After stopping Haj subsidy, BJP offers to send Christians to Jerusalem for free

New Delhi, Mar 27: The Delhi government has arranged to serve lunch and dinner to the needy in 325 schools in Delhi, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Friday amid reports of people going hungry without access to food during the ongoing nationwide lockdown.

From Saturday, arrangements will be put in place to feed about four lakh people daily at different centres across Delhi, he said addressing the media. "We have made arrangements to provide lunch and dinner in 325 schools. Around 500 people will be provided with food in all these schools. So far we were providing food to 20,000 people daily, the number will now increase to around 2,00,000 from today."

He also said that "from tomorrow, we'll be providing food to 4,00,000 people daily. We're distributing the centres across Delhi."

Stating that the total number of confirmed positive COVID-19 cases in Delhi is now 39, Kejriwal said "We are ready to face any challenge.".

"There are a total of 39 coronavirus positive cases in Delhi as of today, of which 29 cases are of those who had come from outside and were kept in quarantine and 10 of these were cases of local transmission," said Kejriwal at a press conference.

The Chief Minister said that a team of 5 doctors has been set up to look into the preparedness needed to deal with an increase in the number of positive cases for coronavirus in future.

He said, "The team of doctors under the chairmanship of Dr Shiv Kumar Sarin, the head of Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences, presented a detailed report on March 26 on the preparedness needed to deal with a situation if the number of positive cases for coronavirus increases."

"The report has categorized three situations - if the number of positive cases increases to 100 per day, 500 per day and 1000 per day," he said while adding that the doctors have clearly stated what preparedness should be taken for each situation including the number of ventilators, isolation beds, doctors and nurses required.

He also cited concerns raised by chief ministers of several states including Jharkhand's Hemant Soren and West Bengal's Mamata Banerjee.

Kejriwal said "we consider all those living in Delhi as Delhiites and everyone will be taken care of."
The number of cases tested positive for coronavirus rose to 724 on Friday, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. 

New Delhi, Apr 27: Indian prime minister Narendra Modi has said the monthlong ongoing lockdown has yielded positive results and that the country has managed to save “thousands of lives”.

Modi, who had a videoconference with various heads of the states on Monday, said the impact of the coronavirus, however, will remain visible in the coming months, according to a press statement released by his office. On the issue of getting back Indians who are overseas, the Prime Minister said that this has to be done keeping in mind the fact that they don’t get inconvenienced and their families are not under any risk.

During the meeting with state heads, Modi advocated for social distancing of at least 6 feet and the use of face masks as a rapid response to tackle COVID-19.

He said that states should put their efforts of converting hotspots, or red zones, into “orange and thereafter green zones”.

India last week eased the lockdown by allowing shops to reopen and manufacturing and farming activities to resume in rural areas to help millions of poor, daily-wage earners. But the economic costs of the nationwide lockdown continue to mount in a country of 1.3 billion people.

Modi, who put India under a strict lockdown on March 25, did not say if the lockdown restrictions will extend after May 3.

India has confirmed over 27,000 cases of the coronavirus, including 872 deaths.

New Delhi, Jan 19: Reacting to a tweet by ace lawyer Indira Jaising urging her to forgive the four men on death row for brutally raping that finally took her life, Nirbhaya's mother said on Saturday: "Even if God asks me, I won't forgive them."

Speaking to news agency, over the phone, the mother who had been fighting for seven long years to send her daughter's killers to the gallows, said, "...even if god comes and asks me to forgive them, I will not. People like these (Jaising) are a blot on the society."

Commenting on Jaising's tweet, she said: "Who is she to tell or suggest to me to forgive them. What relation does she have with me. I have nothing to do with such people. She can be a relative of those (the convicts) that she is having a soft corner for."

"She is an insult to women. She is running a business in the name of human rights. She is a veteran, she should give a message to the society. But she instead will go against her own kind," she added.

Earlier in the day, Jaising had requested Nirbhaya's mother to follow the example of Congress president Sonia Gandhi, who had moved for the clemency of a woman, Nalini Murugan convicted for the assassination of her husband and former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi.

"While I fully identify with the pain of Nirbhaya's mother I urge her to follow the example of Sonia Gandhi who forgave Nalini and said she didn't want the death penalty for her. We are with you but against death penalty," Jaising tweeted on Friday.

A Delhi Court on Friday issued fresh death warrants against the four convicts -- Akshay, Pawan, Mukesh and Vinay in the Nirbhaya gang rape and murder case.

Additional Sessions Judge (ASJ) Satish Kumar Arora fixed 1 February as the date of execution of the four death row convicts. They will be hanged at 6am.

The move came after the prosecution moved an application seeking issuance of fresh death warrants following the rejection of the mercy plea of one of the convicts Mukesh by President Ram Nath Kovind.

The 23-year-old victim was brutally gang-raped and tortured on December 16, 2012, which later led to her death.

All the six accused were arrested and charged with sexual assault and murder. One of the accused was a minor and appeared before a juvenile justice court, while another accused committed suicide in Tihar Jail.

Four of the convicts were sentenced to death by a trial court in September 2013, and the verdict was confirmed by the Delhi High Court in March 2014 and upheld by the Supreme Court in May 2017, which also dismissed their review petitions.