According to the latest update by the Health Ministry, the total number of cases now stand at 46,711 and the death toll jumped to 1,583.
Coronavirus India Updates: The Telangana government on Tuesday extended lockdown in the state till May 29. Addressing the media, chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said that all non-essential shops in the state will remain shut in red zones. Curfew has also been imposed from 7 pm to 6 am every day across all the 33 districts in the state. Meanwhile, Mumbai closed all its non-essential stores and liquor shops. Only essential services will be available from Wednesday. The death toll in the state touched 617. Mumbai alone reported 26 deaths since Monday.
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According to the latest update by the Health Ministry, the total number of cases in the country now stand at 46,711 and the death toll jumped to 1,583. As many as 3,900 new COVID-19 cases and 195 fatalities were reported in the last 24 hours, the biggest spike in a single day, the health ministry said on Tuesday. The government Tuesday also suspended all existing visas granted to foreign nationals, barring a few categories, till international air travel to and from India remains shut due to the coronavirus pandemic, an order by the Ministry of Home Affairs said. The ministry said it has kept in abeyance multiple-entry life-long visas given to Overseas Citizens of India (OCI) card holders till international travel remains suspended.
On the global front, the number of cases has now surpassed 3.5 million with 2,51, 510 deaths, although the rate of fatalities and new cases has slowed from peaks reached last month. The Donald Trump-led United States continues to be the worst-affected with 11,66,083 cases and 67,913 deaths.
Coronavirus India LIVE updates: Outside a liquor store in New Delhi.
Coronavirus India LIVE updates: The total number of Covid-19 cases jumped to 42,835 with nearly1,400 deaths.
Considering the pressure on testing in Punjab following influx of returnees, the state has decided to purchase testing kits from the open market to ramp up its testing capacity.
Chief Minister Amarinder Singh has directed such centres to purchase kits for testing in Punjab from the open market, for which the state government will bear the expenses. The state is currently testing 2,800 people a day, a significant increase from 1,500 a day last week, a government statement said. It added that the Central government testing facilities are unable to enhance their capacities due to unavailability of kits from ICMR. As the state prepared to handle a large influx of NRIs from other nations and stranded people from across the country, Amarinder on Tuesday issued a series of directives to check the spread of COVID-19, including strict directives to the Health Department, to ensure mandatory screening of all such returnees, with institutional quarantine for those coming back from high-risk regions of India, and hotel/home quarantine for the NRIs.
A day after Haryana Home and Health Minister Anil Vij said he fears the consequences of the relaxations enforced in the third phase of the lockdown, he told The Indian Express that “opening all markets at once can be fatal”. Speaking to The Indian Express, he emphasized that “despite the pulls and pressures from high and mighty”, he stands firm on keeping the borders with national capital Delhi “shut”.
Vij also spoke on how prepared his state is to tackle the increasing number of coronavirus cases and unlike other states where the Council of Ministers takes decisions and assesses the Covid situation, “no such practice exists in Haryana” and the “CM was taking all the decisions”.
The government Tuesday announced a Rs 13 per litre hike in excise duty on diesel and a Rs 10 per litre hike in excise duty on petrol in an attempt to shore up more revenues even as demand remains subdued due to the lockdown to counter the spread of COVID-19 pandemic.
Finance Ministry officials said the hike in excise duty, which comes into effect from Wednesday, will not result in hike in retail prices of petrol and diesel for the consumers. This is the second hike in excise duty on fuel in two months by the Centre and comes after a hike in value added tax by several states over the last few days.
Telangana government on Tuesday night extended lockdown in the state till May 29. Addressing the media, chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao said that non-essential shops in the state will remain shut in red zones. Curfew has also been imposed from 7 pm to 6 am every day across all the 33 districts.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday reviewed the current status of India's efforts in coronavirus vaccine development, drug discovery, diagnosis and testing. He chaired a meeting of a task force on coronavirus vaccine development. The review by the prime minister took note of the extraordinary coming together of academia, industry and government, combined with speedy but efficient regulatory process, an official statement said.
