Nothing wrong if one doesn’t recite Vande Mataram, says Modi govt’s minister

New Delhi, Mar 19: The total number of reported novel coronavirus cases in India has climbed to 169, with 30 fresh cases reported from various parts of the country on Wednesday.

The total cases in India include 25 foreign nationals and the three persons who died in Delhi, Karnataka and Maharashtra.

As coronavirus cases continue to rise in India, over 5,700 people, who had come in contact with positive cases, continue to be under rigorous surveillance, the government has said.

Maharashtra has 43 cases, including 3 foreigners, while Kerala has recorded 27 cases which include two foreign nationals. A 28-year-old woman from Pune with a travel history to France and the Netherlands tested positive for Covid-19, a senior official said on Wednesday.

A 68-year-old woman has tested positive for coronavirus in Mumbai. She was in close contact with a Covid-19 patient, who was diagnosed yesterday.

In Rajasthan, three more have tested positive for Covid-19. The new cases have come from Jhunjhunu district. Their samples have been sent to SMS Medical college.

In Maharashtra, a 21-year-old man in Pimpri Chinchwad with travel history to the Philippines, Singapore and Colombo has tested positive for coronavirus. One more person in Ratnagiri has tested positive for Covid-19.

Telangana has reported seven more confirmed coronavirus cases. All the seven are Indonesian national.

Delhi has so far reported 10 positive cases which include one foreigner while Uttar Pradesh has recorded 16 cases, including one foreigner. A man from Noida tested positive on Wednesday, taking the total number to four in Noida.

Karnataka reported two fresh cases on Wednesday, taking the number of infections to 13. The number of cases in Ladakh rose to eight and Jammu and Kashmir three. Telangana has reported six cases which include two foreigners.

One more person has tested positive for coronavirus in Kashmir. The person, with foreign travel history, has been put under isolation. He had arrived in J&K on March 16.

There will be restrictions on public transport, assembly of people and some other measures, in #Srinagar from tomorrow.

Rajasthan has also reported four cases including that of two foreigners. Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha, Uttarakhand and Punjab have reported one case each.

Tamil Nadu Health Minister C Vijayabaskar has confined the state's second positive case of coronavirus in the state.

The health minister has stated that the condition of the patient is stable and is in observation.

In Haryana, there are 16 cases, which include fourteen foreigners.

According to the Union ministry's data, 14 people have been discharged so far, including the three patients from Kerala.

Three persons infected with the virus have died so far, the latest casualty being a 64-year-old man from Mumbai with a travel history to Dubai who succumbed on Tuesday.

While a 76-year-old man from Kalaburagi who returned from Saudi Arabia died last Tuesday, a 68-year-old woman in Delhi who had tested positive for coronavirus passed away on Friday night.

The government on Tuesday banned the entry of passengers from Afghanistan, Philippines and Malaysia to India with immediate effect, according to an additional travel advisory.

With coronavirus cases swelling in the country, the government has also banned the entry of passengers from the European Union countries, Turkey and the UK from March 18 till March 31.

Jammu, Jan 6: Union Minister Jitendra Singh on Sunday said India is the only shelter for religiously persecuted Hindus, Sikhs and other minorities who come from Pakistan, Bangladesh or Afghanistan, for the safety of their life and honour.

"India owes responsibility towards the minorities living in these countries which proclaim Islam as their state religion," Singh said here while launching the BJP's countrywide 10-day mass contact drive to spread awareness about the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

Accompanied by senior party colleagues, including former deputy chief minister Kavinder Gupta and former minister Sat Sharma, he began by visiting the house of veteran columnist, writer and Padmashri awardee K L Pandita, where he spent time with them discussing the Act.

Later, he visited prominent social activist Amjad Mirza, eminent Sikh religious leader Baba Swaranjit Singh, retired High Court judge Justice G D Sharma, veteran journalist and former bureau head of Hind Samachar group Gopal Sachar, retired principal of Jammu government medical college Subhash Gupta, social activist and president of Peoples' Forum Ramesh Sabharwal, among others.

During his interaction with them, the Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office claimed that Congress leaders and their allies protesting against the Act are doing so without "conviction".

He opined that if a "survey" was conducted among the family members of these Congress leaders, then, even they would not support their "anti-CAA stand".

"The tragedy of Congress party and contemporary leaders of Congress is that either they do not read their own history or are blissfully ignorant of the statements made by their own party patriarchs and former prime ministers," he said.

The minister recalled that the Nehru-Liaquat Pact of 1950 was inspired by the realisation on the part of the then Congress government headed by prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru that minorities, particularly Hindus, were not getting a fair deal in Pakistan.

"In 1949, Nehru had written a letter expressing concern about people coming in from then East Pakistan, which is now Bangladesh, and while doing so, he had referred to Hindus coming from there as 'refugees' and Muslims arriving here as 'immigrants'," Singh said.

Further, Nehru had stated that India owed a "responsibility" to these refugees, the minister said.

Referring to the opposition of senior Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi to the amended legislation, the minister said someone should show them records of proceedings of the winter session of Parliament in 1950 when their great-grandfather (Nehru) had himself said that they deserved to be given citizenship and if the law was inadequate for it, then, the law should be changed.

"PM Modi should actually be given credit for showing courage and conviction to carry forward the task, which the Congress government lacked, to accomplish this," the minister opined.

Singh reiterated that a false fear psychosis against Muslims is being sought to be manufactured when there is no place as safe and comfortable to live for the community as India.

Turning the tables on the opposition to the National Population Register(NPR) and proposed National Register of Citizens (NRC), Singh pointed out that PM Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah have been stating that the exercise on NRC is yet to begin.

He also said that it was then Union home minister P Chidambaram, who had stated in Parliament in 2010 that NPR could be a basis for NRC.