Image Courtesy: Indian Express
New Delhi: The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) on Friday extended the nationwide lockdown for two more weeks, which is to be effective from May 4. This is despite the economy in doldrums, agriculture in distress and migrant labour facing joblessness, hunger and penury.
Issuing guidelines to regulate economic activities in this period, MHA said that movement of individuals, for all non-essential activities, shall remain strictly prohibited between 7 pm to 7 am, across all the zones.
Similarly, irrespective of zones, all forms of public transport- air, rail, metro and inter-State movement by road; schools, colleges, hotels and restaurants, cinema halls, malls, gymnasiums; social, political, cultural, religious gatherings remain suspended, except special cases, the MHA order added.
'Aarogya Setu' app has been made must for people living in COVID-19 containment zones.
In all COVID-19 zones, people above 65, those with co-morbidities, pregnant women will stay at home, except for essential works, the order said.
Apart from this, some relaxations have been permitted to districts falling under green and orange zones.
Meanwhile, to ferry those who are stranded at different places due to the coronavirus-induced lockdown, Indian Railways on Friday decided to run “Shramik Special” trains which will run from point to point on the request of both the concerned state governments, which are sending and receiving such persons. The Shramik Special train fare will includes cost of sleeper class ticket, superfast charge of Rs 30 and Rs 20 for meals, water.
“The passengers have to be screened by the sending states and only those found asymptomatic would be allowed to travel. Sending State Governments will have to bring these persons in batches that can be accommodated in the train to the designated Railway Station in sanitized buses following social distancing norms and other precautions. It will be mandatory for every passenger to wear face cover. Meals and drinking water would be provided to the passengers by the sending states at the originating station,” MoR said after Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) directed it to issue guidelines.
With the economy at standstill, India’s top carmakers, including Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai, on Friday reported zero monthly domestic sales for the first time ever in April after the nationwide lockdown halted output and shut sales network.
In the two-wheeler segment, bike maker Royal Enfield said it had zero sales in the domestic market but exported a total of 91 units last month.
Maruti Suzuki India, Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL), Mahindra & Mahindra (M&M), Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) and MG Motor India reported nil sales as they suspended operations even before the imposition of lockdown on March 25 to check the spread of coronavirus, reports PTI.
As on Friday evening till five, the cumulative figure of novel coronavirus cases in the country has reached 35,365, of which 25,148 are under “active” medical supervision and 9,064 have been cured so far.
The death toll due to COVID-19, disease caused by novel coronavirus, has jumped to 1,152 now.
COVID-19 death toll rises to 61 in Rajasthan with 3 more fatalities, two in Jaipur and one in Nagaur. Total cases of novel coronavirus have reached 2,617 after 33 people test positive, health department official confirmed on Friday.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Friday confirmed that 2,300 COVID-19 tests are being conducted per 1 million people in the national capital.
He further added that plasma therapy, though only on trial basis, is generating good results.
Delhi government is contacting 1,100 people who have recovered from COVID-19 to donate their plasma to save lives.
Delhi government is sending 40 buses today (Friday) to Kota (Rajasthan) to bring back stranded students, he said. Students returning from Kota will have to go into self-quarantine for 14 days, he added.
Punjab saw the steepest rise in the number of novel coronavirus cases on Thursday with 105 persons, mostly pilgrims who returned from Nanded, testing positive for the disease, news agency PTI quoted officials as saying.
It is for the first time that the states has reported more than 100 coronavirus cases in a single day. With the fresh detections, the number of COVID-19 cases in Punjab now stands at 480, they said.
Pilgrims coming back from Hazur Sahib in Nanded in Maharashtra, students from Kota and labourers from Jaisalmer in Rajasthan are turning out to be the latest threat for spread of COVID-19 in the state.
Of the 105 cases reported in the state, 98 are from outside, an official said.
