India surpasses Russia to become the world's third highest number of coronavirus cases, with nearly 700,000 infections.

With nearly 700,000 coronavirus infections, India has overtaken Russia to become the country with the world's third highest number of cases.

The health ministry said it had now reported 697,358 cases, an increase of 24,000 in the last 24 hours, while Russia has just over 681,000 cases.

India has reported 19,693 deaths from the virus, far less than many other countries badly affected.

There have been almost 20,000 deaths in India since the first case was detected there in January.

India is now the world's third worst-affected country, behind only the United States and Brazil.

It has seen eight times the number of cases as China, that has a similar-sized population and is where the virus originated late last year.

Officials said they had reversed a decision to reopen the Taj Mahal, India's most famous tourist attraction, in the city of Agra, 125 miles southeast of New Delhi, on Monday, following a spate of new cases in the area. 

India's Culture Ministry had decided to reopen all monuments across the country on Monday after more than three months with a cap on the number of visitors and mandatory wearing of face masks. 

After a strict nationwide lockdown, India has eased restrictions in most of the country except for the highest-risk areas.