Amit Shah a nasty proponent of divisive politics: Derek O'Brien

New Delhi, Apr 21: India's count of positive coronavirus cases reached 18,985 after 1,329 new cases were reported in the last 24 hours, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Tuesday.

Out of the total cases, 15,122 are active cases, 3,259 have been discharged or cured and one has migrated. With 44 new deaths reported in the last 24 hours, the toll stands at 603.

As per the evening update by the ministry, Maharashtra continues to be the worst-hit state with 4,669 cases, out of which 572 patients have been discharged and cured and 232 deaths.

Delhi's total count of confirmed cases stand at 2,081, which includes 431 cured or discharged cases and 47 deaths.

Gujarat has reported a total of 2,066 positive COVID-19 cases, out of which 131 patients have recovered or discharged, while 77 patients have lost their lives.

Madhya Pradesh's count of COVID-19 cases stand at 1,540, including 127 cured or discharged cases and 76 deaths.

Rajasthan has so far reported 1,576 positive cases, out of which 205 patients have recovered or discharged and 25 people have lost their lives.

Tamil Nadu's COVID-19 figure has risen to 1,520, with 457 patients recovered and 17 fatalities. Uttar Pradesh has reported 1,294 cases, out of which 140 patients have recovered and 20 are dead.

Feb 28: The best economic tonic for the coronavirus shock is to contain its spread and worry about stimulus later, said Raghuram Rajan, former head of the Reserve Bank of India.

There’s little central banks can do, and while more government spending would help, the priority should be on convincing companies and households that the virus is under control, he said.

“People want to have a sense that there is a limit to the spread of this virus perhaps because of containment measures or because there is hope that some kind of viral solution can be found,” Rajan told Bloomberg Television’s Haidi Stroud Watts and Shery Ahn.

“At this point I would say the best thing that governments can do is to really fight the epidemic rather than worry about stimulus measures that comes later,” said Rajan, who is currently a professor at the Chicago Booth School of Business.

The spread of coronavirus is pushing the world economy toward its worst performance since the financial crisis more than a decade ago.

Bank of America Corp. economists warned clients Thursday that they now expect 2.8% global growth this year, the weakest since 2009.

“We have moved from extreme confidence in markets to extreme panic, all in the space of one week,” said Rajan, who previously was chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.

The virus outbreak will force companies to rethink supply chains and overseas production facilities, he said.

“I think we will see a lot of rethinking on this, coming on the back of the trade disruption, now we have this,” Rajan said. “Globalization in production is going to be hit quite badly.”

New Delhi, Jan 31: Nirbhaya's mother Asha Devi on Friday said she will continue her fight till the convicts in the 2012 gangrape and murder case are hanged, shortly after a Delhi court postponed the execution of death warrants till further order.

Devi told reporters her "hopes are dashed" but she will continue her fight.

"These convicts have no right to live. We keep getting disappointed by the system. I will continue my fight till the convicts are hanged," she said.

A Delhi court postponed the execution of death warrants of the four convicts in the Nirbhaya gangrape and murder case till further order.

Additional sessions judge Dharmender Rana passed the order on a plea by the convicts seeking a stay on their execution on Saturday, February 1.

Devi said because of the loopholes in law the "criminals' lawyers had the audacity to challenge me in court that they will not be hanged".

The black warrants for execution of the death sentence against Pawan Gupta, Vinay Kumar Sharma, Akshay Kumar and Mukesh Kumar Singh, were issued on January 17.

A 23-year-old physiotherapy intern who came to be known as "Nirbhaya" (the fearless one) was gangraped and savagely assaulted on the night of December 16, 2012, in a moving bus in South Delhi. She died of her injuries a fortnight later in a Singapore hospital.