RBI boost to virus images: Covid-19 news from India
Here are top Covid-19-related stories from India from Hindustan Times.
The Reserve Bank of India announced a steep rate cut and a three-month holiday on all EMIs on Friday, while infusing Rs 3.74 lakh crore of liquidity to stabilise India’s financial system in the wake of the 21-day lockdown prompted by the Covid-19 outbreak. The Centre, meanwhile, ordered the acquisition of 40,000 new ventilators and also shot off a letter to states to track down people who have come from abroad, intensifying surveillance and disease mitigation efforts.
RBI’s booster shot for Covid-19 battle
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday announced the steepest cut in the policy rate since 2008, a three-month holiday on all EMIs (including on home loans), a sharp cut in the amount of money banks need to keep with the central bank as reserve, and infused ~3.74 lakh crore of liquidity to reassure and stabilise India’s financial system in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Govt plans to double capacity with 40,000 ventilators, flags gap in screening to states
The Union government ordered for the acquisition of 40,000 new ventilators and separately shot off a letter to all states to enhance efforts to track down the tens of thousands of people who have come back from abroad, intensifying on Friday surveillance and disease mitigation measures to tackle the coronavirus disease (Covid-19).
Covid-19: What you need to know today
Purely based on the numbers and nothing else, the rate of Covid-19 infection seems to increase sharply once countries cross a certain threshold. On March 27, the number of cases in India crossed 800. It was 878 at 10:45pm on Friday. Clearly, the next few weeks are crucial for India.
Food, shelter in govt aid plan for migrants
The government is working on a way to help the tens of thousands of migrant workers, some with their families in tow, walking back home after the national lockdown enforced on Wednesday, get to their destination or, at the least, to also ensure they get food and shelter, according to government officials familiar with the matter.
House panel pushes for law to provide security to unorganised sector
Hundreds, maybe thousands of workers may have lost their jobs already on account of the Covid-19 crisis and the ongoing 21-day lockdown to combat its spread, but if the government manages to pass a law currently in the works, it could, in the future, provide such workers with much-needed social security and financial benefits.
Dedicated units to fast-track approval of new testing kits for Covid-19
Approvals for diagnostic devices for coronavirus disease (Covid-19) can be granted within seven to 10 days if necessary conditions are met, the country’s apex drugs and diagnostics regulator Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) has said at a time when India is trying to fast-track the process in the wake of rising cases in the country.
Surveillance and management now top on govt agenda
As the number of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) patients increases, India has turned aggressive and changed its approach to combating the disease from screening people at entry points to the country to reinforcing community surveillance and disease management.
Coronavirus worries sow an unsure crop
The 21-day national lockdown poses hurdles for the harvest that has already started in some places, despite a Friday order from the home ministry that includes farm hands in its definition of workers providing essential services.
India to take part in WHO’s Covid-19 vaccine trials, says ICMR
India will soon participate in the World Health Organization’s (WHO) ongoing trial aimed at developing vaccines for Covid-19, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) said on Friday. So far India hasn’t volunteered as there weren’t enough numbers to participate in the trial, but now that the number of Covid-19 cases has rapidly increased in the country, India decided to go ahead.
Covid-19 update: High-tech farm management system on anvil
Authorities will harness high-tech systems on an “unprecedented scale” to manage the vast farm sector, which heads into its crucial kharif or summer-sown agricultural season, even as experts wonder if the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) farming will disrupt farming itself.
In times of a Covid-19 lockdown, protecting lives and livelihoods | Opinion
The short-term tradeoff between lives and livelihoods is manifest and nobody really knows where the precise balance lies. Too limited a lockout period risks the lives of potentially hundreds of thousands of people; too restrictive a lockout could result in the eruption of serious social unrest, writes Devesh Kapur
First images from India of virus causing Covid-19 captured by scientists
The first images from India of the coronavirus causing the Covid-19 disease have been caught by scientists in Pune, using transmission electron microscope imaging. They were published in the Indian Journal of Medical Research.
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