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Ahead of WHO meet, chorus for Covid-19 probe that puts China under the lens - world news

The chorus for transparency and investigation into the outbreak of the coronavirus disease is growing louder in the run up to the truncated session of the World Health Assembly 10 days later.The disease, which originated in China late last year, has killed more than a quarter of a million people across the world in a little over four months. China has been blamed by many countries for not giving the world a heads up about the disease that could have minimised its spread. Questions have also been asked of the World Health Organisation that has been accused of being overly deferential to China.The loudest criticism of China and WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus has come from the United States President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Michael Pompeo. Last month, the US suspended funding to the WHO to drive home the point.But the United States isn’t the only one upset about China and WHO’s role.Over the last week and more, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also lent the grouping’s backing to calls for an investigation into the origin of Covid outbreak.Also Read: China must come clean on Covid-19| OpinionThis week, the European Union declared that it would move a resolution at the World Health Assembly for a timely review of the international response to the coronavirus pandemic including the World Health Organisation’s performance.Diplomats in Washington and Geneva suggest that the resolution, which was being drafted in consultation with a large number of countries, presented a huge test for China in the run up to the global health body’s annual meeting.Beijing has been under fire over its early handling of the virus, which has pushed the global economy toward recession as it spreads around the world. Cases have been reported in more than 210 countries and territories since they were first identified in China in December 2019.British defence secretary Ben Wallace too questioned the role of China in the Covid-19 outbreak, asserting that China needs to be open and transparent about what it learnt, its shortcomings also successes.Ben Wallace’s remarks are seen in context of British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab’s statement in April that underscored the need to ask “hard questions” about how the coronavirus came about and how it could have been stopped.Swedish Health Minister Lena Hallengren made it clear last month that her government wanted the origin of the virus probed besides an investigation into the WHO’s role in the pandemic.It is in this context, diplomats in Washington said, that China appeared to have started approaching governments in countries for support in face of public criticism. This strategy was outed in Germany where Chinese diplomats approached German government officials to request them to make “positive public statements” on China’s handling of the disease. Officials in Berlin had declined the request.Beijing has had to battle accusations that it had attempted to cover up the outbreak of the disease and told the world about the disease much too late. For instance, questions are being asked why Chinese authorities stopped flights from Wuhan to the rest of the country after the Covid-19 outbreak but allowed international flights. Or why it clamped down on research by Chinese scientists into the origins of the virus.Authorities had reprimanded doctors including Li Wenliang, who later passed away, for sharing warnings about the coronavirus infection risk in WeChat groups in late December.Criticism about this approach to censor information reignited on Friday after a line that referred to the coronavirus disease being detected in China and spreading to the world was removed from an article written for a Chinese daily by 27 European ambassadors to commemorate the 45th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the EU and China.But there have been several instances of Chinese diplomats posted around the world launching attacks on the media for what they describe as efforts to politicise the Covid-19 outbreak. Read the full article

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Lok Sabha staffer tests Covid-19 positive, say officials - india news

A housekeeper of the Lok Sabha has tested positive for the coronavirus disease, according to at least three officials who did not want to be named, in what is the first case of Covid-19 among the 3,000-odd staffers in the Lower House.The staff member was not working in the Parliament complex but in one of the establishments of the Lok Sabha secretariat at 36 GRG Road.Follow latest updates on coronavirus here The housekeeper, according to the officials, had been at home since the budget session of Parliament was adjourned on March 23.“Approximately 10 days ago, he fell ill and went to Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital (RML) for check-up and tests, including ECG. He was discharged the same day,” an official said.Another official said he later developed cough, fever and body ache, symptoms of the coronavirus disease. Also read: Relative of Rashtrapati Bhavan staff tests Covid-19 +ve, 125 quarters sealed“On April 18, he again went for check-up at RML Hospital. This time, the doctors tested him for Covid-19. On Monday (April 20), his report came and he tested positive for Covid-19,” the second official said.The New Delhi Municipal Council and other agencies were contacted in order to conduct Covid-19 tests for his family members.Click here for complete coronavirus coverage The housekeeper has a wife, three sons and a daughter. His four grandchildren too were staying in the same house at Kali Bari Marg, New Delhi.One of his sons works with Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL), and is currently posted in the CCTV wing in the Parliament House.The Lok Sabha Speaker’s office has been appraised of the development, officials said. Also read| ‘Few tested positive’: Tablighi chief’s comeback on Jamaat spreading Covid-19 Read the full article

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Coronavirus crisis: 100,000 dead in 101 days, half of them in just a week - india news

In the 101 days since the world first heard about the mysterious new virus behind Covid-19, a person has, on average, succumbed to the illness every 90 seconds. On Friday, the toll surpassed 100,000, a milestone that could well be dwarfed soon at the current rate of the pandemic’s growth: fatalities have doubled and the total number of infections grew by 600,000 in the last week alone, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Research Center.In India, national capital Delhi recorded 183 new cases on Friday – the largest single-day jump. Most of these (154), however, were related to the Nizamuddin cluster from where roughly 2,300 have been taken to hospitals and quarantine centres. Overall, the country recorded 855 new cases and 19 new deaths, taking total infections to 7,549 and fatalities to 250.The numbers, which came on the 39th day of the outbreak in India, represent a steady flow that, while not ballooning in the way they did in many populated countries, threaten to quickly go out of hand. In western countries, the virus tore through in approximately six weeks: the United States and Europe together account for over 77% of all infections and close to 87% of all deaths.“The attention now should be on lower and middle income countries like India and the sooner you start testing at a widespread level, the better you will know what is going on in your country,” said Bhramar Mukherjee, the head of biostatistics at University of Michigan. “The acceleration curve in India looks completely different than other countries – India is doubling infections in about six days while a country like UK takes three days,” she said, adding that it is important to determine whether this is because of lack of reporting or other factors such as temperature and genetics.India is at present in the middle of a three-week lockdown that has brought the economy to a halt and led to a massive spike in unemployment, but is also credited with averting an endemic crisis. The government is likely to retain much of the curbs, maybe even extend the lockdown which is scheduled to end on April 14. “From an epidemiological perspective, you start seeing an appreciable drop in case counts when you lock down for 42-56 days but that may not be practical. You have to come out of a lockdown soon,” added Mukherjee, who is among a dozen academicians from three American universities studying the disease’s progress in India and other nations.Since the middle of March, some of the biggest economies of the world have locked down their cities and are now struggling with the question of when to lift some of these curbs and let industries restart to fend off further economic devastation.The head of the International Monetary Fund warned on Thursday the global economy is headed for the worst recession since the Great Depression of 1930s, and the UN labour organisation said 195 million full-time jobs could be lost in the second quarter alone. The rate of unemployment in India shot up from 8.41% to 23.81% in the week when the country was forced into a near-complete shutdown, according to estimates by Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy.Scientists and researchers say the way forward for the world will require new, focussed steps to enforce social distancing that are more sophisticated than population-wide lockdowns. “It is important that we start to think of exiting lockdowns as combination of policies. People will need to be allowed greater social flexibility and there will need to be innovative solutions, such as contact tracing through mobile apps,” said Steven Riley, professor of Infectious Disease Dynamics at Imperial College London, in a video published on Thursday by the varsity’s Abdul Latif Jameel Institute for Disease and Emergency Analytics.On Friday, Apple and Google -- who together control the mobile phone software market almost entirely -- said on Friday that they will work together to create contact tracing technology that aims to slow the spread of the coronavirus by allowing users to opt into a system that catalogs other phones they have been near. They will work together on technology that will allow mobile devices to trade information via Bluetooth connections to alert people when they have been in close proximity with someone who has tested positive for Covid-19.In India, authorities will also need to focus on mobilisation of resources since infections are likely to peak in different regions at different times. “We have seen that hot spots go through peaks at different times. India will need to find a way to move resources rapidly so that health care systems don’t collapse,” said Mukherjee. “Our lives are going to be constrained and restricted for a while everywhere in the world. It is important to be intelligent how we emerge from this, because cases will rise when we do and instead of having pickets, we need to build check dams to handle if there is a flood of cases,” she added.The unprecedented crisis has been met with unparalleled efforts in the scientific community that has raced to develop a vaccine to protect people from Sars-Cov-2 , the pathogen that causes Covid-19. According to an analysis in the journal Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, five vaccine candidates are in phase 1 clinical trials and 73 in exploratory or preclinical stages. A vaccine, the analysis says, is likely to be ready in early 2021 – the earliest estimate available at present. At the same time, however, there are many aspects of the pathogen that are still to be known. South Korean officials said on Friday that they had launched an epidemiological investigation after 91 patients thought cleared of the new coronavirus had tested positive again. Jeong Eun-kyeong, director of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC), said the virus may have been “reactivated” rather than the patients being re-infected.Other Korean experts said patients had likely “relapsed” rather than been re-infected and that false test results could also be at fault, or remnants of the virus could still be in patients’ systems but not be infectious or of danger to the host or others.(With inputs from Reuters) Read the full article

