Dawood's brother Iqbal Kaskar held in connection with extortion case

New Delhi, May 19: Former Union Minister P Chidambaram said that as the fourth phase of the nationwide lockdown amid the coronavirus scare began from Monday, his thoughts were with the people of Kashmir who were in a "terrible lockdown within a lockdown."

The senior Congress leader said that at least now, the people in the rest of India will understand that he dubbed the "enormity of the injustice" done to those who were detained in Kashmir and those still under detention" immediately before and after the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution on August 5, 2019.

Chidambaram said that former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti was the "worst sufferer" of preventive detention and even courts had shirked their constitutional duty with respect to detainees.

"The worst sufferers are Mehbooba Mufti and her senior party colleagues who are still in custody in a locked-down state in a locked-down country. They are deprived of every human right," he said in a statement.

"I cannot believe that for nearly 10 months, the courts will shirk their constitutional duty to protect the human rights of citizens," he added.

The detention on Mehbooba Mufti under the Public Safety Act (PSA) had been extended for three more months on May 5. Booked under the stringent PSA, she was initially kept at the Hari Niwas guesthouse in Srinagar but later shifted to a Tourism Department hut in the Chashma Shahi area.

She was shifted to her Gupkar Road official residence on April 7.

Besides Mehbooba Mufti, two other former Chief Ministers -- Omar Abdullah and his father Farooq Abdullah -- were also detained under the PSA but later released.

New Delhi, April 5: The number of coronavirus cases in India has surged past 3500 with 505 new cases in the last 24 hours from across the country.

According to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the total number of COVID-19 positive cases in the country has gone up to 3,577 as on Sunday. So far, 83 people have died of the coronavirus.

Among States, the tally in Maharashtra stood at 690. According to Maharashtra Health Minister Rajesh Tope, till now Mumbai has reported 29 positive cases, Pune 17, PCMC 4, Ahmednagar 3, Aurangabad 2 among others.

Here are the top developments of the day related to the pandemic.

1) Four new COVID-19 positive cases reported in Uttarakhand today, taking the total number of positive cases in the State to 26. Four persons have been treated and discharged till date, according to the Directorate of Health Services, Uttarakhand.

2) Prime Minister Narendra Modi today called up two former Presidents -- Pranab Mukherjee and Pratibha Patil and had a discussion on COVID-19 related issues. He also called up two former Prime Ministers -- Manmohan Singh and HD Deve Gowda -- to discuss COVID-19 situation.

3) The Prime Minister also called up leaders of various political parties like Sonia Gandhi, Mulayam Singh Yadav, Akhilesh Yadav, Mamata Banerjee, Naveen Patnaik, K Chandrashekar Rao, MK Stalin, Parkash Singh Badal and Mayawati.

4) Total coronavirus positive cases rose to 68 in Punjab after three more cases were reported today --- one each in Ludhiana, SAS Nagar and Barnala. The person found positive in Ludhiana had attended the Tablighi Jamaat event in Delhi.

5) No evidence of COVID-19 being airborne yet, according to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

7) With 14 new cases in Kashmir division, the total number of positive cases in Jammu and Kashmir now at 106. Active cases in Kashmir -- 82 and Jammu -- 18, said Rohit Kansal, Principal Secretary, Planning, UT of Jammu and Kashmir.

8) "There is an insufficiency of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) kits and N95 masks. We are in touch with the Centre and other agencies for supply. Receiving 15,000 PPE kits today. Requested Centre for 5 lakh PPE kits received 4,000 only," said Bihar's Principal Secretary, Health, Sanjay Kumar.

9) The total number of positive cases in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, till now is 122 after 9 more positive cases were found today, according to Indore Chief Medical and Health Officer Dr Praveen Jadia.

10) Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan visits AIIMS dedicated centre for COVID19 in Jhajjar, Haryana. He said: "All 162 patients admitted here are in stable condition."

11) 86 COVID-19 positive cases reported in Tamil Nadu today out of which 85 had attended the Tableeghi Jamaat event at Markaz Nizamuddin, Delhi, according to Beela Rajesh Tamil Nadu Health Secretary. There are 571 COVID positive cases in Tamil Nadu out of which 522 cases are from the people who had attended the religious function in Delhi, she said.

12) The Congress party on Sunday posed nine questions to the Centre, demanding compensation to the family of those, who died after battling with the coronavirus.

13) 47 new coronavirus positive cases reported in Rajasthan today, taking the total number of positive cases in the state to 253.

14) 8 new COVID-19 cases reported in Kerala, which include 6 imports and 2 contact cases, said Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.

15) "PPE kits are imported. So there was a shortage initially in the country but the government started taking action in this regard from January. Domestic manufacturers have started production. We have also started procuring PPE kits from other countries," said Lav Aggarwal, Joint Secy, Health Ministry. 

Jun 4: Mahatma Gandhi’s statue outside the Indian Embassy in Washington DC was vandalised with graffiti and spray painting by unknown persons allegedly involved in the ongoing protests in the US against the custodial killing of African-American George Floyd.

This has prompted the mission officials to register a complaint with the local law enforcement agencies.

The incident is reported to have taken place on the intervening night of June 2 and 3 in Washington DC.

The Indian embassy has informed the State Department and registered a complaint with local law enforcement agencies, which are now conducting an investigation into the incident.

On Wednesday, a team of officials from Metropolitan Police in consultation with the Diplomatic Security Service and National Park Police visited the site and are conducting inquiries.

Efforts are on to clean up the site at the earliest.

Vandalism of the statue of the apostle of peace comes during the week of nationwide protests against the custodial killing of African-American George Floyd in Minneapolis on May 25.

Several of these protests have turned violent which many times has resulted in damage of some of the most prestigious and sacred American monuments.

In Washington DC, protestors this week burnt a historic church and damaged some of the prime properties and historic places like the national monument and Lincoln Memorial.

One of the few statues of a foreign leader on a federal land in Washington DC, the statue of Mahatma Gandhi was dedicated by the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, in the presence of the then US president Bill Clinton on September 16, 2000, during his state visit to the US.

In October 1998, the US Congress had authorised the government of India to establish and maintain a memorial “to honour Mahatma Gandhi on Federal land in the District of Columbia."

According to the Indian Embassy website, the sculpture of Mahatma Gandhi is cast in bronze as a statue to a height of 8 feet 8 inches. It shows Gandhi in stride, as a leader and man of action evoking memories of his 1930 protest march against salt-tax, and the many padyatras (long marches) he undertook throughout the length and breadth of the Indian sub-continent.

The statue, the design of which was created by Gautam Pal, is a gift from the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR). The pedestal for the statue of Mahatma Gandhi is a block of new Imperial Red also known as Ruby Red a block originally weighing 25 tonnes reduced to a size of 9'x7'x3'4". It now weighs 16 tonnes.