Call for jihad in J&K against Pak interest: Imran Khan

Washington, Feb 6: U.S. president Donald Trump drew on staunch Republican support to defeat the gravest threat yet to his three-year-old presidency on Wednesday, winning acquittal in the Senate on impeachment charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

Only the third U.S. leader ever placed on trial, Trump readily defeated the Democratic-led effort to expel him from office for having illicitly sought help from Ukraine to bolster his 2020 re-election effort.

Trump immediately claimed "victory" while the White House declared it a full "exoneration" for the president -- even as Democrats rejected the acquittal as the "valueless" outcome of an unfair trial.

Despite being confronted with strong evidence, Republicans stayed loyal and mustered a majority of votes to clear the president of both charges -- by 52 to 48 on abuse of power and 53 to 47 on obstruction of Congress -- falling far short of the two-thirds supermajority required for conviction.

"Two thirds of the senators present not having found him guilty of the charges contained therein, it is therefore ordered and adjudged that the said Donald John Trump be, and he is hereby, acquitted," said Supreme Court chief justice John Roberts, who presided over the trial.

The months-long impeachment of the 45th US leader shone a harsh light on America's political divide, with Trump's core support base united behind him in rejecting it as a "hoax."

One Republican, senator Mitt Romney, a longtime Trump foe, risked White House wrath to vote alongside Democrats on the first count, saying Trump was "guilty of an appalling abuse of public trust." He voted not guilty on the second charge.

But the verdict was never truly in question since the House of Representatives formally impeached Trump in December, and has now cleared out a major hurdle for the president to fully plunge into his campaign for re-election in November.

Trump to speak Thursday

Responding to the verdict, Trump announced he would deliver a formal statement Thursday from the White House "to discuss our Country's VICTORY on the Impeachment Hoax!"

Shortly before, the president tweeted a montage depicting a fake cover of Time magazine declaring him president for all eternity.

The White House declared that Trump had obtained "full vindication and exoneration."

But Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker and top Democrat in Congress, said that by clearing Trump, the Republicans had "normalized lawlessness."

"There can be no acquittal without a trial, and there is no trial without witnesses, documents and evidence," she said.

"Sadly, because of the Republican Senate's betrayal of the Constitution, the president remains an ongoing threat to American democracy, with his insistence that he is above the law and that he can corrupt the elections if he wants to."

Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer said the acquittal was "virtually valueless" since Republicans refused witnesses at his trial.

'Forever impeached'

The Democrats' intense 78-day House investigation faced public doubts and high-pressure stonewalling from the White House.

Concerned about the political risk for the party, Pelosi rejected a call early last year to impeach Trump on evidence compiled by then-special counsel Robert Mueller that he had obstructed the Russia election meddling investigation.

But her concerns melted after new allegations surfaced in August that Trump had pressured Ukraine for help for his 2020 campaign.

Though doubtful from the outset that they would win support from Republicans, an investigation amassed with surprising speed strong evidence to support the allegations.

The evidence showed that from early in 2019, Trump's private lawyer Rudy Giuliani and a close political ally, Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland, were scheming to pressure Kiev to help smear Democrats, including Trump's potential 2020 rival Joe Biden, by opening investigations into them.

"We must say enough -- enough! He has betrayed our national security, and he will do so again," Adam Schiff, who led the House investigation, argued on the Senate floor this week.

"He has compromised our elections, and he will do so again," Schiff said.

'Colossal' mistake

In the trial, Trump's defence was not seen as having undermined the facts compiled by Schiff's probe, and several Republican senators acknowledged he did wrong.

But his lawyers and Senate defenders argued, essentially, that Trump's behaviour was not egregious enough for impeachment and removal.

And, pointing to the December House impeachment vote, starkly along party lines, they painted it as a political effort to "destroy the president" in an election year and insisted voters should be allowed to decide Trump's fate.

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell said impeachment will benefit Republicans.

"Right now this is a political loser for them. They initiated it. They thought this was a great idea. At least for the short term, it has been a colossal political mistake."

New Delhi, Jul 14: India's COVID-19 tally has reached 9,36,181 as 29,429 new coronavirus cases were reported in the last 24 hours, informed the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Wednesday.

The death toll went up to 24,309, including 582 fatalities in the last 24 hours.

