The Chief Election Commissioner pointed out that the exercise involved nearly 7.3 crore voters and over 1.06 lakh polling stations.
The complainant, Neelu Kumari, said the complainant, who has been attached to the hospital's isolation ward, has alleged that she was stopped from entering her home through the back gate which she was doing as a precautionary measure by her neighbours.
Police says the reason behind the killing was internal dispute. The deceased's family, however, lodged an FIR alleging that he was killed by two persons for reporting to the police about their return to the village from Mumbai amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Patna-resident Gaurav Rai has helped save the lives of over 1,100 patients in home isolation in the state capital and other parts of Bihar so far by providing oxygen cylinders free of cost.
Tejashwi accused the Nitish Kumar-led government of meting out "step-motherly" treatment to migrant labourers.
Health Minister Harsh Vardhan advised people to refrain from non-essential travel to Iran, Italy, South Korea and Singapore.
Bihar Police ADG wrote a letter to the Mumbai municipal commissioner, seeking the IPS officer's exemption from quarantine protocols and facilitate his return to Patna to resume his duty.
A division bench of Chief Justice Dipankar Datta and Justice G S Kulkarni said the Union government's new "near to home" vaccination programme was like waiting for the virus carrier to come to the Centre. "Coronavirus is our biggest enemy. We need to strike it down. The enemy is residing in certain areas and in some people who are unable to come out. Your (government) approach should be like a surgical strike. You are standing at the borders waiting for the virus carrier to come to you. You are not entering the enemy territory," Chief Justice Datta said.
In the wake of 73 confirmed cases of coronavirus in India so far, the Union health ministry has made functional 52 laboratories for testing samples while 57 labs have been designated for helping in sample collection for Covid-19 to enhance capacity for diagnosis and detection of the disease. "Following the increase in load of screening samples from suspected cases with symptoms and travel history to the affected countries, the department of health research/ICMR has commissioned 52 laboratories for COVID-19 testing in India," an official said.
Raising the issue through a Zero Hour mention in the Rajya Sabha, RJD MP Manoj Kumar Jha said reports in a national daily have suggested fudging and manipulation of the testing data.
The Paytm employee, who tested positive for the contagious disease with flu like symptoms on Wednesday, came in touch with 91 people in Gurgaon, an official said, citing his counterpart in the suburban town.
Concern is growing among healthcare experts who believe that if people do not follow the lockdown or social distancing seriously, the situation can quickly go out of control.
The Union Health ministry put the number of positive cases at 82, eight more since Thursday night, which includes the woman and a 76-year-old man from Karnataka who became the country's first coronavirus fatality besides 17 foreign nationals, Health Ministry officials said.
India's largest airline has also told its crew members -- who are working on flights connecting India with East Asian countries like Thailand and Singapore -- to wear N95 masks at all times when they are on ground.
India saw a single-day rise of 2,796 fatalities with Bihar carrying out a reconciliation exercise of its COVID data, pushing the country's death toll to 4,73,326, while 8,895 new infections were reported, according to the Union health ministry data updated on Sunday.
According to the department, which had till the previous day stated the number of deaths to be under 5,500, as many as 3,951 deaths have been added to the toll after verification.
The Election Commission has reduced maximum number of campaigners for the recognised parties to 30 while for the unrecognised parties it would be not more than 20 in view of coronavirus pandemic, Additional Chief Electoral Officer (ACEO) Sanjay Kumar Singh said on Friday. The maximum number was earlier fixed at 40 for everybody.
The state polls are due in October-November.
Launching a veiled attack on Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad, who he did not mention by name, Modi said Bihar has come out of an era when rail, road and internet connectivity were made light of and people used to say of what use roads are for those who walk on their feet.
