Minimum income a 'worthwhile dream', says Kamal Haasan

Jan 1: Two army personnel were killed in a gunfight with heavily-armed Pakistani infiltrators along the Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri district on Wednesday, officials said.

The infiltrators were intercepted in the Khari Thrayat forest when they were trying to sneak into India from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), they said.

"Two army soldiers martyred during cordon and search operation in Nowshera sector. The operation is still in progress and further details are awaited," Jammu-based Indian Army Public Relations Officer (PRO) Lt Col Devender Anand said in a statement.

The search operation was launched following information about the movement of suspected terrorists, the officials said.

The infiltrators opened fire on the troops and during a fierce gunfight, the two soldiers were killed, they said.

The officials said a massive operation is on in the area.

New Delhi, Jun 4: CSIR Director-General Shekhar Mande said on Thursday that the World Health Organisation's (WHO) decision to halt hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) drug trial was taken in haste and the global body should have actually analysed the data before making the decision.

"I firmly believe that WHO decision was taken in haste it was a kind of knee jerk reaction they should have actually analyse the data on their own before temporarily suspend the trials that is my personal opinion," Mande said.

India's nodal government agency ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) overseeing the country's response to the coronavirus pandemic last month wrote to the WHO citing differences in dosage standards between Indian and international trials that could explain the efficacy issues of HCQ in treating COVID-19 patients.

In addition, Dr Sheela Godbole, National Coordinator of the WHO-India Solidarity Trial and Head of the Division of Epidemiology, ICMR-National AIDS Research Institute also wrote a letter via an email to Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist at World Health Organisation.

In a letter, Dr Godbole stated: "There was no reason to suspend the trial for safety concern," attributing it to the current RECOVERY data which differs significantly from the non-randomised assessment by Mehra et al, a scientific paper.

Referring to the letter, the CSIR head said, "We don't know what actually happened behind the scenes but the hypothesis is that because of the paper published in Lancet. It is a very well known journal and if Lancet has done due vigilance in publishing the paper. 

Therefore, the WHO thought the paper's findings are right that's why WHO hold based on what is published on Lancet. The WHO shouldn't have accepted it immediately this should have taken their own due vigilance to find out that study is right or not."

DG CSIR said because there is a global outcry it must have put pressure on both Lancet as well as WHO and both of them now retracted from their original position. "WHO has started a trial again and Lancet has put an expression of concern on their website both of these are very welcome development for science," he said.

"So I am pretty sure that Lancet would have published the reports only after seeing somewhere the drug failed to work," Mande said.

New Delhi, Jun 9: A record rise in COVID-19 cases in India for the seventh consecutive day has pushed the tally to over 2.6 lakh on Tuesday, with the daily nationwide spike in coronavirus cases inching close to 10,000.

The rise in cases comes at a time when the country has stepped out of a 75-day coronavirus lockdown with malls, religious places and offices opening in several parts of the country under strict conditions.

Since the onset of June, the country has also been witnessing over 200 COVID-19 fatalities each day that has taken the country's death toll to 7,466.

India is the fifth worst-hit nation by the COVID-19 pandemic after the US, Brazil, Russia and the UK, according to the Johns Hopkins University data.

Several states like Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, Haryana, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh and Tripura among others have been showing a spurt in cases.

A total 266 new COVID-19 fatalities and 9,987 cases have been reported in the last 24 hours till Tuesday 8 am, according to the Union Health Ministry data.

The country has registered over 9,000 coronavirus infection cases for the sixth day in a row taking the country tally to 2,66,598.

The number of active novel coronavirus cases stands at 1,29,917, while 1,29,214 people have recovered and one patient has migrated, according to the Health Ministry data updated till 8 am.

"Thus, 48.47 per cent patients have recovered so far," a ministry official said.

According to the ICMR, a total of 49,16,116 samples have been tested as on 9 am, Tuesday, with 1,41,682 samples been tested in the last 24 hours.

Out of the total 7,466 fatalities reported till Tuesday 8 am, Maharashtra tops the tally with 3,169 deaths followed by Gujarat with 1,280 deaths, Delhi with 874, Madhya Pradesh with 414, West Bengal with 405, Tamil Nadu with 286, Uttar Pradesh with 283, Rajasthan with 246 and Telangana with 137 deaths.

The death toll reached 75 in Andhra Pradesh, 64 in Karnataka and 53 in Punjab.

Jammu and Kashmir has reported 45 fatalities due to the coronavirus disease, while 39 deaths have been reported from Haryana, 31 from Bihar, 16 from Kerala, 13 from Uttarakhand, nine from Odisha and seven from Jharkhand.

Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh have registered five COVID-19 fatalities each and Assam and Chhattisgarh have recorded four deaths each so far.

Meghalaya and Ladakh have reported one COVID-19 fatality each, according to ministry data.

More than 70 per cent of the deaths are due to comorbidities, the ministry's website stated

The highest number of confirmed cases in the country are from Maharashtra at 88,528 followed by Tamil Nadu at 33,229, Delhi at 29,943, Gujarat at 20,545, Uttar Pradesh at 10,947, Rajasthan at 10,763 and Madhya Pradesh at 9,638, according to the Health Ministry's data updated in the morning.

The number of COVID-19 cases has climbed to 8,613 in West Bengal, 5,760 in Karnataka, 5,202 in Bihar and 4,854 in Haryana.

It has risen to 4,851 in Andhra Pradesh, 4,285 in Jammu and Kashmir, 3,650 in Telangana and 2,994 in Odisha.

Punjab has reported 2,663 novel coronavirus cases so far, while Assam has 2,776 cases. A total of 2,005 people have been infected by the virus in Kerala and 1,411 in Uttarakhand.

Jharkhand has registered 1,256 cases, while 1,160 cases have been reported from Chhattisgarh, 838 from Tripura, 421 from Himachal Pradesh, 330 from Goa and 317 from Chandigarh.

Manipur has 272 cases, Puducherry has 127 and Nagaland has reported 123 cases till now.

Ladakh has 103 COVID-19 cases, Arunachal Pradesh has 51, Mizoram has 42, Meghalaya 36 while Andaman and Nicobar Islands has registered 33 infections so far.

Dadar and Nagar Haveli has 22 cases, while Sikkim has reported seven cases till now.

The ministry's website said that 8,803 cases are being reassigned to states and "our figures are being reconciled with the ICMR".

State-wise distribution is subject to further verification and reconciliation, it said.