Better to fight war with Pakistan than suffer daily: Ramdev

New Delhi, Feb 12: Delhi Chief Minister-designate Arvind Kejriwal was on Wednesday elected as the leader of AAP legislative party, a day after he led the party to an emphatic victory in the Delhi Assembly elections.

Kejriwal was elected as the AAP legislative party leader during a meeting called by him with the newly-elected party MLAs. The meeting was held at the AAP chief's residence.

Atishi, AAP's winning candidate from Kalkaji constituency said after the meeting, "It is definitely a validation of the work that has been done by AAP in the last five years, be it education, health care, water or electricity."

Kejriwal is slated to take oath as the Delhi Chief Minister for the third time at Ramlila Maidan on February 16.

AAP galloped to a landslide victory by winning 62 of the 70 seats in the Delhi Assembly elections in the face of a high-voltage campaign by the BJP, which fielded a battery of Union Ministers and Chief Ministers in its electioneering, spearheaded by Home Minister Amit Shah.

The BJP marginally improved its tally, managing just eight seats from its 2015's tally of three seats. The Congress, which drew a blank in the previous elections, failed to open its account yet again.

New Delhi, Jun 13: Ten days after recording two lakh COVID-19 cases, India surpassed the three lakh-mark on Saturday with the worst daily spike of 11,458 infections, while the death toll too climbed to 8,884 with 386 new fatalities, the Union Health Ministry said.

India took 64 days to cross the 1 lakh-mark from 100 cases, then in another fortnight it reached the grim milestone of two lakh cases. It has now become the fourth worst-hit nation by the pandemic with a caseload of 3,08,993, according to coronavirus statistics website Worldometer.

However, the Health Ministry said on Friday the doubling time of coronavirus cases has improved to 17.4 days from 15.4 days. And its data updated at 8 am on Saturday showed active cases at 1,45,779 and those who have recovered at 1,54,329; one patient has migrated.

"Thus, around 49.9 per cent patients have recovered so far," a ministry official said.

The total number of confirmed cases include foreigners.

Of the 386 new deaths, Delhi accounted for the highest 129 fatalities followed by Maharashtra 127. The virus is moving rapidly in Delhi, which for the first time reported over 2,000 cases on Friday, and Maharashtra, where the number of cases has crossed one lakh.

Gujarat reported 30 deaths, Uttar Pradesh 20, Tamil Nadu 18, West Bengal, Telangana and Madhya Pradesh 9 each, Karnataka and Rajasthan 7 each, Haryana and Uttarakhand 6 each, Punjab 4, Assam 2, Kerala, Jammu and Kashmir and Odisha 1 each.

Of the total 8,884 deaths, Maharashtra tops the tally with 3,717 fatalities followed by Gujarat with 1,415, Delhi with 1,214, West Bengal with 451, Madhya Pradesh with 440, Tamil Nadu with 367, Uttar Pradesh with 365, Rajasthan with 272 and Telangana with 174 deaths.

The death toll reached 80 in Andhra Pradesh, 79 in Karnataka, 70 in Haryana and 63 in Punjab. Jammu and Kashmir has reported 53 COVID-19 fatalities, Bihar 36 and Uttarakhand 21, Kerala 19, Odisha 10 and Jharkhand and Assam 8 each.

Chhattisgarh and Himachal Pradesh have registered 6 deaths each, Chandigarh 5, Puducherry 2, while Meghalaya, Tripura and Ladakh 1 each, according to the health ministry.

Maharashtra has reported the maximum number of cases at 1,01,141 followed by Tamil Nadu (40,698), Delhi (36,824), Gujarat (22,527), Uttar Pradesh (12,616), Rajasthan (12,068) and Madhya Pradesh (10,443).

The number of COVID-19 cases has gone up to 10,244 in West Bengal, 6,516 in Karnataka, 6,334 in Haryana and 6,103 in Bihar. It has risen to 5,680 in Andhra Pradesh, 4,730 in Jammu and Kashmir, 4,484 in Telangana and 3,498 in Odisha and Assam each.

Punjab has reported 2,986 cases while Kerala has 2,322 cases.

A total of 1,724 people have been infected by the virus in Uttarakhand, 1,617 in Jharkhand, 1,424 in Chhattisgarh, 961 in Tripura, 486 in Himachal Pradesh, 463 in Goa, 385 from Manipur and 334 in Chandigarh.

Ladakh has registered 239 COVID-19 cases, Puducherry 157, Nagaland 156, Mizoram 104, Arunachal Pradesh 67, Sikkim 63, Meghalaya 44 while Andaman and Nicobar Islands has registered 38 cases.

Dadar and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu together have reported 30 cases.