Twelve Tablighi Jamaat members, including nine from Thailand, were sent to a temporary jail in Uttar Pradesh’s Shahjahanpur district after they completed their quarantine, news agency PTI quoted police as saying on Friday.
The 12 people, including nine from Thailand and two from Tamil Nadu, were held on April 2 from a mosque where they were hiding. Their samples and that of a local were sent for testing, an officer said.
One of the persons from Thailand tested positive and was referred to Bareilly. He was later brought here after his report was negative, Superintendent of Police (City) Dinesh Tripathi told PTI.
After they completed 28 days in quarantine, they were sent to a temporary jail on Thursday. The passports of the foreigners were already seized and the Ministry of External Affairs has been informed, the officer added.
Bombay High Court’s Aurangabad bench on Thursday allowed employers to cut wages of absentee workers in areas, where movement restrictions or lockdown has been lifted, Indian Express reported.
“I would not be inclined to interfere with the impugned MHA order and would expect the petitioners to pay the gross monthly wages to the employees, save and except conveyance allowance and food allowance, if being paid on month to month basis in the cases of those workers who are not required to report for duties,” observed justice Ravindra V Ghuge in a single judge bench judgement.
The Goa government has decided that people not wearing masks will not be given fuel at petrol pumps or ration at fair price shops in the state, according to news agency PTI.
The decision was taken during a meeting of the State Executive Committee (SEC) chaired by Chief Secretary Parimal Rai on Thursday.
No petrol pump will fill fuel in a vehicle or no ration or other grocery items would be sold in fair price shops if a customer does not wear a mask, it said in a statement.
“To enable this, the state should launch a campaign, like ‘no mask-no petrol’ or ‘no mask-no ration’,” it added.
The committee asked the Director of Civil Supplies to work out a campaign in order to reach out to the petrol pumps and fair price shops asking them to implement this concept.
A 52-year old, who was the first COVID-19 patient in Maharashtra to undergo plasma therapy, passed away late Wednesday at Lilavati hospital, four days after he received the transfusion, Indian Express reported.
According to the report, doctors said that the plasma therapy did little to improve his condition, who also suffered from septicaemia and acute respiratory distress syndrome.
On Tuesday, Lav Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry, had said that convalescent plasma therapy is not an approved therapy to treat COVID-19 patients and remains in trials, the report added.
There has been a significant increase in cybercrime against women, especially sextortion, during the COVID-19-induced lockdown with “caged criminals” targeting them online, news agency PTI quoted experts as saying.
According to National Commission for Women (NCW) data, 54 cybercrime complaints were received online in April in comparison to 37 complaints – received online and by post -- in March, and 21 complaints in February. The panel is taking complaints online due to the lockdown.
Cyber experts, however, said the numbers are just the “tip of the iceberg”.
"We received a total of 412 genuine complaints of cyber abuse from March 25 till April 25. Out of these, as many as 396 complaints were serious ones from women, (and these) ranged from abuse, indecent exposure, unsolicited obscene pictures, threats, malicious emails claiming their account was hacked, ransom demands, blackmail and more," said the founder of the Akancha Foundation, Akancha Srivastava.
The organisation works for education and empowerment of people by imparting knowledge on cyber safety.
The Andaman and Nicobar Islands administration has decided to arrange special ships between Port Blair and Chennai to ferry stranded migrant workers, students, pilgrims and tourists, news agency PTI reported officials as saying on Friday.
“The transportation of such personnel shall be on one time, one way basis only,” the deputy director of Shipping Services said in a statement.
“Primarily only asymptomatic people who clear the screening process will be allowed to board the ship” the statement said.
Further, all persons arriving in Port Blair will be mandatorily quarantined for 14 days and they will be required to give an undertaking regarding this before boarding, it added.
With many pilgrims returning from Nanded testing positive for COVID-19, Akal Takht jathedar Harpreet Singh on Friday claimed there was a conspiracy to malign the Sikhs over it just as the Muslims were after the Tablighi Jamaat episode, according to news agency PTI.