More than 1.20 lakh Himachalis have already returned home in less than a week's time. There is a list of 21,000 others approved for return, and at least two lakh more are still awaiting official nod for their return. Will this influx see a spike in coronavirus numbers? That is the administration's main worry, reports Ashwani Sharma.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi took a swipe at the BJP, saying one has to refer to the state-wise election schedule to know when one will have access to the vaccine. The BJP, however, said health is a state subject and its manifesto is for Bihar, not for the entire country, where it has promised that the state will buy the vaccine for its people.
Guidelines have been issued by the Commission for safe conduct of the electoral exercise in the midst of the raging COVID-19 pandemic. These guidelines include lowering the maximum number of voters for a polling booth from 1,600 to 1,000, staggering the polling hours and extending postal ballot facility to those above 80.
Arora gave the example of recently-held JEE and NEET examinations, saying thousands of candidates from various district across India came out to write the test.
Overcrowding, unsanitary conditions in Asia's largest slum pose big challenges to containment.
'Seek medical help if after five days of the first symptom the fever has not subsided.'
The Opposition grand alliance is proving to be a non-starter, with senior RJD leaders reluctant to be ordered about by an immature and entitled Tejashswi, observes Virendra Kapoor.
Far from the metros and big cities, the coronavirus crisis in the country's districts, towns and villages is being led by district magistrates.
The responsibility of keeping the pandemic under control lies with the DM or collector.
Subrat Kumar Sen, the young district magistrate of Saran, north Bihar, tells Rediff.com's Archana Masih how he and his staff are combating a crisis that no one has confronted before.
18 buses carrying students from Assam and 31 with students from Haryana were scheduled to leave Kota on Friday, Additional District Magistrate (administration), Kota Narendra Gupta, who is monitoring the task, said.
While P Muralidhar Rao, BJP general secretary, says, 'Digital electioneering is here to stay until the elections in 2021,' the BJP's rallies in Bihar will not be confined to cyberspace. Its strategists have devised other ways of getting around the hygiene protocol that Covid-19 has entailed.
While three deaths were reported from Gujarat, two were from Himachal Pradesh and one each from Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh besides one reconciled by Kerala, the data updated at 8 am stated.
The party, however, did not announce as whether it would merge with any other party or become part of some other alliance.
India has recorded 9,111 new coronavirus infections, while active cases have increased to 60,313, according to the Union health ministry data updated on Monday.
When Viktor Zicho left Hungary 11 months ago to cycle to Darjeeling in India, he did not dream that he would be quarantined for two months in Bihar.
The number of active COVID-19 cases stood at 13,295 while 2,301 people have been cured and discharged.
Arora also said he is confident that the EC will be able to hold the next set of assembly polls on time and the internal exercise for those is already underway.
State Health Minister K K Shailaja told reporters that the government has declared the epidemic as a 'state calamity' to take all necessary steps to ensure that the outbreak is effectively controlled. A medical bulletin issued by the government said the health status of all the three students, who tested positive for the virus, was 'satisfactory'.
The petitioner, Avinash Thakur, had sought a direction to the Chief Election Commissioner to postpone the polls due to the COVID-19 pandemic on the ground that the Representation of the People Act provides for the deferment of polls in extraordinary situations.
As people crisscross the country, eager to return to their homes, the cases have raced past 80,000 with at least 2,649 deaths, according to the Union health ministry on Friday. While there is no exact count, this includes a large number of those who have returned to their states.
Bihar school girl Jyoti Kumari, who cycled 1200 km with her injured father from New Delhi to Darbhanga, will appear for Cycling Federation of India trials once the lockdown ends even though finishing matriculation is her primary aim. Rendered jobless and penniless because of the extended coronavirus lockdown, the 15-year-old was forced to ferry her father who was unable to walk properly after a surgery to his left knee following an accident.
The Centre directed Uttar Pradesh and Bihar on Sunday to prevent dumping of dead bodies in the Ganga and its tributaries, and focus on their safe disposal and a dignified cremation after corpses were seen floating in these rivers following a spurt in the number of coronavirus cases.