Endearing moments of family time, impromptu singing sessions, ping-pong games on dinner tables and a constant stream of online humour provide a much-needed salve of hope and sanity in this time of distress.
The Indian Army retaliated effectively, injuring two Pakistani jawans, defence sources said.
The capital recorded 2,373 fresh coronavirus cases taking the tally to 92,175. With 61 deaths, the fatalities now stand at 2,864.
Giving a clean chit to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the Gujarat police on Friday filed a closure report in a metropolitan court in a case of alleged violation of model code of conduct during the Lok Sabha election. "We have filed a closure summary report before the metropolitan court number 11 today," a senior officer of the Detection of Crime Branch said.
'One good thing that has come out of all this is that it shown people that online ordering is the way forward.'
With the CBI ruling out bus conductor Ashok Kumar's involvement in Ryan International School student Pradhyumn Thakur's murder, his wife Mamata is hopeful of him getting bail on November 16. 'I just want my man to come home, I don't want anything else,' she tells Rediff.com's Swarupa Dutt.
The central government may, however, advise state authorities to continue with strict curbs in COVID-19 containment zones in the worst-affected 30 municipal areas that account for 80 per cent of the positive cases in the country. These 30 municipal areas are from Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Punjab and Odisha.
Widespread anti-Israel protests rocked Kashmir Valley on Monday with students boycotting classes and condemning the continued airstrikes in Gaza strip.
Defying the indefinite curfew clamped in Greater Imphal area agitators on Thursday.
Indian start-ups and software product companies are trying to attract engineers and programmers who are either stranded in India because of the lockdown or H-1B visa holders who have been laid off.
Nearly 6,000 passengers were stranded as train services on the Konkan Railway route in Maharashtra's Ratnagiri district were suspended on Thursday after a river overflowed following heavy rains, while incessant downpour badly hit road and rail traffic in several parts of the state, including around Mumbai, as authorities called in NDRF to help the administration in rescue efforts.
After a meeting of the Group of Ministers on coronavirus, the government has proposed a set of social distancing measures to be in force till March 31, the officials told reporters.
A division bench of Justices S S Shinde and M S Karnik said they will pass the order at the earliest, without giving any date.
More than 86,000 people worldwide have been infected with the novel coronavirus and the global death toll is nearing 3,000. To try to prevent the spread of the virus, local governments have been closing tourist attractions that normally draw large crowds. World-famous destinations such as the Great Wall of China and the Venetian canals resemble ghost towns. As new coronavirus cases are confirmed daily, more closures and cancellations are expected. For the most up-to-date information on the status of an attraction or event, check the institution's or event's main web page.
No untoward incident has been reported since Sunday.
The Centre on Saturday issued fresh guidelines relaxing the nationwide lockdown, the fourth phase of which ends on May 31.
Branded and packaged edible oils are currently selling at around 50 per cent premiums over their loose varieties. Hence, products using edible oils would be costlier going forward.
Schools in the Valley will reopen next week, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Secretary B V R Subrahmanyam said.
Even media persons covering the agitation manage to reach the protest sites with difficulty as they first have to pass through checking and then cross multiple layers of barricading. A Bharatiya Kisan Union office-bearer at Ghazipur border, which now resembles a highly-secured fortress, said despite the odds, supporters from far-off places are reaching the site to express solidarity with farmers.
The good times are back, in a measured way, in fun spots across the globe.
The government on Sunday announced closure of schools, colleges and other educational institutions in Mumbai, Thane and Raigad on Monday and formed a committee to monitor relief and rehabilitation work in the affected areas.
As many as 80 Indian students, most of them from Mumbai, were left high and dry when ceased functioning when IHMES went kaput in April
Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Telangana have announced a lockdown of educational institutions, malls and other places that attract people in large numbers, even as some of them have been reporting increase in positive cases.
As many as 48 persons were injured in these incidents and 25 still missing, while so far, 2,29,074 persons have been evacuated from the flood and rain-affected affected areas and moved to safer places, the government said in a statement in Mumbai.
In the fire exchange, Naik Muddasar Ahmed was grievously injured when mortar shells landed on his bunker, the spokesman said, adding that he was evacuated to the medical room where he succumbed to injuries.
The Delhi government on Monday started a process of deregistering 15-year-old diesel vehicles in the city and also imposed a ban on use of fire crackers except for religious functions, following directions from Lt Governor Najeeb Jung to bring down air pollution.
'In the process, I hope that our Earth will be able to heal some more.'
As the Indian Army reported its first case of the infection with a 34-year-old soldier testing positive in Leh, the Army said it has taken a series of precautionary measures to prevent the spread of coronavirus among the forces such as checking flu symptoms among soldiers on their return from leave and cancelling non-essential travel, conferences and recruitment drives.
Seventy children were on Thursday hospitalised as they took ill after allegedly inhaling 'smoke' emanating from a plant of state-owned Kerala Minerals and Metals Limited at Chavara near Kollam in Kerala, prompting authorities to temporarily shut it down.
Maoists in Nepal are protesting the government crackdown on their cadres.
Some of the areas still gripped in the hazardous category of air quality index.
Researchers have found two new mutations in coronavirus samples from Amravati and Yavatmal districts of eastern Maharashtra which can escape neutralising antibodies, a senior official said on Thrusday. Meanwhile, authorities in the two districts have announced strict implementation of restrictions, including a weekend lockdown in Amravati, to stem the rising cases of COVID-19.
Barring stray incidents of violence like stone pelting, the shutdown called by the MVA allies Shiv Sena, the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party was largely peaceful.
If purists are surprised as to why and how people are not demanding prohibition or not talking about past promises, both in the election manifestos five years back and even those made to the courts, the answer lies in how the state has been evolving and changing these past few years, says N Sathiya Moorthy.
The suggestions submitted to the Centre on Thursday evening also recommended restarting construction activities and allowing movement of labourers within the city, sources said.
Chief Minister Stalin seems to have drawn a line between his personal beliefs and those of others in the family, beginning with wife Durga Stalin, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The national capital woke up on Tuesday morning to 'severe' air quality under a blanket of thick haze, as pollution levels breached the permissible standards by multiple times.
'A large number of people are suddenly waking up to the fear of losing jobs,' says Shyamal Majumdar.
The BSF was effectively retaliating and the firefight was going on.
Around 700 migrant workers, women and children have lost their lives in this reverse migration. But what is happening today with the migrant labour is only a continuation of the policies pursued by the Modi regime during the last six years. It is not for nothing that India was ranked the most dangerous country in the world for women in 2018 by the Thompson Reuters Foundation poll, points out Rashme Sehgal.
