Record single-day spike of 15,413 COVID-19 cases pushes India’s tally to 4.11 lakh; 13,254 deaths

New Delhi, Jun 20: The government-imposed upper and lower limits on airfares may be extended beyond August 24 depending upon how the situation turns out, Aviation Secretary P S Kharola said on Saturday.

The government resumed domestic passenger flights from May 25 after nearly two months of suspension to combat the coronavirus outbreak, but placed lower and upper limits on airfares depending upon the flight duration.

It had said on May 21 that these limits would be in place for a period of three months.

"Depending on how the situation turns out, the fare band may have to adjusted beyond that (August 24) also. But right now, it is only for three months," Kharola said at a press conference here.

International passenger flights continue to remain suspended in the country.

However, the government started Vande Bharat Mission on May 6 to help stranded people reach their destinations through special flights.

Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said at the conference that during phase 3 and phase 4 of the mission, private domestic airlines have been approved to operate 750 international flights to repatriate people stranded amid the coronavirus pandemic.

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.

New Delhi, May 22: Reserve Bank Governor Shaktikanta Das on Friday extended the moratorium on payment of loans by another three months till August to provide much-needed relief to borrowers whose income has been hit due to the coronavirus crisis.

In March, the central bank had allowed a three-month moratorium on payment of all term loans due between March 1, 2020, and May 31, 2020.

Accordingly, the repayment schedule and all subsequent due dates, as also the tenor for such loans, were shifted across the board by three months.

As a result of this moratorium, individuals’ EMI repayments of loans taken were not deducted from their bank accounts, providing much-needed liquidity.

The EMI payments will restart only once the moratorium time period expires on August 31.