India

NEW DELHI (AP) — As the coronavirus tears through India, night watchman Sagar Kumar thinks constantly about getting vaccines for himself and his family of five amid critical shortages of shots in the country. But even if he knew how to get one, it wouldn’t be easy.

The main way is to register through a government website. But it is in English — a language the 25-year-old Kumar and nearly 90% of Indians can’t speak, read or write — and his family has a single smartphone, with spotty internet service.

Kanpur: Negligence in cleaning drains is not a very bizarre thing. Some drains are being cleared by the Nagar Nigam itself. Silts are cleaned up by the machines while safai workers are also engaged in manual cleaning.

It will be worthwhile to mention here that the cleaning will continue up to the last day of the ongoing month. In absence of the completion of the work, the contractors were served with the notices. A warning to blacklist them has also been issued. 

(Reuters) --- India's official tally of daily infections of coronavirus fell to the lowest in nearly six weeks in the past 24 hours, offering hope that a devastating second wave is ebbing, but government leaders said shortages of vaccines were a big concern.

Barely 3% of the country's 1.3 billion people have been vaccinated, the lowest rate among the 10 countries with the most COVID-19 cases, leaving India and its ill-equipped healthcare system vulnerable to a potential third wave, experts say.

New Delhi, May 25 (PTI) Delhi University's Hindu College lost one of its professors to coronavirus on Tuesday, its principal Dr Anju Srivastava said.

Dr CL Jonwal (43), was a zoology professor, who succumbed to the virus in the early hours on Tuesday at AIIMS.

He was promoted to the post of associate professor on March 30, and is survived by his wife and a daughter, aged 12, and a son, aged 5. His wife is an ad-hoc teacher of mathematics in the varsity.

New Delhi, May 25 (PTI) Delhi Food and Civil Supplies Minister Imran Hussain on Tuesday held a virtual meeting to review the progress of free distribution of ration in the national capital for the months of May and June under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) and the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojna (PMGKAY).

New Delhi, May 25 (PTI) There is no reason to believe that children will be disproportionately affected by the coronavirus in the coming weeks and months or in the next wave, the head of a government working group said, but stressed on the need for additional resource inputs to improve the paediatric Covid services.

New Delhi, May 25 (PTI) "Truth remains unafraid," Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said on Tuesday after the Delhi Police sent a notice to Twitter India in connection with the probe into a complaint about the alleged 'COVID toolkit'.

After two police teams descended on Twitter's offices in Delhi and Gurgaon, the Congress on Monday had alleged that the "cowardly raid" on the microblogging site's offices by the Delhi Police "exposes lame duck attempts" to hide a "fraudulent toolkit" by BJP leaders.

Chandigarh, May 24 (PTI) Punjab farmers in large numbers are marching towards Delhi borders, said state BKU leaders in the wake of a call given to observe May 26 as a "black day" to mark six months of the agitation against the Centre's farm laws.

Farmers are protesting at the Delhi's Singhu, Tikri and Ghazipur borders since late November, demanding the repeal of the laws, which the Union government claimed is for their benefit.

No talks have been been held over the issue between the Centre and the agitating farmers since January 22.

Ayodhya, May 24 (PTI) The Indo-Islamic Cultural Foundation has submitted to the Ayodhya Development Authority the building plan of the mosque, for which the Supreme Court had allotted five acres in the Babri Masjid-Ramjanmabhoomi land dispute case.

The mosque for which the building plan was submitted for approval will be constructed at Ayodhya's Dhannipur village.

New Delhi, May 24 (PTI) A high-powered committee chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi met on Monday to select the new director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).

Besides Modi, the other two members of the panel -- Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury and Chief Justice of India N V Ramana -- were also present in the meeting held at the Prime Minister's residence.

The meeting lasted for more than 90 minutes.