Category: National

Srinagar:The Union Health Ministry Thursday said that Covid- 19 recovery rate has improved to 67.61 percent in the country.

“A total of 13 lakh 28 thousand 336 people have recovered so far. In the past 24 hours, 46 thousand 121 recoveries have been reported across the country. With this, the recovery rate has improved to 67.61 per cent. The case fatality rate has further declined to 2.07 per cent in the country,” the ministry said as per news agency Kashmir Indpeth News Service (KINS).

The ministry further said that a total of 56 thousand 282 new cases of Covid-19 have been reported in the country within 24 hour taking the total number of cases to 19 lakh 64 thousand 536. “Presently, the total number of active corona cases in the country is five lakh 95 thousand 501. 904 deaths have also been reported in a single day, taking the nationwide toll to 40 thousand 699”.

“India achieved a remarkable feat today by performing the highest numbers of Covid-19 tests in a single day. A record six lakh 64 thousand 949 tests were conducted by various laboratories yesterday. More than two crore 21 lakh tests have been conducted in the country so far. This is the third consecutive day when the laboratories conducted more than six lakh tests in a single day across the country”.

Meanwhile officials said that starting from less than 100 tests per day, a multiple fold increase in a few months was made possible by dedicated teams of research institutions, medical colleges, testing laboratories, Ministries, airlines and postal services.

“The Central government in collaboration with the governments of States and Union Territories adopted the strategy of aggressive testing, tracking and treatment to deal with the coronavirus crisis. In January this year, there was only one testing laboratory for COVID-19 in India.

Now, 1370 government and private laboratory chains are conducting tests for coronavirus samples across the country. ICMR is continuously ramping up its testing capabilities by approving new laboratories, RT-PCR kits, True Nat Test, CBNAAT Test and rapid antigen test kits. The Health Ministry and ICMR have asked the States and Union Territories to include additional testing methods to improve the availability of testing,” the officials said.(KINS)

PTI

Bulandshahr (UP): A man has been arrested for reportedly killing an 8-year-old girl in Sikri village here, police said on Wednesday.

The incident took place Tuesday night, they said.

The accused, Ashok, lured the girl with the offer of corn and attempted to rape her. When she raised an alarm, he killed her, Senior Superintendent of Police Santosh Kumar Singh said.

He later hid the body in the fields, the officer said.

An FIR has been registered against the accused on complaint of the victim’s father, police said.

Meanwhile, agitated villagers surrounded the police station and demanded that the accused be hanged to death.

Srinagar: A Kashmiri lawyer has issued a legal notice to a BJP MLA asking him to “apologize or face legal consequence” for purported comments that “Muslims should sacrifice their children on the occasion of Eid-ul-Adha instead of animals”.

The legal notice issued by Amir Masoodi, a Srinagar based Lawyer to Nand Kishore Gurjar of Uttar Pradesh reads, “I, being a Muslim and a lawyer by profession who believes in supreme constitution of India and majesty of law stand authorized to proceed against you in the court of law. This notice is supposed to change your bent of mind by either apologizing publicly or by facing the consequences as per law, so I confer you the notice.”

It added, “The preamble of the constitution of India declares India to be secular and Article 25 of the constitution confers right to profess or practice one’s own religion on every person in the country and Muslims are no exception to it.”

The notice issued by the Masoodi also reads that the practice of sacrificing animals on the occasion of Eid-ul-Adha is an essential part of Islam and thus protected by the supreme law of the land i.e., the constitution of India.

“The issuance of such unconstitutional statements stands you liable to face the prosecution under section 153A, 295A, 298, 504 AND 505 of Indian Penal Code,” reads the notice.
“I sincerely advise you to make unconditional apology for the statement publicly within the period of seven days from the receiving of this legal notice, failing which I am legally authorised to launch prosecution against you in the court of law.” (KNS)

Mr. Shah requests people who came in contact with him to self-isolate.

Home Minister Amit Shah tested positive for COVID-19 on August 2.

Mr. Shah has been admitted to the Medanta Hospital in Gurugram where doctors say that since he has other co-morbidities and that he is more vulnerable to the virus

He is under observation as of now, say doctors.

Mr. Shah, in his tweet, requested people who had come in contact with him to isolate and get themselves tested for COVID-19.

