After the easing of lockdown in mid-May, auto companies were able to resume production in a phased manner, but the ramp-up was slow due to a broken supply chain, and lockdown-induced restrictions.
Every passenger gets 55 per cent concession on train journeys, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said regarding demands to restore pre-Covid fare concessions for senior citizens and media persons.
In a major relief to passengers, whose flights got cancelled due to the Covid-19 lockdown, the Supreme Court on Thursday accepted the recommendations of the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to refund ticket fares and also approved a credit shell scheme which will be valid till March 31.
'Action for the sake of action never really works, then it's an item number.' 'Action works when the emotional drama and arc of the story moves forward with the action.'
Data from market research agency Nielsen shows that 152 new players entered the hygiene market in March as the lockdown was implemented to contain the spread of the coronavirus disease. The trend is expected to continue, the agency says, as hygiene and health emerge as key themes.
On Day One of the lockdown announced by the Maharashtra Government, it wasn't business as usual for automobile manufacturing units in the State. Confusion prevailed over regulations-what is allowed and what isn't. While some units ran with less than half the workforce, others sought clarity from the government on what is permissible and what isn't.
According to officials, Punjab, West Bengal, Maharashtra, Assam and Telangana wanted the lockdown to be continued, some of them wanted the powers to decide the zoning of districts -- green, orange and red -- as per the COVID-19 situation.
Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation mayor Kishori Pednekar on Tuesday said that a lockdown may have to be imposed in Mumbai in view of the rise in Covid-19 cases "if people don't follow rules", news agency ANI reported.
Amid an increase in localised lockdowns across the country, Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das on Wednesday said there is no need for a loan repayments moratorium at present, stating that businesses are better prepared to face the situation. It can be noted that the RBI had announced a six-month moratorium in the early days of the national lockdown last year to help borrowers impacted by a chilling in economic activity. The entire state of Maharashtra is in a lockdown for non-essential services and localised and night lockdowns are being observed in many pockets of the country, including the national capital, to restrict the surge in cases.
Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind president Maulana Arshad Madani urged Muslims to offer prayers, including special 'Taraweeh' prayers, during Ramzan at home rather than in mosques.
'Suddenly the audience pool feels bigger, like everyone is watching everything now.' 'It's no longer limited in terms of boundaries, like a state or a language.' 'Whether it's a series, a movie or even a Korean film, the audience has access to all of it.' 'Slowly, the boundaries are blurring, so that's great for actors.'
'Many generations have braved and fought many things.' 'Our generation's battle is this, and we have to protect ourselves and our families by not letting the virus get to us.'
"A recent Columbia University study that supports that death is prevented by earlier lockdowns bears the fact that Narendra Modi's government has done an excellent job in clamping lockdown," Tennessee-based Dr Indranill Basu Ray said in a statement.
The video conference comes amidst indications that the central government may extend the lockdown across the country beyond April 14 after several states have favoured the extension to contain the fast-spreading virus.
Partial lockdown measures may impact movement of labour & goods, they say.
From fast food and athleisure to ACs, the demand for several non-discretionary items has spiked since May 17, when Lockdown 4.0 was extended till May 31.
Rediff.com brings you some of the memes to cheer you up during this trying times.
This will be the fifth meeting of the prime minister with the chief ministers since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
Equity investors suffered a massive loss of Rs 31 lakh crore on Tuesday as markets went into a tailspin with the BSE Sensex tumbling nearly 6 per cent as vote counting trends showed the BJP may not have a clear majority in the Lok Sabha polls. Erasing the record-rally of the previous trade, the 30-share BSE Sensex cracked 4,389.73 points or 5.74 per cent to settle at 72,079.05. During the day, the benchmark tanked 6,234.35 points or 8.15 per cent to hit a nearly five-month low of 70,234.43.