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Covid-19: India steps up medical diplomacy, flies plane loads of medicines to friends - india news

India has begun sending consignments of life-saving drugs as gifts to neighbouring countries to help them fight the coronavirus pandemic, South Block officials said on Thursday.Officials said the government was sending drugs to Bhutan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal, Myanmar, Seychelles, Mauritius and some African countries. One of the early consignments, an Air India plane with 10 tonnes of medicine, was sent to Sri Lanka on Tuesday.While neighbouring countries are being gifted consignments of paracetamol and hydroxychloroquine, the government has also cleared export of Covid-19 drugs to countries such as US, Spain, Brazil, Bahrain, Germany and the UK in line with the commercial contracts signed with Indian pharmaceutical companies.“Instructions to this effect have been issued by the commerce ministry, “said a senior official. It was pointed that the exports from special economic zones were allowed after steps were taken to secure supplies that India might need if the worst-case Covid-19 scenario plays out.It was after this assessment that India eased restrictions on export of hydroxychloroquine to the US and other countries that prompted US President Donald Trump to tweet his ‘ thank you’ note to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the people of India.India is also keeping a special watch on drug requirements of Gulf countries. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is in touch with his counterparts in the Gulf.“Besides, India is constantly in touch with the Indo-Pacific countries and those countries like US, France, UK, Spain and Italy who have been hit by the pandemic very severely,” said the official.Foreign Secretary Harsh Shringla will also speak to his Russian counterpart today to discuss the overall pandemic situation as well as offer to supply any life saving drugs to the strategic partner.India is buying medical equipment from Beijing through private suppliers as China is the only country that has surplus supplies. Read the full article

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Millions join PM Modi’s ‘9pm-9min’ call, light lamps to fight Covid-19 - india news

Millions of people across the country switched off the lights of their houses in a show of solidarity in fight against the coronavirus pandemic. Lamps were lit, torches were switched on and mobile lights were flashed from the balconies by countrymen who answered the call given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The Prime Minister, in a video message on Friday, had asked people to use the lights of lamps or candles to “challenge the darkness of coronavirus”. The act, he said, will send a powerful message to the world that has been widely affected by the deadly SARS-CoV-2 virus. Many users posted the pictures of themselves taking part in the ‘9pm-9min’ initiative. They were seen following the norms of social distancing too while doing so.   #9pm9minute pic.twitter.com/9VudCGDQYo — M.மகேஷ் ரெட்டி (@BjpMaheshReddy) April 5, 2020   #9pm9minute — Narendra Modi (@narendramodi) April 5, 2020   #9pm9minute Go corona Go pic.twitter.com/RRxoSp3hw0 — Jay Jasapara (@JasaparaJay) April 5, 2020   #9pm9minute pic.twitter.com/DCQlld0swv — नादान परिंदा (@prakashsingh932) April 5, 2020   #9बजे9मिनट Its like Diwali across India.. Surreal goosebumps feeling.. hats of to @narendramodi ji for uniting Indians like never before.. We will Defeat Corona.. #9PM9minute #9बजे9मिनट pic.twitter.com/bYLddpNrRW — TD (@imtapas99) April 5, 2020 #9pm9minute @narendramodi @PMOIndia pic.twitter.com/YkPGdNZn1b — aaditya keshav (@aaditya_keshav) April 5, 2020 Covid-19, the disease caused by coronavirus, has affected more than 3000 people across the country and left close to 100 dead. India is under a 21-day lockdown announced by PM Modi in his address to the nation on March 24. The lockdown, which has impacted the economy, is important to break the cycle of infection, the Prime Minister has said in his address. He also apologised to the people for the trouble, but said he knows they will forgive him because this is the right thing to do. The virus which started from China in December last year, spread rapidly across the world and in just 93 days, infected more than a million people. Over 200 countries are under its grip; United States is the worst hit now where the virus has spread in the community and President Donald Trump has said the recovery will take weeks and weeks. In India, the government has so far maintained that there is no community spread and has launched an aggressive containment strategy to check the spread of the disease. Read the full article

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How India doubled Covid 19 infections in 4.1 days - india news

