Senior Congress leader Renuka Chowdhury tested positive for coronavirus infection on Thursday. Talking to Twitter, the Congress leader said, "With mild symptoms, I've just tested positive for Covid. Please follow all safety protocols and stay safe. Stay Home, Stay safe".
No public rallies, foot marches or roadshows can be held in Bengal for the last two rounds of the assembly elections, the Election Commission said this evening — hours after it was ordered to take action in view of the rising Covid cases by the Calcutta High Court. All previous orders for rallies and roadshows stand cancelled and only meetings that are attended by no more than 500 people, will be allowed, the Commission said.
Indian Oil Corp Ltd's (IOC) refineries are operating at about 95 per cent of their capacity, down from 100 per cent at the same time last month, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.
A nor'wester packing wind speed of 120 kilometre per hour struck Siliguri and neighbouring towns of north Bengal on Thursday morning, officials said. The squall, locally called, Kalbaisakhi, uprooted several trees and disrupted power supply in the area. Several roads were also blocked.
The UAE has banned travel from India for 10 days starting from Sunday due to the rise in COVID-19 cases in the country. "The travel ban will come into effect from 11.59 pm on Saturday, April 24, and is subject to review after 10 days", the Gulf News reported.
Assam on Thursday reported 1,931 fresh cases of coronavirus, pushing the active cases tally to 10,571. Further, ten coronavirus related deaths were recorded today. The new cases were detected out of 73,428 conducted in the last 24 hours, of which Kamrup Metro 680, Dibrugarh at 143, Kamrup Rural at 136, and Nagaon at 103. Today' cases positivity rate was 2.63 per cent.
In bizarre and rare incident, a thief who had stolen a bag containing 1,700 doses of COVID-19 vaccines at Jind in Haryana, returned the bag of vaccines. According to a report in NDTV, the unknown thief also left a note in Hindi that he was sorry but he was unaware the bag had medicines for corona. The bag was left at a tea shop outside Civil Lines police station.
Keeping in view of the spiralling cases of COVID-19 in Guwahati, the deputy commissioner and district magistrate of Kamrup Metro on Thursday evening have announced that only after "detection of 1000 cases on the particular day", the closure of all educational institutions in the district will be enforced and remain in effect till May 4.
Assam government on Thursday issued additional guidelines for educational institutions applicable in districts that have over 100 active Covid cases and should come into force with immediate effect. In coaching institutions, 50 per cent attendance has to be maintained. Online classes should be made available for the students wherever necessary. Female teaching and non-teaching staff who are pregnant or having children of five years or below shall be exempted from attending Educational Institutions and Coaching Institutions.
In an attempt to help COVID infected patients, food delivery application Zomato has launched a new emergency feature to delivery food on a priority basis to them. Sharing the retweeted update on their official Twitter handle of CEO Deepankar Goyal which read: Today, along with thousands of our restaurant partners, we just rolled out a "priority delivery for covid emergencies" feature on the Zomato app. This feature will allow our customers to mark *This order is related to a COVID-19 emergency* option during checkout.
In a latest development in spiralling cases of coronavirus in Assam, samples of the Double Mutant strain has been detected at Dibrugarh Airport on Thursday. Informing about SARS-CoV-2 or named as B.1.617, Assam health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma cautioned the citizens.
As many as 31 COVID-19 positive patients hailing from other states fled from a makeshift COVID care centre in the outskirts of Agartala in Tripura on Thursday. As per reports, Sub-Divisional Police Officer (SDPO) Anirban Das informed the patients escaped from the Covid Care Centre at the Panchayat Raj Training Institute in Arundhati Nagar and all bus and railway stations and airports have been alerted.
300 passengers on arrival in Silchar airport fled the mandatory COVID-19 testing on Wednesday. Officials on Thursday said to media that criminal action will be initiated against these passengers under Section 188 of the IPC (Disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) and other relevant provisions. Deputy Commissioner of Cachar district Sumit Sattawan said that a total of 690 passengers arrived at the airport in six aircrafts.
Air India has decided to cancel flights between India and the UK from April 24 to 30. The decision was taken after Britain recently announced travel restrictions on non-UK and non-Irish citizens. "Passengers who were to travel between India and UK, may kindly note that in view of recent restrictions announced by UK, flights from and to UK stand cancelled from 24th to 30th April '21. Further updates regarding rescheduling, refunds & waivers will be informed shortly," an Air India's statement read.
Congress Interim President Sonia Gandhi on Thursday wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi alleging that the new COVID-19 vaccination policy was not only discriminatory but also a complete abandonment of the youth. The Congress leader urged the government to reverse the ill-considered decision.