A one-size-fits-all approach to the coronavirus pandemic is likely to increase inequalities in the long term, so countries with less resources must let people get on with their lives — to work, earn money and put food on the table – researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health and Harvard Medical School said in The Lancet on Tuesday.
Dr. Vikram Patel, the Pershing Square Professor of Global Health at Harvard Medical School and Richard Cash from the Harvard T Chan School of Public Health, in their perspective on ‘The art of medicine-Has COVID-19 subverted global health?’, urged countries with less resources to allow the average citizen to travel freely with restrictions only applied to clusters where lockdowns are necessary.
Dr. Patel told The Indian Express that it has been repeatedly stressed that the primary objective of a lockdown is to delay and reduce the spike of severely affected persons, allowing time for the health system to prepare for future waves and caring for the sick.
The skies above Tripura have a welcome new addition: soaring, colourful kites. Youngsters are no longer interested in violating the lockdown to get a peek of life outside their homes, but have instead taken to flying kites on their rooftops every afternoon.
The fact that the business of making kites has picked up pace is testimony to this popular new hobby — as kite runners are busy buying kites, ‘latai’ (rollers) and tempering threads with ‘manja’. On Day 42 of India’s lockdown, here are some of the most striking stories
Mumbai civic body Tuesday withdrew lockdown relaxations in the city; allowing only essential services from Wednesday. The death toll in Maharashtra touched 617. Mumbai alone reported 26 deaths since Monday.
Assam Tuesday ordered fresh directives for the implementation of lockdown 3.0 in the state. Here are guidelines in addition to those issued earlier on May 3.
While the state remains under a curfew from 6pm to 6 am, the new notice, signed by Assam Chief Secretary Kumar Sanjay Krishna, has relaxed timings for a number of services — especially those involved in industries, businesses and other economic activities.
Maharashtra reported 841 new COVID-19 cases and 34 deaths in the last 24 hours, bringing total cases to 15,525 and death toll at 617.
The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), the local civic authority, Tuesday revised the fine for not wearing masks in public places from Rs 1,000 to Rs 200. On April 30, the BBMP had issued an order making facial masks – covering the mouth and the nose – compulsory in public places and in any workplace with more than five people.
On Tuesday, BBMP Commissioner BH Anil Kumar issued a revised order. The order said the fine amount of Rs 200 for the first and subsequent offence had been stipulated as per the government notification of the Karnataka Epidemic Diseases Regulations, 2020.
With the third phase of the nationwide lockdown in effect, Tripura skies have a welcome new addition: soaring, colourful kites. Youngsters are no longer interested in violating the lockdown to get a peek of life outside their homes, but have instead taken to flying kites on their rooftops every afternoon.
The fact that the business of making kites has picked up pace is testimony to this popular new hobby — as kite runners are busy buying kites, ‘latai’ (rollers) and tempering threads with ‘manja’. Read Debraj Deb's report here
Manipur Commission for Protection of Child Rights (MCPCR) has asked private run schools in the Manipur to exempt the monthly school fees of students during the lockdown period. Sumatibala Ningthoujam, MCPCR said during this stressful juncture, no child should be harassed or discriminated due to any non-agreement or conflict between parents and schools owing to non-payment of school fees. It also asked vehicles commuting students not to charge fees from parents and guardian during this period.
Manipur Government ordered the closure of all educational institutions, both government and private schools, since March 12 as precautionary measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Further, to ensure the school's children remain engaged in education during the lockdown, the state government has also started online classes in the state.
Subsequently, Manipur Education Minister Th Radheshyam also recently launched the electronic format of comic textbooks for classes III, IV and V and e-textbook for Manipur board from Class 1 to 10.
