Experts believe that under-reporting is likely to cause an underestimation of the spread of the disease.
The TMC, which is yet to fully recover from the 2019 Lok Sabha poll setback, when the BJP's tally soared from two to 18, is apprehensive that the AIMIM may act as "spoiler" in several assembly segments.
The agenda prepared by ministers will be discussed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and other RCEP leaders in Nonthaburi, a city north of Bangkok, on November 4, the official deadline to close talks.
It is hard to escape the feeling that solving the problems of 2020 and 2021 will require something special which at the moment is not on view, observes Aakar Patel.
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has set a two-year deadline to seal the border.
In a video issued by the Health Ministry, Dr Randeep Guleria, Director of the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) answered commonly asked questions regarding the dosage of the vaccine saying that two doses of the vaccine will have to be taken 28 days apart and protective levels of antibodies generally would develop two weeks after the second dose.
Two coronavirus infections were reported on Saturday on a flight to the Australian Open, forcing two weeks of strict hotel quarantine for all the tennis players and entourage on board.
The Modi government's defeat on farm laws underlines the perils of governing an entire continent-sized, diverse and federal nation like the chief minister of a state, observes Shekhar Gupta.
Gota has to decide if he could order elder brother Mahinda's arrest as the agent provocateur of Monday's violence. Then he has to prepare for an interim government, in which no one would now want to become a cabinet minister leave alone prime minister, explains N Sathiya Moorthy.
A Dubai-based Indian couple had a narrow escape in the Sri Lanka blasts.
'To treat a Hindu fleeing persecution and certain death in Pakistan, Bangladesh or Afghanistan on par with a Muslim voluntarily sneaking into India for economic reasons or otherwise is callously cruel, blatantly perverse and grossly unjust.' 'The concept of equality cannot be invoked to perpetuate a historical wrong that needs to be righted,' argues Vivek Gumaste.
The BJP knows the CAA, combined with a fresh nationwide NRC process, is an idea that's dead on arrival. Where it lives on is as a divisive, polarising instrument as its rivals have to take a position against it and thereby be exposed to the charge of 'Muslim appeasement' again, points out Shekhar Gupta.
NITI Aayog member (Health) V K Paul said, "COVID-19 situation is turning from bad to worse. In last few weeks, especially in some states, it is a huge cause for worry. No state, no part of the country or district should be complacent."
Under flak from the opposition for 'diverting' Covid vaccines to private hospitals to make a profit, the Punjab government on Friday asked them to return all stock meant for the 18-44 age group.
Let us see the problem for what it actually is: Illegal Immigration plain and simple, confined to the northeast with a definite communal slant that poses a national security risk and one that needs to be dealt with firmly and promptly by stringent identification (and deportation), says Vivek Gumaste.
Indian economy is likely to rebound with an 8.9 per cent growth in the fiscal year beginning April 2021 after economic activity showed significant improvement in the last quarter, IHS Markit said on Friday. The National Statistical Organisation (NSO) on Thursday predicted that the economy will contract 7.7 per cent in the current financial year ending in March, the worst performance in four decades.
As the death toll in the country from coronavirus jumped by a record 445 to 13,699, the Centre maintained that the number of infections per lakh population was among the lowest in the world. The new cases surged by over 10,000 for the 11th day in a row and rose by 14,821 to take the total to 4,25,282, according to health ministry data.
Uttar Pradesh accounts for the maxmium dowry deaths -- 11,800 women -- followed by Bihar at 5,992.
I got to know that every referred case for angiography and angioplasty got a kickback of Rs 5,000 and Rs 15,000 respectively. Seeing this trend, doctors started paying referring doctors Rs 1 lakh in advance and adjusting it as and when patients came in. This menace slowly spread its tentacles all over the medical field, including radiological diagnostics and biochemistry laboratories. For every test ordered, 20 per cent of the bill was given back to the referring doctor. This led to doctors recommending unnecessary tests. The pharmaceutical companies also saw burgeoning business. Acclaimed doctors were given televisions sets, refrigerators, air conditioners and cars depending upon the prescriptions. General practitioners would prescribe unnecessary drugs, and were given returns in cash. A fascinating excerpt from Dr Upendra Kaul's When The Heart Speaks.
'Gogoi will be remembered as someone who recovered Assam as a state, as a people and society from the fear of insurgency that had struck the state from the 1980s till 2000.'
India is also short of about a thousand colleges.
Sputnik V is the third vaccine India has given the go-ahead to after 'Covishield', developed by Oxford University and AstraZeneca and 'Covaxin', the indigenous vaccine manufactured by Bharat Biotech. Covishield is manufactured by the Serum Institute of India.
'The more harder India pushes its nationalism on to its population, the further away we send Kashmiris.' 'We should understand that the unrest in that state cannot be solved by demonetisation. There are much deeper causes,' says Aakar Patel.
'There is a design of fundamentalists that the north east must become an Islamic country.'
Authorities also said the recovery rate of COVID-19 patients was improving consistently in India and it was in a much better position in handling the pandemic, which has seen more than 63 lakh people testing positive for this virus since its emergence in China last December and over 3.7 lakh having lost their lives.
'The roadmap ahead seems very difficult especially in the rural areas where there is very poor infrastructure, vaccine reach and hesitancy.' 'These are a deadly cocktail for the next wave.'
The role of the youth is very important in achieving the goal of 'ease of living' to give a better life to the poor, he told students.
'Aggressively stepping up vaccinations will constitute the most enduring stimulus of all in the coming quarters,' observes Sajjid Z Chinoy, Chief India Economist at J P Morgan.
10 central trade unions have called a nationwide shutdown against 'anti-worker policies' of the central government. Apart from being successful in Bengal, Kerala and NE states, the bandh has also got support from Cong leader Rahul Gandhi and Shiv Sena in Maharashtra.
The pandemic has brutally highlighted the inadequacy of India's administrative systems. And, the government has demonstrated its culpable inability to speed up vaccination in a timely manner, says Jaimini Bhagwati.
'The Modi government is about privatising profits and nationalising losses.'
The motion takes note of the UNHCR statement last month, which described the CAA as 'fundamentally discriminatory in nature', and also of other United Nations as well as the EU guidelines on human rights as it calls on the Indian government to 'repeal the discriminatory amendments'.
The Union health ministry said West Bengal and Himachal Pradesh reported a casualty each on Monday, taking the total number of deaths to nine in the country due to COVID-19.
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.
Chairing the 19th meeting of the Group of Ministers (GoM) on COVID-19 through video-conference on Friday, Vardhan said India has achieved the milestone of more than 10 lakh recoveries, a recovery rate to 64.54 per cent.
He questioned why only migrants from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan will be given citizenship under the amended law and not the Sri Lankan Tamils.
Besides this, constitution of a Law Commission is also being considered in the state and an independent department would be set up to solicit the services of intellectuals, he said.
The first two special flights that will operate from Thursday to evacuate Indians stranded in the UAE due to the coronavirus pandemic
Akhil Gogoi, member of the legislative assembly from Sivasagar in Assam, is likely to be released from jail on Thursday as a special NIA court cleared him and his three associates of all charges under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act for their alleged role in the violent anti-Citizenship Amendment Act stir in Assam in December 2019.
India is on track to register its entire 1.25 billion population using its Aadhaar digital ID.
