'Ring of fire' solar eclipse on June 21

New Delhi, Aug 7: With the highest single-day spike of 62,538 cases, India's COVID-19 count rose to 20,27,075 on Friday, said Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

The total cases include 6,07,384 active cases, 13,78,106 cured/discharged/migrated, and 41,585 deaths, according to the Ministry of Health.

The country's COVID-19 positive cases crossed the 10 lakh mark on July 17 when the total positive cases stood at 10,03,832 in India.

Maharashtra with 1,46,268 active cases and 3,05,521 cured and discharged patients continues to be the worst affected. The state has also reported 16,476 deaths due to the infection.

Tamil Nadu has 54,184 active cases while 2,14,815 patients have been discharged after treatment in the state. 4,461 deaths have been reported due to COVID-19 in the state.

Total COVID-19 cases in Andhra Pradesh are 1,96,789 including 1,12,870 recoveries, 82,166 active cases, and 1,753 deaths, as per the last health bulletin.

Delhi reported 1,192 new COVID-19 cases and 23 deaths on Friday. The total count of cases in the national capital has risen to 1,42,723. 

According to the Health Department, a total of 1,108 recoveries have been reported in Delhi in the last 24 hours.

The total number of cases includes 1,28,232 recoveries, 10,409 active cases, and 4,082 deaths.

According to the official data, 5,612 RT-PCR/CBNAAT/TrueNat tests and 17,773 rapid antigen tests were conducted today.

A total of 11,43,703 test has been conducted so far. The Union Health Ministry said that India continues its track record of testing more than 6 lakh COVID-19 samples each day for the fourth successive day.

"Expanded diagnostic lab network and facilitation for easy testing across the country have given a boost, and with 6,39,042 tests conducted in the last 24 hours, India has done 2,27,88,393 tests presently. The Tests Per Million (TPM) has seen a sharp increase to 16,513," the ministry said.

As many as 473 new COVID-19 cases were reported in Jammu and Kashmir today; 128 from Jammu division and 345 from Kashmir division.

The total number of cases stood at 23,927 including 7,260 actives cases, 16,218 recoveries, and 449 deaths.

The government of Mizoram informed that 19 new COVID-19 cases were reported in the state, taking the total number of cases to 558.
The number of active cases is 270 while 288 people have been discharged. No death reported in the state to date.

Bihar Health Department said, 3646 new cases reported in the state on August 6. Total tally reaches 71,794.

Similarly, 244 new COVID-19 cases, 77 recoveries, and five deaths were reported in Puducherry on Friday, taking the total number of cases to 4,862, including 1,873 active cases, 2,914 recoveries, and 75 deaths.

1,063 new cases of COVID-19 cases, 381 recovered and 23 deaths reported in Punjab in the last 24 hours. State tally rises to 21,930 including 7,351 active cases, 14,040 cured/discharged and 539 deaths.

Meanwhile, 1,074 new cases of COVID-19 and 22 deaths reported in Gujarat in last the 24 hours. State tally rises to 68,885 including 14,587 active cases, 51,692 cured/discharged and 2,606 deaths, the State Health Department said.

According to the Union Health Ministry, West Bengal has 23,829 active cases with 1,902 deaths so far while, Karnataka has 75,076 active cases of the virus with 80,281 recovered and 2,897 deaths so far.

Rajouri, Aug 3: Ashfaq Mehmood Choudhary, a 17-year-old boy from Chattyear of Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri district, has developed a file-sharing app 'Dodo Drop' which would enable users to share audios, videos, images, and texts between two devices without Internet access.

While speaking to media persons, Ashfaq Mehmood said that the 'Dodo Drop' application is an alternative to the Chinese 'SHAREit' app. "The Indian government has banned several Chinese apps due to data breaching, and among those apps was SHAREit which was used for sharing files.

Users faced a lot of problems due to the ban, and so I decided to make this file-sharing app. With 'Dodo Drop', users can share audios, videos, images, and even texts," he said.

Ashfaq said that it took him four weeks to develop the application, and it was launched on August 1 this year. The 'Dodo Drop' application has a transfer rate of up to 480 mbps, which is faster than the SHAREit app and is "quite easy" to use.

"Users can transfer data comprising photos, videos, audios, apps, texts, etc. between two devices with no Internet access. The transfers are fully encrypted and secure," he added.

"Our Prime Minister has always asserted the need for decreasing the dependency on foreign products and apps and to focus on the development of India-based apps. I tried to be part of the initiative of 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' by developing an India-based file-sharing app. I want to develop global-standard apps for India," he added.

"We support and cooperate with him. He generates his own income by working on some projects and utilises it. We will continue to support him," said Parvez Ahmed Choudhary, Ashfaq's father.

In July, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) banned 47 apps, which were variants and cloned copies of the 59 apps banned earlier in June. These banned clones included SHAREit Lite, Tiktok Lite, Helo Lite, BIGO LIVE Lite, and VFY Lite.

The 59 apps had been banned by the Centre in June in view of the information available that they were engaged in activities which were "prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity and defence" of the country.

Almost all the apps banned had some preferential Chinese interest and the majority had parent Chinese companies.

The ban came amid border tensions with China in the Eastern Ladakh region.

Kochi, Jul 30: The Kerala High Court on Thursday refused to grant the extension for the stay of a 74-year-old US citizen, Johnny Paul Pierce, who had earlier said that he felt safer to remain in India than in the United States amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The single-judge bench of Justice CS Dias, which considered the writ petition, observed that the grant or extension of visa to foreign nationals fall exclusively within the domain of the Government of India (GoI) and that judicial review in such matters is minimal.

The power of the GoI to expel foreigners is absolute and unlimited, the bench said.

"In view of the categoric declaration of law by the Supreme Court, the plea of the petitioner to permit him to stay back in India cannot be accepted, as it falls within the purview of the guidelines and the discretion of the Government of India," the order said.

"The petitioner cannot be heard that the guidelines/policies/regulations formulated by the Government of India, that an American national though has been granted a visa having validity of five years has to leave India within 180 days, is irrational or unreasonable," it added.

The High Court, which was hearing a plea to permit the US citizen to stay in India for a further period of six months, said that the petitioner does not have a case that there is an infraction of Article 21 of the Constitution of India.

"The petitioner was well aware of the visa conditions when he arrived in India, and it is too late in the day for him to raise a grievance on the visa conditions," the bench said noting that the petitioner's love for India was heartening.

The High Court also directed the Foreigners Registration Officer to consider the petitioner's representation within a period of two weeks in accordance with the applicable guidelines and policies.