A “significant breakthrough” in developing an antibody to the novel coronavirus has been made by Israel’s main biological research institute IIBR that can attack the virus and neutralise it within the bodies of those who contract it, country’s Defence Minister Naftali Bennett confirmed, news agency PTI stated.
A statement issued by Bennet’s office said the Israel’s Institute for Biological Research (IIBR), mandated to develop a vaccine for coronavirus, has isolated an antibody “that attacks the virus in a monoclonal way and can neutralise it within the bodies of those ill.
The government on Tuesday issued a standard operating protocol (SOP) for the return of Indians stranded abroad and those who are stuck in India and wish to travel to international destinations for urgent reasons. In an order, Union Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla said priority will be given for return to India to compelling cases in distress, including migrant workers, labourers who have been laid off and those faced with expiry of short term visas. 'Persons with medical emergency, pregnant women, elderly, those required to return to India due to death of family member, and students will also be given preference', the order said. The cost of travel will be borne by such travellers.
The government Tuesday suspended all existing visas granted to foreign nationals, barring a few categories, till international air travel to and from India remains shut due to the coronavirus pandemic, an order by the Ministry of Home Affairs said. The ministry also said it has kept in abeyance multiple-entry life-long visas given to Overseas Citizens of India (OCI) card holders till international travel remains suspended.
The BMC is set to start a crowdfunding drive to provide ration, medicines and sanitary kits to 20,000 families in Dharavi for the next two months.
The move comes after the civic body observed that around 70 per cent of Dharavi’s population is daily wage earners — working in small-scale leather and packaging industries – and auto-rickshaw drivers among others. It noted that these people, mostly without savings, were stepping outside their homes amid the lockdown to arrange for food and essential items.
The BMC has prepared a list of 20,000 families – mostly senior citizens, single mothers and widows – who would be provided with ration, medicines and sanitary kits initially. As per the plan, by donating Rs. 3,000, one can arrange these things for a family of four.
In one of the largest evacuation exercises, named “Vande Bharat Mission”, the government will operate 64 flights from May 7 to 13 to bring home nearly 14,800 Indian nationals stranded abroad due to the coronavirus lockdown.
India will conduct 10 flights to the UAE, seven flights each to the US and the UK, five flights to Saudi Arabia, five flights to Singapore and two flights to Qatar to repatriate Indian nationals between May 7 and May 13, Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said.
During this period, India will also conduct seven flights each to Malaysia and Bangladesh, five flights each to Kuwait and Philippines, two flights each to Oman and Bahrain, Puri said.
The government Tuesday suspended all existing visas, barring a few exceptions, granted to foreign nationals till international air travel to and from India remains shut due to the coronavirus pandemic, an order said. In a separate order, the Union Home Ministry said it has extended on 'gratis' basis the visas of foreigners stranded in India due to the lockdown. The extension will be for a period of 30 days beyond the opening of international travel.
The Home Ministry also said it has kept in abeyance multiple-entry life-long visas given to Overseas Citizens of India (OCI) card holders till international travel remains suspended. However, the OCI card holders who are already in India can stay in the country for "any length of time", it said. (PTI)
Four people, who recently returned from Gujarat and West Bengal, tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Odisha on Tuesday, taking the number of cases in the state to 173, an official said. The number of active COVID-19 cases now stands at 112. Of the four new cases, two hailed from Balasore, one from Ganjam and the other from Cuttack districts, the official said. Cuttack last reported a COVID-19 case on April 3, while Ganjam falls in the orange zone. The new cases in the two districts are two persons who recently from Surat in Gujarat. (PTI)
As India entered the third phase of the coronavirus-enforced lockdown, the government announced several relaxations, including the opening of stand-alone liquor stores on Monday. However, the move led to people crowding up outside liquor vends, leading to lathicharge by police in many areas.
