With its 10,527 cases, Mumbai now accounts for almost 63.81 per cent of the total 16,758 cases in Maharashtra.
The country's National Health Commission in its daily update said it received reports of 52 deaths, all from Hubei, and 406 new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus infection from all over the country.
With final preparations underway and the vaccine set to arrive in the national capital in the next couple of days, Rohit Datta, who was the first person to be diagnosed with coronavirus infection on March 1, said "it feels surreal".
The Reproduction number or Rt refers to how many people an infected person infects on average. In other words, it can tell how efficiently a virus is spreading.
The number of recoveries from COVID-19 exceed active cases by more than 10 lakh.
We have our own problems for sure and they are not trivial, but for now, our economy is in not too bad a shape, our politics is as personality-driven and authoritarian as that of most countries in the world. We must make the best of what we have and not be excessively unhappy looking at the grass on the other side of the septic tank which may not be greener after all!, observes Shreekant Sambrani.
An alert government in Delhi should have begun government-to-government discussions with Moscow the moment it came to know that Russians were developing a vaccine. That is to say, almost an year's time has been lost, observes Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar.
The academic session will go till June and schools re-open around September for the next session.
'In the total of black wealth, only 1% or less than 1% constitute cash.' 'So, even if cash is completely weaned out, it impacts only 1% of the black wealth.'
'Infectious disease is a given of humankind. There will always be another around the corner.'
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.
A four-page directive was issued by the medical wing of the Union home ministry on Tuesday stating that the next three weeks are crucial in checking the spread of the virus and lack of caution can affect the forces, around 10 lakh personnel-strong, deployed for ensuring the country's internal security and border protection.
The health ministry said that 86 per cent of the total active cases were recorded in 10 states of the country.
Instead of mechanically consolidating all labour laws into one, provisions of all labour laws should be relooked in terms of their substance. The irrelevant and archaic provisions have to be fixed, says Aparajita Gupta.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Sunday night announced a statewide curfew in Maharashtra for 15 days from April 14. However, he clarified, essential services were exempt from the curbs.
'I am proud of Maharashtra and the city of Mumbai, that this is a state which has done more number of tests than any state in India.' 'The more you test, the more number of cases you will pick up.' 'If you do not do the tests, then you are groping in the dark.'
'By the time actual action began, it was already too late.' 'The virus was raging.'
A Ganesh Nadar/Rediff.com tracks the train from Jolarpettai carrying its precious cargo.
Two more Indians were charged on Saturday by authorities here for their alleged involvement in Singapore's worst outbreak of riot in over 40 years, taking the total number of Indians arraigned in the violence to 33.
A PTI tally of figures announced by states and UTs, as of 9.30 pm, showed the total number of confirmed cases having risen to close to 2.1 lakh and the death toll to approximately 6,000, showing an increase of nearly 9,000 cases since Tuesday evening and at least 273 more fatalities in this time period.
The experts said there is a need to relook at the testing strategy in a way that it results in guiding the public health response and effectively limiting the spread of the disease.
Two Indian workers were on Thursday sentenced to jail by a Singapore court after they admitted their involvement in the Little India riot last December, the city-state's worst street violence in 40 years.
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).
According to the latest health department bulletin, the positivity rate has also jumped to 9.55 per cent, amid the festive season and the rise in pollution level.
The ministry of home affairs, however, said there was a need to maintain a strict lockdown till May 3 so that the gains are not squandered away.
'The impact of economic shocks on the labour markets is usually on the young who delay their entry in response to a fall in job opportunities,' says Mahesh Vyas.
'Whether we like it or not, coronavirus is knocking on the door. We only have two weeks, a month if we are lucky, to prepare for its spread.' 'The US wasted this opportunity and is facing spreading virus and economic meltdown,' notes Sonalde Desai.
The death toll also saw a record single-day increase of over 350 fatalities to move closer to the 8,500-mark, more than one-third of which have been recorded in 11 days since June 1 -- the day that marked the beginning of a phased exit from most restrictions imposed under a nationwide lockdown with effect from March 25.
Of the 20 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, eight were from Maharashtra, three each from Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, two from Jammu and Kashmir and one each from Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.
Weeks after the second wave peaked in many parts of the country, we are rapidly forgetting what happened to our hospitals, cautions Mihir S Sharma.
This was the third consecutive day that COVID-19 cases in the country have increased by more than 26,000.
India is struggling with a second wave of the pandemic with more than 3,00,000 daily new coronavirus cases being reported in the past few days, and hospitals are reeling under a shortage of medical oxygen and beds.
