Topic
The latest news on the coronavirus situation in the country, including community spread in India, the Punjab “super spreader” who led to the quarantining of tens of thousands of people, the situation in Bangalore, the India lockdown and the donation of U$66 million by Mukesh Ambani, the richest man in India, after he was slammed for ringing a bell from his balcony in support of healthcare workers.
- Indian PM Narendra Modi inaugurated a grand new parliament building on Sunday, a major part of his Hindu nationalist government’s remodelling of New Delhi
- Event was boycotted by 20 opposition parties who said Modi violated protocol to inaugurate the complex when it should have been done by the president
Without up-to-date data, government planners will struggle to determine economic and social trends and frame policy, analysts say.
The country’s huge and increasingly prosperous population – it recently superseded China as the world’s most populous country – and a surge in foreign tourists will ensure a race among hospitality providers to meet rapidly expanding demand for accommodation, analysts said.
The wave is being attributed to a mix of XBB subvariants – a highly transmissible Omicron strain that, so far, isn’t causing widespread severe illness.
On Friday, India saw the highest daily case count since September, so federal government urge states to dramatically increase testing.
Around 60,000 people are expected at the festival taking place in Mumbai over the weekend.
A string of Hindi-language films proved to be box-office bombs last year amid a wider change in viewing habits spurred on by India’s pandemic-era cinema closures.
Tapas Sandilya, who lost his wife of 39 years to Covid-19, commissioned a life-size silicone figure of her for his living room to alleviate his grief.
India has begun randomly testing 2 per cent of international passengers arriving at its airports for Covid-19, as the country steps up surveillance for new coronavirus variants.
A tech slump hitting firms from Amazon to Twitter has spooked investors whose cash fuelled aggressive hiring in the tech sector during the pandemic years. Tech workers in India have not been spared as global tech giants cut back.
More Indian women in rural areas are turning to formal micro lenders instead of loan sharks who often charge exorbitant interest rates. Micro lenders have an increasing presence in rural areas where banks have limited reach or are unwilling to lend to the poor, analysts say.
Ponniyin Selvan 1, based on a 1950s novel series with a cult following, has become the second highest-grossing Tamil film globally of all time, after Rajinikanth’s 2.0.
More than 23,000 Indian students enrolled at Chinese universities are reportedly stranded back home due to Covid-19 visa restrictions.
The issue of lonely old folk is likely to get increasingly acute as India’s population growth slows and its number of elderly people grows.
As India marks the 75th anniversary of the end of British rule, its economy is booming, although there are problems, including inequality, polarisation, child malnutrition and not enough jobs to go around.
New figures show that dozens of funding applications have been approved in India to bolster the production of crucial drug components – many of which have come almost exclusively from China for years.
Visa delays amid a post-pandemic travel surge are prompting Indian citizens to cancel their overseas summer plans or visit nearby Asian countries.
Countries such as Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, China, Australia and New Zealand are being urged to take precautions as authorities grapple with economic fallout from pandemic while trying to avoid unpopular restrictions.
Her Congress party said the 75-year-old was stable and being kept in hospital for observation; she tested positive for the virus on June 2.
Though women in India represent 48 per cent of the population, they contribute only around 17 per cent of GDP compared to 40 per cent in China.
The World Health Organization’s estimate is around 10 times the country’s official Covid-19 death toll for 2020-21. India’s health ministry said the world health body ‘conveniently chose to ignore the available data’.
A soon to be released WHO report estimates India’s actual Covid-19 death toll is as high as 4 million, about eight times New Delhi’s official figure.
Millions of Indonesians rejoiced at the return of the tradition of homecoming after two years of subdued festivities, as Muslims in Malaysia filled bazaars and shopping malls.
Malaysia saw some of the worst Covid-19 outbreaks in region, but infection surges subsided after vaccine drive; Indian PM Modi called on states to urgently increase inoculations as daily cases touch six-week high.
The streets around the Jama Masjid mosque in the Indian capital’s old quarter are thronged with Muslims celebrating the holy month of Ramadan publicly for the first time in three years.
People in South Korea will still be required to wear masks, however, with the government planning to review whether to lift a rule for masks outdoors in two weeks.
