WHO's Top Scientist On Factors Behind India's Covid Explosion
Soumya Swaminathan warned that "the epidemiological features that we see in India today do indicate that it's an extremely rapidly spreading variant". | Read more|
News
Delhi lockdown extended by another week; metro services to remain suspended
Delhi first announced a week-long lockdown this year on April 19. It has been extended every Sunday since, as cases and positivity rate refused to dip. | Read more|
Kabul attack: Blasts near school leave more than 50 dead
Blasts close to a secondary school in the Afghan capital Kabul have left at least 50 people dead and more than 100 injured, officials say. | Read more|
China says Long March 5B rocket BURNED UP over Indian Ocean near Maldives
The out-of-control Long March 5B rocket that so fascinated the Western media re-entered Earth’s atmosphere over the Indian Ocean and burned up, the Chinese space engineering agency has said. | Read more|
COVID-19 Virus Airborne, Can Spread Beyond 6 Feet: Top US Medical Body
The risk for infection decreases with increasing distance from the source and increasing time after exhalation, said the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. | Read more|
PM Dials 4 Chief Ministers To Discuss Covid Situation In Their States
Prime Minister Narendra Modi today spoke with four Chief Ministers in separate phone calls and discussed the coronavirus situation in their states, government sources said. He dialed Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan and | Read more|
COVID-19 surge | Supreme Court orders immediate de-congestion of prisons
The Supreme Court has turned a humanitarian eye on the over four-lakh prison population inside overcrowded jails even as the second wave of the pandemic continues its devastating run across the country. | Read more|
Tried To Capture Bengal, Nearly Destroyed India: Mamata Banerjee On Modi Government
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said today that the COVID-19 crisis in the country was the result of the Centre "not doing any work" in the last six months as Union ministers and leaders were visiting Bengal daily to "capture" it. | Read more|
Active caseload thrice last year’s peak, a lone doctor struggles to cope with flood of patients in Saharanpur
The patient is weak and gasping for breath, Dr V K Sharma can barely hear him speak. But he puts his hand on the patient’s chest, checks the makeshift saline drip on a rickety pole, and utters the same words of reassurance that he says he has most often used throughout his 45-year practice. “Bas sardi-khansi hai, t | Read more|
Al-Aqsa mosque: Dozens hurt in Jerusalem clashes
At least 163 Palestinians and six Israeli police officers have been hurt in clashes in Jerusalem, Palestinian medics and Israeli police say. | Read more|
Indian expat spends $55,000 to fly with family on private jet from Kerala to UAE
An Indian businessman has spent around $55,000 (Dh202,290) to fly with his family, including his newly married daughter and her husband, from India to the UAE on a private jet due to the suspension of commercial passenger flights from India. | Read more|
Cryptocurrency investors should be prepared to lose all their money – Bank of England
Digital currencies “have no intrinsic value,” according to Bank of England (BOE) Governor Andrew Bailey. He warned that people who invest in crypto should be prepared to lose all their money. | Read more|
Covid hits rural India: cases and deaths quadruple
A disconcerting feature of the second wave of Covid-19 is the surge in cases in rural India. Compared with the first peak in September last year, the number of cases in India’s hinterland or backward regions has quadrupled, and so has the number of the dead. | Read more|
SC refuses to intervene in Karnataka HC order on increased oxygen quota to state
The Supreme Court on Friday refused to interfere with the Karnataka High Court’s order asking the central government to increase the state’s daily quota of liquid medical oxygen from 965 MT to 1200 MT. The apex court rejected the Centre’s challenge against the High Court order, calling it a “well calibrated and | Read more|
Covid: Concern increases over India variant in UK
Public health experts have recommended one version of the Indian coronavirus variant be made a "variant of concern" in the UK, the BBC has been told. | Read more|
"Don't Force Us To...": Supreme Court To Centre On Delhi Oxygen Supply
The central government has to supply 700 metric tonnes of medical oxygen to Delhi every day till further orders, the Supreme Court said this morning, as top hospitals in the national capital continue to struggle to tackle the unprecedented rise in Covid infections. | Read more|
India Covid aid: Is emergency relief reaching those in need?
