Here's what some states are doing to get a grip on the situation. Ruchika Chitravanshi & Aneesh Phadnis report
'Kashmir Police established Minority distress #helpline at PCR Kashmir. In case of #emergency, one may call for #assistance on 0194-2482626,' IGP Kashmir Vijay Kumar tweeted.
After two years of muted festivities due to COVID-19, crowds thronged churches across the country this Christmas on Sunday for special prayers as people celebrated the birth of Jesus Christ.
It is being asked why a lot of foreign players were having a team dinner for Easter celebrations despite Delhi Capitals physio Patrick Farhart testing positive.
The COVID-19 active caseload has risen to 4,52,344, an increase of 7,598 cases from Wednesday, even though it remained below 5 lakh for the 16th consecutive day.
Of the 690 passengers, 189 were tested and six were found infected with the virus. Many were exempted from testing as they were transit passengers on way to neighbouring states like Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura, Sattawan said.
All these people have been kept in single room isolation in designated healthcare facilities by respective state governments and their close contacts have also been put under quarantine, the ministry said.
Over the last five days, a total of 2,167 people were found positive for coronavirus in Haridwar -- the place where the month-long Kumbh is going on.
India's white ball squad, led by Shikhar Dhawan, arrived in Mumbai on Tuesday as they began their two-week quarantine ahead of their tour of Sri Lanka next month.
Several students have come forward to share information regarding the Sunday attack after police made a public appeal requesting people to share information, footage and video clips relating to the incident. However, according to police, no one has shared any video footage that they shot themselves.
In a tweet, the chief minister said that the government will appoint top lawyers to ensure the guilty is punished.
Besides Srikanth, the other players withdrawn are Ashwini Ponnappa, Ritika Rahul Thkar, Treesa Jolly, Mithun Manjunath, Simran Aman Singh and Khushi Gupta.
India's para athlete Nishad Kumar has tested positive for COVID-19 and shifted to a hospital as a precautionary measure, the Sports Authority of India (SAI) said on Sunday.
India's head coach Ravi Shastri, along with bowling and fielding coaches Bharath Arun and R Sridhar, respectively, would need to undergo a "fit to fly" test post recovery from COVID-19, which led to the cancellation of the fifth Test against England in Manchester last week.
Seven players - Prithvi Shaw, Suryakumar Yadav, Hardik Pandya, Chahar, Manish Pandey, Ishan Kishan, and Krishna Gowtham - who were in close contact with Krunal Pandya were identified as close contacts and hence will not play the remaining two T20Is.
The move comes amid growing concerns over an upswing in the number of coronavirus cases in the state.
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar on Thursday said future decisions on COVID-19 SOPs will be taken in consultation with the Union Health Ministry and the state Task Force, amid a difference between the Centre and the state over guidelines for international travellers in the wake of the new variant of SARS-CoV2.
India and New Zealand will lock horns in the finals of WTC at the Ageas Bowl, Southampton
Airlines are slashing salaries and re-negotiating vendor contracts as drastic fall in passengers has hurt revenue. Go First has cut staff salaries by around 16 per cent while IndiGo and SpiceJet are enforcing a leave without pay (LWP) policy and pay by the hour structure respectively to prune expenses. Vistara, which reversed pay cuts for junior staff including managers and cabin crew in March, is not touching employee salaries at the moment and instead focusing on vendor renegotiation and maximising cargo revenue. An Air India executive said efforts are on to pay salaries by 7th or 8th of June.
The Centre has asked states and union territories witnessing surge in new COVID-19 cases and high active caseload to continue with the strategy of 'test, track and treat' that had yielded rich dividends at the height of the pandemic and accelerate vaccination for priority population groups in districts reporting higher infections on mission mode.
From December 1, fully vaccinated eligible visa holders including students and skilled workers, can come to Australia without needing to apply for a travel exemption, a statement by the Australian government said.
Gujarat reported 2,165 cases, Maharashtra 1,188, Uttar Pradesh 663, Madhya Pradesh 590, Haryana 339 and Andhra Pradesh 248 cases.
Twelve months on and things have not got any easier for Tennis Australia with Omicron spreading through the country just as the first players are set to arrive for warm-up events ahead of the Melbourne Park tournament.
The Indian team on Monday underwent its first outdoor session since arriving in Chennai, ahead of the opening Test against England.
Dhoni had arrived in Chennai on Wednesday last.
India procured around 5 lakh rapid antibody test kits from the two Chinese firms, Guongzhou Wondfo Biotech and Livzon Diagnostics, and they were distributed to several states reporting rising cases of the coronavirus infection.
The apex health research body on Tuesday validated the 1,000th testing laboratory, ramping up the capacity for detection of COVID-19 in the country. Currently, three lakh samples can be tested per day, an official said.
The hospital, located in Parel area, on Tuesday got the approval of the Maharashtra ethics committee for conducting the vaccine trials.
It underlined that anyone can catch the virus if they have had prolonged or repeated contact with an infected individual.
According to the BCCI source, both Krishna and Warrier contracted the virus from Chakravarthy during one of the training sessions. He said Krishna is Chakravarthy's close friend.
Out of the total 190 samples, 180 (94.74 per cent) were found infected with Omicron, three with the Delta variant (1.58 per cent), one with Delta (0.53 per cent) and six with other strains of coronavirus (3.16 per cent), a Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) release said, citing test results of the ninth round of genome sequencing in the city.
Two players withdrawn from India Open due to COVID-19
With India set to open up its border for international tourists, the government has decided on 'reciprocal treatment' to the applicants under new visa conditions. The visa facilitation will depend on the applicant's home country's policy for the Indian tourists.
A joint venture of Synbiotics, a wholly owned subsidiary of Ambalal Sarabhai Enterprises (ASE), and CoDiagnostics, CoSara Diagnostics is the first and only Indian company so far to receive a licence from the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) to manufacture coronavirus diagnostic test kits.
With the reporting of Omicron, a highly mutated variant of SARSCoV-2 virus and its classification as a Variant of Concern (VoC) by the World Health Organisation (WHO), the Union Ministry of Health revised its 'Guidelines for international arrivals', Mandaviya said in a written reply.
The number of active cases in the city increased to 91,618 from 85,364 on Wednesday, the bulletin stated.
India's white ball squad, led by Shikhar Dhawan, will quarantine in Mumbai from June 14 to 28 and undergo six RT-PCR tests on alternate days before flying off to Colombo for the six-match series against Sri Lanka, starting on July 13.
Aiming to secure berths in the world championship squad, close to 400 boxers, including the likes of five-time Asian medallist Shiva Thapa and former world bronze-winner Gaurav Bidhuri, will be competing in the National Men's Championships starting in Bellary on Wednesday.
The highest single-day spike in Delhi till the third wave of the pandemic -- 8,593 cases -- was reported on November 11 in 2020, while on November 18, the city had recorded 131 COVID-19 deaths, the highest single-day fatality count till date.
In the past 24 hours, about 1,80,596 samples were tested on July 5 in the country with a total of 1,00,04,101 samples have been tested till date, said an official.