Amid the chaos, a video of a man showering flowers on people standing in a queue outside a liquor shop in Chander Nagar, Delhi, has gone viral on social media. A video of the incident, which was shared by ANI, shows a man in a handkerchief mask holding a plastic bag full of flower petals and throwing them on the people standing outside the liquor shop.
Britain on Tuesday became the first country in Europe to confirm more than 30,000 coronavirus deaths and infections rose sharply again in Russia, even as other nations made great strides in taming the virus. China marked its third week with no new virus deaths and South Korea restarted its professional baseball season. In the US, some states began halting steps to lift the lockdown restrictions being blamed for throwing millions out of work and upending the global economy even as thousands of new U.S. infections and deaths were being reported daily.
Britain looks set to surpass Italy as Europe's hardest-hit nation. The government says 28,734 people with COVID-19 had died in UK. hospitals, nursing homes and other settings while Italy has reported 29,079 fatalities. Tallies from both are likely to be underestimated because they only include people who tested positive and testing was not widespread in Italian and British nursing homes until recently. Click here to follow Global update
At least 57 migrant workers, staying at a shelter home in West Delhi’s Tilak Nagar, attempted to escape Monday. A video of men, women and children, with packed bags, escaping from Sarvoday Bal Vidyalaya in Tilak Nagar’s Chand Nagar has emerged. The video shows a few jumping the gate of the shelter home and breaking the main gate lock.
An FIR under relevant IPC sections and section 3 of the Epidemic Act has been filed at Tilak Nagar police station after a complaint was received from shelter home in-charge Mushtaq Ali.
Odisha Legislative Assembly Leader of Opposition and BJP Leader Pradipta Kumar Naik has written to CM Naveen Patnaik to express concern that not COVID patients are facing acute problems in getting treatment in hospitals across the state.
“Hospital authorities are advising the patients to go for COVID tests first; thereafter they can be admitted. Many emergency patients, such as heart patients, accident patients are not being admitted in private or government hospitals”, Naik wrote in his letter.
Highlighting that the problem is acute in rural parts of the state, the letter adds, “Without having COVID test facilities in rural areas, or even district headquarters, denial of treatment to non-COVID patients in injustice”.
The letter also points to a specific example stating, “The Cardiology Department of SCB Medical College and Hospital Cuttack has become dysfunctional as the doctors of the department are engaged to mitigate COVID-19. This is the most important department, where immediate treatment is indispensable. Poor patients are then bound to be admitted in private hospitals spending all their incomes and selling their assets”.
According to the latest update by the Health Ministry, the total number of cases now stand at 46,711 and the death toll jumped to 1,583. The ministry said 1,020 COVID-19 patients recovered in the last 24 hours. As many as 3,900 new COVID-19 cases and 195 fatalities were reported in the last 24 hours, the biggest spike in a single day, the health ministry said on Tuesday and asserted that some states were not reporting cases in a timely manner, which is now being addressed.
In one of the largest evacuation exercise, the government will operate 64 flights from May 7 to 13 to bring home nearly 14,800 Indian nationals stranded abroad due to the coronavirus lockdown. India will conduct 10 flights to the UAE, seven flights each to the US and the UK, five flights to Saudi Arabia, five flights to Singapore and two flights to Qatar to repatriate Indian nationals between May 7 and May 13, Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said. During this period, India will also conduct seven flights each to Malaysia and Bangladesh, five flights each to Kuwait and Philippines, two flights each to Oman and Bahrain, Puri said.
The evacuation exercise is called Vande Bharat Mission. "Commenced preparations for Vande Bharat Mission. Planning underway for stranded Indian nationals to return home starting 7th May. Urge them to keep in regular touch with their Embassies.", said Dr. S. Jaishankar, External Affairs Minister of India.
Despite the imposition of a 70 per cent “special corona fee” on liquor, hundreds of tipplers queued up outside liquor vends in Delhi for the second consecutive day on Tuesday, keeping the police on their toes. At some places, like the Gole Market in central Delhi, although the liquor shops were shut, baton-wielding paramilitary personnel were deployed to keep the crowd at bay. Over 150 government-run outlets were opened up across the city on Monday for the first time since the lockdown was announced by the Delhi government on March 23.
