Belthangady: Trapped leopard rescued, released in forest

Wuhan, Feb 6: Chinese multinational conglomerate holding company Tencent has allegedly published "real" data on the novel coronavirus deaths, with briefly listing death toll as 24,589 -- way too higher than over 500 deaths China has officially announced to date.

According to Taiwan News, "Tencent... seems to have inadvertently released what is potentially the actual number of infections and deaths, which were astronomically higher than official figures".

Tencent, on its webpage titled "Epidemic Situation Tracker," showed confirmed cases of novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in China as standing at 154,023 - over 10 times the official figure given to the world on February 1.

Data leaked: Tencent lists 25,000 deaths in China, 1.54 lakh infections from coronavirus
It listed the number of suspected cases as 79,808, four times the official figure.

"The number of cured cases was only 269, well below the official number that day of 300. Most ominously, the death toll listed was 24,589, vastly higher than the 300 officially listed that day".

Once people noticed this, Tencent immediately updated the numbers to reflect the government's "official" numbers.

"Netizens noticed that Tencent has on at least three occasions posted extremely high numbers, only to quickly lower them to government-approved statistics," said the report.

Some people speculated a coding problem may be behind the real "internal" data but others believe that someone is actually trying to reveal the real numbers.

Tencent was yet to officially comment on these reports.

"According to multiple sources in Wuhan, many coronavirus patients are unable to receive treatment and die outside of hospitals."

There have been multiple reports of Wuhan officials cremating deceased coronavirus victims before they could be added to the official death toll.

The Wall Street Journal reported that the coronavirus numbers coming out of China are "fishy".

If the numbers from the alleged Tencent leak are accurate, it would put coronavirus' mortality rate at almost 16 per cent. By comparison, SARS' mortality rate was 9.6 per cent, reports CCN.

Caijing, an independent magazine based in Beijing that covers societal, political, and economic issues, has also claimed that the Communist Party of China (CCP) is underreporting the extent of the coronavirus outbreak.

Caijing's article on Coronavirus that detailed how Wuhan officials are not reporting real figures was censored in China.

As of Thursday, the official death toll in China rose to 563, with 28,018 confirmed cases.

Bengaluru, June 11: Amulya Leona, a college student, who was charged with sedition for raising "Pakistan zindabad" slogans in Bengaluru, has finally been granted bail. 

The court had denied her bail yesterday, saying she might abscond. But her lawyers had been pursuing another way of getting her out of jail where she has spent nearly four months.

Ms Leona's advocate, Prasanna R, said that the delay of the state in submitting a chargesheet in the case beyond the stipulated time meant she was eligible for "default bail".

"The default bail application was moved before the magistrate under whose jurisdiction the alleged crime was committed. The chargesheet has not been submitted by the state within 90 days. So default bail has been granted. We had moved the default bail plea on May 26 and again on May 29 when the court told us the earlier mail IDs had been disabled. A physical application was filed on June 2. The state filed the chargesheet on June 3," the lawyer said.

While the state tried to argue that they were entitled to an extension in the time allotted, the court hearing this aspect of the case gave an order favourable to Ms Leona. The process is on to release her.

The arrest of Ms Leona during a rally against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act or CAA in Bengaluru had led to a debate on the use of sedition charges.

The woman on a Facebook post had also said "zindabad" to many countries including India and Pakistan. She did also try to chant "Hindustan zindabad", but was soon silenced and whisked away. She was accused of sedition, causing enmity between communities and causing deliberate mischief.