The dinner Jill Biden and her husband US President Joe Biden hosted for Indian prime minister Narendra Modi, June 22, at the White House brought together, Indians and Americans from so many firmaments.
Two cases of the new Omicron variant of coronavirus have been detected in Karnataka, the Union government said on Thursday while asking people not to panic but follow Covid-appropriate behaviour and get vaccinated without delay.
While Karnataka reported five new cases, Delhi and Telangana reported four each, and Gujarat reported one fresh case of the Omicron variant.
Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Telangana, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh and West Bengal -- contribute 85.5 per cent of active caseload and 87 per cent of total deaths in India.
Stating that the fight against COVID-19 is at the final stage, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on Thursday cautioned against letting the guard down before it is completely over and requested states to enhance the vaccination coverage and motivate the over 12 crore beneficiaries who are due for their second dose to take it.
The drive has begun with Biological E's Corbevax vaccine to be administered 28 days apart. As of March 1, 2021, there were 4.7 crore children aged 12 and 13 years in the country.
Experts believe that under-reporting is likely to cause an underestimation of the spread of the disease.
Culling of chickens and ducks began on Tuesday in parts of Kerala to contain the H5N8 strain of bird flu, while Jammu and Kashmir sounded an alert and started collecting samples from migratory species after Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh reported cases of the avian influenza.
While the infection has been mild in most reported cases, those below two years of age are showing signs of acute infection.
In response to a question on whether younger population were getting more affected, Indian Council of Medical Research Director General Dr Balram Bhargava said the comparison of data during the first and the second wave of COVID-19 has shown that there is not much age difference.
The unprecedented rise in Covid-19 infections in the country, which many are terming as the second wave, has also resulted in a rise in Covid-related claims for general and health insurance companies as hospitalisations have gone up. The insurers have received more than a million Covid-related claims as of April, 2021. According to the data compiled by General Insurance Council, the reported claims total 1.014 million, amounting to more than Rs 14,800 crore.
The biggest spend (Rs 4,406 crore) was for Schedule VII (II), which involves "promoting education, including special education and employment enhancing vocation skills, especially among children, women, elderly and the differently abled and livelihood enhancement projects". The FY19 spend was 17.2 per cent higher than Rs 1,0128.3 crore spent during the previous year.
The agency also alleged that Deshmukh exercised undue influence to pass favourable transfers and postings of the police officials.
The meeting was attended by the Director Generals of Police and other senior officials of the state governments and Union Territory administrations. The union home secretary reviewed the arrangements for COVID-19 vaccine roll-out and asked the state and UTs to prepare a database of the frontline workers who will receive the vaccine during the initial stages, a home ministry official said.
The WHO said that studies have highlighted that the spread of the second wave has been much faster than the first in India.
These 51 cases were detected from over 45,000 samples sequenced so far in the country.
Deaths are significantly less in the third wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in comparison to the second wave, and the current surge is not witnessing increase in severe illness or death following high vaccination uptake, the government said on Thursday.
Nagrale, an avid golfer and a tennis player, is a recipient of the President's Police Medal, Vishesh Seva Padak and Antarik Suraksha Padak.
Telangana's Mrinal Kutteri, Delhi's Tanmay Gupta and Maharashtra's Karthika G Nair shared the top rank, scoring 720 out of 720. Eight transgender candidates have also cleared the examination.
According to the NCDC, 415 cases of the UK strain of coronavirus were found in genomes sequenced in Delhi, followed by 23 cases of the South African strain.
The fungus, also called `black fungus', is present in the environment, but those with suppressed immunity or co-morbidities are more vulnerable to its infection, he said.
The GoM was told that six states -- Maharashtra, Delhi, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal -- account for 86 per cent of the deaths caused by COVID-19 and 32 districts account for 80 per cent of such fatalities, the Union health ministry said.
The crime branch of Mumbai Police, which is probing the case, had sought the proclamation, saying that the Indian Police Service officer could not be traced even after the issuance of a non-bailable warrant against him.
The minister, however, henceforth, must make statements against Wankhede or his family only after "reasonable verification of facts," the HC said.
The country witnessed 20 more deaths due to swine flu as the toll of the contagious disease climbed to 2,084 and over 34,000 people were still infected by the H1N1 virus.
Shooting is underway for Amitabh Bachchan's Goodbye, Shah Rukh Khan's Pathan, Salman Khan's Tiger 3 and Prabhas and Saif Ali Khan's Adipurush among other films.
According to NHFS-5, over 75 per cent women justified men beating their wives in three states -- Telangana (84 per cent), Andhra Pradesh (84 per cent) and Karnataka (77 per cent).
The patient is currently admitted to the Lok Nayak Jai Prakash (LNJP) Hospital and has mild symptoms, hospital officials said.
The Union health ministry said 11 states have over one lakh active COVID-19 cases, 17 have less than 50,000 cases while eight have active cases between 50,000 and one lakh.
It took a five-day hunger strike by the former Delhi University professor, in jail without a break for five years after being convicted of links with Maoists, for the jail administration to agree to his request for a water bottle.
In order to prevent the spread of the Omicron variant of coronavirus, the West Bengal government on Thursday announced that it has suspended all the flights coming to Kolkata airport from the United Kingdom from January 3 onwards till further notice.
The first COVID-19 vaccine shots in India were given on Saturday to nearly two lakh frontline healthcare and sanitary workers as Prime Minister Narendra Modi rolled out the world's largest inoculation drive against the pandemic that has caused 1,52,093 deaths and upended millions of lives in the country.
There are two hotspots each in Uttar Pradesh, Delhi, Kerala and Maharashtra and one each in Gujarat and Rajasthan
'The BJP's solo aim in Mumbai and Maharashtra is to finish off the Shiv Sena and Sharad Pawar's NCP.'
After a long hiatus of more than 20 months, the government had on November 26 announced the resumption of scheduled international commercial flights from December 15.
The highest number of confirmed cases are from Maharashtra (748), followed by Tamil Nadu at 571 and Delhi with 523 cases. Cases in Telangana have gone up to 321, in Kerala to 314, in Uttar Pradesh to 305, while the number of cases has gone up to 274 in Rajasthan.
Intensifying operations against the Naxals and chocking the flow of funds to them were the two key issues discussed at a high-level meeting chaired by Union home mAmit Shah and attended by six chief ministers and top officials of four other states here on Sunday, sources said.
Alert to the looming threat from the 'Omicron' variant, states began to re-tighten curbs and urgently trace people who arrived from abroad in the last one month while a demand to not allow flights from the affected countries was made by Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal and Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai.
The Centre said the upsurge of COVID-19 cases is happening in cities and the Omicron variant is the predominant circulating strain.
The death of a 11-year-old boy due to 'bird-flu', even before the devastating effects of the second Covid wave have waned, has alarmed the medical fraternity though they assert that human-to-human transmission of H5N1 virus is extremely rare. The event has also put the Rs 90,000 crore domestic poultry industry which was seeing some uptick in demand after months of low sales last year into a spot of bother, as any curb on sale or production of eggs or chicken could have a devastating impact on its revenues. It is estimated that around 60 million people are directly impacted by the poultry sector in India. H5N1 virus, also commonly known as bird flu, is known to spread from chickens but other birds such as ducks and crow are also carriers of the virus.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances