New Delhi, Aug 30: Five militants were killed in an encounter with security forces in Ganderbal district of Kashmir early on Friday, police said.
According to TV reports, police told that identity of all the militants had been ascertained and none of them was a local.
Earlier on Monday it was reported that militants had attacked a police patrol in Anantnag in Jammu & Kashmir killing one personnel after which combing operations had been launched in that area to nab the militants.
New Delhi, Apr 21: India's count of positive coronavirus cases reached 18,985 after 1,329 new cases were reported in the last 24 hours, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Tuesday.
Out of the total cases, 15,122 are active cases, 3,259 have been discharged or cured and one has migrated. With 44 new deaths reported in the last 24 hours, the toll stands at 603.
As per the evening update by the ministry, Maharashtra continues to be the worst-hit state with 4,669 cases, out of which 572 patients have been discharged and cured and 232 deaths.
Delhi's total count of confirmed cases stand at 2,081, which includes 431 cured or discharged cases and 47 deaths.
Gujarat has reported a total of 2,066 positive COVID-19 cases, out of which 131 patients have recovered or discharged, while 77 patients have lost their lives.
Madhya Pradesh's count of COVID-19 cases stand at 1,540, including 127 cured or discharged cases and 76 deaths.
Rajasthan has so far reported 1,576 positive cases, out of which 205 patients have recovered or discharged and 25 people have lost their lives.
Tamil Nadu's COVID-19 figure has risen to 1,520, with 457 patients recovered and 17 fatalities. Uttar Pradesh has reported 1,294 cases, out of which 140 patients have recovered and 20 are dead.
New Delhi, Jul 22: India is responding with utmost urgency to coronavirus from the very beginning and has been continuously strengthening preparedness and response measures, WHO Regional Director (South-East Asia) Poonam Khetrapal Singh said on Wednesday.
"India is responding with utmost urgency to COVID-19 from the start. It's been continuously strengthening preparedness and response measures, including ramping up testing capacities, readying more hospitals, arranging and stocking up medicines and essentials," Singh said at a virtual briefing.
"India took bold, decisive and early measures earlier in the outbreak. The country did not witness an exponential increase in cases like some other countries which reported their first few cases along with India. Like in any other country the transmission of COVID-19 is not homogenous in India. There are areas yet to see a confirmed case, some have sporadic cases, in some areas some small clusters while we are witnessing large clusters in some megacities from the densely populated areas," Singh said.
She said WHO was aware of varying capacities at sub-national levels.
"Not unusual in a country as big as India and its population size that measures taken may often not be uniformly sufficient across all areas. Scaling up capacities and response remains a constant need in India."
Replying on the question of what more needs to be done in controlling the spread of COVID-19, she said all countries including India must continue to implement core public health and social distancing measures.
"Local epidemiology to guide our response for finding hotspots and testing, detecting, isolating and providing care to the affected, promoting safe hygiene practices and respiratory etiquette, protecting health workers and increasing health system capacity is also key," she said.
Kozhikode, Aug 8: A tailwind or crosswind could be the reason for the Air India Express flight mishap at Kozhikode international airport in Kerala, according to some aviation experts.
Team of DGCA and AIE already reached the spot. With the death of the captain and co-pilot in the mishap, the investigation would be focusing mainly on the voice recorders and other technical aspects.
It is learnt that the ill-fated aircraft, IX 1344 with 190 onboard including crew, was initially planning to land on runway-28 of the airport. But later the pilot opted runway-10 which is toward the other direction. Pilots would be taking the decisions on the basis of inputs from ATC.
The questions now doing the rounds are what made the pilot opt runway-10 and whether the tabletop runway lacked adequate safety parameters.
An aviation expert, who didn't want to be quoted, said that Capt Deepak Sathe, who was commandeering the aircraft, was a well-experienced pilot and was also familiar with the terrains. Hence the chances of any error from his part was very unlikely. Hence a fair in-depth probe was required to find the exact cause.
Though the Kozhikode airport has an Instrument Landing System, it was of category-I for which pilot's visibility is very crucial toward a touchdown. Since it is a tabletop airport and rough weather prevailing in the region, the chances of tailwind was also high, said sources.
There had been safety concerns about the airport over quite some time. In 2011 aviation safety consultant captain Mohan Ranganathan reportedly gave a report citing the safety issues, especially the buffer zones at the end of the runway.
However, an AAI officer said that rectification steps were already done by last year by widening the Runway End Safety Area (RESA) from 90 metre to 240 metre. However, the length of the runway had to be reduced to 2,700 metre from 2,850. The AAI was also constantly pressing for increasing the runway length to 3,150 metres. But that was getting delayed due to land acquisition issues pending with the state government.
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