RSS can prepare an army in just 3 days: Mohan Bhagwat

New Delhi, May 12: A total of 12 special evacuation flights from across the globe will bring home stranded Indians on the sixth day of 'Vande Bharat Mission' on Tuesday.

The special flights include Air India flight from Manila to Ahmedabad, London to Hyderabad, Newark-Mumbai-Ahmedabad, AI flight from Singapore to Delhi, AI flight from Dhaka to Srinagar, Dammam to Kochi, Kuala Lumpur to Mumbai, Manila to Delhi, Muscat to Chennai, Dubai to Kannur, Dubai to Mangalore and Singapore-Bengaluru-Kochi.

Amidst the coronavirus pandemic, India is conducting 'Vande Bharat' Mission -- its biggest ever repatriation exercise since independence -- to bring back stranded Indians from abroad, including from the US, the UAE and the UK.

On the fifth day of Vande Bharat Mission, as many as 1,667 Indian nationals were repatriated from different countries in eight special flights.

London, Jul 10: India's Reliance will load its first cargo of Venezuelan crude in three months this week in exchange for diesel under a swap deal the parties say is permitted under the US sanctions regime on the Latin American country, according to a Reliance source and a shipping document from state oil firm PDVSA.

Washington has exempted some Venezuelan oil trade from sanctions when transactions are in exchange for fuel and food or to repay debts rather than for cash. But that trade slowed as the US tightened restrictions and refiners, shippers and insurers have been steering clear of Venezuela to avoid any risk they may fall foul of sanctions.

Washington aims to deprive Venezuelan socialist President Nicolas Maduro of his main source of revenue with the sanctions, which have driven Venezuelan oil exports to their lowest level since the 1940s.

Reliance gave the US State Department and the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) notice of the diesel swap and received word back that the policies that allowed the transaction were still in place, the Reliance source told Reuters.

Reliance has previously said that its supplies of fuel to PDVSA in exchange for crude were permitted under sanctions.

An oil tanker named Commodore would load the cargo of crude in Venezuela and ship it to India, the tanker's manager NGM Energy said.

"All details of the transaction and transportation were shared with US authorities, who confirmed that the U.S. policy authorizing such transactions remained in place," NGM Energy said in a statement to Reuters.

"The shipment is made in connection with the humanitarian exchange of oil for diesel fuel."

The Commodore is loading a 1.9-million barrel cargo of crude for Reliance at Venezuela's main oil port of Jose, according to an internal PDVSA cargo schedule seen by Reuters.

The Liberian-flagged Commodore was at the Jose Terminal on Thursday, ship tracking data on Refinitiv Eikon showed.

The US State Department, Treasury's enforcement arm OFAC, and PDVSA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Reliance has a swap deal to provide diesel to Venezuela in exchange for fuel but has not received a cargo of crude since April. Sources at Indian refiners told Reuters earlier this year they planned to wind down their purchases of Venezuelan oil to avoid any problems with supply due to sanctions.

Other long-time customers of PDVSA, including Italy's Eni and Spain's Repsol, have continued taking cargoes of Venezuelan crude this year under permission granted by the US Treasury Department to exchange the oil for diesel supply as part of debt repayment deals, according to sources from the companies.

NGM Energy also manages the Voyager I tanker, which the United States removed from its list of sanctioned vessels last week after NGM and the ship's owner Sanibel Shiptrade said they would increase measures to ensure vessels complied with international sanctions.

"Last month, NGM Energy SA adopted a firm policy of not allowing vessels under its commercial management to trade to Venezuela, or to carry Venezuelan petroleum cargoes, absent US government authorization," NGM said.

"NGM continues to stand by that pledge."

New Delhi, Apr 27: A private hospital here claimed that a coronavirus patient, who was administered plasma therapy for the first time in the facility, was discharged on Sunday after being completely cured.

The 49-year-old man had tested positive for COVID-19 on April 4 and was admitted to Max Hospital, Saket, it said in a statement.

As his condition deteriorated, he was put on ventilator support on April 8, the hospital added.

When the patient showed no signs of improvement, his family requested for administration of plasma therapy on compassionate grounds, it said, adding that the family arranged a donor for extracting plasma.

The patient was administered fresh plasma as a treatment modality as a side-line to standard treatment protocols on the night of April 14, the statement said.

Subsequently, the patient showed improvement and by the fourth day, was weaned off ventilator support and continued on supplementary oxygen. He was shifted to a room with round-the-clock monitoring on Monday after testing negative twice within 24 hours, it said.

He has now fully recovered and was discharged, the hospital said, adding that he will stay at home for another two weeks.

Group medical director of Max Healthcare and senior director of the Institute of Internal Medicine Dr Sandeep Budhiraja said, "We can say that plasma therapy could have worked as a catalyst in speeding up his recovery. We cannot attribute 100 per cent recovery to plasma therapy only, as there are multiple factors which carved his path to recovery."