New Delhi, Mar 31: The total number of coronavirus cases in India has risen to 1,397 after 146 new patients were reported in the last 24-hours, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare said on Tuesday.
Of this little less than 1,400 cases, there are 1,238 active while 124 cured. The total figure also includes 35 fatalities.
New Delhi, Jul 16: With India's economic growth sputtering, the Reserve Bank of India was expected to maintain a rate-cutting cycle, but an uptick in near-term inflation could give the central bank's Monetary Policy Committee reason to pause for now.
Having cut its key lending rate by an aggressive 115 basis points (bps) in 2020, on top of 135 bps cuts in 2019, the RBI so far has had little success in spurring credit growth amid varying degrees of lockdowns across India.
Some economists and market insiders argue it may be prudent for the MPC, the policy committee, to hold its fire when it meets early next month.
"It's probably too early to administer a demand stimulus. The RBI still has room to cut rates, but we probably want to be more cautious of the timing," said Venkat Pasupuleti, portfolio manager at Dalton Investments.
"Maybe they should wait a quarter to see how things pan out once the lockdown situation is eased further."
Market participants have factored in at least a 25 bps rate cut by the MPC on August 6 while analysts are predicting a total 50-75 bps cuts over the rest of the fiscal year that runs to March 31.
The spike in the retail inflation rate above the RBI's mandated 2%-4% target range is another reason for the central bank to take a breather, analysts say.
Annual retail inflation rose to 6.09% in June, compared to 5.84% in March and sharply above a 5.30% median forecast in a Reuters poll of economists.
Rahul Bajoria, an economist at Barclays, said the spike in both consumer and wholesale prices "could lead to a tempering in enthusiasm for material front-loaded policy support from here on."
Almost all economists however agreed the RBI cannot move away from its accommodative stance or call an end to the rate cutting cycle just yet.
India's economy grew at 3.1% in the March quarter - an eight year low - and some economists have predicted a contraction of more than 20% in the June quarter and a contraction of up to 5% in the fiscal year.
"Even in the event of a pause, we think the RBI and MPC would want to hold out the promise of more cuts," said A. Prasanna, economist with ICICI Securities.
RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said in a recent speech the need of the hour is to restore confidence, preserve financial stability, revive growth and recover stronger, suggesting inflation concerns are unlikely to deter the downward trajectory for rates too soon.
"The August policy decision would boil down to a judgment call over whether RBI can maintain easy monetary and financial conditions without the aid of a token rate cut," Prasanna said.
Domestic flights resumed operations on a truncated schedule on Monday with the first aircraft departing from the Delhi Airport for Pune, more than two months after a nationwide lockdown was announced to combat COVID-19.
The first flight to take off was an IndiGo aircraft to Pune, flying passengers stranded in the national capital since the lockdown was announced on March 24.
Passengers were screened at the airport with electronic thermometers, and revised protocol for air travel that included santisation of luggage through ultra-violent scanners, and maintaining physical distancing.
Only asymptomatic passengers were allowed to enter the airport.
Passengers were also seen wearing face masks and face shields given to them at the embarkation point by the airline to minimise the chances of infection while onboard.
The first flight arrived at Delhi Airport from Ahmedabad – a SpiceJet aircraft – at around 8:00 am.
BJD Lok Sabha member Anubhav Mohanty was among those who took the Air Vistara flight to Bhubaneshwar that departed Delhi airport at 6:50 am.
The first flight to take off from Mumbai was an IndiGo aircraft that departed for Patna at 6:45 am, while passengers from Lucknow were the first to reach the financial capital on an IndiGo aircraft that touched down at 8:20 am.
The food & beverage and retail outlets, which were closed for the past 63 days, opened at Terminal 3 of Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International (IGI) Airport.
The flight services resumed after a day of long and hard negotiations between the Centre and the states on Sunday.
All states finally agreed to accept at least some flights but announced different quarantine and self-isolation rules for arriving passengers to address apprehension about infections being brought in from other cities.
The Centre had issued guidelines for all modes of domestic travel that advised all asymptomatic passengers to self-monitor their health parameters for 14 days on completion of the journey and report to health authorities if they displayed any symptoms for COVID-19.
However, the Centre had allowed state governments to prescribe their own health protocols for disembarking passengers which led to differential guidelines across the country.
New Delhi, Jun 9: A record rise in COVID-19 cases in India for the seventh consecutive day has pushed the tally to over 2.6 lakh on Tuesday, with the daily nationwide spike in coronavirus cases inching close to 10,000.
The rise in cases comes at a time when the country has stepped out of a 75-day coronavirus lockdown with malls, religious places and offices opening in several parts of the country under strict conditions.
Since the onset of June, the country has also been witnessing over 200 COVID-19 fatalities each day that has taken the country's death toll to 7,466.
India is the fifth worst-hit nation by the COVID-19 pandemic after the US, Brazil, Russia and the UK, according to the Johns Hopkins University data.
Several states like Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Assam, Haryana, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh and Tripura among others have been showing a spurt in cases.
A total 266 new COVID-19 fatalities and 9,987 cases have been reported in the last 24 hours till Tuesday 8 am, according to the Union Health Ministry data.
The country has registered over 9,000 coronavirus infection cases for the sixth day in a row taking the country tally to 2,66,598.
The number of active novel coronavirus cases stands at 1,29,917, while 1,29,214 people have recovered and one patient has migrated, according to the Health Ministry data updated till 8 am.
"Thus, 48.47 per cent patients have recovered so far," a ministry official said.
According to the ICMR, a total of 49,16,116 samples have been tested as on 9 am, Tuesday, with 1,41,682 samples been tested in the last 24 hours.
Out of the total 7,466 fatalities reported till Tuesday 8 am, Maharashtra tops the tally with 3,169 deaths followed by Gujarat with 1,280 deaths, Delhi with 874, Madhya Pradesh with 414, West Bengal with 405, Tamil Nadu with 286, Uttar Pradesh with 283, Rajasthan with 246 and Telangana with 137 deaths.
The death toll reached 75 in Andhra Pradesh, 64 in Karnataka and 53 in Punjab.
Jammu and Kashmir has reported 45 fatalities due to the coronavirus disease, while 39 deaths have been reported from Haryana, 31 from Bihar, 16 from Kerala, 13 from Uttarakhand, nine from Odisha and seven from Jharkhand.
Himachal Pradesh and Chandigarh have registered five COVID-19 fatalities each and Assam and Chhattisgarh have recorded four deaths each so far.
Meghalaya and Ladakh have reported one COVID-19 fatality each, according to ministry data.
More than 70 per cent of the deaths are due to comorbidities, the ministry's website stated
The highest number of confirmed cases in the country are from Maharashtra at 88,528 followed by Tamil Nadu at 33,229, Delhi at 29,943, Gujarat at 20,545, Uttar Pradesh at 10,947, Rajasthan at 10,763 and Madhya Pradesh at 9,638, according to the Health Ministry's data updated in the morning.
The number of COVID-19 cases has climbed to 8,613 in West Bengal, 5,760 in Karnataka, 5,202 in Bihar and 4,854 in Haryana.
It has risen to 4,851 in Andhra Pradesh, 4,285 in Jammu and Kashmir, 3,650 in Telangana and 2,994 in Odisha.
Punjab has reported 2,663 novel coronavirus cases so far, while Assam has 2,776 cases. A total of 2,005 people have been infected by the virus in Kerala and 1,411 in Uttarakhand.
Jharkhand has registered 1,256 cases, while 1,160 cases have been reported from Chhattisgarh, 838 from Tripura, 421 from Himachal Pradesh, 330 from Goa and 317 from Chandigarh.
Manipur has 272 cases, Puducherry has 127 and Nagaland has reported 123 cases till now.
Ladakh has 103 COVID-19 cases, Arunachal Pradesh has 51, Mizoram has 42, Meghalaya 36 while Andaman and Nicobar Islands has registered 33 infections so far.
Dadar and Nagar Haveli has 22 cases, while Sikkim has reported seven cases till now.
The ministry's website said that 8,803 cases are being reassigned to states and "our figures are being reconciled with the ICMR".
State-wise distribution is subject to further verification and reconciliation, it said.
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