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.
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.
This will be the fifth meeting of the prime minister with the chief ministers since the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
'We are so busy in our lives, there is never any time.'
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
'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.
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".
Partial lockdown measures may impact movement of labour & goods, they say.
'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.
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.
The lockdown has created much-needed family time for Shweta Dolli.
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.
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.
'I will not take anything for granted now.'
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.
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.
To kick-start the work under MGNREGA after the lockdown is lifted, the government has already prepared plans and states have also submitted their work plans.
Sheela Jaywant invites you to explore The GoaWriters Group's interesting look at the lockdown.
Pancakes. Family love. Reading. Recuperating. That's what's filling this model's time.
'Many people are still not taking the lockdown seriously. . I request state governments to ensure rules and laws are followed'
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.
The threat of COVID-19 still persists, Thackeray said.
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 exercise to update the National Population Register and the first phase of the Census 2021 will not be held as scheduled due to the 21-day lockdown announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, officials said on Tuesday. Both the exercises were supposed to be carried out from April 1 to September 30.
Never have I been so thankful for my decision to quit my life in Mumbai and shift to Santiniketan as I have been in these times of the coronavirus.
We asked colleagues, present and past, to reflect on a man who has made such a difference to their lives and careers. Here it is then, a rich collection of memories that offer enchanting glimpses of the enigmatic Ajit Balakrishnan.
The state has also conveyed its views on the relaxations it wants in the fourth phase of the lockdown.
While salaried jobs are not lost easily, once lost they are also far more difficult to retrieve. Therefore, their ballooning numbers are a source of worry, notes Mahesh Vyas.
The lockdown has taught singer Abuzar Akhtar interesting new ways of creating music.
A month-long national lockdown to arrest the spread of COVID 2.0 could shave off 100-200 bps of GDP, leading to a 300 bps risk to annual growth, a brokerage report has flagged while expressing doubts over the ability of local lockdowns to control the pandemic. The second wave of the coronavirus inflection has caught the government off-guard with the daily cases jumping over 6.5 times in the past 30 days. With close to 3.53 lakh fresh daily infections, the country is the worst hit globally.
He also announced that 50 per cent of the DTC buses will be operational from Tuesday to ensure that those involved in essential services do not face problems. He said that there were 30 cases in Delhi till date, out of which 23 were reported from people who came from the affected countries and seven were infected through the local transmission.
In India, 11.9 lakh excess deaths occurred in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, 17 per cent higher compared to 2019, an international study has found.
Johnson revealed that the number of hospital patients has increased to nearly 27,000, almost a third higher than the peak of the first wave of the pandemic in April 2020.
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