Coronavirus in India live updates: Canada bans passenger flights from India, Pakistan for 30 days

Uttar Pradesh deputy chief minister Dinesh Sharma and his wife have tested positive for coronavirus."I and my wife have tested positive for coronavirus. We are in home isolation and following advice of doctors," the 57-year-old BJP leader said in a tweet in Hindi on Wednesday night."Those who have come in contact with me should get themselves tested and follow Covid-19 guidelines," he added.Chief minister Yogi Adityanath and Samajwadi party supremo Akhilesh Yadav had tested positive for the virus on April 14.

RJD president Lalu Prasad will have to wait for some more days before he is released despite securing bail in fodder scam cases as advocates in the state are abstaining from court work due to the surge in Covid-19 cases.Prasad is serving jail time after being convicted by a special CBI court in connection to a fodder scam case related to fraudulent withdrawal from the Dumka treasury. Last Saturday, the Jharkhand high court granted him bail in the case. Prasad has already got bail in fodder scam cases related to Deoghar and Chaibasa treasuries.

Karnataka health minister K Sudhakar on Thursday said that the state government now wants private hospitals to allot 80 per cent of beds including their critical care facility as the state is facing severe health crisis.In a hurriedly convened press meet, early morning on Thursday prior to leaving to Mysuru, Sudhakar said that the private hospitals must consider this as a health emergency and must allot 80 per cent of their total capacity, be it general wards, rooms, ventilators, high dependency units (HDUs) critical care unit (CCU), intensive therapy unit (ITU) and intensive care units (ICU)."We are staring at a grim scenario. We need to fight this out together. The government has decided to keep all small hospitals which are less than 30 bed capacity to handle non-covid patients, while all major hospitals above 30 bed capacity, will be converted into Covid care hospitals," he said.

Over 300 passengers flee Assam's Silchar airport to avoid mandatory Covid test, government to initiate criminal action, an official told PTI.

lleging a failure of governance in Uttar Pradesh in the face of the Covid-19 second wave, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra has said the Yogi Adityanath dispensation long ceased to act as a protector and support system for the people in the state, and has increasingly assumed the role of an "aggressor".In an interview with PTI, the Congress general secretary in-charge Uttar Pradesh also said the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic was simply another reflection of the UP government's "arrogant, autocratic and inhuman attitude" towards the people of the state.Her remarks came amid a steep rise in coronavirus cases, with the Uttar Pradesh government saying that the state had registered 33,214 fresh cases and 187 deaths on Wednesday, both the highest daily rise so far.Asked about the grim Covid-19 situation in the state, Priyanka Gandhi said the fundamental issue is that the government in UP has long ceased to act as a protector, facilitator and a support system for the public.

The Union Territory of Puducherry logged 987 new Covid-19 cases during last 24 hours taking the overall tally to 50,580, a senior official of the Department of Health and Family Welfare said.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Thursday wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the new Covid-19 vaccine policy, terming it as arbitrary and discriminatory and urged him to intervene immediately to reverse it.In a letter to to the Prime Minister, the Congress chief alleged that the new vaccine policy implies that the central government has abdicated its responsibility of providing free vaccine to all Indians between 18 and 45 years of age.