As people made a beeline to liquor shops, throwing social distancing caution to the winds, the police had a hard time in controlling the situation. Hundreds lined up in queues, which in some places stretched beyond a kilometre in Delhi, and police had to resort to lathicharge to force shops to shut.
As medical practitioners around the world are busy treating people for Covid-19, many have reported a condition called ‘silent’ or ‘happy’ hypoxia, in which patients have extremely low blood oxygen levels, yet do not show signs of breathlessness. The condition has puzzled medical practitioners, and many are now advocating for its early detection as a means to avoid a fatal illness called Covid pneumonia.
What is hypoxia?
Hypoxia is a condition wherein there is not enough oxygen available to the blood and body tissues. Hypoxia can either be generalised, affecting the whole body, or local, affecting a region of the body. Read more here
In a grim development, nearly 40 people, mostly from a wholesale market area in Meerut, have tested positive for coronavirus in the last two days, forcing the administration not to ease restrictions in the district.
With this the number of coronavirus cases in Meerut, already a red zone district, reached 155 on Monday.
According to Chief Medical Officer, Dr Rajkumar, nearly all the new cases are being reported from Naveen Mandi area, the wholesale market for fruits and vegetables, thereby posing a challenge to track their contacts. Read more here
The number of coronavirus deaths in the US will jump to over 3,000 and new cases to about 200,000 per day by June 1, an internal draft report has said, even as more than two dozen American states announced to open up their economy amid the health crisis.
The US is the worst-hit country from the pandemic. By Monday, more than 1.2 million Americans tested positive for the COVID-19 and the total number of fatalities increased to more than 69,000.
The country’s economy has come to a standstill and over 30 million Americans have applied for unemployment benefits.
In a bid to enhance testing facilities to identify COVID-19 cases in the state, the Karnataka government Tuesday decided to establish testing laboratories in all private and Employees' State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) medical colleges.
Confirming this, Medical Education Minister Dr Sudhakar K tweeted, "We are further increasing our #COVID19 testing capacity. Our Govt has decided to establish RT-PCR labs in all private & ESIC medical colleges in state. By May 30th, number of labs will rise to 60 from current 29 with a capacity to conduct 10,000 tests per day."
According to statistics shared by the Department of Health and Family Welfare Services, as many 3,666 samples were tested on Monday. To date, 74,664 samples have been tested in the state.
As the third phase of the lockdown kicked in from Monday with several relaxations, people made a beeline to liquor shops, throwing social distancing caution to the winds as police had a hard time in controlling the situation. Hundreds lined up in queues, which in some places stretched beyond a kilometre in Delhi, and police had to resort to lathicharge to force shops to shut.
Following the chaos, the Delhi government imposed a “special corona fee” on alcohol. The tax would hike the price of the liquor, across all categories, up to 70 per cent in the national capital from Tuesday onwards. The move to tax liquor has prompted led to a flurry of memes and jokes online.
Reiterating his appeal to migrant labourers to avoid travel outside the state, Karnataka CM B S Yediyurappa Tuesday requested them to stay back in the state. "The COVID-19 situation is in control in Karnataka when compared to other states. Industrial, construction, and trade activities need to be resumed outside areas marked as red zones. Hence, labourers may avoid unnecessary travel back to their natives," Yediyurappa said.
"Barring the red zones, business, construction work and industrial activities have to be resumed. In this background it was explained that unnecessary travel of the migrant workers has to be controlled," he stated.
Soon after meeting representatives of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers Association of India (CREDAI), Yediyurappa added that migrant labourers fell for rumours that resulted in them rushing back to their natives as the third phase of the nationwide lockdown began.
