of the hundreds of thousands of nationals stuck abroad due to coronavirus restrictions, the government said.

Mumbai-based copywriter Sarah Syed says she was long alarmed by the Hindu nationalist direction of India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi but felt powerless to stop it -- until now.