Among the other names tipped to make it to the Cabinet are Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sarbananda Sonowal, Baijayant Panda.
The PM said there was a need to 'fight' rumours that the lockdown could be reimposed.
A Delhi Police spokesperson said that nearly 500 personnel have tested positive for the deadly virus so far.
An Indian national, Laagan Yadav, 45, has been taken into custody by the Nepal border police, they said. Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) Director General (DG) Kumar Rajesh Chandra told PTI in Delhi that the incident took place around 8.40 am 'deep inside Nepalese territory'.
"The unsound analysis of the said article is based on the extrapolation of data without any epidemiological evidence," the ministry said, adding the studies used by the magazine to estimate the mortality are not validated tools for determining the death rate of any country or region.
It took 110 days for the COVID-19 cases in the country to reach one lakh and just 59 days more to go past the nine-lakh mark.
A home ministry official said while 9,000 Tablighi Jamaat members and their primary contacts have been quarantined till now across the country due to "massive efforts" to check the outbreak, the Centre has written to all states and union territories that "the lockdown measures should be implemented in letter and spirit".
Authorities across states have identified more than 6,000 people who attended the Nizamuddin Tablighi Jamaat congregation, the biggest COVID-19 hotspot in India.
In New Delhi, state Congress president Anil Kumar and party workers were detained by police at a petrol pump near Parmanand hospital.
There are 8,97,394 active cases of COVID-19, which is 20.53 per cent of the total caseload in the country, the data stated.
Delhi recorded 954 cases on Monday, according to a health department bulletin. The bulletin said the number of tests conducted too was the lowest in July.
This is the second day in a row that the case positivity rate has remained below 10 per cent, the ministry said. The weekly positivity rate has also declined to 11.45 per cent.
The death toll due to the coronavirus infection rose to 7,466 and the cases mounted to 2,66,598 in the country.
Maharashtra remains the worst-affected state due to the virus with 33,053 cases, including 1,198 deaths. It is followed by Gujarat (11,379), Tamil Nadu (11,224) and Delhi (10,054).
The recovery rate was recorded at 76.28 per cent, while the COVID-19 case fatality rate has further declined to 1.82 per cent.
India's COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7.
This is the third consecutive day when COVID-19 cases increased by more than 45,000.
On the extension of the PMGKAY, he said it will cost the government Rs 90,000 crore more.
Given Nitish's track record as an accomplished trapeze artist who can dump the BJP overnight and embrace the RJD, he can leave the saffron party stranded should he fail to get the chief ministerial crown for the fourth time, notes Virendra Kapoor.
The prime minister also asserted that in view of the COVID-19 situation, the states must ensure that people follow all health precautions such as wearing of face masks, hand sanitisation and maintaining an adequate physical distance with each other while undertaking rescue efforts.
The districts are Gondia (Maharashtra), Raj Nand Gaon (Chhattisgarh), Davangiri (Karnataka), South Goa, Wayanad and Kottayam (Kerala), West Imphal (Manipur), Rajouri (J&K), Aizwal West (Mizoram), Mahe in Puducherry, SBS Nagar in Punjab, Patna, Nalanda and Munger in Bihar, Pratapgarh in Rajasthan, Panipat, Rohtak and Sirsa in Haryana, Pauri Garhwal in Uttrakhand and Bhadradari Kothagudem in Telangana.
With this latest spike, the total cases in the country stand at 16,38,871.
People living in the national capital and in states such as Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu are more likely to contract COVID-19 due to prolonged exposure to high concentration of PM 2.5, according to a new pan-India study.
410 civil servants in a feedback survey to the Prime Minister's Office said that the curfew should stay till the pandemic is controlled and asked to increase fiscal spending on health infrastructure to around Rs 5-10 trillion.
The Padma Bhushan was conferred on 17 personalities including N Chandrasekharan, chairman of Tata Sons, Krishna and Suchita Ella of Bharat Biotech, Cyrus Poonawalla, Satya Nadella, chairman of Microsoft, Sunder Pichai, chairman of Google.
The recovery rate among COVID-19 patients was recorded at 64.44 per cent, while the fatality rate was at 2.21 per cent.
It is understood that he was confirmed positive for coronavirus on Thursday night.
We love a leader who oozes authority and firmness, notes Virendra Kapoor.
In his second national broadcast in a week on the pandemic raging across much of the world with the number of infections rising in India, Modi made a fervent appeal to the countrymen not to cross the 'lakshman rekha' of their homes in the next three weeks.
The court directed him neither to leave the country without permission nor change his address and mobile number during the bail period.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi briefed the BJP MPs on the government's plans to celebrate 75 years of the nation's Independence during the parliamentary party meeting.
Union officials said with increasing possibility of further extension of the coronavirus-induced lockdown, several auto and taxi drivers are going to their native places in their black and yellow coloured auto rickshaws and taxis.
The death toll has gone up by 193 since Saturday morning, of which 99 were from Maharashtra, 27 from Gujarat, 18 from Delhi, nine each from Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, seven from West Bengal, six each from Tamil Nadu and Telangana, five in Bihar, three from Uttar Pradesh, two from Punjab, and one each from Haryana and Kerala
These workers do not have jobs and the Railways should not charge train fare from them, Deshmukh said in a video message. The Bharatiya Janata Party on Monday said the Railways has subsidised 85 per cent of ticket fare for special trains being run to transport migrant workers and the state governments have to pay the remaining 15 per cent.
India is the seventh worst-hit nation by the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of the number of infections, after the US, Brazil, Russia, the UK, Spain and Italy. While the recovery rate in coronavirus infections is improving and has reached 48.19 per cent in India, there has been steady decline in the case fatality which is now 2.83 per cent, the health ministry said.
The home ministry asked the state governments and UT administrations to inform it about different aspects of the lockdown and whether there are necessities to give exemptions to some more categories of people and services from the restrictions, a home ministry official said.
The number of healthcare and frontline workers vaccinated against the coronavirus in the country has surpassed 85 lakh, the Union health ministry said on Monday.
The rise in fresh Covid cases and the effective reproduction number -- indication of how fast an infection spreads -- in many states is worrying but don't panic. Instead, mask up and get vaccinated, say experts, stressing that it is too early to declare the beginning of a new wave.
After a gap of two months, domestic passenger flight operations resumed on Monday amid reluctance by various states to open up their airports in view of rising cases of the novel coronavirus.
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