The world is witnessing the fourth surge of the COVID-19 pandemic and India has to be on guard and cannot afford to slacken, said Union health secretary Rajesh Bhushan on Friday.
Of the 3,071 cases of Omicron variant, 1,203 have recovered or migrated, according to the data updated by the ministry at 8 am.
About 3.2 million people could have died from Covid in India by September last year, six-seven times higher than reported officially, according to a study based on one independent and two government data sources.
India has been consistently objecting to the methodology adopted by the WHO to project excess mortality estimates based on mathematical models, the Union Health Ministry said in a statement.
Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan reviewed the status of passengers coming from the UK to India and found positive in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Goa, Punjab, Gujarat and Kerala and their response measures in a meeting held through video conferencing.
The seven states are Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
The 102nd Constitution Amendment Act of 2018 inserted articles 338B, which deals with the structure, duties and powers of the National Commission for Backward Classes, and 342A that deals with the powers of the president to notify a particular caste as an SEBC and the power of Parliament to change the list. Article 366 (26C) defines SEBCs.
More than 6.5 crore vaccine doses have been administered across the country so far to frontline workers, healthcare workers, those above 60 and for people aged above 45 with specified co-co-morbid conditions.
The states will forego around Rs 44,000 crore of tax revenue after they reduced VAT on petrol and diesel in the reminder of the fiscal but higher central tax devolution of Rs 60,000 crore will offset the losses, according to a report. After months of calls for lowering the taxes on the fuels, the Centre on November 4 cut excise duty on diesel by Rs 10 a litre and by Rs 5 on petrol. Following this, as many as 25 states and Union territories have lowered value-added tax (VAT) on these fuels.
Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Kerala have been ranked as the top five states in innovation in Niti Aayog's second Innovation Index released on Wednesday. The index, released by Niti Aayog's vice chairman Rajiv Kumar and CEO Amitabh Kant, has been developed on the lines of the Global Innovation Index. Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Bihar have been ranked at the bottom of the index. Karnataka topped the index for the second year in a row.
The Supreme Court on Friday refused to "lay down any yardstick" for granting reservation in promotion to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in government jobs.
A total of 17 states and union territories that have not reported any new deaths in the last 24 hours are Telangana, Odisha, Jharkhand, Puducherry, Chandigarh, Nagaland, Assam, Manipur, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Ladakh, Mizoram, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Tripura, Lakshadweep, Arunachal Pradesh and Daman and Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli.
It also recorded 16,764 fresh COVID-19 cases and 220 more fatalities due to the viral disease.
A bench comprising Justices L Nageswara Rao and B R Gavai said it has perused the judgments submitted and was of the view that the issue does not need consideration by a larger bench.
Union Health Ministry data updated on Friday 8 am showed a single-day spike of 81,484 infections, taking the country's COVID-19 tally of cases to 63,94,068, while the death toll climbed to 99,773, with the virus claiming 1,095 lives in a span of 24 hours. However, by night, a PTI tally showed India's COVID-19 caseload at 64,64,012, death toll at 1,00,768 and recoveries at 54,15,197.
As many as 422 Omicron cases have been detected across 17 states and Union Territories in India so far and 130 of these people have recovered or migrated, according to Union health ministry data updated on Sunday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday called for the setting up of a high-power police technology mission under the leadership of the Union home minister to adopt future technologies for grassroot policing requirements.
Tata Motors on Wednesday said it has extended warranty and free service period by one month for those commercial vehicle customers whose tenures are due between April 1 and June 30 amid the second wave of COVID-19 pandemic. Bajaj Auto, too, extended the free service period of all its brands in the country till July 31. In view of the restrictions announced by several state governments across the country to curtail the spread of the COVID-19 virus, Tata Motors has extended warranty and free service period for all its commercial vehicles that were scheduled to expire in the period of April 1 to June 30, 2021.