Out of the total cases, 3,19,840 are currently active and 5,92,032 are cured/discharged/migrated.

As per the Ministry, Maharashtra -- the worst-affected state from the infection -- has a total of 2,67,665 COVID-19 cases and 10,695 fatalities. While Tamil Nadu has a tally of 1,47,324 cases and 2,099 deaths due to COVID-19.

Delhi has reported a total of 1,15,346 cases and 3,446 deaths due to COVID-19.

As per the information provided by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) 3,20,161 samples have been tested for COVID-19 till July 14, of these 1,24,12,664 samples were tested on Tuesday.

New Delhi, May 22: The number of COVID-19 cases averted due to the lockdown is in the range of 14-29 lakh, while the number of lives saved is between 37,000 and 78,000, the government said on Friday citing various studies, and asserted that the unprecedented shutdown has paid “rich dividends” in the fight against the pandemic.

The lockdown in India has been a timely, graded, proactive and pre-emptive public health measure to fight the COVID-19 pandemic and has been part and parcel of the government’s overall strategy, Dr V K Paul, Member (Health), NITI Aayog, and Chairman, Empowered Group 1, said at a media briefing on the COVID-19 situation.

The government imposed the nationwide lockdown from March 25 to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus and it is currently in its fourth phase.

Like the number of cases, the growth rate of number of COVID-19 deaths too has fallen significantly due to the lockdown, marking a notable difference between pre-lockdown and post-lockdown situations, he said.

At the briefing, Pravin Srivastava, Secretary, Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation gave model-based estimates on COVID-19 cases and deaths which have been prevented due to the lockdown.

As per Boston Consulting Group's model, the lockdown saved between 1.2 lakh and 2.1 lakh lives, while the number of COVID-19 cases averted is between 36 lakh and 70 lakh, he said.

According to Public Health Foundation of India, nearly 78,000 lives have been saved due to the lockdown, Srivastava said.

Citing a model by two independent economists, he said that around 23 lakh COVID-19 cases and 68,000 deaths have been averted due to the lockdown.

Some independent experts, including retired scientists, have calculated that around 15.9 lakh cases and 51,000 deaths have been averted due to the lockdown, Srivastava said.

A joint study by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation and the Indian Statistical Institute found that around 20 lakh COVID-19 cases and 54,000 deaths were averted due to lockdown, he said.

The number of COVID-19 cases averted due to the lockdown is in the range of 14-29 lakh, while the number of lives saved is between 37,000 and 78,000, the official said.

“We are fully confident that the lockdown, with full public cooperation, has reaped rich dividends,” Srivastava said.

The strong defence of the lockdown, comes a day after the health ministry said the period of lockdown has been gainfully utilized to ramp up the health infrastructure, with around 3,027 dedicated COVID-19 hospitals and 7,013 care centres being readied across the country to fight the disease.

The announcement on Thursday came after some media reports questioned the country's preparedness to deal with the highly infectious disease.

"There are reports in a section of the media about some decisions of the government regarding the lockdown implementation and response to COVID-19 management. The period of the lockdown has been gainfully utilised to ramp up the health infrastructure in the country," the ministry had said.

Addressing the press briefing on Friday, joint secretary in the health ministry Lav Agarwal said 48,534 COVID-19 patients, which is about 41 per cent of the total cases, have recovered so far. As many as 3,234 patients have recovered in the last 24 hours, he said’

The COVID-19 mortality rate has dropped from 3.13 per cent on May 19 to 3.02 per cent as focus was on containment measures andclinical management of cases, Agarwal said.

An ICMR official said 27,55,714 tests for COVID-19 have been conducted till 1 pm Friday with 1,03,829 tests done in one day. Over 1 lakh tests for COVID-19 have been done each day for the last four days, the official said.

The growth rate of novel coronavirus cases witnessed a steep decline from Apr 4 when lockdown put a brake on the speed of increase of cases, V K Paul said.

The number of COVID-19 cases would have risen exponentially had the lockdown not been implemented, he said, adding that the doubling rate of cases was 3.4 days when the lockdown started and it is 13.3 days at present.

The COVID-19 outbreak in India has remained confined to limited areas with 80 per cent of active cases in just five states, Paul said

He said around 80 pc of COVID-19 deaths have been in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, West Bengal and Delhi.