60 per cent of India's rural population lives on less than Rs 35 a day

New Delhi, Mar 26: The total number of people who have been confirmed positive for COVID-19 in India has risen to 649 in India, including 593 active cases and 42 people who have been cured or discharged from hospitals, according to the recent update by the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) on Thursday morning.
The death toll due to the novel coronavirus in the country has reached 13, the official data reported. There have been 3 more deaths due to COVID-19 reported in the country since last evening.
An 85-year-old woman in Gujarat died yesterday while with the passing away of a 65-year-old woman, Madhya Pradesh reported its first COVID-19 death. Tamil Nadu also reported its first death in the state yesterday due to the deadly infection.
According to report from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) India had tested 24,254 people as of 8 p.m. on March 25.
The country is now in its second day of a 21-day lockdown that was announced by the Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday to deal with the spread of coronavirus, saying that "social distancing" is the only option to deal with the disease, which spreads rapidly.
The central government had on Wednesday announced that it will provide 7 kg ration to 80 crore people in India. The Centre also said that it has earmarked Rs 1.80 lakh crores for providing wheat at Rs 2 per kg and rice at Rs 3 per kg
"Union Cabinet has decided to provide wheat at Rs 2 per kg which is worth Rs 27 per kg and rice at Rs 3 per kg which is worth Rs 37 per kg. A total amount of Rs 1 lakh 80 thousand crores is being spent for the cause. The amount will be given in advance to the states for the coming 3 months," Union Minister Sadananda Gowda said yesterday.
Those shops which are catering to essential services will continue doing so during the 21-day nationwide lockdown.

New Delhi, Mar 19: Lawyer of Mukesh Singh, who is one of the four death row convicts in the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder case, on Thursday mentioned a petition before the Registrar of the Supreme Court seeking an urgent hearing in the matter.

Advocate Manohar Lal Sharma, through the petition, sought directions to bring call record, documents and reports of his client through any probe agency and passed appropriate directions and measure to ensure justice in the matter.

The petition, however, has not sought a stay on the execution, which is scheduled for the morning of March 20. The petition is likely to be taken up for hearing today.

Earlier today, the apex court dismissed the curative petition of Pawan Gupta, another convict in the matter, who claimed juvenility at the time of the crime.

This comes as the four convicts -- Mukesh Singh, Akshay Singh Thakur, Vinay Sharma and Pawan Gupta -- are scheduled to be hanged at 5.30 am on March 20.

Meanwhile, several other petitions are also pending in the matter in different courts.

The case pertains to the brutal gang-rape and killing of a 23-year-old paramedical student in a moving bus on the night of December 16, 2012, by six people including a juvenile in the national capital. The woman had died at a Singapore hospital a few days later.

New Delhi, Mar 31: India is likely to blacklist about 300 foreigners who came from 16 countries, including Malaysia and Thailand, on tourist visas but attended an Islamic congregation at Nizamuddin here that has become a key source for the spread of coronavirus in the country, officials said on Tuesday.

These foreigners were among around 8,000 people who attended the Tabligh-e-Jamaat at Nizamuddin Markaz facility in March, many of whom have shown symptoms of COVID-19, a Union Home Ministry officlal said.

About 30 of those who attended the Nizamuddin event in mid-March tested positive and at least three have succumbed to the infection in last few days.

"Those who came on tourist visa but attended the Nizamuddin event stands being in our blacklist as they have violated the visa conditions. Tourist visa holders can't attend religious function," a Union Home ministry official said.

If a foreigner is put in the Home ministry's blacklist, he or she can't travel to India in future.

A total of 281 foreigners were found by the police at the Nizamuddin campus in the last two days.

They include 19 people from Nepal, 20 people from Malaysia, one from Afghanistan, 33 from Myanmar, one from Algeria, one from Djibouti, 28 from Kyrgystan, 72 from Indonesia, 7 from Thailand, 34 from Sri Lanka, 19 from Bangladesh, three from England, one from Singapore, four from Fiji, one from France and one from Kuwait.

Most of these foreigners came on a tourist visa, an official said.