Indian Sub-continent

ISLAMABAD, Sep 19 (APP): The national tally of COVID-19 active cases recorded on Sunday were 63,909 with 2,580 more people testing positive for the deadly virus and 3,164 people recovering from the disease during the last 24 hours.

Seventy-one corona patients have died during past 24 hours, 61 of whom were under treatment in different hospitals and 10 of them perished in their respective quarantines or homes, according to the latest update issued by the National command and Operation Centre (NCOC).

NEW DELHI, Sept 19 (NNN-PTI) – At least nine people were killed in two separate road accidents in the western Indian state of Rajasthan, in less than 24 hours, police said today.

Five people were killed in Sikar district and four others in Hanumangarh district.

According to police, a car carrying five people hit the divider and fell from a culvert in the Ringas area of Sikar district, about 64 km north of Jaipur, the capital city of Rajasthan.

NEW DELHI, Sept. 19 (Xinhua) -- At a time when the United States has approved COVID-19 booster shots, just 3.5 percent of Africans are vaccinated, The Hindu reported on Sunday.

Quoting World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the Indian newspaper underlined COVID-19 vaccine inequity across the world.

On Sept. 14, Ghebreyesus revealed that "less than 3.5 percent of people in Africa have been fully vaccinated so far compared with 54 percent of the total population in the United States," said the article.

19 Sep 2021; AA: At least two people were killed and 21 others injured in a series of blasts in Afghanistan on Saturday, the first since US forces left the war-torn country on Aug. 31 and the Taliban assumed interim rule.

According to sources, three explosions occurred one after the other in the eastern city of Jalalabad and another in the capital Kabul.

Two people were killed in the explosions, according to a public hospital in Jalalabad, while 19 others, including members of the Taliban, were injured.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Female employees in the Kabul city government have been told to stay home, with work only allowed for those who cannot be replaced by men, the interim mayor of Afghanistan’s capital said Sunday, detailing the latest restrictions on women by the new Taliban rulers.

Witnesses, meanwhile, said an explosion targeted a Taliban vehicle in the eastern provincial city of Jalalabad, and hospital officials said five people were killed in the second such deadly blast in as many days in the Islamic State stronghold.

New Delhi, Sep 18 (PTI) Ustad Amjad Ali Khan is widely credited with putting the sarod on the world map but the musician, amongst India's best known, says his first love is the tabla and not the stringed instrument.

Khan, in an interview to Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor on Sansad TV, said he was so drawn to the tabla as a child that his "worried father" hid the musical instrument from him for a few months.

Kochi, Sep 18 (PTI) Senior Congress leader and Lok Sabha MP Shashi Tharoor on Saturday called for a permanent president to head the party, which is 'now at an interim stage'. He said all the Congress leaders have sought a permanent president for the party. "We all liked the leadership of Sonia Gandhi. But we are now at an interim stage.

For the last two years we haven't had a permanent president. That must be remedied. We need to instill energy in the organisational structure of the Congress party. We all have sought for a permanent president for the party," he said.

New Delhi, Sep 18 (PTI) The Supreme Court has quashed criminal proceedings against a man accused of forcible conversion, noting that the person who was stated to have been forced to convert to Christianity has denied the allegation.

A bench comprising justices U U Lalit, S Ravindra Bhat and C T Ravikumar set aside the order passed by the Madhya Pradesh High Court which refused to grant any relief to the accused, George Mangalapilly.

Chandigarh, Sep 18 (PTI) Punjab Governor Banwarilal Purohit Saturday accepted Chief Minister Amarinder Singh's resignation.

The governor, however, has asked him and his council of ministers to continue in office for the transaction of routine business till alternative arrangements are made, according to an official statement.

"Punjab Governor Banwarilal Purohit accepted his (Amarinder) resignation and that of his council of ministers," said the statement.

Bengaluru, Sep 18 (PTI) The Karnataka government on Saturday restrained officials from going before the media to air their grievances or share opinions, other than for bonafide official purposes.

It also put a stop on officials using social media as a platform to project government or department achievements as personal achievements and asked them to use accounts or handles created in the name of the administration to share official information.