Saffron activists attack minority youths for distributing sweets on I-Day 

Kochi, Jan 21: Eight tourists from Kerala were found dead in a resort at Daman in Makwanpur district of Nepal, reports said. The dead include a couple and four minor children.

The deceased were identified as Praveen Kumar Nair (39), Saranya (34), Ranjith Kumar T.B (39), Indu Ranjith (34), Sreebhadra (9), Abhinav Soorya (9), Abhi Nair (7) and Vaishnav Ranjith (2).

The deceased are from Chengottukonam in Thiruvananthapuram and Kundamangalam in Kozhikode. Praveen, a travel enthusiast hailing from Chengottukonam, went on the Nepal trip with his wife, three children and friends from Kochi, last week.

 “They were using a gas heater in the room. Suffocation might have caused their death,” said superintendent of police Sushil Singh Rathore of the District Police Office in Makwanpur, news agencies reported.

According to newspaper reports here, the deaths occurred at a resort named Everest Panorama. They were airlifted to HAMS hospital where they were pronounced dead on arrival, superintendent of police Sushil Singh Rathaur said.

They were part of a group of 15 people travelling from Kerala to Pokhara, a popular mountain tourist destination, The Himalayan Times reported.

They were on their way back home and stayed at Everest Panorama resort in Daman in Makawanpur district on Monday night.

The tourists are suspected to have died of asphyxiation after turning on the gas heater and shutting all the windows to keep warm.  Hotel staff opened the room using duplicate keys as there was no response from the rooms when the other members of the group went to check on them.

According to the manager of the resort, the guests stayed in a room and turned on a gas heater to keep themselves warm. Although they had booked a total of four suites, eight of them stayed in a room, the manager said, adding that all the windows and the door of the room were bolted from inside.

“All arrangements have been made to bring the bodies to Kerala at the earliest. The Union government is coordinating with the Indian Embassy in Nepal. A doctor from the Indian embassy will be present during the post mortem. Other members of the group are being brought to Kathmandu by road,” said Union minister V Muraleedharan.

Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that NORKA will coordinate with Nepal authorities to bring dead bodies.

 “Embassy officials are at the government hospital where a post mortem is being done. Formalities will be completed at the earliest and arrangements are in place to bring dead bodies by Wednesday evening. State government is in constant contact with Nepal authorities,” said Kadakampally Surendran, tourism minister.

Mumbai, Mar 13:  Investor wealth worth nearly Rs 12 lakh crore was wiped out in less than 15 minutes of trading on the stock exchanges on Friday, with the two benchmarks, the BSE Sensex and the NSE Nifty, crashing over 10 per cent.

The 30-share BSE Sensex plummeted 3,380.59 points, or 10.31 per cent, to 29,397.55. It hit an intra-day low of 29,388.97, falling up to 3,389.17 points.

Trading was halted for 45 minutes in the early session after the index hit its lower circuit limit.

The BSE and NSE benchmark indices, however, pared most losses with the Sensex trading 835.40 points, or 2.55 per cent, lower at 31,942.74, and the Nifty was down 253.25 points or 2.64 per cent at 9,336.90 at 10.40 am.

The mayhem on Dalal Street eroded investor wealth worth Rs 12,92,479.88 crore, taking the total m-cap to Rs 1,12,78,172.75 crore on the BSE at 1020 hours.

The m-cap of BSE-listed companies stood at Rs 1,25,70,652.63 crore at the end of trading on Thursday.

Traders said besides global selloff, incessant foreign fund outflows also weighed on investor sentiments.

On a net basis, foreign institutional investors sold equities worth Rs 3,475.29 crore on Thursday, data available with stock exchanges showed.

On the BSE, 1,279 scrips declined, while 193 advanced and 40 remained unchanged.

Volatility heightened in global markets as benchmarks world over went into panic mode, insinuating a freakish selloff.

Bourses in Shanghai dropped over 3.32 per cent, Hong Kong 5.61 per cent, Seoul 7.58 per cent and Tokyo cracked up to 7.97 per cent.

Wall Street lost 10 per cent in overnight trade.

More than 1,30,000 cases of the novel coronavirus have been recorded in 116 countries and territories, killing at least 4,900 people.

The number of coronavirus patients in India has risen to 74, as per the health ministry.

New Delhi. May 26: 6,535 more coronavirus cases have been reported in India in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of COVID-19 cases in the country to 1,45,380, informed Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Tuesday.

Out of the total, at present, there are 80,722 active cases in the country. So far, 60,490 people have been cured/discharged and 4167 have died due to the lethal infection.

According to the data compiled by the Centre, Maharashtra has so far recorded the maximum number of cases of COVID-19 across the country with 52,667 people.

The tally of cases in Tamil Nadu has risen to 17,082. While Gujarat has recorded 14,460 cases of the infection so far.

There are 14,073 cases of coronavirus in the national capital.