Bengaluru, Mar 10: Techies living in a Whitefield apartment block where the city's first Coronavirus patient was residing have been asked to work from home.
The Karnataka government is in touch with the heads of IT and ITES companies, some of which are said to have asked their staff to work from home.
Deputy Chief Minister Dr C Ashwath Narayan, who also holds the IT and BT Portfolio, said the government had directed the companies to explore giving their employees the work-from-home option.
Wuhan, Feb 6: Chinese multinational conglomerate holding company Tencent has allegedly published "real" data on the novel coronavirus deaths, with briefly listing death toll as 24,589 -- way too higher than over 500 deaths China has officially announced to date.
According to Taiwan News, "Tencent... seems to have inadvertently released what is potentially the actual number of infections and deaths, which were astronomically higher than official figures".
Tencent, on its webpage titled "Epidemic Situation Tracker," showed confirmed cases of novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in China as standing at 154,023 - over 10 times the official figure given to the world on February 1.
Data leaked: Tencent lists 25,000 deaths in China, 1.54 lakh infections from coronavirus
It listed the number of suspected cases as 79,808, four times the official figure.
"The number of cured cases was only 269, well below the official number that day of 300. Most ominously, the death toll listed was 24,589, vastly higher than the 300 officially listed that day".
Once people noticed this, Tencent immediately updated the numbers to reflect the government's "official" numbers.
"Netizens noticed that Tencent has on at least three occasions posted extremely high numbers, only to quickly lower them to government-approved statistics," said the report.
Some people speculated a coding problem may be behind the real "internal" data but others believe that someone is actually trying to reveal the real numbers.
Tencent was yet to officially comment on these reports.
"According to multiple sources in Wuhan, many coronavirus patients are unable to receive treatment and die outside of hospitals."
There have been multiple reports of Wuhan officials cremating deceased coronavirus victims before they could be added to the official death toll.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the coronavirus numbers coming out of China are "fishy".
If the numbers from the alleged Tencent leak are accurate, it would put coronavirus' mortality rate at almost 16 per cent. By comparison, SARS' mortality rate was 9.6 per cent, reports CCN.
Caijing, an independent magazine based in Beijing that covers societal, political, and economic issues, has also claimed that the Communist Party of China (CCP) is underreporting the extent of the coronavirus outbreak.
Caijing's article on Coronavirus that detailed how Wuhan officials are not reporting real figures was censored in China.
As of Thursday, the official death toll in China rose to 563, with 28,018 confirmed cases.
Kochi, May 8: Five people, who were among 181 individuals evacuated from Abu Dhabi, have been sent to the isolation ward of the district hospital after they displayed symptoms of coronavirus during thermal screening.
The first repatriation Air India Express flight with 181 individuals from Abu Dhabi landed at Cochin International Airport here on Thursday.
Among the returnees, 49 women were pregnant and four were children. They have been home-quarantine.
Meanwhile, the rest have been taken to quarantine centres in their respective districts.
The Air India Express flight IX452 to Kochi with 177 passengers and four infants took off from Abu Dhabi International Airport and touched down at Kochi post 10 pm.
The government has made it mandatory for foreign returnees to be quarantined for 14 days, either in a hospital or in an institutional quarantine on payment-basis, by the concerned state government.
A COVID-19 test would be done after 14 days and further action would be taken according to health protocols.
India on Monday began phased repatriation of its citizens stranded abroad due to coronavirus lockdown.
The government said that Air India will operate 64 flights from May 7 to May 13 to bring back around 15,000 Indian nationals stranded abroad amid the COVID-19-induced lockdown.
Starting from 7 May, 64 flights will take off for 12 countries including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Maldives, Singapore and the US.
Bengaluru, Feb 29: A Lingayat seer on Friday threatened to get 10 BJP MLAs to quit if Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa does not make MLA Dattatreya Patil Revoor a minister soon.
"If Yediyurappa does not make BJP's Gulbarga South MLA Dattatreya Patil Revoor a minister, I will get 10 ruling party legislators resign and reduce the government to a minority, forcing the Chief Minister to resign," said Srishaila Saranga mutt seer Deshikendra Swami at a meeting in Kalaburagi on Friday.
Addressing a gathering of the Lingayat community, to which Revoor belongs, the seer said although he wanted Yediyurappa to complete the remaining 3-year term in office and the BJP to return to power after the next elections, it would be difficult for Yediyurappa to continue if Revoor is not made a minister.
"Yediyurappa will be in office for the next three years if he makes Revoor minister. If not, I will ask him (latter) also to resign, as does not need to be in politics anymore because he has a house, many acres of agricultural land and is very rich," the seer told the gathering in Kannada.
In his nomination to contest in the May 2018 assembly elections, Revoor (37) declared in an affidavit Rs 17-crore assets, including immovable properties.
Wishing Yediyurappa to remain in office for the next three years and return as Chief Minister, the seer said if Yediyurappa is forced to quit, then the Lingayat community would not get an opportunity to have its leader as Chief Minister again for at least 30 years.
Yediyurappa, whose constituency is Shikaripura in Shivamogga district, is considered the tallest Lingayat leader of the politically powerful community, which accounts for 18% of the 6.5-crore state's population.
Though a dozen BJP legislators won from the erstwhile Hyderabad-Karnataka region in the May 2018 Assembly elections, only Prabhu Chauhan from the adjacent Bidar district was made minister for animal husbandry.
The Saranga mutt seer’s threat comes a month after Veerashaiva Lingayat Panchamasali seer Swami Vachananda, dared Yediyurappa to make 3 of the community legislators ministers ahead of the second cabinet expansion on February 6.
At a Lingayat gathering in the state's Davengere district on January 15, Vachananda told Yediyurappa to make party's Bilgi legislator Murgesh Nirani Minister, failing which the community would withdraw its support to the ruling party.
Hiryur is about 300km northwest of the southern state's capital Bengaluru.
Ticking off the young seer, a defiant Yediyurappa, however, threatened to walk out of the meeting if he was blackmailed for making Lingayat MLAs ministers.
"You cannot threaten me saying your sub-sect (Veera Shaiva) community would not support the BJP in the next assembly or Lok Saba elections, due in 2023 and 2024," retorted Yediyurappa, reasserting his status as the community's strongman in the state.
In the second cabinet expansion, only 10 newly elected legislators who defected from the Congress and the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) were made ministers, leaving 6 posts vacant in the 34-member ministry.
In the first cabinet expansion on August 20, 2019, 17 party legislators were made ministers. Nirani and others, who were present on the dais, pacified Yediyurappa to take his seat and requested the seer to avoid making political speech on such occasions.
"The chief minister threatened to resign than succumb to pressures from religious or community followers," a party official told media.
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