कोरोना के शुरूआती लक्षण दिखने पर मैंने टेस्ट करवाया और रिपोर्ट पॉजिटिव आई है। मेरी तबीयत ठीक है परन्तु डॉक्टर्स की सलाह पर अस्पताल में भर्ती हो रहा हूँ। मेरा अनुरोध है कि आप में से जो भी लोग गत कुछ दिनों में मेरे संपर्क में आयें हैं, कृपया स्वयं को आइसोलेट कर अपनी जाँच करवाएं।

— Amit Shah (@AmitShah) August 2, 2020

With inputs from The Hindu

PTI

UP’s Cabinet minister for Technical Education Kamal Rani Varun succumbed to COVID-19 at the Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences in Lucknow.

Kamal Rani is the first minister in Uttar Pradesh to die after contracting coronavirus. She was 62.

On July 18, the minister tested positive for coronavirus and was admitted to the Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Hospital here. She was later shifted to the Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences.

PTI

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday extended Eid greetings and hoped that the festival inspires us to create a “just, harmonious and an inclusive” society.

Eid al-Adha, also called the festival of sacrifice, is being celebrated on Saturday.

“Eid Mubarak. Greetings on Eid al-Adha. May this day inspire us to create a just, harmonious and inclusive society,” the prime minister tweeted.

May the spirit of brotherhood and compassion be furthered, he said.

PTI

New Delhi: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday extended his Eid greetings to people and hoped that the occasion will bring peace and prosperity to the society.

Eid al-Adha, also called the festival of sacrifice, is being celebrated on Saturday.

“Greetings on the occasion of Eid al-Adha. May this day bring peace, harmony and prosperity in our society,” Shah tweeted.

PTI

Coimbatore: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday asked students to prepare innovative models and forward them for their use in a big way.

Following an interaction with a student here through video conference after she came up with a model on embankments during the Smart India Hackathon (SIH), the Prime Minister asked her to make her presentation before the authorities concerned.

The student was M Shwetha, a fourth year student of M.Sc (Software Systems) of Sri Krishna Arts and Science College.

She had developed the model of an embankment and how the replica could help prevent loss of life and property if there were a breach.

An embankment is the soil on the periphery of the natural water bodies that protect people from any water overflowing into the adjacent areas. If there is a breach in the embankment it can cause loss to life and property, Shwetrha said at the hackathon.

This danger can be warded off if it is known when the next breach is going to occur, she said.

With the help of machine learning, students can study the breach pattern and predict it, and support the government in taking preventive measures.

Support of the local residents in taking photographs of embankments and uploading them on the portal along with information of breaches can help avert natural disasters in time, the student said.

Greeting her with a ‘vanakkam’, Modi asked Shwetha to prepare a training model on embankment and take the idea and the presentation to Central Water Commission for implementation.

Another student from PSG College of Technology M Kundan explained about his work on security and surveillance and demonstrated a chatbot he had designed to take complaints from the public to a police station without going there physically.

Presently, many people do not report crimes due to stigma and fear of going to police stations and it is here the application could be useful, he said.

The Prime Minister suggested Kundan to develop the chatbot in all regional languages as common people can use technology.

Chairperson and managing trustee of Sri Krishna Institutions S Malarvizhi, its CEO Dr K Sundararaman and principal Dr J Janet were present at the session.

Sri Krishna Institutions is the only nodal centre in Tamil Nadu selected for interaction with the Prime Minister.

PTI

Muzaffarnagar: Police have arrested one of the three men accused of raping a 15-year-old girl here, an official said on Saturday.

According to an FIR registered in the case, the accused abducted the minor on Thursday when she had gone out of her house to throw garbage in the village dump yard.

They allegedly took the girl to a sugarcane field and took turns to rape her, SHO of Bhopa police station Sanjeev Kumar said, adding that one of the three men had also recorded a video of the incident.

The accused, identified as Gaurav, was arrested on Friday evening, the SHO said.

Kumar said efforts were underway to nab the other two accused.

With a record single-day surge of 57,117 infections, India’s COVID-19 caseload neared 17 lakh on Saturday, just three days after it reached the 15-lakh mark, while the number of recoveries rose to 10,94,374, according to Union Health Ministry data.

The country has so far registered 16,95,988 instances of the coronavirus infection. The death toll increased to 36,511 with 764 fatalities being reported in 24 hours, the data updated at 8 am showed.

This is the third consecutive day that COVID-19 cases have increased by more than 50,000. The total number of confirmed cases also includes foreigners.

There are 5,65,103 active COVID-19 cases in the country.