India News

The Uttar Pradesh government has arranged for 1,000 buses to ferry migrant labourers who are stranded on the border districts owing to a countrywide lockdown, an official spokesman said on Saturday.

The railways has manufactured a prototype of an isolation ward for treating coronavirus patients by converting non-air-conditioned train coaches, it said on Saturday.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar today said that arranging special buses to send people to their native states amid a three-week nationwide lockdown over coronavirus or COVID-19 will lead to an "increase in the spread" of the virus.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi called up a nurse from the civic-run Naidu Hospital in Pune, which has been treating COVID-19 patients, and applauded the work done by the hospital staff to fight the pandemic, a civic official said.

The sun shone bright in a cloudless blue sky in the national capital which recorded a significant drop in temperature today due to intermittent rains over the last two days.

Election strategist Prashant Kishor yet again slammed the centre this morning over the 21-day "total lockdown" in India as he said that the county's response to the pandemic "needs to get better". The nationwide lockdown was announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday as he urged people to practice social distancing to curb spread of coronavirus or COVID-19

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi this morning tweeted an appeal to help the migrants trying to reach their homes as India enters fourth day of 21-day "total lockdown", announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi earlier this week to control spread of coronavirus or COVID-19 pandemic.

The number of coronavirus cases in the country has crossed 800-mark, with a big jump of 149 new cases reported within the last 24 hours.

After a huge demand on social media, national broadcaster Doordarshan, popularly called DD, is bringing back the epics of 'Ramayan' and 'Mahabharat' for its audience across the country and abroad. DD also plans to bring back several iconic shows like 'Circus' (1989) featuring Shah Rukh Khan as Raghavan.

Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma took to the streets on Friday to educate people about the practice of social distancing as the number of coronavirus cases continue to spike across the country.

India saw the highest jump in coronavirus or COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours with 149 patients testing positive for the highly contagious illness in different parts of the country. The total is now 873, which includes 19 deaths, according to the Union Health Ministry. A vaccine is still at least 12 to 18 months away, the World Health Organization has said, urging the countries to "unite to fight the pandemic together". The global economy has plunged into a downturn that will require massive funding to help developing nations, IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva said on Friday. "It is clear that we have entered a recession that will be worse than in 2009 following the global financial crisis," she said in an online press briefing.

Odisha Assembly Speaker SN Patro on Friday asked all the Vidhan Sabha employees to go on home quarantine after the state's third COVID-19 patient came in contact with one of the staffers.

Five members of a family, including three children, tested positive for COVID-19 in West Bengal on Friday, taking the number of such cases in the state to 15, a senior health official said.

The newly announced assistance is part of a larger American global response package across multiple departments and agencies, including the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The funding is for 64 of the most at-risk countries facing the threat of the global pandemic.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi called up West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday evening and appreciated the steps taken by the state government to prevent the spread of COVID-19, sources close to the Chief Minister said.