NCC candidates should be deployed at quarantine centres: Adityanath

Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Monday said trained NCC cadets should be deployed at quarantine centres.

Addressing a review meeting of senior office at his official residence, Adityanath said, 'All migrant labourers coming from other states should be medically examined before being sent in a quarantine. Trained cadets of the NCC should be deployed at quarantine centres.'

Adityanath also directed officials to prepare an action plan for industrial activities after May 3, a statement issued by the UP government said, adding that an effective implementation of the lockdown will have to be ensured.

The chief minister further said the health and medical education departments will be required to ensure all precautions in order to guard against any type of medical infection.

Adityanath directed to restore emergency medical services immediately, the statement said.

He said in the larger interest of the people of the state, it was thought of restoration of emergency medical services.

The services, however, should be started only when all precautionary measures to prevent any medical infection are in place, he said

People wait in a queue to collect food items distributed by volunteers at Trilokpuri during the nationwide lockdown, imposed in wake of the coronavirus pandemic, in New Delhi, Monday, April 27, 2020 PTI

Maharashtra to send 100 buses to bring back students from Kota

The Maharashtra government has decided to send about 100 buses to Kota in Rajasthan to bring back nearly 2,000 students stranded there due to the lockdown, Maharashtra transport minister Anil Parab has said.

Buses of the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) will be sent to Kota in the next two days, Parab said late Monday night.

A number of students from Maharashtra have been staying in Kota to take coaching classes for the preparation of various competitive entrance examinations after Class 12.

'The Maharashtra government has decided to bring back the students who had gone to Kota. We will send some 100 buses from Dhule to Kota for the purpose, Parab said.

Death toll due to Covid-19 rose to 937 and the number of cases climbed to 29,974 in the country on Tuesday, registering an increase of 51 deaths and 1,594 cases since Monday evening, according to the Union Health Ministry.

The number of active Covid-19 cases stand at 22,010, while 7,026 people have recovered, and one patient has migrated, the ministry said.

Thus, 23.44 per cent of the infected people have recovered so far, a senior Health Ministry official said.

The total number of cases include 111 foreign nationals.

A total of 51 deaths were reported since Monday evening of which 27 fatalities were from Maharashtra, 11 from Gujarat, seven from Madhya Pradesh, five from Rajasthan and one from Jammu and Kashmir.

Of the 937 deaths, Maharashtra tops the tally with 369 fatalities, followed by Gujarat at 162, Madhya Pradesh at 113, Delhi at 54, Rajasthan at 46 and Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh at 31 each.

The death toll reached 26 in Telengana, 24 in Tamil Nadu while West Bengal and Karantaka have reported 20 deaths each.

Punjab has registered 18 fatalities so far. The disease has claimed seven lives in Jammu and Kashmir, four in Kerala while Jharkhand and Haryana have recorded three Covid-19 deaths each.

Bihar has reported two deaths, while Meghalaya, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha and Assam have reported one fatality each, according to the ministry data.

However, a PTI tally of the figures reported by various states as on Tuesday showed 29,993 cases 945 deaths in the country.

There has been a lag in the Union Health Ministry figures, compared to the number of deaths announced by different states, which officials attribute to procedural delays in assigning the cases to individual states.

According to the Health Ministry data updated in the evening, the highest number of confirmed cases in the country are from Maharashtra at 8,590 followed by Gujarat at 3,548, Delhi at 3,108, Madhya Pradesh at 2,368, Rajasthan at 2,262, Uttar Pradesh at 2,043 and Tamil Nadu at 1,937.

• Andhra Pradesh 1,259
• Telangana. 1,004
• West Bengal 697
• Jammu and Kashmir546
• Karnataka 520
• Kerala 482
• Bihar 346
• Punjab 313
• Haryana 296
• Odisha 118 .
• Jharkhand 103
• Uttarakhand 51
• Himachal Pradesh 40
• Chandigarh 40
• Assam 38
• Chhattisgarh 37
• Andaman and Nicobar Islands 33
• Ladakh 22
• Meghalaya 12 cases
• Puducherry 8
• Goa 7
• Manipur 2
• Tripura 2
• Mizoram 1
• Arunachal Pradesh 1

'Our figures are being reconciled with the ICMR,' the ministry said on its website adding '140 cases are being assigned to states for contact tracing.'

States wise distribution is subject to further verification and reconciliation, it said.

