India

Mumbai, Jul 18 (PTI) Megastar Amitabh Bachchan, son Abhishek Bachchan, daughter-in-law Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and granddaughter Aaradhya Bachchan are responding well to the treatment to COVID-19, hospital sources said on Saturday.

Amitabh, 77, and Abhishek, 44, are in the isolation ward of Nanavati hospital since July 11 after they were diagnosed with COVID-19, while Aishwarya, 46 and eight-year-old Aaradhya were shifted to the facility on Friday night, almost a week after they tested positive for the virus.

New Delhi, July 18 (PTI) With 34,884 people testing positive for coronavirus in the last 24 hours, India's COVID-19 caseload surged to 10,38,716 while 6,53,750 patients have recovered from the disease so far, according to data by the Union Health Ministry.

The death toll due to COVID-19 rose to 26,273 with 671 fatalities reported in a day, the data updated at 8 am on Saturday showed.

Srinagar, July 17, 2020: Two Kashmiris were killed on Friday by Indian security forces in Nagnad area  of Kulgam district of the Indian Administered Kashmir, Indian officials said.

KANPUR: Friday's clear sky with a real feel of 44° Celsius keeps the people quite uncomfortable. No rain has occurred in the surrounding areas of the city. The day definitely passed restlessly.

The sunny weather led the residents confined into the houses if they have no important work to complete.

One said that the hotness and humidity gave rise to the top of warm weather and nothing but electrically generated cool air satisfied us.

Another told there was an urgent requirement of the rain during the Sawan.

Mumbai, Jul 17 (PTI) The states, reeling from massive revenue losses due to coronavirus lockdowns, have front-loaded their borrowings by a whopping 76 per cent so far this fiscal to Rs 1.93 lakh crore, says a report.

Front-loading of market loans has been on the back of the Centre relaxing the ways and means advances norms to manage cash-flow mismatches due to the pandemic, says a report by Care Ratings.

Guwahati, Jul 16 (PTI) Peasant leader Akhil Gogoi was on Thursday granted bail by the Gauhati High Court in three cases lodged by the Assam Police in connection with the violent anti-Citizenship (Amendment) Act protests in December last year.

However, he will remain in jail for the cases being probed by the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

Hearing the bail applications in the three cases registered at Chabua police station in Dibrugarh district, Justice Manash Ranjan Pathak granted bail to the Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) leader.

Tirupati, July 16 (PTI) As many as 140 staff members of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) that governs Lord Venkateswara's shrine at Tirumala, near here, have tested positive for COVID-19 since June 11.

The temple was re-opened on that date due to the coronavirus lockdown, a top functionary of TTD said.

Speaking to reporters, TTD chairman YV Subba Reddy said 14 'archakas' (assistant priests), 16 workers in laddu-making kitchens and 56 security personnel were among the infected.

New Delhi, Jul 16 (PTI) India on Thursday said the South China Sea is a "part of global commons" and it firmly stands for the freedom of navigation and overflight in these international waterways, an assertion that comes days after the US rejected most of China's maritime claims in the region.

India's assertion comes after the Trump administration, in a major policy decision, categorically rejected the territorial claims made by Beijing in the South China Sea, stating that it has no legal grounds to unilaterally impose its will on the region.

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India’s defence minister said on Friday he hoped talks could bring some sort of resolution to a border standoff with China that led to a deadly clash last month, though India would not cede an inch of territory.

Top commanders have been holding lengthy talks near a stretch of disputed Himalayan border in the Ladakh region, where Indian and Chinese troops have been locked in confrontation since early May.

NEW DELHI (AP) — India crossed 1 million coronavirus cases on Friday, third only to the United States and Brazil, prompting concerns about its readiness to confront an inevitable surge that could overwhelm hospitals and test the country’s feeble health care system.

A surge of 34.956 new cases in the past 24 hours took the national total to 1,003,832.

The Health Ministry also reported a record number of 687 deaths for a total of 25,602. It said 635,757 people have recovered and the recovery rate was continuing to improve at 63%.