Cases with the Omicron variant have already been detected in Karnataka and Gujarat.
After the Gujarat and Himachal elections and the municipal polls in Mumbai and Delhi, Karnataka, Rajasthan, MP and Chhattisgarh will elect new assemblies next year leading up to the Lok Sabha election in April-May 2024, points out Virendra Kapoor.
Women and children have been given short shrift with these crucial sectors facing substantive budgetary cuts, discovers Rashme Sehgal.
Around 52.46 per cent of the patients have recovered, the health ministry said. The number of active cases stood at 1,53,178 while 1,80,012 patients have recovered, it said in the daily COVID-19 update.
Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said people living in the coastal belt would be shifted to safer places.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday asked states to make full use of the expanded COVID-19 testing capacity and saving lives a top priority as India recorded the highest ever spike of 2,003 coronavirus deaths after Maharashtra and Delhi added earlier fatalities not attributed to the disease.
The prime minister also called for more RT-PCR tests.
This is the seventh consecutive day that COVID-19 cases have increased by more than 45,000.
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.
The appointment of new expenditure secretary comes a month-and-a-half ahead of the Budget for 2020-21 to be presented on February 1.
Addressing his council of ministers in a video conference, Modi asked them to prepare business continuity plans to fight the economic impact of COVID-19 on a war footing, but also asserted that this crisis is an opportunity to boost the 'Make-in-India' initiative and reduce dependence on other countries.
The correlation between withdrawal of deposits and the Covid death rate is stark, reveals Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
Officials said PFI has been under the radar of security agencies for its alleged role in violent protests in different parts of the country.
Rohit Sharma, who is the vice-captain of the Indian ODI team, has donated Rs 45 lakh and Rs 25 lakh to the and CM's Relief Fund (Maharashtra) respectively. He has given Rs 5 lakh to 'Zomato Feeding India', which is helping families affected by the ongoing national lockdown, and another Rs 5 lakh to help aid the welfare of stray dogs.
The Congress leader submitted his resignation as an MLA to Assembly Speaker Haribhau Bagade at his office. Bagade accepted his resignation, along with that of Congress MLA Abdul Sattar and state minister Girish Bapat.
'There is no food to eat and water to drink and people are migrating in hordes.' 'Chief Minister Fadnavis must shift his base to Marathwada in such times.' 'If you do not help during a drought, then when will you help?'
She hailed Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union home minister Amit Shah and BJP president J P Nadda as her leaders.
Besides Karnataka, states like Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Assam, West Bengal, Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya have already announced area-wise lockdown for different durations.
With almost all opposition parties too backing the 'Bharat bandh' and many announcing parallel protests in support of the farmers, the Centre has issued an advisory directing the states and Union Territories to tighten security and ensure peace is maintained.
The government on Thursday recommended the rejection of five mercy petitions including that of Surendra Koli sent to the gallows for the infamous serial killing of children in Nithari in Noida and of two sisters sentenced to death for murdering several children.
Stones were pelted from both the sides, following which police used cane-charge to disperse the agitators, an official said.
In a year when the country produced record coal, rains hit movement of the fuel from mines to power generation units, impacting power generation in many states, including Gujarat, Punjab, Rajasthan, Delhi and Tamil Nadu.
While asserting that the growth of coronavirus cases in the country has been more or less linear and not exponential, it also said testing has been ramped up consistently.
Prasad Bhosale, a football coach residing in Mumbai said that he has been selling vegetables from the past two months and he also opened up about the struggles he has faced in this duration.
That the MVA government, comprising Shiv Sena, Nationalist Congress Party and Congress completed a year in office despite frequent murmurs of lack of coordination among the ruling alliance partners is being attributed to the rapport between Thackeray, 60, and NCP patriarch Sharad Pawar.
Without naming P Chidambaram, he charged the then home minister with giving "colour" to terrorism by coining the term 'saffron terror'.
The RSS wants three nominees inducted: Tejaswi Surya, the young BJP MP from Bengaluru South, Vinay Sahasrabuddhe, a Rajya Sabha member, and former Maharashtra chief minister Devendra Fadnavis.
Amid speculation that Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose may be named for the Bharat Ratna, a Congress leader on Sunday said Bahujan Samaj Party founder Kanshi Ram and Aligarh Muslim University founder Sir Syed Ahmed Khan should also be given the country's highest civilian award.
Prasanna D Zore reports on the backroom drama accompanying the efforts to cobble together the next government in Maharashtra. 'While the Congress is insisting upon equal power sharing structure among all the three parties, the NCP is of the opinion that ministries should be distributed based on the number of MLAs belonging to each of the three parties.' Prasanna D Zore reports on the backroom room accompanying the efforts to cobble together the next government in Maharashtra.
Jairam Ramesh said the Congress has to be the "fulcrum" of any Opposition alliance to take on the BJP in the 2024 general elections as it is the only political force with a pan-India presence.
Mumbai Dabbawala Association is skeptic about resumption of services in full capacity amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The number of recoveries also surged with 2,48,189 patients cured so far, while there were 1,78,014 active cases, according to the updated official figures at 8 am.
Earlier in the day, state home minister Anil Deshmukh, also of the NCP, said that it was "extremely ill-advised" to reopen airports in red zone amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Cases of man-made obstructions were discovered at Malda and Dhanbad divisions by alert railway staff in time, thereby averting major derailments
It also mentioned some Ayurvedic practices which can help recess the symptoms of respiratory tract in possible coronavirus infected cases.
The meeting comes against the backdrop of rising number of coronavirus cases in the country.
The move came at a time when deliberations between the Congress, the NCP and the Shiv Sena seemingly reached the final stage on Friday.
35 districts have been reporting high active COVID-19 caseload and fatality rate. These 35 districts comprise all 11 districts in Delhi, Kolkata, Howrah, North 24 Parganas and 24 South Parganas in West Bengal; Pune, Nagpur, Thane, Mumbai, Mumbai Suburban, Kolhapur, Sangli, Nashik, Ahmednagar, Raigad, Jalgaon, Solapur, Satara, Palghar, Aurangabad, Dhule and Nanded in Maharashtra; Surat in Gujarat; Pondicherry in Puducherry and East Singhbhum in Jharkhand.
Security has been heightened at the Israeli embassy, consulates and other Jewish establishments in several states following intelligence inputs that terror groups like Lashker-e-Tayiba may target them.
This was the fourth consecutive day that COVID-19 cases in the country have increased by more than 26,000.
