Amit Shah arrives in Kerala to attend 90th Mahasamadhi of Sree Narayana Guru

New Delhi, Jan 1: Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) court in Mumbai has allowed banks that lent money to embattled liquor tycoon Vijay Mallya to utilize seized assets, news agency reported today quoting sources from the Enforcement Directorate (ED). The court also said all parties affected by the order can appeal at the Bombay High Court till January 18.

Last month, a consortium of Indian banks petitioned a London court for ex-billionaire Vijay Mallya to be declared bankrupt over ₹9,000 crore in unpaid debts. It comes as Mallya, who founded the now defunct Kingfisher Airlines Ltd, faces extradition to his home country of India.

Mallya had fled India in March 2016 and has been living in the United Kingdom since then. The 64-year-old former Kingfisher Airlines is fighting extradition to India in relation of fraud and money laundering allegations arising out of the debt acquired from the banks.

Mallya remains on bail pending the UK High Court appeal hearing in the extradition proceedings brought by India in relation to fraud and money laundering charges amounting to ₹9,000 crores. He had been arrested on an extradition warrant back in April 2017 and has been fighting his extradition in the UK courts since then.

He was granted permission to appeal against his extradition order, which is scheduled in the Royal Courts of Justice in London for February.

New Delhi, May 27: Professor Johan Giesecke of the Karolinska Institute, Sweden, on Wednesday claimed that India will ruin its economy very quickly if it had a severe lockdown.

Claiming that a strict lockdown may disrupt India's economic growth, Giesecke during an interaction with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said: "In India, you will do more harm than good with strict lockdown measures. India will ruin its economy very quickly if it had a severe lockdown."

While calling for a soft lockdown approach in India, he suggested that India has to ease restrictions one by one. It may, however, take months to completely come out of lockdown, he said.

He further criticised countries across the globe for having no post-lockdown strategy.

Emphasising on the disease, the Swedish health expert said that coronavirus is spreading like a wildfire across the world. "It is a very mild disease. Ninety-nine per cent infected people will have very less or no symptoms," he added.

Meanwhile, Ashish Jha, Director Harvard Global Health Institute and a recognised public health official, in interaction with Gandhi, called for a need to go in for an 'aggressive' COVID-19 testing to create confidence among people.

"When the economy is opened post-lockdown, you have to create confidence. There is a need for aggressive testing strategy in high-risk areas," he said.

He asserted that COVID-19 is not the last pandemic in the world, adding that "We are entering the age of large pandemics".

Jha further said that countries like South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong have responded the best to COVID-19 pandemic, while Italy, Spain, the US and the UK have responded the worst.

A few days ago, the Gandhi scion had interacted with former Reserve Bank of India Governor Raghuram Rajan and Nobel Prize Winner Abhijit Banerjee to discuss various issues related to the COVID-19 crisis.

Geneva, Jun 22: The global count of coronavirus cases has surpassed 8.7 million, with 183,020 new cases recorded on Sunday, the World Health Organisation said in its daily situation report.

Over the last 24 hours, 4,743 people died from COVID-19 worldwide, taking the death toll to 461,715 fatalities, according to the report.

The cumulative global toll of confirmed cases has now reached 8,708,008, as stated in the report.

The WHO Regional Director for Europe, Dr Hans Henri P. Kluge, shared that Europe accounts for 31 per cent of COVID-19 cases and 43 per cent of COVID-19 deaths globally.

Dr Kluge highlighted that several countries continue to face increasing disease incidence and that "preparing for the autumn is a priority now at the WHO Regional Office for Europe"

The United States continues to be worst affected by the contagion with the highest count of cases and fatalities -- 2.2 million and 118,895, respectively.

The novel coronavirus was declared a pandemic by WHO on March 11.