Cong slams Yogi for campaigning in Karnataka after dust storm hits UP

New Delhi, May 3: The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has crossed over one million RT-PCR tests for COVID-19 on Saturday evening marking a big landmark, ICMR officials said.

"We have tested about 10,40000 tests till Saturday evening. In a few days, we have increased our testing capacity. ICMR has been doing more than 70,000 tests in the last two consecutive days," he said.

On Saturday, ICMR released that a total of 976363 samples have been tested till date. From May 1 till evening on Saturday, 1,37,346 tests were done.

The top three states which are doing vigorous testing includes--Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan. As on date, these three states have conducted more than one lakh test respectively.

However, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Delhi still need to ramp up their testing capacity.

ICMR has always emphasised that the confirmatory test for diagnosis of COVID-19 infection is RT-PCR test of the throat and/or nasal swab, which detects virus at an early stage. Recently, Dr GS Toteja, Additional Director General of ICMR had said that to contain coronavirus infection, RT-PCR tests must be continued vigorously as the principal diagnostic tests.

RT-PCR tests are now available in 310 government laboratories and 111 private set up across the country.

On Friday, the Centre informed that ICMR has ordered 21.35 lakh diagnostic kits. As on date, India has reported about 37,776 confirmed coronavirus cases and 1223 deaths.

Bengaluru, May 7: Fear and anxiety gripped migrant workers who lined up at police stations in the city on Wednesday to register for train services without knowing that the state government had cancelled the train facility.

Senior officials in South Western Railway said they were ready to run special trains for migrant workers. On Tuesday evening, the state government decided to withdraw the requests made for 13 such trains to north India after realtors said they need the labourers here.

Migrants continued to stream into the railway station at Majestic, Bangalore International Exhibition Centre and even the bus station hoping for some travel arrangement. Many who were aware of the government web portal, stood in front of the BBMP ward office or police stations for enrolment.

In Varthur, over 100 migrants stood in front of the police station and sought to know what happened to the forms they had submitted four days ago. "We first went to the BBMP office and were shooed away by an official who directed us to go to the police station. We want to go home and demanded that the police help us. There was no response first. Then they came out and beat us," said Pintu Kumar from Mohanpur of Bhagalpur district in Bihar.

Though a video clip accidentally shot by Kumar showed two police personnel charging the cane at them, a police officer from the Varthur station, however, disputed the claim. "The video doesn’t show the cane landing on any person. We were beating the seat and tyre of two-wheelers to send the migrants away," he said.

At Mahadevapura, the workers came in groups and submitted the forms at the police station.

At the railway station in Majestic, a group of labourers from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand had walked from several areas in south Bengaluru only to be told that there is no train. Mahendra, a labourer from Jharkhand, said they received 5 kg rice and nothing else in the last 45 days. "Now, I don’t want food. I don’t want the job or money. I can't get stuck here. I want to go home,” he said.

'Restore dignity'

Activists and leaders wrote an open letter to Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa questioning the decision to cancel trains without consulting labourers and protesting the violation of their fundamental rights.

The letter had support of 522 organisations and individuals, including Dalit rights organisations and trade unions. It urged the government to restore the dignity of the migrant workers. "We demand recognition of the autonomy and dignity of the migrant workers to decide their travel plans. No one should be forced either to stay back or to return to their home states," it said.

Varanasi, Jan 20: An FIR has been lodged against unidentified persons for a controversial hoarding near the Varanasi railway station. It is worth mentioning here that Prime Minister Narendra Modi himself is the MP of Varanasi Lok Sabha constituency.

The hoarding near the Englishiya Line crossing read, "Hindu dharma mein ghar vapasi karo... CAA, NRC se chhutkara pao (Get rid of CAA, NRC by converting to Hinduism)".

Inspector Ashutosh Ojha said that the FIR under section 295 A and 505 of IPC has been lodged.

"Investigation has been launched in the case and those involved in putting up the hoarding would be identified soon," he added.

According to sources, a lesser known outfit, Hindu Samaj Party, had placed the hoarding on the busy road.

The outfit's state Vice President Roshan Pandey had made a video viral on social media with his message in which he claimed to have put up the hoarding in response to the protest being staged at Shaheen Bagh, New Delhi.

The hoarding, which also has photographs of some Muslim women wearing saffron pagdi, was removed by the police late Saturday evening.

It came up at a time when Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, Union Minister Smriti Irani and other leaders were in Varanasi to address a rally in support of the Citizenship Amendment Act at the Sampurnanand Sanskrit University.

Pandey, along with his supporters, had also tried to stage a sit-in at Lanka to give a call for marching to Shaheen Bagh in Delhi but was prevented by the police.

They were taken in custody and were later released following initial interrogation, said inspector Lanka, Bharat Bhushan.