India, Switzerland deny sharing 'black money' details

New Delhi, Apr 21: Tablighi Jamaat leader Maulana Saad Kandhalvi, who has been booked by the Delhi Police for holding a religious congregation here during the lockdown, on Monday urged the followers of the organisation to pray at home in the month of Ramzan.

"I request all, both in India and abroad, to strictly follow the guidelines and instructions of the local or national governments and till the time restrictions are in place and please observe prayers at home. And even in this, we should not invite people from outside," he said in a statement.

Ramzan begins later this week.

While addressing an online briefing on Sunday, Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal cited the Tablighi Jamaat congregation last month, a major hotspot, and the large inflow of travellers from other countries to Delhi as the reasons for the spread of the virus, and said the city was "fighting a difficult battle".

The Delhi Police crime branch, had on March 31, lodged an FIR against seven people, including the cleric, on a complaint by the Station House Officer of Nizamuddin police station for holding the congregation in alleged violation of the orders against large gatherings to contain the spread of coronavirus.

Later, the Indian Penal Code Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) was added to the FIR.

The cleric is wanted by the Delhi Police and he responded twice to them. He is currently under home quarantine.

In an audio message released earlier this month, Kandhalvi had said he was exercising self-quarantine after several hundreds who visited the congregation at Nizamudddin Markaz tested positive for coronavirus.

May 7: Accusing the BJP government in Karnataka of "medieval barbarism" and treating migrants as worse than "bonded labourers", CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Wednesday hit out at the state's decision to stop workers from returning to their homes in different parts of the country citing requirements of the construction sector.

The Karnataka government has withdrawn its request to the railways to run special trains to ferry migrant labourers to their home states, hours after builders met Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa to apprise him of the problems the construction sector will face in case they left.

"This is worse than treating them as bonded labour. Does the Indian constitution exist? Are there any laws in the country? This BJP state government is throwing us back to medieval barbarism. This will be stoutly resisted,” Yechury said in a tweet.

The railways is running Shramik Special trains to ferry to their home towns migrants who were stranded at their places of work during the lockdown.

So far, it has run more than 115 such trains.

The Principal Secretary in the Revenue Department N Manjunatha Prasad, who is the nodal officer for migrants, had requested the South Western Railways on Tuesday to run two train services a day for five days except Wednesday, while the state government wanted services thrice a day to Danapur in Bihar. However, later, Prasad wrote another letter within a few hours that the special trains were not required. Several migrants in the city were desperate to return home as they were out of jobs and money.

Yechury also lashed out at the central government over reports that it owed states and industry Rs 3 trillion and accused the centre of shifting the burden of fighting the pandemic to the state governments.

“While shifting the entire burden of fighting the pandemic on to the State governments, Modi government is not even paying their legitimate dues. After November 2019, Centre has not paid the GST compensation dues for the rest of the financial year, i.e., March 2020.

“Modi government has the right to loot while crores of people & States are left with nothing but the right to starve?,” he tweeted.

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.