At least 115 of the over 3,500 pilgrims who have returned from Hazur Sahib gurdwara in Maharashtra’s Nanded in recent days have tested positive for coronavirus, according to state government figures.
“It is being propagated as if Takht Sri Hazur Sahib was the home to coronavirus and these people carried it with themselves to Punjab,” he alleged.
“It is a very big conspiracy,” the jathedar said.
He said the pilgrims stayed at the Nanded gurdwara’s “sarai” for over a month, volunteering for the “langar sewa”.
The first special train from Kerala carrying 1,200 migrant workers to Bhubaneswar in Odisha will leave from the Aluva railway station on Friday evening, news agency PTI quoted state Minister V S Sunil Kumar as saying.
The migrant workers from Odisha accommodated in camps in Ernakulam District since the COVID-19 lockdown will be brought to the station in state-run corporation buses as per the protocol announced by the government, he said.
Official sources said the train was scheduled for 6 pm departure.
Scientists have developed a quick, sensitive test for antibodies against the novel coronavirus in human blood that could help doctors track a person’s exposure to COVID-19, as well as confirm suspected cases that tested negative by other methods, according to news agency PTI.
Because COVID-19 symptoms range from mild to severe, with some people apparently having no symptoms, the number of people who have been infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus at some point is likely much higher than the number of confirmed cases, the researchers said.
Although more research needs to be done, it is possible that people with antibodies to the virus could be immune to future COVID-19 outbreaks, according to the research published in the journal Analytical Chemistry.
In a tweet on Friday, Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) spokesperson informed that the movement of migrant workers, pilgrims, tourists, students & other persons, stranded at different places, is also allowed by special train which is to be operated by the Indian Railways.
The ministry of railways will issue guidelines for sale of tickets, and for social distancing and other other safety measures that are to be observed, the order stated.
Following MHA’s order, Indian Railways on Friday decided to run “shramik special” trains, six of which are planned to run on the same day. Following are the routes of the six trains:
Lingampally (Telangana) to Hatia (Jharkhand)
Nasik (Maharashtra) to Lucknow (Uttar Pradesh)
Aluva (Kerala) to Bhubaneswar (Odisha)
Nasik (Maharashtra) to Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh)
Jaipur (Rajasthan) to Patna (Bihar)
Kota (Rajasthan) to Hatia (Jharkhand)
The Delhi Police received over 800 calls, including 437 related to movement passes, from 2 pm on Thursday and the same time on Friday, seeking assistance on issues faced during the lockdown, officials said.
So far, the police have received 34,305 calls related to the lockdown on its helpline number -- 23469526.
Police said they received a total of 817 calls from 2 pm on Thursday to 2 pm on Friday.
Out of these, fifty-six calls were related to areas outside Delhi, which were referred to respective state helpline numbers while three calls received were related to no food and no money, which were also forwarded to NGOs.
Nearly 2,73,463 people were served food while 3,046 were given ration through the food delivery network established in all 15 police districts with involvement of nearly 400 NGOs and good samaritans at more than 250 locations, it said.
The Indian Newspaper Society (INS) has urged the government to provide a strong stimulus package to the newspaper industry which it said has lost over Rs 4,000 crore and is likely to suffer further losses of up to Rs 15,000 crore in the next six to seven months, if relief is not provided, according to news agency PTI.
In a letter to the Information and Broadcasting Secretary, the INS said the newspaper industry is among the worst affected in India with hardly any revenues coming in from either advertising or circulation amid the nationwide lockdown in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
The losses already incurred have had very severe repercussions for the 30 lakh workers and staff who are directly and indirectly involved in the newspaper industry - journalists, printers, delivery vendors and many others, said INS, which represents over 800 newspapers.
According to INS estimates, newspapers provide direct and indirect employment to almost nine to 10 lakh people and over 18-20 lakh people respectively.
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