The ministry said 7,984 cases are being reassigned to states and "our figures are being reconciled with the ICMR". State-wise distribution is subject to further verification and reconciliation, it added.

Dubai, May 5: Tickets on repatriation flights from UAE to India, which start on May 7, could be costlier than regular airfare, and adding to the financial woes of those flying back. Nearly 200,000 Indians in the UAE have registered on the website seeking to return home.

“A one-way repatriation ticket to Delhi will cost approximately Dh1,400-Dh1,650 - this would earlier have cost between Dh600-Dh700 [during these months],” said Jamal Abdulnazar, CEO of Cozmo Travel. “A one-way repatriation flight ticket to Kerala would cost approximately Dh1,900-Dh2,300.”

This can be quite a burden, as a majority of those taking these flights have either lost their jobs or are sending back their families because of uncertainty on the work front. To now have to pay airfare that is nearly on par with those during peak summer months is quite a blow.

Sources said that officials in Indian diplomatic missions have already initiated calls to some expats, telling them about likely ticket fares and enquiring about their willingness to travel.

Although many believed repatriation would be government-sponsored, Indian authorities have clarified that customers would have to pay for the tickets themselves. Those who thought they were entitled to free repatriation might back out of travel plans for now.

Fact of life

But aviation and travel industry sources say higher rates cannot be escaped since social distancing norms have to be strictly enforced at all times. That would limit the number of passengers on each of these flights.

“One airline can carry only limited passengers - therefore, multiple airlines are likely to get the approval to operate repatriation flights,” said Abdulnazar. “Also, airports will have to maintain safe distance for passengers to queue up at immigration and security counters.

“Therefore, it is recommended that multiple carriers fly into multiple Indian airports for repatriation to be expedited.”

The Indian authorities, so far, have not taken the easy decision to get its private domestic airlines into the rescue act. Gulf News tried speaking to the leading players, but they declined to provide any official statements. So far, only Air India, the national airline, has been commissioned to operate the flights.

Air India finds itself in the driver's seat when it comes to operating India's repatriation flights. To date, there is no confirmation India's private airlines will be allowed to join in.

UAE carriers ready to help out

UAE’s Emirates airline, Etihad, flydubai and Air Arabia are likely to also operate repatriation flights to India after Air India implements the first phase of services.

“We are fully supporting governments and authorities across the flydubai network with their repatriation efforts, helping them to make arrangements for their citizens to return home,” said a flydubai spokesperson.

“We will announce repatriation flights as and when they are confirmed, recognising this is an evolving situation whilst the flight restrictions remain in place.”

An AirArabia spokesperson said the airline is ready to operate repatriation flights when the government tells them to.

Travel agencies likely to benefit

Apart from operating non-scheduled commercial flights, the Indian government is also deploying naval ships to bring expat Indians back. Sources claim the ships are to ferry passengers who cannot afford the repatriation airfares.

Even then, considering the sheer numbers who will want to get on the flights, travel agencies are likely to see a surge in bookings since airline websites alone may not cope with the demand set off in such a short span.

Learn from Gulf governments

In instances when they carried out their own repatriation flights, some GCC governments paid the ticket fares to fly in their citizens. Those citizens who did not have the ready funds could approach their diplomatic mission and aid would be given on a case-to-case basis.

Should Indians wait for normal services to resume?

Industry sources say that those Indians wanting to fly back and cannot afford the repatriation flights should wait for full services to resume once the COVID-19 pandemic settles.

But can those who lost their jobs or seen steep salary cuts stay on without adding to their costs? And is there any guarantee that when flight services resume, ticket rates would be lower than on the repatriation trips.

As such, normal travel is expected to pick up only after the repatriation exercise to several countries is completed. UAE-based travel agencies are not seeing any bookings for summer, which is traditionally the peak holiday season.

“Majority want to stay put unless full confidence is restored,” said Abdulnazar. “I expect full normalcy to be restored not until March 2021.

“People have also taken a hit to their income. Without disposable income, you will curtail your travel.”

What constitutes normalcy?

Airfares are expected to remain high, given the need to keep the middle seats empty to practise safe distance onboard.

“We expect holiday travel to resume by October or November - but, the travel sentiment will not go back to pre-COVID-19 levels anytime soon,” said Manvendra Roy, Vice-President – Commercial at holidayme, an online travel agency. “The need to keep the middle seat vacant will add 30-40 per cent pricing pressure per seat from an airline perspective.

“This will make holidays more expensive.”

As for business travel, it will take some time to recover. Corporate staff are now used to getting work done via conference calls. “Companies will also curtail their travel expenditure since their income has taken a hit,” said Abdulnazar.