From the Gulf countries to Malaysia and the UK to the US, the multi-agency operation christened 'Vande Bharat Mission' will see the state-owned AI operate 64 flights till May 13 in the first phase to ferry around 15,000 Indian nationals from 12 countries.
'India is too large a place to have just 10 labs performing these Covid-19 tests.'
'The current economic contraction is certainly due to the lockdowns as a response to the pandemic, which is an act of God.' 'Nobody has seen such a thing in the last 100 years.' 'Saying that this was an act of mismanagement is largely incorrect'
Mukherjee's family and relatives paid their last respects clad in PPE kits while conforming to COVID-19 safeguards.
As India logged a world record of over four lakh coronavirus infections on Saturday, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said the entire world is shaken by what is happening here and accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of "dropping the ball and throwing it to states" after prematurely taking credit for having "won against COVID-19" when the second wave was already underway. "Rely on yourself is the motto. No one will come to help you. Definitely, not the prime minister," Gandhi said, while alleging that the COVID-19 situation has gone completely out of control for the Modi government, and wondered whether it was their way of making the states and the citizens truly 'Aatmanirbhar'.
Private hospitals, especially smaller standalone ones, are staring at a crisis that they were not prepared for. Analysts say larger corporate chains have to brace up for at least six months for business to return to normal.
The 10-day Ganesh festival began on Saturday under the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic, with devotees restricting celebrations to their homes and using online platforms to get 'darshan' of the Lord at temples, amid strict COVID-19 restrictions imposed by governments.
Bracing to deal with Ebola epidemic which has claimed more than 4000 lives globally, the government took stock of the measures being undertaken for strengthening the preparedness, surveillance and response system in states.
He made a reference to the clash between Indian and Chinese troops in Ladakh's Galwan Valley in June this year. "What our jawans can do, what the country can do, the world has seen in Ladakh," he said.
The two western states, already battling a raging pandemic, which has put their health infrastructure under severe strain, opened new fronts to tackle the fallout of the storm which is expected to make a landfall close to Mumbai on Wednesday. They are likely to be impacted most by the cyclone.
'All of our lives are going to be changed in a permanent way...' 'We just have to ride out the tide right now and we will see a rainbow at the end of this.'
Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged people to vote in large numbers. "Today, there are bypolls taking place in various places across India. I urge those voting in these seats to vote in large numbers and strengthen the festival of democracy," he said in a tweet.
As daily testing of samples of blood and throat and nose swabs crossed two lakh for the first time since the outbreak of the pandemic, over 14,000 new coronavirus cases were registered in the country for the fifth day in a row to take the total count to 4,56,183, according to the Union Health Ministry data.
'Rawalpindi must downsize its quest for 'strategic depth' in Afghanistan and Kashmir,' suggests Matein Khalid.
The lockdown in India has been a timely, graded, proactive and pre-emptive public health measure to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and has been part and parcel of the government's overall strategy, Dr V K Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog, and Chairman, Empowered Group 1, said at a media briefing on the COVID-19 situation.
An Iran Air flight carrying Indian pilgrims stranded in coronavirus-hit Iran landed at the airport in Mumbai on Friday afternoon, an official said.
'How many people have died in India so far due to Covid?' 'Multiply that by at least four, and that many people in intense grief are there in the country.'
'Most of the cases in Mumbai are asymptomatic -- 85 per cent you can say.' 'Only 10 to 15 per cent are symptomatic.'
Swine flu has claimed the lives of 34 more persons raising the toll to 875 across the country even as the number of affected people breached the 15,000 mark on Tuesday.
A PTI tally of figures announced by different states and union territories, as of 9.25 pm, showed a higher number of 1,76,792 confirmed cases and at least 5,100 deaths. It also showed nearly 86,000 recoveries and close to 85,700 active cases.
According to aviation industry sources, around 630 domestic flights of Monday were cancelled due to the Centre's Sunday night announcement that there would be no flights in West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh, and limited operations at major airports such as Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad.
'People have been infected. They are responsible for it internationally.' 'They only admitted in February that it is infectious. This proves our case.'
As the number of cases crossed 2,56,000 with more than 7,100 fatalities, according to Union health ministry figures, and the country made a calibrated exit from the lockdown in non-containment zones, shop shutters in many malls went up for the first time since March 25 but the sprawling retail places were eerily empty.
How a swanky Mumbai cultural venue was transformed into a contact-less facility to combat coronavirus.
'As of this moment, we have 1,173 ventilators, 2,695 ICUs and about 10,408 plus isolation beds.' 'But this number keeps changing with every passing hour as we incorporate more private as well as government hospitals in our fight against the pandemic.'
'Reports of hitherto 'atmanirbhar' breadwinners having to stand in line for a plastic bag of khichdi or, travelling thousands of kms with nothing but packets of biscuits, have not moved the prime minister,' observes Jyoti Punwani.
'We cannot be naughty and expect the government to do good!' 'We have to behave ourselves and then we can expect the government to support us.' 'If we are able to protect ourselves well, then we should not be having deaths.' 'Unfortunately, people have gotten into this super scary event participation (mode) -- birthday parties, large gatherings.' 'Among the people who have attended those, 80 to 90 per cent of them have come down with COVID-19.'
'Most important were the breathing exercises -- whatever way you like.' 'Pranayam or just deep breathing...' 'Breathing is very, very, very, very, very, very important.'
'The stimulus packages, sector reliefs, loans etc are coming to industry, but state governments have not got any money from GST, no money from excise, no money from any income source.'
State Health Minister K K Shailaja told reporters that the government has declared the epidemic as a 'state calamity' to take all necessary steps to ensure that the outbreak is effectively controlled. A medical bulletin issued by the government said the health status of all the three students, who tested positive for the virus, was 'satisfactory'.
'On January 17, we had our first meeting with the Cabinet secretary.' 'Different secretaries belonging to different departments attended it.' 'It was only two weeks when China had said there is a new disease.' 'So, we gave the quickest response.'
'The Modi government is about privatising profits and nationalising losses.'
'Given the first-time healthcare emergency of this nature and scale, we don't have enough experienced hands to deal with the situation.' 'The models, policies and protocols keep changing everyday depending upon the evolving situation.' 'We are all in trial-and-error mode where we do some right things as well as wrong things.' 'We cannot have an ideal environment to fight this pandemic.'
'Mumbai is testing a lot compared to a lot of other places in the country.' 'Now that we exactly know where the hotspots are, and they've been converted into containment zones, there is a lot of testing, going on, from door to door and symptom screening.' 'In the last 10 to 15 days we have definitely done a good job.'
Here's the full text of President Ram Nath Kovind's customary address to the joining sitting of Parliament on the first day of the budget session.
The centre has rushed a team of medical experts to take stock of the situation thrown up by the spread of H1N1 influenza situation in Kashmir
'These are challenging times and we get energised by that.' 'I don't feel that 'I am tired now and I should relax', because even if someone calls us at 12 o'clock I have to answer his call.'
Addressing a joint rally in Kanpur with Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Akhilesh, Rahul urged voters to ensure that the outcome of Bihar election is repeated, where the Bharatiya Janata Party was trounced by a coalition led by Nitish Kumar.
Taking exception to Health Minister Harsh Vardhan not mentioning the death of healthcare workers due to Covid-19 in his statement in Parliament, the Indian Medical Association has published a list of 382 doctors who died due to the viral disease and demanded that they be treated as "martyrs".
