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New Delhi, Mar 21: A couple was deboarded from a Delhi-bound Rajdhani train on Saturday after co-passengers observed a home quarantine seal on the husband's hand, the Railways said Saturday.

Officials said the Delhi-based couple boarded the Bangalore City-New Delhi Rajdhani at Secunderabad on Saturday morning.

When the train reached Kazipet in Telangana at 9:45 am, a co-passenger noticed the quarantine mark authorities are putting on suspected coronavirus cases —on the husband's hand when he was washing his hands. Other co-passengers then informed the TTE onboard.

The train was briefly detained and the couple was taken to a hospital. The coach was completely sanitised in Kazipet and was locked, officials said.

The air conditioning was also switched off.

The train left for its destination at 11.30 am.

People fleeing quarantine has been a common problem reported from different parts of the country.

Jan 13: India lost more than $1.33 billion to internet restrictions in 2019 as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government pushed ahead with his party’s Hindu nationalist agenda, raising tensions and sparking nationwide protests.

The worst shutdown has been in Kashmir, where after intermittent closures in the first half of the year, the internet has been cut off since Aug. 5 following the government’s decision to revoke the special autonomous status of the country’s only Muslim-majority state, a study said. The prologued closure was criticized by India’s highest court, which ruled Friday that the “limitless” internet shutdown enforced by the government for the last five months was illegal and asked that it be reviewed.

India imposed more internet restrictions than any other large democracy, according to the Cost of Internet Shutdowns 2019 report released by Top10VPN, a U.K.-based digital privacy and security research group. The South Asian nation recorded the third-highest losses after Iraq and Sudan, which lost $2.31 billion and $1.86 billion respectively to disruptions. Worldwide internet restrictions caused losses worth $8.05 billion, the report said.

The cost of internet blackouts was calculated using indicators from groups including the World Bank, International Telecommunication Union, and the Delhi-based Software Freedom Law Center. It includes social media shutdowns in its calculations.

India’s ministry of information and technology didn’t respond to an email seeking a response to the report’s findings.

‘Conservative Estimates’

Through 2019, India shut access to the internet for over 4,000 hours. The report added shutdowns in India were often narrowly targeted, down to the level of blocking city districts for a few hours to allow security forces to restore order. Many of these incidents were not included in the report.

“These are conservative estimates,” said Simon Migliano, head of research at U.K.-based Top10VPN. “Internet shutdowns are increasing and it shows a damaging trend.”

India’s other major internet disruptions coincided with two moves by the government that affect India’s Muslim minority. The first disruption took place in November in the states of Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan after the Supreme Court handed a victory to Hindu groups over Muslim petitioners in a long-simmering dispute over a plot of land.

There were further disruptions in December when protests erupted against the introduction of a religion-based law that allows undocumented migrants of all faiths except Islam from neighbouring countries to seek Indian citizenship. The government enforced shutdowns across Uttar Pradesh and some Northeastern states in order to quell the protests, the report said.

New Delhi, Jan 17: Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia does not have any car on his name, according to information shared in the poll affidavit filed by him for Delhi elections.

In the affidavit, it is also shown that while his self-acquired immovable property remained roughly the same as in 2015. His wife's self-acquired immovable property is worth roughly about Rs 65 lakh, as per his latest affidavit.

In the papers submitted during the nomination for 2015 Delhi polls, the senior AAP leader had declared that he owned a Maruti Swift car of make 2013.

However, in his 2020 affidavit, he has mentioned "nil" in the column for motor vehicles and other means of transport.

In the affidavit submitted on Thursday, his moveable assets were declared worth Rs 4,74,888 for 2018-19, as against Rs 4,92,624 for 2013-14.

In 2015, Sisodia had informed in his affidavit that he had bought a property in Vasundhara, Ghaziabad, worth Rs 5.07 lakh in April 2001. The approximate current market value of self-acquired property in 2015 was Rs 12 lakh.

In his current affidavit, the AAP leader has mentioned the same property. However, the approximate current market value of self-acquired property in 2020 has increased to Rs 21 lakh.

In his affidavit for the 2015 polls, Sisodia had also said that his wife had purchased a property in March 2008 costing Rs 8.70 lakh. At that time, the approximate value of her self-acquired property was Rs 20 lakh.