India’s doubling rate of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) stands at 4.1 days, Lav Agarwal, the joint secretary of the Union health ministry, said on Sunday, explaining in how many days the number of infections gets doubled in the country. If the cases reported due to a religious gathering in New Delhi in March had not taken place, the doubling rate would have been at 7.4 days, he said, referring to the congregation of the members of the Islamic missionary group Tablighi Jamaat in the national capital.The headquarters of the Jamaat, or the Markaz, in Nizamuddin area, where the gathering took place last month, has emerged as a hot spot of Covid-19 infections in India. About one-third of the total cases in the country have been linked to the gathering. Authorities across states have launched a complex exercise to trace those who visited the Markaz and then fanned out across the country.“If it were not for the congregation, India’s rate of doubling— that is in how many days the cases have doubled — would have been at 7.4 days,” Agarwal said.The total coronavirus cases in India stand at 3,374 and the death toll has reached 79, Agarwal said, adding that 472 new Covid-19 cases and 11 deaths have been reported since Saturday. He said 267 people have recovered.But a PTI tally of figures reported by states showed at least 106 deaths and 3,624 cases. Of this total, 284 have been cured and discharged, according to the news agency.He said all states have been asked to put in place a district-specific containment strategy in place based on the detailed large outbreak containment plan issued by the health ministry on Saturday.“Surveillance and contact-tracing has been our main focus, and we will continue to put emphasis on that,” said Agarwal. Read the full article

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Tablighi Jamaat HQ is India’s biggest Covid-19 hot spot, linked to 1,000 cases in India - india news

One-third of the 3,000-odd Covid-19 cases reported in the country are linked to the Tablighi Jamaat in national capital Delhi that had held its annual congregation last month, the Union health ministry said on Saturday.The government had last week evacuated over 2,000 workers holed up in the central Delhi headquarters of the evangelical Muslim sect; 24 of them had then tested positive and 200 more had symptoms of the disease. There were fears that the sect’s followers could end up spreading the disease because many had already left Delhi and had been active in different parts of the country.The health ministry statement confirmed initial apprehensions that Jamaat followers, many of them foreign nationals, who spread out across the country could end up creating an explosion of cases. In all, the Tablighi-linked cases have been reported from 17 states and union territories including Andaman and Nicobar Islands.“Out of the total cases in the country, around 30 per cent are linked to one particular place,” health ministry joint secretary Lav Aggarwal told the daily briefing on Covid-19.Aggarwal sounded a word of caution that asked if the country appeared to have been successful to break the chain of transmission. It is a daily battle, he suggested, underscoring how one mistake could jeopardise the country’s preparedness to deal with the public health emergency. One mistake, and you go from being successful to unsuccessful, he said.The home ministry’s Punya Salila Srivastava told reporters that the agencies had, through a massive effort, located and placed around 22,000 Tablighi Jamaat workers and their contacts in quarantine. Read the full article

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Uddhav Thackeray talks about communal virus, then issues a warning on Covid-19 messages - india news

As the number of cases of coronavirus disease spiked beyond 500 in Maharashtra, chief minister Uddhav Thackeray on Saturday cautioned people against ‘wrong messages’ about Covid-19 on social media platforms.The chief minister warned of strict action against those spreading communally divisive messages amid reports that several such videos have been doing the rounds on WhatsApp, Tiktok and Twitter.“Like Covid-19 virus, there is a communal virus too. I am warning those who are spreading wrong messages to citizens and uploading such videos even for the sake of fun. This Covid-19 virus sees no religion,” Uddhav Thackeray said on Facebook Live.Coronavirus outbreak: Full coverageThe Maharashtra chief minister also said the decision whether the 21-day lockdown will be extended in the state will depend upon its people and how they follow the government’s directives on the measure to stop the spread of coronavirus.Maharashtra is the country’s worst-affected state and reported 47 new cases of Covid-19 on Saturday. With the fresh Covid-19 cases, the number of coronavirus patients in the state has gone up to 537.Mumbai has the highest number of Covid-19 patients in the western state, which saw its first case on March 9, and reported at least 20 deaths.“This is a vicious game, a game of self-restraint. We will have to follow self-discipline and stay at home,” the chief minister said.Also read: Govt puts curbs on exports of diagnostic kits with immediate effectThe chief minister also talked about the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi’s Nizamuddin, which has emerged as the country coronavirus hotspot after thousands of members of the Islamic missionary group have been found infected.More than 20 states have been scrambling to contain the spread by tracing, testing and isolating those who attended the Nizamuddin Markaz’s March event. Uddhav Thackeray claimed Maharashtra has been able to mitigate the effect of the outbreak of coronavirus at the headquarters of the Tablighi Jamaat.“We didn’t let what happened in Delhi happen in Maharashtra. It (Tablighi Jamaat event) was permitted earlier, but later looking at the situation we denied permission. Authorities now have traced all those went to the Delhi event from our state,” Uddhav Thackeray said.He said all those who had visited Delhi for the Tablighi-Jamaat congregation have been contacted and put in isolation facilities across the state.“Even if a few people have remained and could not be contacted, come forward, self declare and get tested,” the Shiv Sena chief urged.The jump in infections across India to nearly 3000 came after hundreds of patients who attended the congregation of the Tablighi Jamaat in a violation of several restrictions. The Union health ministry has said that at least 647 people among the thousands who gathered at the Jamaat’s headquarters, Nizamuddin Markaz, have tested positive in 14 states in the last two days. Read the full article