The CM further asked builders and real estate owners to ensure all workers are provided with necessary facilities to ensure a smooth restart for all construction and related activities in the state. Issues related to weavers in the state were also discussed on Tuesday. The CM promised that relief measures for them would be taken after discussing with officers of the Finance Department.
The Noida administration has identified 34 containment zones to cope with the rising coronavirus cases in the third phase of the lockdown. Restrictions in the containment zones will be as per the Union Home Ministry’s guidelines. It has termed Gautam Buddh Nagar a red hotspot district. Till Monday evening, Noida reported 179 positive coronavirus cases with 102 recoveries.
The containment zones have been divided into two parts. Category 1 zones are those with one positive case and within a 400-metre perimeter. The boundary of Category 2 zones has been extended to 1 km with multiple cases.
"We persuaded certain states as we were not receiving reports of cases/deaths on time from them, after which the cases have been reported and we have seen a spike in death cases today," said Lav Aggarwal, Joint Secretary, Health Ministry.
In today's evening briefing, Health Ministry's Luv Aggarwal said that community participation is the need of the hour so that every person contributes in breaking the chain of command.
To maintain social distancing, gathering of not more than 50 persons are allowed at wedding functions and not more than 20 persons at last rites of deceased persons, said Punya Salila Srivastava, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs.
In the last 24 hours, 3,900 cases were reported bringing total cases to 46,433. There have been 195 deaths so far taking total to 1,568. 'Highest single-day spike in both deaths and number of cases,' said Luv Aggarwal, Health Ministry's Joint Secretary.
Some important points from the presser
Amid the steady increase in the number of coronavirus cases in UP, Union Health Ministry will be sending its team of experts to review the situation in the hotspot districts of the state. Officials here said that the team comprising experts from AIIMS, JIPMER, National Centre for Disease Control among others will visit Agra, the biggest hotspot with 628 cases till Monday, and Lucknow, which has so far reported 226 cases.
“The experts will be looking at the ways we are handling the situation and suggest on improving it,” said Agra District Magistrate Prabhu Narain Singh. He, however, could not confirm the date of their arrival.
While Agra has been hit by the pandemic most with most number of deaths (14), Kanpur City has become the second-most infected district in the state with 266 cases and five deaths. However, the central team is not planning to visit Kanpur.
Twenty-four people, including serving and retired armed forces personnel, have tested positive for coronavirus in Delhi’s Army’s Research and Referral hospital on Tuesday. All of them have been shifted to the Army’s Base Hospital in Delhi Cantonment.
The World Health Organization’s emergencies chief said Monday that it has received no evidence from the US government to back up allegations by President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that the coronavirus could have originated at a laboratory in the Chinese city of Wuhan.
“From our perspective, this remains speculative,”Michael Ryan told reporters in Geneva.”We have not received any data or specific evidence from the US government relating to the purported origin of the virus.”He said WHO would be “very willing” to receive any such information the US has.
The comments come as the Trump administration has denounced both China and the UN health agency for alleged missteps in handling the outbreak that first emerged in the city of Wuhan and has now infected millions and killed at least 239,000 people.
Not having the Aarogya Setu application on your smartphone in Noida and Greater Noida has been made a punishable offence by the Noida police.
“All those with smartphones who do not have the application can be booked under Section 188 of the IPC. After that, a judicial magistrate will either decide if the person will be tried, fined or left with a warning,” said Akhilesh Kumar, DCP Law and Order.
Section 188 of IPC deals with disobedience to an order duly promulgated by a public servant. A person can be imprisoned up to 6 months or fined up to Rs 1000.
Over 1,100 labourers and pilgrims were greeted with flowers on Tuesday as they reached Dankuni in West Bengal’s Howrah district in a train from Rajasthan. The 24-coach train, which left Ajmer in the western state on Monday morning, reached Dankuni station at 10.40 am, official sources said. Flower petals were showered on the train as it chugged into the platform, with state ministers Moloy Ghatak and Tapan Dasgupta waiting at the station to receive the passengers.
