Beef shortage in Goa as Karnataka abattoirs refuse meat supply

New Delhi, May 27: The government has further extended the deadline for bidding to buy its entire 52.98 per cent stake in the country's second-biggest oil refiner, Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd (BPCL), by over one-and-a-half months to July 31.

This is the second extension for submission of expression of interest (EoI) for BPCL stake by interested bidders. The government had first invited bids showing interest in buying its stake, by May 2. It was then extended till June 13.

This has now been extended to 5 p.m. on July 31 in "view of further requests received from the interested bidders and the prevailing situation arising out of COVID-19", an official notice put up by disinvestment department DIPAM late on Tuesday said.

Accordingly, the last date for submission of written queries or preliminary information memorandum has been pushed back to June 23 from the earlier deadline of May 16.

The disinvestment in BPCL involves the government selling its entire 52.98 per cent stake in the company to a strategic investor with transfer of management control. The government has barred PSUs from bidding for BPCL and expects private sector Indian players and global MNCs to bid for its stake. The government's stake in BPCL is worth around Rs 50,000 crore.

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, May 7: Air India has opened bookings for eligible foreign nationals and valid visa holders of the UK, the USA and Singapore for outbound repatriation flights that will be operated between May 7 and May 14 under the Vande Bharat mission, officials said.

Foreign nationals or valid visa holders will be charged the same fare as Indian nationals who want a seat on the inbound repatriation flights, they said.

For all flights between India and the USA under the Vande Bharat mission, Air India is charging a fixed fare of Rs 1 lakh per passenger.

For flights between India and Singapore, the charge is Rs 18,000-20,000 per passenger, and it is Rs 50,000 per person for India-UK flights.

On Tuesday, the Ministry of Home Affairs had clarified that a person who has an Overseas Indian Citizenship (OCI) card, or citizenship of a foreign country, or a valid visa of more than one year of that country, or the green card of that country can travel on repatriation flights leaving India under the Vande Bharat mission.

Air India will be conducting 64 flights to 12 countries between May 7 and May 13 to bring back approximately 15,000 Indians stranded due to the coronavirus-induced lockdown, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri had announced on Tuesday.

However, some flights have been delayed and therefore, this set of 64 flights will be operated between May 7 and May 14, the airline officials said.

On Wednesday, an Indian businessman and his cook landed at Delhi airport from Lusaka in Zambia in a plane that was supposed to come without any passengers, senior government officials said.

The private chartered aircraft was scheduled to come empty and take around 40 Zambian nationals to Lusaka in a repatriation flight, they added.

"We had not permitted any incoming passengers. We will seek explanation from the airline (private operator) as to how it happened. BOI (Bureau of Immigration) has a very stringent protocol for dealing with such deviations, which must have been acted upon," said a senior official of aviation regulator DGCA.

It is not clear if the businessman and his cook were deported or sent to a quarantine facility within India.

India has been under a lockdown since March 25 to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus. All scheduled commercial passenger flights have been suspended during the lockdown.

However, cargo flights, medical evacuation flights and special flights permitted by Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) have been allowed to operate during this time.