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Covid-19: ICMR advises antibody testing in hot spots for faster diagnosis - india news

The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) advised on Thursday antibody tests (or blood tests) in areas that are emerging as hot spots of the coronavirus disease (Covid-19), a move that will ensure faster detection of all possible cases in these clusters and help authorities buy some precious time to contain the fast-spreading pandemic. The test used now --- PCR (polymerase chain reaction) --- identifies the Sars-CoV-2 virus from throat of nasal swab samples of people with symptoms or high-risk individuals (health workers and family members) who might have come in contact with a Covid-19 patient. The antibody detection blood test will identify people who already have been infected, but have mild or no symptoms, according to experts who say the move will help us know how many have been able to fight off the infection and have become what could be called a “corona-blocker”.While the results of PCR tests take up to five hours, the antibody test results will be available in 15-30 minutes.“Population in hotspot areas may be tested using rapid antibody test. And antibody positives to be confirmed by RT-PCR (reverse transcription-PCR) using throat/nasal swab, and antibody negatives to be quarantined at home,” said the interim ICMR advisory.This means positive results will be reconfirmed using the PCR test. The antibody test uses a few drops of blood to determine whether a person has antibodies against the coronavirus. Antibodies in the immune system means the person had the disease at some point in the past, even though the person was never tested for it, and has now recovered. An ICMR official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity said, the move will mean getting quicker results even if there is a large number of people.“However, to ensure there are no false positives or false negatives, we recommend confirmatory PCR-based test for all positive results,” this official said.The ICMR also released a link (www.finddx.org/) having an information on all available CE-marked rapid SARS-CoV-2 antibody tests. CE-In Vitro Diagnostic approved kits can be used directly after due approval from Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) and intimation to ICMR.ICMR earlier made public an expression of interest to procure a million anti-body testing kits from manufacturers across the globe. However, due to the shortage of supply, the number was revised to 500,000 testing kits. The first shipment is expected by this weekend (April 5).Experts say that India’s decision to introduce anti-body testing kits could be a game.“These tests are expected to be very economical, simple and give results within 15-20 minutes. They are being used for contact-tracing in some countries. The Indian health system has lot of experience in doing such tests, like the ones for dengue and chikungunya. So it will be easy to ramp up the screening. It is also a great tool for surveillance, and building up epidemiological data. Indian companies would be able to produce them easily and at massive scale,” Lalit Kant, a senior infectious disease expert, said.Kant also had a word of caution. “While using these tests, one has to be careful about false positives as there may be cross-reaction with other virus antigens. Antibodies take time to develop, so if the test is performed early in the phase of the infection, may not give correct results. This decision is transformational,” he said.But he pointed out that the move would ease workload off main laboratories, as sophisticated equipment or highly trained manpower would not be needed for the process. “Mass screenings can be done using these tests to give us vital information on the number of people infected who never went to the hospital. It would give us an idea of the denominator to calculate fatality ratios,” he said.On Thursday, the Union health ministry said it identified 20 existing and 22 potential hotspots in the country, and asserted that although there was no evidence of widespread community transmission, containment measures will require large human resources.The advisory stressed capacity building, saying identified human resource needs to be trained online in areas such as field surveillance, contact tracing, packaging and shipment of specimen and hospital infection prevention and control, including use of appropriate personal protective equipment. Read the full article

