Khurshid compares Modi to a nursery student who thinks he has a PhD

Kochi, Mar 30: Kerala High Court on Monday granted interim bail to the under-trial prisoners and remanded accused in the state till April 30 in view of the lockdown imposed to prevent the spread of coronavirus.

The court said that the accused should report to the local police station immediately after getting bail. Those released on bail must strictly follow the lockdown instructions, the High Court said.

"Those who have been convicted of imprisonment for less than seven years will get bail. Prison Superintendents will release the prisoners who are eligible. But regular offenders are not entitled to get bail," the court said.

After the bail period, the accused should appear in the respective trial courts, where a decision will be taken on their bail by the respective trial courts.

The Supreme Court had last week asked all state governments to release undertrial prisoners, who are facing charges attracting less than seven years imprisonment, to reduce overcrowding of jails amid the ongoing coronavirus scare.

So far, 194 confirmed cases of coronavirus have been reported in the state.

The country is under a 21-day lockdown to prevent the spread of coronavirus, which according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has claimed the lives of 29 people and infected a total of 1071 people as on Monday morning.

Mumbai, May 17: Much on expected lines, Maharashtra, on Sunday, extended the coronavirus lockdown till May 31, in order to control the spread of the virus, under the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, the state government said in a statement.

On Sunday afternoon, Chief Secretary Ajoy Mehta, in a notification said: "It is further directed that all earlier orders shall be aligned with this order and remain in force up to and inclusive of May 31, 2020. The calibrated phase-wise relaxation or lifting of lockdown orders will be notified in due course."

"Lockdown 3.0 ends today. Lockdown 4.0 will come into effect tomorrow and will be valid till May 31. There will be some relaxations in the fourth phase," he said.

"The green and orange zones will get more relaxations, in terms of starting more services. As of now only essential services are operational, he said.

Maharashtra has recorded 30,706 COVID-19 cases of which 22,479 are active. The death toll is 1135, while 7,088 patients have been discharged after recovery.

In exercise of the powers conferred under Section 2 of the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1898 and the powers, conferred under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, the Chairperson, State Executive Committee, issued direction to extend the lockdown till 31 May 2020 for containment of COVID-19 epidemic in the State and all Departments of Government of Maharashtra shall strictly implement the guidelines issued earlier form time to time, according to the statement.

Over the last two days,  Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray held a series of meetings with his ministerial colleagues, senior leaders including NCP supremo Sharad Pawar and top officials. 

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."