Shooting down Mi-17 helicopter on Feb 27 was "big mistake", says IAF chief

Kollam, Feb 29: Seven-year-old Devananda, whose body was found in a lake, was laid to rest at Kudavattoor in the Kollam district of Kerala on Friday evening.

She was laid to rest near her father Pradeep Kumar's house in Kudavattoor. Earlier, the body was kept at her mother Dhanya's house in Ilavoor and Vakkanadu school, where she studied in Class 1, for the public to pay respect.

Hundreds of people visited to pay their last respects to the child.

An intense social media campaign was launched to trace the child after she was reported missing on Thursday morning.

According to police, an autopsy conducted in Thiruvananthapuram Medical College led to a preliminary conclusion that the cause of death was drowning. Residues of mud and silt have been found in her respiratory tract.

Signs of any kind of violence inflicted on the child have been ruled out. The body was released to the family after the autopsy.

Chief Minister of Kerala Pinarayi Vijayan and Opposition leader Ramesh Chennithala, BJP state president K Surendran were among many politicians who offered the condolences.

Many celebrities including Mammootty, Dulqar Salman, Kunchako Boban took to Facebook to pay their tribute to Devananda.

Chennai, Jul 1: In a case of cluster infection, 58 of the 65 mourners who attended the funeral a Central government official, Selvam, 56, who had worked in the Ministry of Foreign Trade and who died in Coimbatore and was brought for burial at Pannavaadi near Kolathur near Mettur in Salem district, tested positive for Covid-19, after three of them initially tested positive as they neither wore face masks not observed social distancing during the funeral, sources said.

Even as Dr Vijayabaskar said AIADMK MLA from Sriperumbudur, K Palani who tested positive for Covid-19 has recovered and will be discharged from hospital in couple of days, the MIOT International Hospital in Chennai said that the State Higher Education Minister, K P Anbazhagan, who initially showed no symptoms of coronavirus, subsequently tested positive in his second sample. He was now under treatment, his condition very stable and all his vital parameters are normal, MIOT said in a statement.

In what continues to be an unrestrained run, Tamil Nadu added its biggest day-wise spike so far of 3,943 positive Covid-19 cases, while another 60 deaths due to the novel coronavirus confirmed on Tuesday took the total death toll in the state to 1,201.

Of the new positive cases, Chennai alone accounted for its highest per-day jump of 2,393 positives with the number of persons tested today across Tamil Nadu put at 30,053. The total number os Covid-19 positive cases in the State as a whole till date is racing towards the one lakh mark at 90,167.

However, these outcomes are all on anticipated lines with the ICMR's push for more aggressive testing, even if they want lockdown controls to be now more focused at the district level, and want the Chennai model to be taken to the districts.

In this backdrop, the Health minister, Dr C Vijayabaskar chaired a detailed Covid review meeting this evening through video conference with all the hospital deans and other top officials on different facets of the disease prevention and control measures and the state's overall preparedness.

Chief Minister, Mr. Edappadi K Palaniswami in a statement in Chennai assured that with the 'full lockdown' continuing in greater Chennai, parts of three neighbouring districts of Chengalpattu, Thiruvallur and Kancheepuram and parts of Madurai district till July 5, the free community kitchens for the elderly, disabled and destitute will continue to function in those places till July 5 and hygienically cooked food packets served to them.

New Delhi, Mar 20: The coronavirus pandemic will leave behind a global recession with small businesses, self-employed and daily wagers taking the worst hit, Mahindra Group Chairman Anand Mahindra said on thursday.

"The virus will eventually be conquered, but it will have left behind a global recession. The costs of that are incalculably high at this time. The most fearsome toll will be on small businesses, the self-employed & those whose lives depend on meagre daily wages," Mahindra said in a tweet.

Apart from the toll on lives, the legacy of Covid-19 may well be deaths due to stress, loss of livelihoods, a rise in homelessness and in extreme situations, civil unrest, he added.

"The only global experience that has lessons for us in the current situation is the last world war. In the aftermath of WW2, the US came up with the Marshall plan to revive Europe, effectively a giant fiscal pump-priming," Mahindra said.

In the US, the government dramatically dismantled regulations and opened up the economy to trade and these actions led to a boom-cycle that stretched to 1975, he added.

"This time, there will be no victors, only the vanquished. So every country will have to create its own post ‘virus war” marshall plan & take care of those in society who are hit the hardest. Perhaps we too can build the foundations of a sustained global growth cycle," Mahindra said.