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Coronavirus outbreak: PM Modi pitches for staggered relaxations after Covid-19 lockdown ends - india news

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday asked chief ministers to formulate a common exit strategy to ensure staggered re-emergence of the population once 21-day lockdown ends.The prime minister, who asked chief ministers to send across suggestions on how to exit the lockdown, stressed on the importance of social distancing. India has “achieved some success” in limiting the spread of Covid-19, the prime minister told chief ministers at a conference with chief ministers via video conference.This is Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s second video conference with chief ministers on tackling the huge challenge posed by the coronavirus disease. The first was on March 20.PM Modi and other central government functionaries stressed on enforcing the lockdown, helping the poor cope with food and contact tracing of people known to have been infected with the deadly virus, particularly in context of the Tablighi Jamaat participants.Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Home Minister Amit Shah and top bureaucrats were present along with the prime minister. Read the full article

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Pakistan court commutes death sentence of key convict in Daniel Pearl killing - india news

Ahmed Omer Saeed Sheikh, the terrorist convicted of murdering journalist Daniel Pearl, had his death sentence commuted to a prison term of seven years by a Pakistani court on Thursday.The Sindh high court gave its verdict following appeals by Sheikh and three other men convicted of kidnapping and murdering Pearl in Karachi in 2002, the Pakistani media reported. The high court overturned the verdict of an anti-terrorism court.Sheikh, a British citizen of Pakistani origin, was freed by India along with Jaish-e-Mohammed founder Masood Azhar and terrorist Mushtaq Ahmad Zargar in exchange for the passengers of Indian Airlines flight IC-814 that was hijacked by a group of Pakistani terrorists from Kathmandu to Kandahar in December 1999.Sheikh’s death sentence was commuted to seven years in jail while the three other men convicted of Pearl’s murder were acquitted and freed by the Sindh high court.Reports in the Pakistani media said Sheikh’s seven-year prison term will be counted as part of the 18 years he has already spent in jail.A two-judge bench headed by Justice Mohammad Karim Khan Agha announced its verdict on appeals filed by the four men 18 years ago after hearing arguments by prosecution and defence lawyers and examining the records of the case.The high court also dismissed an appeal by the prosecution seeking enhancement of life sentence given to the three other men – Fahad Naseem, Salman Saqib and Sheikh Adil.Pearl, an American national and the South Asia bureau chief of the Wall Street Journal, was kidnapped on January 23, 2002 in Karachi and later beheaded by his captors. Read the full article

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Covid-19: Of 1,800 rescued from Delhi’s Nizamuddin, most were from Tamil Nadu - india news

More than half of the people who participated in the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi’s Nizamuddin came from two states - Tamil Nadu and Assam - officials have said. The Jamaat’s headquarters in Nizamuddin area has emerged as one of the biggest coronavirus disease hotspots in India with 24 people testing positive and nearly 200 others showing symptoms of Covid-19.Giving statewise break-up of the number of people present at the congregation held earliet this month, officials said that 510 people came from Tamil Nadu, 281 from Assam, 156 from Uttar Pradesh, 109 from Maharashtra, 107 from Madhya Pradesh, 86 from Bihar, 73 from West Bengal, 55 from Telangana, 46 from Jharkhand, 45 from Karnataka, 34 from Uttarakhand, 22 from Haryana, 21 from Andaman and Nicobar Islands, 19 from Rajasthan, 15 each from Himachal Pradesh, Kerala and Odisha, nine from Punjab and five from Meghalaya. About 1,800 people attended the annual congregation, the officials said.There were 281 foreigners, officials said, adding that they flouted visa norms. Citing preliminary reports, they said that these people appeared to have entered the country on a tourist visa rather than mandatory missionary visa.Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) lawmaker Atishi has sought strong action against the organisers for hosting the congregation. “Strong action should be taken against the administrators of the Nizamuddin Markaz who organised a 3-day religious gathering, with 1000s of people from March 13-15, when Delhi government orders had expressly forbidden gatherings or more than 200 persons on 13th March itself,” the Kalkaji MLA said in a tweet. Strong action should be taken against the administrators of the Nizamuddin Markaz who organised a 3-day religious gathering, with 1000s of people from 13th-15th March, when Delhi Govt orders had expressely forbidden gatherings or more than 200 persons on 13th March itself pic.twitter.com/n0f1rLE5Xx— Atishi (@AtishiAAP) March 31, 2020 The Jamaat is an evangelical Muslim sect aimed at spreading the teachings of the Prophet. Delhi health minister Satyendar Jain said that 700 people who attended the congregation have been quarantined. There are about 394 more people in hospitals.The attendees came in from several nations such as Indonesia, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Kyrgyzstan and spread out to other parts of India such as Kashmir and Andhra Pradesh, creating a web of close contacts that now threatens to create an explosion of Covid-19 cases in the country.Eight of these people, including seven who went to Hyderabad and one who went to Srinagar, have succumbed to the disease. The Hyderabad deaths took place on Monday.All of them had been to the building in Nizamuddin - also referred to as a markaz - which shares a boundary with the police station and is close to the famous Nizamuddin Auliya shrine.The Jamaatis originally come from the Mewat region on Haryana-Rajasthan border and are currently headed by Maulana Saad.The Delhi government was also in the dark about activities at Markaz till the Indian security agencies confirmed the presence of foreigner nationals at the building in the densely-populated south Delhi locality.A hostel-like complex, the building has six floors with accommodations for up to 2,000 people on the upper floors. The basement and the ground floors housing a kitchen and a communal dining area. Read the full article

