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New Delhi, Mar 27: The Delhi government has arranged to serve lunch and dinner to the needy in 325 schools in Delhi, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal said on Friday amid reports of people going hungry without access to food during the ongoing nationwide lockdown.

From Saturday, arrangements will be put in place to feed about four lakh people daily at different centres across Delhi, he said addressing the media. "We have made arrangements to provide lunch and dinner in 325 schools. Around 500 people will be provided with food in all these schools. So far we were providing food to 20,000 people daily, the number will now increase to around 2,00,000 from today."

He also said that "from tomorrow, we'll be providing food to 4,00,000 people daily. We're distributing the centres across Delhi."

Stating that the total number of confirmed positive COVID-19 cases in Delhi is now 39, Kejriwal said "We are ready to face any challenge.".

"There are a total of 39 coronavirus positive cases in Delhi as of today, of which 29 cases are of those who had come from outside and were kept in quarantine and 10 of these were cases of local transmission," said Kejriwal at a press conference.

The Chief Minister said that a team of 5 doctors has been set up to look into the preparedness needed to deal with an increase in the number of positive cases for coronavirus in future.

He said, "The team of doctors under the chairmanship of Dr Shiv Kumar Sarin, the head of Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences, presented a detailed report on March 26 on the preparedness needed to deal with a situation if the number of positive cases for coronavirus increases."

"The report has categorized three situations - if the number of positive cases increases to 100 per day, 500 per day and 1000 per day," he said while adding that the doctors have clearly stated what preparedness should be taken for each situation including the number of ventilators, isolation beds, doctors and nurses required.

He also cited concerns raised by chief ministers of several states including Jharkhand's Hemant Soren and West Bengal's Mamata Banerjee.

Kejriwal said "we consider all those living in Delhi as Delhiites and everyone will be taken care of."
The number of cases tested positive for coronavirus rose to 724 on Friday, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. 

Washington, Mar 18: Hundreds of distressed Indian students, stuck in the Philippines, are seeking help through video messages as they are unable to fly back home due to the travel restrictions imposed by India to contain the spread of the deadly novel coronavirus, according to friends and relatives of some of these students in the US.

The Indian government on Tuesday banned the entry of passengers from Afghanistan, Philippines and Malaysia to India with immediate effect amid stepped up efforts against the spread of COVID-19.

In a video message by one of these students Akhil Bala Nair, around 200 Indian students had booked their flight tickets for India in the next few days. But all of them have been cancelled due to the new policy.

Most of the students, she said, had booked their flights for March 17 and rest were schedule to travel to India on March 19 and 20. But the flights were cancelled and scores of Indian students are now stuck at the airport in Manila, Nair said in the video message sent to Prem Bhandari, head of the Jaipur Foot USA.

“It is need of the hour that the Indian government send a plane to bring these Indian students back home,” Bhandari, who in the past has worked for the cause of the Indian diaspora, and who was approached by these students told PTI.

According to these students, some 100 of them have been at the airport since Tuesday.

They all have confirmed tickets but the airport authorities are not allowing them to check in because of the new travel regulations.

While the airport authorities have asked them to go back to their respective place of residence, the students said they were unable to travel because of the absence of local taxi or shared ride services.

The students said that they are running out of time as the Philippines government has given them 72 hours time to exit the country, which started from March 16, after which the country will go into lockdown.

“This means we would not be able to travel anywhere outside Philippines after March 20,” Nair said in her message.

The students said that there are many of them who have applied for renewal of their visas and are unable to travel to India.

There are nearly 1,000 Indian students presently in Manila who are willing to travel back home, they said.

Meanwhile, the Indian Embassy in Manila, in a tweet, said that they, along with the Ministry of External Affairs, are trying to work out a solution.

“It is requested to all to kindly have patience,” the embassy said.