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Mumbai rains: All 900 on-board Mahalaxmi Express rescued

Agencies
July 27, 2019

Badlapur, Jul 27: Around 900 passengers, including railway staff, who were stranded on board Mumbai-Kolhapur Mahalaxmi Express, which was marooned in floodwaters between Vagani and Badlapur stations, near 100 km from Mumbai, were rescued and taken to safety, after an 8-hour-long rescue operation mounted by various forces,

Children, women, nine of them pregnant, elders and disabled persons were rescued first and taken to a safer location nearby. Several boats were used for the rescue operation, while 37 doctors, including a gynaecologist, were deployed at the site.

The train was standed at the place from 3 am, passengers said.

Units of the National Disaster Relief Relife (NDRF), army and air force along with railway officials were deployed from early morning to rescue the passengers, who thanked the authorities for the help. 

As many as nine pregnant women were there and elderly people were rescued after rescuing them. Finally male passengers were evacuated, said NDRF chief S N Pradhan.

Several of them, including senior citizens, could be seen walking on the tracks where the waters had receded. The rescued passengers have left for Mumbai, officials said.

Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai said in New Delhi that his ministry got information about the stranded train at about 8.50 am while two teams of NDRF started the rescue operation at 9.40 am.

"We got the information at 8.50 am while 2 teams of NDRF along with 9 boats reached there at 9.40 am and started the rescue operation," said Rai.

"Home Ministry contacted Air Force officials, Railway officials & Maharashtra govt officials. We were in constant touch with Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis. The Home Minister himself monitored the operation," he added.

SN Pradhan, DG NDRF said, "Women and children were evacuated first including 9 pregnant women after that elderly person were evacuated and finally male passengers. The operation went on for around 8 hours, around 900 passengers have been safely evacuated."

Home Minister Amit Shah praised various forces for the rescue effort which was closely monitored by his ministry.

"Teams of NDRF, Navy, IAF, Railways and state administration have safely rescued all the 700 passengers stranded on Mahalaxmi Express near Mumbai. We were closely monitoring the entire operation. Kudos to the rescue teams for their exemplary effort", he said in a tweet.

Central Railway Chief Public Relations Officer said that a special train with 19 coaches will leave from Kalyan to Kolhapur with the passengers of Mahalaxmi Express. 

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Agencies
August 5,2020

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is in Ayodhya to lay the foundation of the Ram temple. He participated in the bhoomi poojan rituals at the temple site and offered prayers. He will shortly lay the foundation of the temple with a sliver brick.

From Varanasi to Tamil Nadu, many devotees have sent gifts for the ceremony, like silver bricks and coins.

Special prayers were started on Monday and will culminate with the PM laying the foundation stone for the temple. The city has been decorated with paintings depicting scenes from the Ramayana. The Uttar Pradesh government has also made elaborate security arrangement for the event.

Apart from the state police, the NSG commandos have also been kept on stand-by. The invitations for the ceremony have been kept limited due to the coronavirus pandemic. Veteran BJP leaders LK Advani and Murli Manohar Joshi will witness the event from New Delhi via video-conferencing.

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Agencies
July 13,2020

Mumbai, Jul 13: In a significant landmark, the BrihanMumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has achieved a doubling-rate of 50 days for COVID-19 cases, a top official said on Monday.

This was possible because of the civic body's 'open testing policy', implying tests without prescriptions, making it the only city in the country to implement it.

"After the open testing policy, our testing has gone up from 4,000 to 6,800, daily. But the total positive cases have come down from 1,400 to 1,200 now," BMC Municipal Commissioner I.S. Chahal told IANS.

Of these 1,200 positive cases, the symptomatic cases are less than 200, so the BMC needs only 200 beds daily, the civic chief said.

Even the BMC's discharge rate now stands at 70 percent, and on Sunday, after allotting beds to all patients, there were still 7,000 COVID beds plus 250 ICU beds lying vacant, said Chahal.

For this achievement, Chahal gave the credit to the entire 'Team BMC' where - despite losing a little over 100 officials to the virus - civic officials and other Corona warriors are engaged 24x7 in controlling the pandemic for over four months.

Since the first case was detected in Mumbai on March 11 (after the state's first infectees in Pune on March 9) and the state's first death notched in Mumbai on March 17, the current Maharashtra Covid-19 tally stands at 2,54,427 cases and fatalities at 10,289, while Mumbai has recorded 92,988 cases with a death toll of 5,288.

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News Network
July 9,2020

New Delhi, Jul 9: India reported the highest single-day spike of 24,879 new positive cases and 487 deaths in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of COVID-19 cases in the country to 7,67,296, according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Out of the total number of cases, 2,69,789 are active, 4,76,378 have been cured/discharged/migrated and 21,129 have died.

Maharashtra remains the worst-affected state due to COVID-19 with as many as 2,23,724 cases, including 91,084 active, 1,23,192 cured/discharged and 9,448 deaths.

It is followed by Tamil Nadu (1,22,350) and Delhi (1,04,864).

Meanwhile, a total of 1,07,40,832 samples have been tested for COVID-19 till July 8. Of these, 2,67,061 samples were tested yesterday, stated Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

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