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India to push for coordinated, forward-looking approach to Covid-19 at G20 meet - india news

India is expected to push for a coordinated and forward-looking approach at the extraordinary G20 virtual leaders’ summit to be held on Thursday evening against the backdrop of a divide in the G7 over US efforts to label Covid-19 as the “Wuhan virus”, people familiar with developments said.Members of the G20, which includes 19 of the world’s largest economies and the European Union, are engaged in hectic negotiations to finalise a joint communique to be issued after Thursday’s meeting, the people cited above said on condition of anonymity.The members will also outline their individual positions in separate statements during the video conference that has been convened by G20 president Saudi Arabia to discuss a joint response to the Covid-19 pandemic.“India’s approach will be to have a positive and forward-looking outcome. This is a global challenge and requires a coordinated global response,” a person who declined to be named said.The people said Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his statement, is expected to refer to India’s role in forging a coordinated response through the video conference of leaders of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) on March 15 and how this could be replicated by other countries.On Wednesday, other members of the G7 spurned the US state department’s push to include the phrase “Wuhan virus” in a joint statement that was to be issued after a video conference of the grouping’s foreign ministers. The members issued separate statements that reflected the divisions within the G7.The person cited above said: “India doesn’t want to get into a blame game. The priority for us is to tackle the Coronavirus and to forge a coordinated global response to it.”“What the US state department has suggested is a red line,” an unnamed European diplomat was quoted as saying by CNN. “You cannot agree with this branding of this virus and trying to communicate this.”The proposed draft statement by the US also blamed China for the pandemic’s spread, the diplomat told CNN. The US was responsible for framing the draft statement as it is the current president of the G7, which includes the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Canada.The division within the G7 was reflected in a statement issued by French foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, which said he had “underscored the need to combat any attempt to exploit the crisis for political purposes and expressed the view that the unity of all to effectively combat the pandemic must now take precedence over any other considerations”.The US leadership, including President Donald Trump, has repeatedly referred to Covid-19, which was first reported in the Wuhan region of China last December, as the “Chinese virus” or “Wuhan virus”.Asked by journalists about a media report that the draft statement of the G7 had contained a reference to “Wuhan virus”, US secretary of state Mike Pompeo did not deny it. “There was a lot of discussion today amongst the G7 about the intentional disinformation campaign that China has been and continues to be engaged in,” he said. Read the full article

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Microsoft will come out ‘pretty strong’, Satya Nadella on Covid-19 impact - tech

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said he was confident that the company will come out strong following the disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic worldwide.“We have a great balance sheet, we are a very diverse business, we have a mix of annuity, non-annuity, that is also stronger than even the last time we even went into the financial crisis. I feel confident we’ll come out of this, frankly, pretty strong,” he said in an interview to CNBC.Nadella acknowledged that the company’s Azure and cloud services were under immense pressure as millions of people are staying home and working remotely. Microsoft’s Teams, a workplace collaboration tool, has become one of the top platforms for work-from-home employees. Teams is also being used for educational purposes.“If this was a previous generation of data center architectures or software architectures, I don’t think we would have been able to deal with this crisis as effectively as we have been able to,” Nadella said.On availability of the hardware products the company had originally planned, Nadella said the supply chain was coming back up in Asia. He, however, expressed concern on how the demand will be in the US and Europe which have been hit hard by the coronavirus pandemic.Earlier, Nadella in a letter to employees had described the pandemic as an “unchartered territory.”“We are in uncharted territory. Much is unknown, and I know how unsettling and uncertain this feels. Like many of you, there have been times over the past weeks where it has felt overwhelming and all-encompassing for me. I worry about the health and safety of my family, my co-workers, and friends. My wife and I worry for her aging parents, who are far away from us in India. I see the struggle in our local community, and around the world, the empty streets and restaurants, and I wonder when our social fabric will be restored,” he said in a Linkedin post. Read the full article

