Sonia Gandhi discharged after 11 days in hospital

New Delhi, May 8: India's count of COVID-19 cases on Friday rose to 56,342 including 1,886 deaths, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

Currently, there are 37,916 active cases while 16,539 COVID-19 positive patients have been cured/discharged and one has migrated.

Maharashtra has the highest number of cases with 18,120 followed by Gujarat with 7,013 cases and Delhi with 5,980 cases.

Golaghat, Jul 18: A total of 96 animals have died in the Kaziranga National Park in Golaghat district of Assam due to floods, the state government informed on Saturday.

"So far, 96 animals have died in the park including eight rhinos, seven wild boars, two swamp deers, 74 hog deer and two porcupines," park officials said.

A report from the government of Assam stated that a total of 132 animals had been rescued from the Kaziranga National Park. The park is currently 85 per cent submerged under floodwaters.

"Water level at Pasighar and Dibrugarh are below the prescribed danger level. The floodwater in Numaligarh, Dhansirimukh and Tezpur are still above danger level," the report stated.

At least 76 people have died and nearly 54 lakh people have been affected in 30 districts of Assam due to floods caused by the monsoon rains and the rise in water levels of the Brahmaputra river, informed the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) on Friday.

Lucknow, Jan 12: The controversy over renowned Pakistani poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz's iconic poem 'Hum dekhenge' may have caused an upheaval in the literary world but it has also helped in resurrecting the famous poet for the young generations.

Students and young professionals are making a beeline for books on Faiz, his biography and his poems and book sellers are ordering supplies of Faiz books.

"Earlier, we sold hardly one book in a month or on Faiz but after the controversy, people are curious to know more about the poet and his poems. We have placed orders for the entire literary range on Faiz Ahmad Faiz," said a leading book seller in Hazratganj in Lucknow.

The bookseller said that the highest demand was for books written in Devnagri script.

"Not many in the young generation can read or write Urdu so they prefer Devnagri," the book seller said.

In Kanpur, most of the leading bookshops have already run out of stocks and book stalls in the ongoing Handloom Expo are drawing huge crowds for Faiz books.

Suchita Srivastava, B.Ed student in Kanpur said, "I have never been fond of Urdu poetry because I do not understand much of the language but after the controversy, I want to read poems of Faiz to understand what he wanted to say. I am taking help of Google to understand difficult words in Urdu."

Krishna Rao, another student at the Chandra Shekhar Azad University of Agriculture and Technology, said that since books on Faiz had been sold out, he had ordered a Kindle edition and was reading them.

"Reading his poems actually widens one's perspective of things and becomes even more precious if you take into account the time and context in which they were written," he said.