In addition, 22,533 'Make in India' ventilators have been delivered to various states, Union territories and central institutions, the ministry said, adding that the Centre is also ensuring the installation and commissioning of the machines.
There may not be a third wave of coronavirus in the country if strong measures are taken and effectively implemented at the state, district and city-level, the country's top scientific officer said on Friday, two days after he warned that this wave was inevitable.
The met department said rainfall is very likely at most places in Tamil Nadu, Puduchery and Karaikal with heavy to very heavy showers at a few places and extremely heavy rainfall at isolated places on Wednesday.
'As far as contract farming is concerned, we already have a model Act and states will be encouraged to adopt them.'
The Department of International Relations and Cooperation (DIRCO) in a statement urged world leaders not to implement 'knee-jerk' policy decisions in response to the detection of the Omicron variant.
As the country battles the second wave of COVID-19, the government Thursday said the virus may emerge again and so preparations have to be made at the national level in collaboration with states, infrastructure needs to be ramped up while curbs and appropriate behaviour must be followed.
The ministry of home affairs has requested states and Union Territories (UTs) to direct all police stations under their jurisdiction not to register cases under the repealed Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, a home ministry statement said.
The government wants to complete the operations rapidly, including the actual counting of people, by February next year, reports Subhomoy Bhattacharjee.
"Hospitals under the central government, state governments and UT administration, including private hospitals managing COVID patients, shall ensure that requirement of a positive test for COVID-19 virus is not mandatory for admission to a COVID health facility.
As the Omicron variant of Sars-CoV-2 takes centrestage, vaccine makers in India are of the view that scaling up the existing vaccines to make them more effective is possible.
These seven countries are South Africa, Bangladesh, Botswana, China, Mauritius, New Zealand and Zimbabwe.
With this, the total coronavirus cases in the country have risen to 1,06,67,736 including 1,84,182 active cases and 1,03,30,084 total discharges. However, the total death toll in the country due to the infection mounted to 1,53,470 including the new deaths.
In a statement, the Ministry of Women and Child Development said the awardees are from 32 districts of 21 states and Union territories.
With around 2 million Covid vaccine doses likely to get wasted in December, leading hospital chains have now started to give it gratis to citizens. Sohini Das and Ruchika Chitravanshi report.
More than 1.82 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses are available with states and union territories, and over 4 lakh will be received by them within the next three days, the Union health ministry said.
More than 90 lakh Covid-19 vaccine doses are still available with states and Union territories which will receive over 7 lakh additional doses in the next three days, the Union health ministry said on Tuesday.
'Politicians want pliable policemen who would carry out their orders, right or wrong, lawful or illegal.'
The Union Road Transport and Highways Ministry on Wednesday said the states and union territories (UTs) will provide up to 25 per cent rebate on road tax for vehicles that are purchased after scrapping old vehicles under the new National Automobile Scrappage Policy. The ministry in a press note said that in the vehicle scrapping policy, it is proposed to have a system of incentives to nudge vehicle owners to discard old and polluting vehicles. "As an incentive for scrapping, concession is stipulated in the motor vehicle tax for a vehicle registered against submission of Certificate of Deposit, which is issued by a Registered Vehicle Scrapping Facility.
India is committed to supplying COVID-19 vaccines to other nations and such supplies are likely to begin by the end of this year, as the abundant production will not just meet domestic needs but also generate surplus for exports a top government official said on Monday.
The UK on Saturday detected two cases of the new COVID-19 variant, Omicron, according to health secretary Sajid Javid as he added four more African countries to Britain's travel red list.
The Centre had on Thursday asked all states and union territories to conduct rigorous screening and testing of all international travellers coming from or transiting through South Africa, Hong Kong and Botswana, where the B.1.1.529 variant has been detected.
The Centre on Thursday advised states slated to hold assembly polls in the next few months to ramp up COVID vaccination exponentially to protect the vulnerable population given the steady rise in cases of the Omicron variant of coronavirus in India.
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