Joint secretary in the ministry Lav Agarwal said 149 new COVID-19 cases, including two deaths, have been reported since Friday. Combined efforts are on to ensure 100 per cent lockdown and that social distancing gets implemented, he said at a press briefing on the current COVID-19 situation in India.
We will find it difficult to exceed an average of 5 per cent growth in the medium term, warns Shankar Acharya, the former chief economic adviser.
According to a survey by community platform LocalCircles, early-stage start-ups, funding dependent start-ups and many small businesses will soon be fighting for survival as the spurt in coronavirus cases hits them hard.
The recoveries surged to 15,35,743 with a record 54,859 more people recuperating in the past 24 hours, taking the recovery rate to 69.33 per cent. The case fatality rate has dropped to about 2 per cent, the govt said.
If you are among those people who prefer to jump into bed first and save the difficult conversations for later, then these times might not fancy you, cautions Ravi Mittal, founder, CEO, Quack Quack, an online dating app.
The government said this before a bench headed by Justice Ashok Bhushan which reserved order on a plea seeking directions to do away with the practice of pasting posters outside the homes of those infected by coronavirus.
The current pictorial health warnings used on Indian tobacco products are ineffective compared to the pictorial warnings mandated in 2006 and present international health warnings, as per a recent survey.
More than 3,71,500 babies were born worldwide on New Year's Day and India is estimated to have recorded the highest number of births at around 60,000, according to the United Nations' children's agency.
Additional infrastructure for dining rooms in each of the school has been recommended.
Unsurprised by the rising numbers, epidemiologists are concerned about the virus reaching rural and tribal areas where the health infrastructure is weak, reports Ruchika Chitravanshi.
The Survey lists some of the challenges that might impede India's progress.
Nearly half of all coronavirus patients in the country have been cured, taking the recovery rate to over 48 per cent.
However, the number of confirmed cases reported by states rose by over 500 to cross 3,000 with at least 90 dead. While Maharashtra, Telangana and Delhi disclosed several new cases of the deadly virus infection, government officials said the numbers have risen in last few days mostly due to one event -- referring to the Tablighi Jamaat's religious gathering in the national capital attended by thousands of people last month.
There is no rule book to tell you about the hows and whats of sex because every living being is born with the tendency to master the art when the time comes. Just take a moment, relax and introspect.
Stressing that economic growth will only move upwards, the Reserve Bank of India Governor Shaktikanta Das on Friday pegged the GDP growth rate for the next financial year at 10.5 per cent, though a tad lower than the government's projection of 11 per cent. The projection is in line with the estimates in the Union Budget 2021-22 presented in Parliament earlier this week. The Economic Survey, tabled by the government in Parliament recently, has projected that the economy will grow at 11 per cent, up from an estimated historic decline of 7.7 per cent in 2020-21, on account of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The endemic stage is when a population learns to live with a virus.
Economic performance is affected if large numbers of people are out of work, or at such low levels of income as to force under-consumption, observes T N Ninan.
The Centre on Saturday issued fresh guidelines relaxing the nationwide lockdown, the fourth phase of which ends on May 31.
As per a study, there is a startling rise in the number of women who binge drink after becoming parents.
Turns out, women have more diverse preferences related to sexual pleasure than believed.
"Both the number of new patients and that of deaths are highest for a single day so far," an official said. 79 persons tested positive for COVID-19 during the day, taking the number of such cases in the country's financial capital to 775, the civic body said.
After staging a strong recovery from COVID-induced slowdown in 2021, India's exports are likely to extend the growth story to the New Year also on increased demand in the global markets, boost in domestic manufacturing due to production-linked incentive schemes and implementation of some interim trade pacts. Expectations of positive growth in the country's exports are also backed up by the outlook of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) which predicts a 4.7 per cent expansion in the global merchandise trade volume in 2022. Exporters believe that the outbound shipments would cross $400 billion mark in this fiscal going by the current momentum and may reach $475 billion in 2022-23.
A recent survey revealed that 46 percent of girls and 30 percent of boys in the US, most of who are in their teens smoke to control their weight.
Over 200 world leaders, including former presidents, prime ministers and ministers have backed a campaign urging the Group of Seven (G7) rich nations to help vaccinate the world's poorest from low-income economies against COVID-19 by paying two-thirds of an estimated $66 billion required.
Only half India's population has received the first shot of Covishield and Covaxin and the government's immediate task is to first vaccinate its adult population before placing its focus on children.
This is the ninth consecutive month that the manufacturing PMI remained above the 50-point-mark.
Flood victims have been fighting for survival and living in temporary shelters nearby railway tracks with lack of food items. They are yet to get any help from the government, reports M I Khan.
The biggest worry is not the shrinking of the labour market, but the collapse of good jobs.
The implementation of four labour codes in one go from April 1 next year will usher in a new wave of reforms in industrial relations and also help in attracting more investments but employment generation will remain a key challenge in 2021. This year has also been a challenging year for the work force as well as for employers due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The government imposed a nationwide lockdown from March 25, which had an adverse impact on economic activities and resulted in exodus of migrant workers from large cities to their homes in the hinterland. Many migrant labourers lost their jobs and it took months for them to return back to their work places from their native places.
He also said that one month back, the recovery rate was around 38 per cent, but it is now 67 per cent, adding that out of a total of 87,000 cases, 58,000 people have so far recovered from the dreaded virus.
The real battle for NEET abolition can take much more time and energy, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The government has to focus on real solutions, not make a mockery of the crisis through 'vaccine festivals',' asserts T N Ninan.
An apple a day may not keep the doctor away, according to a new research which found that daily apple eaters had just as many doctor visits as those who did not regularly eat the fruit.
The challenge ahead for central and state governments remains enormous.
Increments in 2017 would be less than in 2016, says survey.
'The large scale and widespread shrinking of the labour force in November, the peaking of unemployment in October and the fall in lead indicators in October and November point towards a worsening of the slowdown of the Indian economy in the third quarter of 2019-20,' says Mahesh Vyas.
'If we vaccinate quickly, it could be pushed to January, February, and the longer it can be pushed, the smaller the wave is likely to be, because by that time vaccination will scale up.'
It is necessary that at least three million additional jobs (if not more) are created every year to ensure that there isn't an increase in the stock of unemployed, says Mahesh Vyas.
A good night's sleep helps remove stress and anxiety.
It took a lockdown for us in India to even recognise that the plight of migrants needs to be addressed. They were faceless and unrecognised. They were unappreciated and even hounded. They were poorly paid and exploited, notes Ramesh Menon.
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