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Covid-19 lockdown: Hyderabad students throng police stations, seek passes to go home - india news

Hundreds of students, working men and women staying in private hostels in and around Hyderabad thronged various police stations on Wednesday seeking permission to go to their native places in view of the three-week nationwide lockdown imposed by the Centre.The students and employees, who were virtually thrown on roads by the hostel managements which announced closure of the premises following the lockdown, approached the police stations in large numbers requesting that arrangements be made to send them to their native places.Long queues of students and employees working in various private organisations were witnessed at several police stations like Punjagutta, S R Nagar, Jubilee Hills, Banjara Hills, Kukatpally, Madhapur, Raidurgam, Uppal and Gachibowli.“Many people got stuck in our paying guest accommodation. In this situation, the owners are asking us to leave for our hometowns. We are not able to find any sources of travel to get back to our native places. Please help us in this situation,” a hostel inmate P Santosh Kumar tweeted, tagging municipal administration minister K T Rama Rao.Another women hosteller, who was standing in queue at S R Nagar police station, said she was forced to vacate the hostel soon after the Prime Minister announced nationwide lock down for three weeks. “There is no way I can go now, as the hostel mess is closed since Wednesday morning. I want the police to help me go to my native place in Guntur,” she said.Responding to the tweets immediately, KTR asked Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation authorities and senior police officials to take up the issue with all hostel and PG accommodation managers to see that all guests were supported.However, with the hostel inmates preferring to go to their native places, the Hyderabad, Cyberabad and Rachakonda police commissioners swung into action and started arranging passes for them. “We shall issue passes to all of them after verifying their credentials including Aadhar card details,” Hyderabad Police Commissioner Anjani Kumar said.He said all the students staying in hostels preparing for competitive examinations, software employees and private firm employees could go home in vehicles to be hired by them, along with valid passes.“The vehicles which drop them at their native places should show the same passes while returning to the city. Under any circumstances, they should not misuse the passes,” Anjani Kumar warned.He said nearly 3,000 passes would be issued to various hostel inmates. “They don’t have to come on the roads and stand in front of police stations. They can apply online at covid19.hyd@gmail.com or give a message to the local police on WhatsApp to obtain passes,” the commissioner said. Read the full article

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800 people who came in contact with Covid-19 positive mohalla clinic doctor quarantined, says Delhi govt - delhi news

The Delhi government has put 800 people who came in contact with a 49-year-old Covid-19 positive doctor. The doctor worked in a Mohalla Clinic in Shahdara.“A total of 800 people who came in contact with the mohalla clinic doctor have been quarantined for 14 days,” Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said on Thursday.The doctor had tested positive for Covid-19 on March 21, after a 38-year-old woman who had returned from Saudi Arabia visited the clinic near his house. His 48-year-old wife and 17-year-old daughter have also tested positive.Both had been kept in the isolation facility at Guru Teg Bahadur Hospital.More on Covid-19:• Covid-19: Your guide to staying safe• What to keep in mind for your money during coronavirus crisis• Covid-19: How difficult it is to maintain 1-metre distance• How coronavirus is different from seasonal flu and common coldJani also announed that the number of Covid-19 positive cases has reached 36 in the national capital.A 35-year-old man from Jahangirpuri had tested positive for Covid-19 on Wednesday after coming in contact with the woman who had returned from Dilshad Garden. Four other family members of the woman had also tested positive for the disease earlier.The other two people who tested positive for the infection on Wednesday - a 21-year-old and a 41-year-old man - were both residents of Sainik Farms area. Both had travelled abroad and had been quarantined in government facilities on return.Five people in Delhi who had the viral infection have recovered. One person who tested positive had left for Singapore before his report came. So far, Delhi has reported only one death - the 68-year-old mother of a man from Janakpuri who had returned from Italy. Read the full article