The new Ministers of State sworn in by President Ram Nath Kovind at a ceremony in the Rashtrapati Bhavan include Virendra Kumar, Anant Kumar Hegde and Gajendra Singh Shekhawat, former IAS officers Alphons Kannanthanam and R K Singh, former diplomat Hardeep Puri and ex-Mumbai police chief Satyapal Singh. Two other new faces are Ashwini Kumar Choubey, a member of the Lok Sabha from Bihar, and Shiv Pratap Shukla from Uttar Pradesh.
This is the first reshuffle in the Council of Ministers by Prime Minister Modi since he assumed charge for a second term in May 2019.
The total number of doses administered in the country has crossed 78.68 crore.
Bharatiya Janata Party's southern ally Al India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam on Wednesday reiterated its stand against the implementation of the Uniform Civil Code.
'There is a sense within the government and Modi that things are not as good as they were in 2019.'
Chief pontiff of Murugha Math Shivamurthy Murugha Sharanaru, who has been arrested for alleged sexual abuse of two minor girls, was on Friday remanded to police custody till September 5.
Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and his Karnataka counterpart Basavaraj Bommai tested positive for COVID-19 on Monday.
Given the dismal show of the Congress in the recently concluded assembly polls and the JMM eating into its vote bank, the possibility of Congress MLAs switching sides is not bleak, reports R Krishna Das.
In Jaipur, the combination of lopinavir and ritonavir, both second-line HIV drugs, was administered was administered on an elderly Italian couple undergoing treatment for Covid-19 at the SMS Hospital.
A total of 27,920 people have been cured of the disease with 1,685 in the last 24 hours, taking the recovery rate to 34.06 per cent, the ministry said.
A total of 40,845 cases of black fungus or mucormycosis have been reported in the country so far, of which 31,344 are rhinocerebral in nature, and the death toll from the infections stands at 3,129, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said.
'Yeh dil maange more' seems to be mantra for over two dozen former chief ministers of various states who are contesting upcoming Lok Sabha elections on different party tickets.
Passengers arriving from any state to Bengaluru must be in possession of a RT-PCR negative report, Karnataka Health and Medical Education Minister K Sudhakar said on Thursday.
The prime minister also asserted that in view of the COVID-19 situation, the states must ensure that people follow all health precautions such as wearing of face masks, hand sanitisation and maintaining an adequate physical distance with each other while undertaking rescue efforts.
Congress MP Karti Chidambaram and Communist Party of India-Marxist politburo member Mohammed Salim were among the prominent politicians who tested positive for COVID-19 as a rapid spike in cases took the tally in the country to over 18 lakh on Monday.
Modi said different laws related to Hindus, Christians and Parsis and the Special Marriage Act 1954 has determined minimum marriage age of 18 years for a woman and 21 years for man but the Muslim Personal Law holds marriage of a girl legal after she has attained puberty.
In a counter offensive after 13 MLAs resigned on Saturday dealing a blow to the 13-month-old government, a delegation of Congress leaders met Speaker K R Ramesh Kumar and submitted the petition seeking, under the anti-defection law, disqualification of the rebel legislators in line with the decision taken at a meeting of the Congress Legislature Party on Tuesday.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will chair a meeting to review the COVID-19 situation in the country at 4.30 pm on Sunday, according to the sources.
Kerala has recorded 24 cases including two foreign nationals.
The Bharatiya Janata Party's central leadership's decision asking Karnataka Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa to step down has also put a question mark on the continuance of the Bellary brothers in the Cabinet as they have too have been indicted in the Lokayukta report on illegal mining.
The African Union on Saturday joined the G20 after all member countries accepted Prime Minister Narendra Modi's proposal to bring the key bloc of the Global South to the high table of the world's top economies, a major diplomatic achievement of India's presidency.
'The state government is putting Maharashtrians in danger by letting people escape institutional quarantine mandate for the sake of their personal vasuli'
The states fear they would end up funding both their own scheme as well as the newly-announced National Health Protection Scheme.
This was the third consecutive day that COVID-19 cases in the country have increased by more than 26,000.
All these persons have been kept in single room isolation at designated health care facilities by respective state governments and their close contacts have also been put under quarantine, the ministry said.
The 78 year-old Yeddiyurappa was earlier hospitalised on August 2, 2020 after he tested positive for coronavirus.
A coronavirus positive woman allegedly managed to give the slip to authorities in New Delhi after her arrival from London and reached Andhra Pradesh by train only to be picked up by authorities and admitted to a hospital.
The federal probe agency also made a fresh arrest in this case as it took into custody Hyderabad-based liquor businessman Arun Ramchandra Pillai, they said.
'He also understands and foresees potential challenges.'
Rajnath Singh, Nitin Gadkari, Nirmala Sitharaman, Piyush Goyal, Narendra Singh Tomar, Prakash Javadekar, Ravi Shankar Prasad, Dharmendra Pradhan and Smriti Irani are also likely to join the second Modi government after being its members in its first avatar.
The three Karnataka ministers, who are in the midst of illegal mining controversy, on Monday contended before the Election Commission that Governor H R Bhardwaj had no authority to refer to it the petition seeking their disqualification from the state legislature.
In a review meeting through video conference with chief ministers and representatives of seven states with a high burden of COVID-19 cases, Modi said having micro containment zones will help states in dealing with the spread of the infection and also allow normal activities to continue.
The GoM was told that six states -- Maharashtra, Delhi, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal -- account for 86 per cent of the deaths caused by COVID-19 and 32 districts account for 80 per cent of such fatalities, the Union health ministry said.
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.
Even if they score administratively, state governments ruled by the party suffer from an inability to communicate positively, say observers.
The first COVID-19 vaccine shots in India were given on Saturday to nearly two lakh frontline healthcare and sanitary workers as Prime Minister Narendra Modi rolled out the world's largest inoculation drive against the pandemic that has caused 1,52,093 deaths and upended millions of lives in the country.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that he spoke to Deve Gowda to enquire about his and his wife's health.
The Assam cabinet on Monday decided to book men who marry girls below 14 years in the state under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.
The countrywide vaccination drive was rolled out on January 16 with healthcare workers getting inoculated and vaccination of the frontline workers started from February 2.