Central teams tour East Midnapore, Jalpaiguri districts

The inter-ministerial central teams on Covid-19 assessment in West Bengal on Monday toured several areas of East Midnapore and Jalpaiguri districts to take stock of the situation at hospitals and oversee the implementation of lockdown norms.

The team in Calcutta, led by senior bureaucrat Apurba Chandra, went to Tamluk, Haldia and Paskura in East Midnapore district.

It visited the Baroma Covid Hospital, Paskura, district hospital in Tamluk and S. D. Hospital in Haldia.

'At all the three hospitals, the team met senior officials and hospital superintendents. They took stock of the situation, inquired about minute details and data of the patients,' a state government official said.

In Jalpaiguri district, the central team led by senior official Vineet Joshi, visited various hospitals and quarantine centres.

'They visited Covid-19 hospitals at Rajganj and Biswa Bangla Sports Centre and a few quarantine centres,' another official said.

Joshi, while speaking to reporters, later, said in several areas, people were not adhering to lockdown norms.

There has been a war of words between the West Bengal government and the Centre over the arrival of the two central teams in the state to assess the coronavirus situation.

The teams have visited several hospitals and hotspot areas in the past couple of days to look into the state's preparedness for tackling the Covid-19 outbreak.

Cop enforcing lockdown hurt after locals hurl stones

A policeman was injured when some local residents allegedly threw stones at the security personnel who were trying to enforce lockdown in an area of Gujarat's Surat city on Tuesday morning, an official said.

Five persons were detained for the attack on the policemen, Surat's deputy commissioner of police R. P. Barot said.

Some local residents got angry after a PCR (police control room) van reached a locality in the Dindoli area to enforce the lockdown in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, he said.

'We a sent a PCR van in the area after coming to know that people were roaming around and not adhering to the lockdown norms. When the police asked locals to stay indoors, some of them got angry and started throwing stones at the policemen,' Barot said.

A police personnel received injuries in the incident, he said.

Five locals were detained, he said, adding that additional force was sent to the area and the situation was brought under control.

Mumbai cops aged above 55 asked to go on leave

Mumbai Police have asked their personnel who are above 55 years of age and having some pre- existing ailment to go on leave, in a bid to protect them from the coronavirus infection.

The move comes after Covid-19 claimed lives of three Mumbai Police personnel in the last three days.

During an analysis, it came to light that the three deceased and the other police personnel currently undergoing treatment for coronavirus disease were above the age of 50, a senior Mumbai Police official said on Tuesday.

Read the full story here.

People maintain social distance as they wait to board a bus after state authorities extended the period of inter-district travel, during the nationwide lockdown to curb the spread of coronavirus, in Guwahati, Tuesday, April 28, 2020 PTI

Wife, mother of Mumbai cop test positive

The 73-year-old mother and wife of a police constable have tested positive for Covid-19 in neighbouring Navi Mumbai, an official said on Tuesday.

The constable, who is attached to the Mumbai police, had tested positive for the infection earlier, while swab reports of his elderly mother and wife came out positive on Monday, public relations officer of the Navi Mumbai municipal corporation Mahendra Konde said.

In another development, a 42-year-old heart patient, who died while being shifted to a hospital in Navi Mumbai, tested positive for coronavirus post death, the official said.

A 57-year-old medical personnel of a civic hospital in Mumbai has contracted the infection, and at least 12 civic workers, who came in contact with her, were quarantined, a release from the Palghar district administration stated.

Maharashtra gurudwara on alert after 8 visitors test positive

The Hazur Sahib Gurudwara in Maharashtra's Nanded district is on alert after some pilgrims who went back from there to Punjab tested positive for coronavirus, a gurudwara official said on Tuesday.

The shrine administration is sanitising the premises at regular intervals and following the social distancing guidelines, he said.

Eight of the Sikh pilgrims who recently returned from Nanded to Punjab tested positive for coronavirus on Monday.

Five of the pilgrims belonged to Tarn Taran while three hailed from Kapurthala in Punjab.

'We are taking all care. Spraying of disinfectants and sanitisation of every corner of the premises is being done at regular intervals. Social distancing is being maintained. We also have our own quarantine facility here,' the gurudwara superintendent Gurvinder Singh Wadhwa told PTI.

ADB approves $1.5 billion loan to India

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) on Tuesday said it has approved USD 1.5 billion loan to India to help fund its fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

The loan has been sanctioned with a view to support immediate priorities such as disease containment and prevention, as well as social protection for the poor and economically vulnerable sections.