As India's devastating Covid-19 crisis mounted last month, countries around the world began sending emergency medical supplies to help stem the surge. | Read more|
"Try Listening, Too": Jharkhand Chief Minister To PM After Phone Call
Jharkhand Chief Minister Hemant Soren's dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi after a phone-call with him on the Covid situation in his state has drawn sharp and varied reactions. | Read more|
India adds over 4.14 lakh fresh Covid cases, 3,915 casualties in a day
With a record 4,14,188 new coronavirus infections being reported in a day, India's total tally of COVID-19 cases climbed to 2,14,91,598, while the active cases crossed the 36-lakh mark, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Friday. | Read more|
India Asks State Banks To Withdraw Cash Abroad So Cairn Cannot Seize It
India has asked state-run banks to withdraw funds from their foreign currency accounts abroad, two government officials and a banker said, as New Delhi fears Cairn Energy may try to seize the cash after an arbitration ruling in a tax dispute. Cairn was awarded damages of more than $1.2 billion plus interest and costs i | Read more|
4.12 Lakh Fresh Cases, 3,980 Deaths: India's Worst Covid Numbers Yet
Up to 3,980 people died of Covid in India the past 24 hours, the highest in a day so far, pushing total fatalities to 2,30,168.The country also set a new grim record in its daily Covid numbers with 4.12 lakh infections. | Read more|
Prince blamed for shooting one of Europe's biggest bears
Environmental campaigners suspect a Liechtenstein prince shot dead probably the biggest bear alive in the EU on a hunting expedition in Romania in March. They say Prince Emanuel von und zu Liechtenstein had been granted a permit to shoot a female bear that had caused damage to some farms. | Read more|
Coronavirus: How India descended into Covid-19 chaos
On Monday, a senior official from India's federal government told journalists that there was no shortage of oxygen in Delhi or anywhere else in the country. As he spoke, several small hospitals - only a few miles from where he stood in the capital - were sending out desperate messages about them running out of oxygen, | Read more|
Big Pharma group up in arms after Biden signals support for profit-threatening patent waiver on Covid vaccines
An international body representing a who’s-who of Big Pharma firms has rejected a US-backed proposal to lift intellectual property rights for coronavirus vaccines, insisting the move will not speed up global distribution. | Read more|
India's Competition Regulator Orders Antitrust Probe Into Tata Motors' Commercial Vehicle Business
The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has ordered an antitrust investigation against the commercial vehicle business of Tata Motors Limited. As per news report of NDTV, there are allegations that the country's largest seller of commercial vehicles abused its market position while supplying CVs to some of its dealer | Read more|
Covid, Crime, Terrorism: US Reissues Travel Advisory On India
The US has reissued its travel advisory on India, urging its citizens not to travel to the country due to an unprecedented surge in the COVID-19 cases there. | Read more|
Ajit Singh, Former Union Minister And RLD Chief, Dies Of COVID-19
Ajit Singh, Union Minister in several governments and one of India's senior most politicians, died on Thursday at 82. The Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD) chief had been battling Covid, his son Jayant Chaudhary tweeted. | Read more|
I Know What It Takes to Defeat Narendra Modi
KOLKATA, India — I am a member of the Indian Parliament, and on Sunday, the political party I belong to, the All India Trinamool Congress, defeated the party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in elections for the West Bengal State legislature. Our party and my leader, Mamata Banerjee, the only female chief minister of | Read more|
India posts record daily COVID-19 deaths, one in four globally last week
India accounted for nearly half of the COVID-19 cases reported worldwide last week, the World Health Organization said on Wednesday, as the country’s coronavirus deaths rose by a record 3,780 during the last 24 hours. | Read more|
Covid: Reused nose swab scam busted in Indonesia airport
Several employees of a pharmaceutical company have been arrested in Indonesia for allegedly washing and reselling used Covid nasal swab test kits. Up to 9,000 passengers at an airport in Medan may have been tested with the reused swab sticks, say police. | Read more|
COVID scare at G7 meeting after Indian delegates test positive
The Group of Seven foreign ministers' meeting in London was hit by a COVID-19 scare on Wednesday when India's foreign minister and his entire team said they were self-isolating after two delegation members tested positive. | Read more|
Covid cases at Everest base camp raise fears of serious outbreak
Mountaineers and authorities at Everest base camp in Nepal have told the BBC they are seeing rising numbers of climbers with Covid-19 symptoms and rising numbers of positive tests, raising fears of a serious outbreak. | Read more|
Wrestler beaten to death outside Delhi stadium, police probe role of Olympic medalist
A 24-year-old wrestler was allegedly beaten to death, and his two friends were physically assaulted outside Chhatrasal stadium in North-West Delhi’s Model Town area on late Tuesday night. | Read more|
"You Don't Stop Elections In A Place Like India": S Jaishankar Amid Covid
Amid global criticism over political campaigns when Covid cases were exploding in the country, Foreign Minister S Jaishankar has offered this justification - "You don't stop elections in a place like India". As per news report of NDTV, he also describes Covid as a shared problem and a global crisis. | Read more|
Gujarat: Flouting covid rules, hundreds of devotees take out religious procession; 23 booked
A day after a video emerged of hundreds of women devotees taking out a religious procession in Navapara village of Sanand taluka in Ahmedabad rural, the police Wednesday booked 23 persons including the sarpanch. | Read more|