AirAsia starts flights from Delhi to Bengaluru, Goa, Guwahati today

May 21, 2015

New Delhi, May 21: Budget carrier AirAsia India will spread its wings to the national capital with the launch of its services from New Delhi on Thursday, nearly a year after it commenced operations in the country.

AirAsiaThe airline had last month, while announcing its plans to operate services from the Indira Gandhi International Airport here, had said that New Delhi would serve as its hub for the North India market.

As of now, the domestic arm of the Malaysian no-frills airline AirAsia flies to Chennai, Kochi, Goa, Chandigarh, Jaipur, Pune from its Bengaluru base.

The airline would launch flights to Bengaluru, Goa and Guwahati from New Delhi.

AirAsia India on this occasion organised a pre-launch special patch flight for prominent personalities here to give them a special onboard flight experience.

Among those guests on the special short flight included Civil Aviation Minister Ashok Gajapathi Raju, his deputy Mahesh Sharma, AirAsia India board member Arun Bhatia, airline's non-executive chairman Ramadorai and several ministry officials besides AirAsia India chief executive Mittu Chandilya.

"We are very excited to step into Delhi. The celebration today is the result of constant hard work, meticulous planning and undying dedicated spirit of our team. I would like to thank everyone associated with AirAsia India for the support. We hope to enable more people to experience air travel in India," Chandilya said.

The budget carrier had deployed an aircraft "Pioneer" named after the pioneer of Indian aviation JRD Tata, with a special livery dedicated to him to celebrate his contribution in the field.

"We are happy to welcome AirAsia India to IGI Airport. It is only fitting that a top rated carrier like AirAsia has chosen Delhi Airport as a hub for its operations. We will support the airline end to end," Delhi International Airport Private Limited chief executive I Prabhakara Rao said.

AirAsia India is three-way joint venture with AirAsia holding 49 percent stake while the other two partners-Tata Sons and Telestra Trade Place of Atrun Bhatia-holding 30 and 21 percent stake respectively.

The country's fourth low-cost carrier had commenced operations on 12 June last year. It has a fleet of five Airbus A320 planes.

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Agencies
May 26,2020

New Delhi, May 26: As India ranked 10th in the global infection list, overtaking Iran, which was an early hotspot of coronavirus, India's top medical body has said the human trials of COVID-19 vaccine may begin at least in six months.

Dr. Rajni Kant, Director Regional Medical Research Centre and Head at the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said, "The virus strain isolated at the National Institute of Virology (NIV) laboratory in Pune will be used to develop the vaccine, and this strain has been successfully transferred to the Bharat Biotech International Ltd. (BBIL). It is expected that the human trials of the vaccine will begin in at least six months."

Queried on the focus areas as India inches closer to 1.4 lakh COVID-19 cases, Kant said we should not get anxious about the rapid increase in numbers, especially in the past week, which saw 5,000 Covid-19 cases daily, instead focus on protecting the most vulnerable group.

"We should not fear from increasing Covid-19 cases. The elderly and people with comorbidities need protection. This is the highly vulnerable group, and we need to deploy resources and develop strategies to keep the mortality rate as low as possible in this group," said Kant.

Initially, it was assumed that the country would require thousands of ventilators, but last week, the health ministry said only 0.45 per cent of COVID-19 cases need ventilator support.

Kant insisted the focus should be on five per cent to 10 per cent serious patients. "We are testing more than one lakh daily and our case fatality rate is already one of the lowest in the world. In absence of vaccine, people should follow social distancing guidelines," he added

On the significance of the recovery rate, Kant said the increasing recovery rate of the COVID-19 patients, which is at 41 per cent, is a bright spot in India's fight against deadly viral infection.

Queried on large scale COVID-19 cases in Mumbai, Delhi and Ahmedabad, Kant said the population density in these regions is very high, which proves to be the just right environment for the viral infection.

He insisted on developing robust cluster management strategies in the hard-hit coronavirus spots, and the movement of people should be curtailed in these areas.

"Currently, a lot of people are moving around easily and avoiding social distancing norms. The first phase of the lockdown was very effective, but now things have changed," added Kant.

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News Network
January 27,2020

New Delhi, Jan 27: Remember the story of two friends coming face-to-face with a bear in a forest? One of the two friends climbs the tree to save his life and the other, not knowing how to, lays on the ground, breathless, pretending to be dead.

Well, that lesson turned out to be useful for this man who pretended to be dead when a tiger had both his paws on the man's chest.

Yes, that is right. IFS officer Parveen Kaswan recently shared a video of a man lying under a tiger, with their faces extremely close to each other with the caption, "You want to see how does a narrow escape looks like in case of an encounter with a #tiger. #Tiger was cornered by the crowd. But fortunately, the end was fine for both man and tiger. Sent by a senior."

Another Twitter user shared the full 30-second video in the comments. He also said that the incident occured in Tumsar in Bhandara district, Maharashtra. The spine-chilling clip shows a tiger running freely in the fields trying to avoid people who have surrounded him and are trying to shoo him away.

In his quest to run away, the scared tiger grabs a human. When he sees that people are still approaching him and trying to scare him away, he gets up and runs away for his life. All this while, the man who was captured by the animal lays still on the ground and does not make an attempt to get free.

This is what stuck with Twitter and they are praising the man for his presence of mind.

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News Network
January 10,2020

New Delhi, Jan 10: An IPS officer's thumb was bitten by a woman protester when he was pushing back agitators, who were trying to march towards the Rashtrapati Bhawan here on Thursday, police sources said.

The protesters had gathered after a call was given by JNU Students' Union president Aishe Ghosh to march towards President's House to demand the removal of University's Vice Chancellor, M Jagadesh Kumar.

Ingit Pratap Singh, a 2011 batch officer, who is currently posted as the additional deputy commissioner of the southwest district, was injured in the attack.

According to sources, Singh was trying to pull a male protester when the woman, in a bid to shield her friend, bit Singh's left thumb.

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