All 1,186 passengers, including women and children, were subjected to medical examination for any COVID-19 symptom at a camp set up by the Health Department outside the station. Read more here
The global economic slump triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic could change the entire sports industry in ways thought unthinkable till now. Some sports will be hit harder than others. The economic structure of international cricket is likely to change and lower-ranked nations will face a crunch in funds. Sports like hockey stare at an uncertain future.
“The key revenue generation for sports bodies is through licensing of television broadcast rights. With the stoppage in sporting events, it is likely that most sporting bodies will face financial hits. Indian cricket could be relatively better placed. Smaller countries like West Indies, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka could face challenges if their respective media contracts are not renewed,” said Manish Desai, partner in Deloitte India. Desai said sports other than cricket might find it harder to return to normal in India, because they do not have as deep financial pockets. Here’s how various sports have been hit by the coronavirus pandemic and resultant global lockdowns:
Several drugs approved for the treatment of hepatitis C viral infection have been identified as potential candidates against COVID-19 caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, according to a study based on extensive calculations using supercomputer simulations. Researchers from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) in Germany simulated the way that about 42,000 different substances listed in open databases bind to certain proteins of SARS-CoV-2, and thereby inhibit the penetration of the virus into the human body or its multiplication.
After a brief lull, wheat stubble burning has started in Punjab during the ongoing wheat harvesting season. Till Saturday, around 77 incidents of stubble burning were recorded by the Punjab Remote Sensing Centre (PRSC), Ludhiana. Last year till May 2, this number was more than double at 162 incidents.
Farmer outfits and Punjab Pollution Control Board (PPCB) had appealed to farmers to avoid stubble burning amid COVID-19 crisis this year. But data sourced from the PRSC showed that a maximum of 13 cases of stubble burning were recorded in Bathinda district, followed by Sangrur (8) and Mansa (7). Six incidents each were recorded in Barnala, Ferozpur, Kapurthala, and Mukatsar Sahib districts. Four field fires were recorded in Amritsar and three each in Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Fazilka, and Fatehgarh Sahib. Patiala reported two incidents, and so did Gurdaspur and Faridkot. Pathankot, Moga, and Hoshiarpur reported one stubble burning incident each.
Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said that India has been able to keep itself from slipping into community transmission of COVID-19. He also said, "After COVID-19 abates, behavioural changes brought about by pandemic could become new normal for healthy society."
"Health has to be on radar just as much as economy, govt has to do balancing act," he added.
Vistara CEO says senior employees to go on leave without pay for up to 4 days per month in May and June. --PTI
Chief Secretary Rajiva Sinha on Monday criticised the lockdown relaxations advised by the Centre, and said they would be applicable only to orange and green-zone districts. His remarks came on a day the COVID-19 toll in the state climbed to 61. Orange zones are areas with no recent surge in positive cases, and green zones are districts where no cases have been reported in 21 days.
“We are like the drones that the Kerala Police use these days for surveillance. Our eyes are everywhere,” laughs Latha Raju. The 47-year-old is an Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) responsible for nearly 500 households in the Thattazham ward within Kochi Corporation limits. On normal days, she can be found combing through her ward, going from house to house scribbling notes and numbers in her little diary about pregnant women and the medicines they need, newborn children who require immediate vaccination and the elderly suffering from crippling lifestyle diseases. A small bag slung over her shoulder doubles up as an essential medicine kit, with everything from paracetamol to ORS sachets.
“You never know what comes handy when,” she says.
Tamil Nadu government says TASMAC liquor shops will not be opened in Chennai on May 7. It will function in other districts from 10 am to 5 pm with few restrictions.
The Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank has announced to further postpone the Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) Main and National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) 2020. During a live interaction with students over social media platforms, Pokhriyal informed that JEE Main will now be held between July 19 and July 23. NEET too will be held on July 26 and JEE Advanced in August.