It is fully committed to supporting the Indian government in its response to this unprecedented challenge, said ADB president Masatsugu Asakawa.

'The quick-disbursing fund is part of a larger package of support that ADB will provide in close coordination with the government and other development partners.

'We are determined to support India's Covid-19 response programmes and ensure that they provide effective support to the people of India, especially the poor and vulnerable,' Asakawa said in a statement.

Norms relaxed for biz activities in green zone in Karnataka

The Karnataka government on Tuesday announced further relaxations in the lockdown norms in 14 districts, which are in the green zone with no coronavirus cases so far, allowing industrial operations and functioning of shops with certain conditions, including social distancing.

According to an order issued by Chief Secretary T M Vijay Bhaskar, the 14 districts where the latest relaxations will be applicable are Chamarajanagar, Koppal, Chikmagaluru, Raichur, Chitradurga, Ramanagara, Hassan, Shivamogga, Haveri, Yadgir, Kolar, Davanagere, Udupi and Kodagu.

Industries were permitted to operate in rural areas outside the limits of municipal corporations and municipalities in these districts, barring Ramanagara.

Manufacturing and other industrial establishments with access control in Special Economic Zones (SEZs) and Export Oriented Units (EoUs), industrial estates, and industrial townships have been allowed to run in the 14 districts.

These permissions come with a rider that these establishments will have to make arrangements for the stay of workers within their premises as far as possible in the adjacent buildings.

13,448 industrial units in Maharashtra get permission to restart

As many as 13,448 industrial units in Maharashtra have obtained permission to resume operations, Industries Minister Subhash Desai said on Tuesday.

The Union government had advised the states to allow resumption of industrial activities, which came to a standstill after lockdown due to coronavirus kicked in, from April 20.

The issue was also discussed in the latest video conference between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and chief ministers of various states, and Modi had asked the states to frame their own policies on relaxation of norms.

'The MIDC (Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation) has been issuing permissions based on self-declared information from the industries,' Desai said.

'The state industries department has received over 25,000 applications so far, and permissions have been given to 13,448 units,' he added.

1,346 held in Chandigarh for violating coronavirus-linked norms

As many as 1,549 FIRs have been registered and 1,346 people arrested so far by police in Chhattisgarh for violation of lockdown norms and other regulations put in place by authorities to contain the spread of coronavirus, an official said on Tuesday.

Besides 2,294 vehicles have been seized for defying the lockdown rules, he said.

On the direction of Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel, a strict compliance of lockdown measures and other steps undertaken to fight Covid-19 is being ensured across the state, he said.

In pursuance of this goal, till Monday (April 27), 1,549 cases have been registered against people for violation of curfew or ignoring home quarantine protocols or hiding foreign travel history, the official said.

Haryana's borders with Delhi sealed, essential services allowed: Minister

Haryana's borders with Delhi have been sealed with essential services allowed but stricter restrictions imposed on those coming in from the national capital, state Home Minister Anil Vij said on Tuesday.

Haryana will be in a comfortable position as far as Covid-19 cases are concerned if the borders stay sealed for 15-20 days, Vij, who is also the health minister of Haryana, added.

The towns of Gurgaon and Faridabad abut the national capital and form part of the National Capital Region.

The state's borders have been sealed Essential services will be allowed. If all the borders of Haryana stay sealed for 15-20 days, the state will be in comfortable situation (in terms of coronavirus threat), Vij told PTI.

Essential services and people connected with them will be allowed to cross the borders in accordance with the Union Home Ministry guidelines, he explained.

Following the lockdown on March 25, the state government had already put in place restrictions to cross the border with vehicles and people being checked.

The restrictions will be stricter, he said.

Mostly those people who work in Delhi and stay in Haryana are getting infected, and also those who come into contact with them. And the cases are rising in Haryana because of them, Vij said.

He said the Arvind Kejriwal-led Delhi government should make proper arrangements for lodging employees of the Delhi government who work in the national capital but stay in Haryana.

It is the responsibility of the Delhi government to make arrangements for their stay and food and also test them and if they are positive, find a cure for them, he said.

The same holds true for Haryana government employees coming here from the neighbouring state to work, he said. 'It is our responsibility to make necessary arrangements for their lodging and food.'

Asked whether the lockdown should be lifted on May 3, he said his personal view was that it should be extended.

The minister also underscored that the Covid-19 situation in the state is under control in the state, which has the country's highest recovery rate of more than 71 per cent.