Unemployment rate for persons aged 15 years or above declined to 3.1 per cent in 2023, the lowest in the last three years, as per a report of National Sample Survey Organisation under the statistics ministry. According to Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) for calender year 2023, the unemployment rate came down to 3.1 per cent in 2023 from 3.6 per cent in 2022 and 4.2 per cent in 2021. Joblessness, or unemployment rate, is defined as the percentage of unemployed people in the labour force.
'We are so busy in our lives, there is never any time.'
The nationwide lockdown, which has been in place since March to contain the spread of coronavirus, has rendered several unskilled labourers and daily wagers jobless. The IIM-A conducted the survey among 500 households in the city that earned less than 19,500 per month, the release in Ahmedabad stated.
National Sports Federations and State Olympic Associations have been asked to collect feedback from the stakeholders such as athletes, coaches, support staff, central and state government ministries, match officials and sports administrators on how and when training should resume. The lockdown has been extended till May 17.
The economies of states and union territories such as Puducherry, Kerala, Goa, etc and some North-eastern states are heavily dependent on tourism and hospitality, which is yet to get relaxation from lockdown restrictions.
On a day his government granted a slew of relaxations in non-containment zones while extending the latest lockdown till June 30, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday said that people should tread cautiously while beginning the "new life".
'Premature lifting of the lockdown will spread the disease from asymptomatics, and those undetected, to the whole community, ushering in prolonged misery, preventable and avoidable deaths, famine and social unrest,' warns Dr Debashish Danda.
Sheela Bhatt reports from Firozabad, the country's centre for glass bangles, on what life is like for its workers in the wake of the national lockdown.
'There are many questions that come to mind as we consider the reality of India and what Indians will be expected to do from the time this lockdown is opened up,' notes Aakar Patel.
'Two days notice for the Janata Curfew.' 'Two-and-a-half days notice for lighting candles, but a mere four-hour notice for the lockdown without taking state governments into confidence.'
The Maharashtra government on Tuesday withdrew its lockdown relaxation norms for Mumbai and Pune regions, both coronavirus hotspots, and revised its last week's guidelines prohibiting door-to-door delivery of newspapers and magazines in the state.
The two key messages of Modi's over 20 minute-long address was, however, to virtually rule out any immediate nationwide lockdown, a move that had triggered a massive migration of workers from big cities last year and hit the economy hard, and to reach out to migrants.
A tweet by the Press Information Bureau said the states which have imposed lockdown in all districts include Chandigarh, Delhi, Goa, Jammu and Kashmir and Nagaland. The other states are: Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Ladakh, Tripura, Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Meghalaya, Jharkhand, Bihar, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Haryana, Daman Diu and Dadra and Nagar Haveli, Karnataka and Assam.
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, appearing for Uttar Pradesh, said the state has taken several steps to contain the spread of coronavirus but to "lockdown five cities by a judicial order may not be the right approach".
The lockdown has created much-needed family time for Shweta Dolli.
'We need a candidate who will do our work and fight with the authorities; someone we can hold accountable.' 'Piyush Goyal is not that candidate.'
The COVID-19 tally in Maharashtra till Wednesday night stood at 25,922 and the number of fatalities at 975, with Mumbai alone accounting for 15,747 cases and 596 deaths.
Several opposition members, including from the Dravida Munnetra Kazagham and the Communist Party of India-Marxist, also pointed out that the government took almost two months to impose the lockdown after the first case came to light in January, and claimed the delay had proved costly.
A baby girl born in Gorakhpur on the day of Janta Curfew has been named 'Corona', while a boy born a week later in Deoria district of the state has been named 'Lockdown'.
According to an official statement, in a letter to Goyal, Pawar said that the migrant workers, stranded in different parts of Maharashtra, may step out in big numbers to return to their states when the train services resume after the lockdown is lifted. This can lead to law and order problem (with workers coming out in big numbers), he added. To avoid this, the railway ministry should run special trains, he demanded.
The central government may, however, advise state authorities to continue with strict curbs in COVID-19 containment zones in the worst-affected 30 municipal areas that account for 80 per cent of the positive cases in the country. These 30 municipal areas are from Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Odisha.
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