When BJP leaders, including Mr Modi's number two, Amit Shah, use the pandemic to launch an assault on state governments run by opposition parties, or to topple them, they are exploiting a grave crisis in cynical political self-interest, notes Shekhar Gupta.
Addressing a daily media briefing to give updates on the COVID-19 situation in the country, Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry Lav Agarwal said most of the Markaz event-related cases have been found in states with high burden of the disease, such as Tamil Nadu (84 per cent), Telengana (79 per cent), Delhi (63 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (59 per cent) and Andhra Pradesh (61 per cent).
'We had no inkling this would come. Admittedly, we failed to inspire confidence in migrants that no harm would come to them if they stayed back.' Radhika Ramaseshan reports.
Addressing a press briefing, health ministry Joint Secretary Lav Agarwal said currently there are no approved therapies for COVID-19 and there is not enough evidence to claim that plasma therapy can be used for treatment of the disease.
We present our alphabet of 2020, pulling in everything you'll remember about this year we'd rather forget.
As people crisscross the country, eager to return to their homes, the cases have raced past 80,000 with at least 2,649 deaths, according to the Union health ministry on Friday. While there is no exact count, this includes a large number of those who have returned to their states.
'Lifting of lockdown should be very gradual. Some facilities should remain closed through the month of May like schools, colleges, malls, cinema halls, religious places and markets'
Its economy dependent on tourist arrivals, the hill state is looking at a summer of discontent. Not that the rest of the year promises to be any different. Ashwani Sharma reports from Shimla.
If solutions are not found, adequately and in good time, things could simply slip out of everyone's hands, warns N Sathiya Moorthy.
As we get used to a long haul of isolation to curb the spread of COVID-19, the police's new avatar in many places is a far cry from that of the high-handed enforcer of law and order.
The renaming of Mewat comes within weeks of an RSS-supported think tank issuing a 'study' about the growing population of Muslims in the Mewat region.
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.
Far from the metros and big cities, the coronavirus crisis in the country's districts, towns and villages is being led by district magistrates.
The responsibility of keeping the pandemic under control lies with the DM or collector.
Subrat Kumar Sen, the young district magistrate of Saran, north Bihar, tells Rediff.com's Archana Masih how he and his staff are combating a crisis that no one has confronted before.
'Their dharma propels them to pay their workers; otherwise, they know the boys would starve.' 'At the same time they will not allow their business to suffer,' observes Dr Sudhir Bisht.
Sheela Bhatt drives from New Delhi to Agra and Firozabad to capture the stories of an India under lockdown.
'Two days notice for the Janata Curfew.' 'Two-and-a-half days notice for lighting candles, but a mere four-hour notice for the lockdown without taking state governments into confidence.'
'Those who were not co-operating are co-operating now.' 'Now, our facilities are fit, our doctors are fit and we have a better protocol of how to do isolation, how to do the collection.'
'Indian nationhood is indeed at the cusp of alarming redefinition -- hate-filled, and exclusionary.' 'Nations are not built this way, instead these are the ways of liquidating nations.' 'We must pre-empt it.' 'Can we?' asks Mohammad Sajjad.
'Muslims, like people of all other faiths, are quite comfortable with the idea of nationalism and democracy today. But are they following Islam in its spirit? That is a different question.'
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