Telangana State Government said 40 special trains would be deployed per day for one week beginning Tuesday to ferry stranded migrants in different parts of the state.
A statement release from Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao’s office late night Monday said that the trains will start from various stations in the city including Warangal, Khammam and Ramagundam among other places. The destinations of these trains will be various places in Odisha, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, it said, three days after the first such special train carrying 1,200 workers was operated from Telangana to Hatia in Jharkhand after the Railways acceded to the request of the state government.
Amid the coronavirus pandemic that led to lockdown in various countries, India is planning to operate over 60 special flights in a week to bring back thousands of its citizens stranded across the world. The operations will start from May 7, in phased manner.
According to the flight plan of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), 64 flights will be sent to the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Malaysia, the UK, Singapore, Bangladesh, the Philippines and the US to repatriate stranded Indians.
US President Donald Trump Monday, at the Lincoln Memorial Town Hall, spoke to Fox News about the lockdown due to the novel coronavirus, the future possibility of a vaccine and the steps ahead in the fight against the pandemic. “We have to reopen our country,” Trump said during the town hall, even as he revised upward his projection for the total US death total to as much as 100,000.
In the United States, which has the world’s highest total of infections and deaths, at almost 1.2 million and 68,000 respectively, at least half of the 51 states are moving forward with plans to reopen stricken businesses.
Here's what he said:
1. “I think you can really have it both ways, you can satisfy both”
2. ‘It’s a terrible thing that happened to our country, it came from China, it should have been stopped”
3. “You’re going to have your job, you’re going to get another job, or you’re going to get a better job”
4. “I have good feel for this stuff, have done this for a long time, we’ve built the greatest economy in the world, correct me if you like, but you can’t because it’s a fact”
5. “I’ve never seen death like this, i have never personally experienced anything like it”
6. “I believe you can go to parks, you can go to beaches, you can keep the spread, you can stay away a certain amount”
7. “If we would’ve done ‘herd immunity’, we would’ve lost 2-and-a-half million people”
Another threat from the lung virus that causes Covid-19 has emerged that may cause swift, sometimes fatal damage: blood clots. Doctors around the world are noting a raft of clotting-related disorders — from benign skin lesions on the feet sometimes called “Covid toe” to life-threatening strokes and blood-vessel blockages. Ominously, if dangerous clots go untreated, they may manifest days to months after respiratory symptoms have resolved. Read more here
On a day Karnataka recorded alcohol sales worth Rs 45 crore as lockdown restrictions eased, at least two customer bills — each exceeding Rs 50,000 in value — went viral on social media, prompting the state excise department to book a Bengaluru vendor for violating licence rules. Retail outlets are not allowed to sell more than 2.3 litres of Indian-made foreign liquor (IMFL) or 18.2 litres of beer to a customer per day. Excise Deputy Commissioner (Bengaluru South) Giri J told indianexpress.com that an FIR was filed against Vanilla Spirit Zone, located in Tavarekere Main Road, where liquor worth Rs 52,841 was purchased by a customer.
Maharashtra, the state worst-hit by the Covid-19 pandemic in the country, Monday declared a freeze on new capital works till March next year. The state, whose Budget size is the second biggest after Uttar Pradesh, imposed a 67 per cent cut in development (scheme) spend for 2020-21. “This is the deepest ever cut in expenditure since the state was formed in 1960,” an official said.
Revenue, labour, capital, access to raw materials, overheads, and demand — the question mark over each is getting bigger by the day as the lockdown and its graded easing affect firms in the Micro, Small and Medium enterprises sector (MSME), in both manufacturing and services. While each case is unique, all are united over the basics they want the government to ensure: cheaper bank loans to help them tide over the working capital problem, permission for longer daily working hours in major business districts during initial weeks, and easing of supply-chain constraints to ensure availability of inputs and outflow of finished goods and services. Read more