Vij who holds the portfolios of health, home and local bodies, which are at frontline in the battle against the pandemic, said, 'I salute all the workers of these departments.'

Nuh with 57 Covid-19 cases, Gurgaon with 51, Faridabad with 46, Palwal with 34 and Sonipat with 22 are the worst affected districts in Haryana.

Of these, Gurgaon, Faridabad and Sonipat border Delhi while the other are two are in its vicinity.

According to the Union Health ministry on Tuesday, Haryana has reported 296 cases and three fatalities. Of the 296, 183 have been cured/discharged/migrated.

After Aarogya Setu app, similar solution for feature phones in the works; to be launched soon

IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Tuesday said states have been highly appreciative of Aarogya Setu app, and a similar solution for feature phones is in the works and will be launched shortly.

The minister on Tuesday interacted with state IT ministers through video-conferencing to discuss Covid-19 challenges, tech innovations and road map for the IT and electronics sector.

'Every state highly appreciated the #AarogyaSetu app and shared their thoughts on it. I have assured them that a similar solution for feature phones is being developed and will be launched very soon,' the minister said in a tweet.

The government's mobile application Aarogya Setu, developed for tracking coronavirus patients, has recorded 75 million (7.5 crore) downloads, the Ministry of Electronics and IT said on April 24.

Aarogya Setu app alerts people if any known or person in their vicinity has tested positive. The district administration has been asking all educational institutions and departments to push downloading of the app. The current version of Aarogya Setu app is primarily compatible for smartphones.

Asked about the new solution in the making, sources in the IT ministry said it will work on JioPhone, which supports KaiOS operating system.

'Also, 1921 is an IVRS where whatever self test is being done on the app, can be done on phone too. The response will be captured and will go to the health system,' the source said.

According to some estimates, India has more than 400 million feature phones.

A partially opened book shop at Laxmi Nagar during ongoing nationwide lockdown to contain the novel coronavirus pendemic, in New Delhi, Tuesday, April 28, 2020. PTI

Pregnant women display their prescriptions in which they have been prescribed a COVID19 test by their doctors, in wake of the coronavirus pandemic, in Ranchi, Tuesday, April 28, 2020. PTI

Odisha makes special arrangements for LGBT community members, pregnant women in temporary camps

Anticipating the arrival of more than 5 lakh people in the state after the nationwide lockdown is lifted, the Odisha government on Tuesday said it has made separate arrangements for members of the LGBT community and pregnant women housed in temporary medical camps and quarantine centres.

The move was a part of the guidelines issued by the Revenue and Disaster Management Department for management of temporary medical camps (TMCs) and quarantine centres (QCs) set up at the gram panchayat and urban local body level.

Odisha has so far created 7,102 TMCs with 2.27 lakh beds, officials said.

'Appropriate planning and demarcations shall be made in advance to ensure social distancing in the camps. Required disabled-friendly arrangements shall also be made, wherever required, to the extent possible,' Additional Chief Secretary-cum-Special Relief Commissioner (SRC) P K Jena said.

Jena asked the officials concerned to ensure that women, children, elderly persons, and people with disabilities are given special attention at the camps, keeping in mind their privacy, safety and dignity.

'No discrimination of any sort shall be practised, promoted or tolerated,' the guidelines said.

The returnees should be provided breakfast, lunch, evening tea and snacks and dinner, it said.

Any suspected person with severe acute respiratory infection and influenza-like symptoms shall be immediately shifted to a designated health facility, the guidelines said, adding, all inmates at the TMCs and QCs are required to wear masks during the entire period of stay.

Scooter Hero: Share your idle personal bikes and scooters with frontline workers

Shared mobility platform Bounce on Tuesday announced a new initiative, Scooter Hero, that will allow people to share their idle personal bikes and scooters with frontline workers.

The nationwide lockdown due to Covid-19 has forced governments to significantly cut public transportation services, which has also restricted travel options for healthcare workers, civic authorities and delivery executives who are working to ensure that the majority of people can stay indoors.

'Several frontline warriors are facing difficulty in mobility, while millions of scooters are lying idle across the country. Bounce aims to ease transportation for essential service providers with this initiative,' according to a statement.

Individuals can sign up at scooterhero.bounceshare.com and enlist their idle two-wheelers to be used for the movement of Covid-19 frontline warriors, it added.

People who enlist their vehicles have the option of giving their vehicle to be used free of charge or can charge up to Rs 80 per day.

This can potentially help thousands of people from economically weaker sections to earn some money from their idle assets, the statement said.