Those not proud of Trump calling Modi father of the nation don’t consider themselves Indians: Jitendra Singh

Beijing, Feb 18: Police in China have arrested a prominent activist who had been a fugitive for weeks and criticised President Xi Jinping's handling of the coronavirus epidemic while in hiding, a rights group said Tuesday.

Anti-corruption activist Xu Zhiyong was arrested on Saturday after being on the run since December, according to Amnesty International.

China's ruling Communist Party has severely curtailed civil liberties since Xi took power in 2012, rounding up rights lawyers, labour activists and even Marxist students.

The death this month of a whistleblowing doctor who was reprimanded by police for raising the alarm about the deadly new virus before dying of it himself triggered rare calls for political reform and freedom of speech.

The "Chinese government's battle against the coronavirus has in no way diverted it from its ongoing general campaign to crush all dissenting voices," said Patrick Poon, China researcher at Amnesty International, in an emailed statement.

Another source, who spoke to news agency on the condition of anonymity, said Xu had been arrested in the southern city of Guangzhou.

Guangzhou police did not respond to requests for comment.

Xu went into hiding after authorities broke up a December gathering of intellectuals discussing political reform in the eastern coastal city of Xiamen in Fujian province, prior to the coronavirus crisis.

Over a dozen lawyers and activists were detained or disappeared after the Xiamen gathering, according to rights groups -- and Xu's detention appears linked to his presence at the meeting, explained Poon.

But while on the run, Xu continued to post information on Twitter about rights issues.

On February 4 Xu released an article calling on Xi to step down and criticised his leadership across a range of issues including the US-China trade war, Hong Kong's pro-democracy protests and the coronavirus epidemic, which has now killed nearly 1,900 people.

"Medical supplies are tight, hospitals are filled with patients, and a large number of infected people have no way to be diagnosed," he wrote. "It's a mess."

"The coronavirus outbreak shows just how important values like freedom of expression and transparency are -- the exact values that Xu has long advocated," Yaqiu Wang, China researcher at Human Rights Watch, told news agency.

But the disappearance of Xu illustrates how the Chinese state "persists in its old ways" by "silencing its critics", she said.

Xu -- who founded a movement calling for greater transparency among high-ranking officials -- previously served a four-year prison sentence from 2013 to 2017 for organising an "illegal gathering".

"That he was a fugitive for so many days while continuing to speak out, that in itself was... a kind of challenge to (Chinese authorities)," said Hua Ze, a long-time friend of Xu who told AFP she lost contact with the Chinese activist on Saturday morning.

New Delhi, Jun 6: With 9,887 new positive cases reported in the last 24 hours, India's COVID-19 count touched 2,36,657 on Saturday surpassing Italy's latest tally of over 2.34 lakh, taking India to the sixth spot among countries with the highest caseloads of the virus.

The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) said that India registered a spike of 9887 new cases and 294 deaths in the past 24 hours taking the tally to 1,15,942 active cases and 6642 deaths.

Today's count was the highest single-day spike in the country, which has now overtaken Italy, according to the tally posted by the Johns Hopkins University which posted that globally the coronavirus had infected over 66.64 lakh people and claimed over 3.91 lakh lives so far.

In india, the MoHFW informed that 1,14,073 persons have been cured/discharged/migrated so far.

Maharashtra remains the worst-hit State as the total number of COVID-19 positive cases reached 80,229. While the total number of active cases in the state stands at 42,224.

In Tamil Nadu, 28,694 cases have been detected so far while Delhi has reported 26,334 coronavirus cases.

Bhopal, Mar 10: The number of MLAs who have resigned from the Congress in Madhya Pradesh climbed to 20 on Tuesday afternoon with another legislator quitting the ruling party, sources said.

While 19 MLAs, most of them believed to be loyal to expelled party leader Jyotiraditya Scindia, have sent their resignation letters via e-mail to Raj Bhavan, Bisahulal Singh submitted his resignation letter as an MLA to the Assembly speaker.

"We have received resignations of 19 MLAs through e-mails with attachments," a Raj Bhawan official told PTI.

Sources in Congress produced a copy of Bisahulal Singh's resignation letter which he submitted to the speaker.

Former chief minister and senior BJP leader later announced that Singh (65) has joined the BJP.