New Delhi, Jul 18: Textiles Minister Smriti Irani was today given the additional charge of the Information and Broadcasting Ministry after M Venkaiah Naidu resigned from the Cabinet to contest the vice-presidential poll.
The portfolio of urban development, which too was with Naidu, was given to Narendra Singh Tomar, Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment, the PMO said.
The BJP had yesterday decided to field Naidu as NDA's candidate for the post of vice president.
United Nations, Jun 6: The COVID-19 pandemic, which has presented challenges for several nations, could be an “opportunity” for India to speed up the health insurance scheme Ayushman Bharat, especially with a focus on primary healthcare, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has said.
WHO Director-General Ghebreyesus was responding to a question on the COVID-19 situation in India, where the number of coronavirus cases are increasing rapidly. India went past Italy on Friday to become the sixth worst-hit nation by the COVID-19 pandemic.
India saw a record single-day jump of 9,887 coronavirus cases and 294 deaths on Saturday, pushing the nationwide infection tally to 2,36,657 and the death toll to 6,642, according to the health ministry.
"Of course COVID is very unfortunate and it's challenging for many nations but we need to look for opportunities too. For instance for India, this could be an opportunity to speed up Ayushman Bharat, especially with a focus on primary health care. I know there is a very strong commitment from the government to speed up the implementation of Ayushman Bharat and with primary healthcare and community engagement, I think we can really turn the tide,” Ghebreyesus said during a press briefing in Geneva on Friday.
Ayushman Bharat is the world’s largest health insurance scheme and was launched by the Narendra Modi government in 2018. Last month, Modi had said that the number of people who have benefited from the scheme crossed the one crore-mark.
The scheme aims to cover more than 500 million beneficiaries and provide coverage of Rs 500,000 per family per year.
Referring to the Ayushman Bharat scheme, Ghebreyesus added that “using and speeding up what has started could actually help in India and that's what WHO was very appreciative by the way when Ayushman Bharat started. And this could be a very good opportunity actually to test that and speed up and use it to really fight this pandemic.”
New Delhi, Jun 24: With the highest single-day spike of 15,968 cases and 465 deaths in the last 24 hours, India's COVID-19 count reached 4,56,183 on Wednesday.
According to the latest update by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW), 14,476 deaths have been recorded due to the infection so far in the country.
The count includes 1,83,022 active cases, and 2,58,685 cured/discharged/migrated patients.
Maharashtra with 1,39,010 confirmed cases remains the worst-affected by the infection so far in the country. The state's count includes 62,848 active, 69,631 cured, discharged patients while 6,531 deaths have been reported due to the infection so far.
Meanwhile, the national capital's confirmed coronavirus cases reached 66,602.
2,301 deaths have been reported in Delhi due to the infection so far.
Tamil Nadu has reported 64,603 cases so far with the death toll reaching 833.
Mumbai, Jul 14: Bhima Koregaon case accused Varavara Rao was admitted to JJ Hospital in Mumbai on Monday night.
Rao who is in Taloja proson was rushed to the hospital following complaint of dizziness.
Rao was arrested in November 2018 along with five others, for alleged links with Naxals and for inciting the violence.
On January 1, 2018, the violence at Bhima Koregaon village in Pune district left one dead and several others injured including 10 policemen.
Violence erupted after some people, reportedly with saffron flags, pelted stones at cars heading towards the village for the commemoration of 200 years of Bhima-Koregaon war on New Year's Day.
The police had filed 58 cases against 162 people.
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We better prepare another list of those who got killed by saffron terrorists and send it to President of India.
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