Category: NATIONAL NEWS

Nearly 48 per cent parents are not willing to send their children to schools till they are vaccinated against the novel coronavirus infection, says a new survey. The survey conducted with over 32,000 parents across 361 districts in the country found that 30 per cent parents are willing to send their wards to schools if coronavirus cases in their districts come down to zero. “Vaccinating children in the coming months is going to be key if children are to go to schools for physical classes. Forty-eight per cent of the…

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 India recorded less than 30,000 fresh COVID-19 cases after 132 days while its active caseload fell below 4,00,000 after 124 days on Tuesday, according to Union health ministry data As many as 29,689 new coronavirus infections took the country’s tally of COVID-19 cases to 3,14,40,951 while 415 fresh fatalities pushed the death toll to 4,21,382, the data updated at 8 am showed The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 3,06,21,469, while the case fatality rate stands at 1.34 per cent, it said The number of…

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Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut on Sunday asked who funded the alleged snooping of politicians and journalists by Pegasus and compared it with the Hiroshima bombing, saying while the attack on the Japanese city had resulted in death of people, the spying by the Israeli software led to “death of freedom”. “The modern technology has taken us back to slavery,” Raut said in his weekly column ‘Rokhthok’ in the Sena mouthpiece Saamana. He said the Pegasus case is “no different from the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima”. “People died in…

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The Mizoram government on Friday extended the total lockdown in Aizawl Municipal Corporation (AMC) and imposed certain COVID-19 restrictions in other parts of the state till July 31 to curb surging infections, officials said. The ongoing shutdown was scheduled to be lifted on Saturday. The state government, in an official release, said the present COVID-19 positive detection rate is “extremely high” despite stringent measures taken to arrest rising cases. “It is felt necessary to continue with the current restriction for prevention of the further spread of coronavirus, and to facilitate…

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Rajya Sabha Chairman M Venkaiah Naidu on Friday described the snatching and tearing of the copy of the IT Minister’s statement in the House as an assault on the country’s parliamentary democracy. Expressing anguish over the frequent disruptions in the House after the laying of papers, Naidu made a passionate appeal to members to allow the smooth functioning of the House so that more meaningful discussions like the one on COVID-19 issue could be held. He also posed several questions to the members to ponder over the developments that have…

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In what is seen as a show of strength, nearly 60 Congress MLAs gathered at the residence of new state party chief Navjot Singh Sidhu here on Wednesday, amid a suspense over a possible truce between him and CM Amarinder Singh. Sidhu and Amarinder Singh has been at loggerheads for the past some time, with the Amritsar (East) MLA recently attacking the CM over the desecration cases. The chief minister was also averse to his appointment as the state Congress chief. After Sidhu’s elevation, the CM had said that he…

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The DRDO successfully flight-tested the new-generation Akash surface-to-air missile system from an integrated test range off the Odisha coast on Wednesday. The defence ministry said the missile was test-fired at around 12:45 pm from a land-based platform and that the “flawless performance” of its weapons system was confirmed by the complete flight data. The new variant of the Akash missile (Akash-NG) can strike targets at a distance of around 60 km and fly at a speed of up to Mach 2.5. “The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) successfully flight-tested…

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 Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday asked BJP MPs to proactively counter the opposition’s misleading charges on the management of the COVID-19 pandemic and hit out at the Congress, saying it is in a coma and is unable to digest the BJP coming to power. Addressing a meeting of BJP parliamentary party, the prime minister said that the government was willing to hold discussions in both Houses of Parliament, but the opposition was showing the most irresponsible behaviour. Facing flak from the opposition on his government’s response to the pandemic,…

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The union territory of Puducherry logged 42 fresh coronavirus cases during the last 24 hours, the first time in four months it came down below the fifty mark. The 42 new infections took the overall tally to 1,19,745, Director of the Department of Health S Mohan Kumar said on Monday. He said this was the first time after more than four months that Puducherry recorded less than 50 new cases. The Puducherry region reported 36 of the fresh cases, followed by Karaikal (three), Yanam (two) and Mahe (one). They were…

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Twenty five people died in house collapses triggered by landslides following incessant overnight rains in Mumbai, which caused severe water logging and disruption of suburban train services and vehicular traffic in the financial capital on Sunday, officials said. The Western Railway and Central Railway briefly suspended suburban train services in Mumbai after the heavy rains, and many long distance trains were terminated or regulated at various stations, officials said. Seventeen people died as a compound wall came crashing down on some houses located on a hillock after a landslide, a…

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