Vadodara: At least 10 people were killed and 16 others injured when a mini-truck in which they were traveling rammed into another truck on the outskirts of Gujarat’s Vadodara city early Wednesday morning, police said.

The accident took place at Waghodia circle when the mini-truck hit the other vehicle from behind, Vadodara Police Commissioner R B Brahmbhatt said.

The 10 people who died were from the Varachha area of Surat city and they were heading towards Pavagadh in Panchmahal district, he said.

New Delhi: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday sought the Centre’s nod for shutting down markets which could be COVID-19 hotspots, as authorities spelled out a fortified strategy including increasing ICU beds, doubling the testing capacity to 1 to 1.2 lakh, and deploying around 8000 surveillance teams in the wake of an alarming spike in cases.

Addressing an online media briefing, Kejriwal also said that the Delhi government has sent a proposal to Lt Governor Anil Baijal to allow only 50 people to attend wedding ceremonies against the earlier limit of 200.

As the national capital has witnessed a spurt in coronavirus cases, people coming from Delhi to Noida will be randomly tested for COVID-19 from Wednesday.

However, there will be no restriction on the free movement of people between Noida and Delhi, District Magistrate of Gautam Buddha Nagar Suhas L Y Suhas told PTI.

On Tuesday, Delhi recorded 6,396 fresh COVID-19 cases, taking the infection tally in the national capital to over 4.95 lakh, while 99 more fatalities pushed the toll to 7,812, authorities said.

These fresh cases came out of the 49,031 tests conducted the previous day, while the positivity rate stood at 13.04 percent.

During the media briefing, Kejriwal said that according to directions and guidelines of the Centre, 200 participants were earlier allowed in wedding ceremonies due to the decreasing number of coronavirus cases.

“Now, a proposal has been sent to LG Baijal for his approval to withdraw the previous order and bring the number of guests for wedding ceremonies back to 50 from 200,” he said.

The chief minister said the Centre and all agencies are making “double efforts” to control the COVID-19 situation in the national capital.

“We are sending a proposal to the Centre to give power to the Delhi government to impose lockdown in market areas which may emerge as COVID-19 hotspots,” the chief minister said.

Earlier in the day, the Delhi government had used the term of local “lockdown” in its press release, but later it revised it to “shut down”.

The Congress, meanwhile, said that the proposal would have a disastrous result and the government should impose a total shutdown of markets, public transport, and offices to save precious lives.

Kejriwal said that during Diwali, it was seen that many people were not wearing masks and were violating social distancing norms due to which the coronavirus spread.

“I hope the crowd in the markets will thin out and there will be no need to lock them down.”

“However, if violations of mask-wearing and social distancing are witnessed and there is a chance of these markets becoming local coronavirus hotspots, these could be shut down as a preventive measure for some days,” said Kejriwal.

Delhi witnessed a sudden spike in novel coronavirus cases since October 28 when the daily rise breached the 5,000-mark for the first time and it crossed the 8,000-mark on Wednesday.

According to official data, the city recorded over one lakh new coronavirus cases and around 1,200 deaths between November 1-16 while nearly 94,000 COVID-19 patients recovered during the same period.

Meanwhile, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan, during a press conference, said Delhi was testing very less in June at around 5,776 tests per day and that number rose to over 50,000 in September which then plateaued out.

The recent spike of COVID cases could be because many positive cases escaped the net, he said.

“In the last two days, the decision of urgent actions taken by the government included an increase in overall beds, including ICU beds, doubling testing to 1-1.2 lakh per day, the right mix of RT-PCR and antigen tests, strengthening and augmenting home care support, mobilizing doctors and nurses, enforcing quarantine of contacts, containment zone SOPs and COVID appropriate behavior,” he said.

A decision has also been taken to increase house-to-house surveillance of active cases in containment zones and other vulnerable pockets in the national capital and 7,000-8,000 teams will be engaged for this exercise, an increase from the existing 3,000 teams that are currently involved.

Elaborating further, NITI Aayog member V K Paul who heads COVID national taskforce said the ICU bed capacity will be increased from 3,523 to over 6,000 in the next few days in hospitals across Delhi.

“The capacity, which was 3,523, we will increase it to over 6,000 ICU beds in the next few days. Arrangement of over 537 new ICU beds have been made at the 1000-bed Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel COVID facility operated by DRDO,” he said.

The Delhi government is making arrangements for 2,680 ICU beds. In big hospitals under the Centre like Safdarjung and Lady Hardinge also beds will be increased. “We have a plan to increase ICU bed strength by 80 percent,” he said.

On increasing the testing capacity, Paul said that arrangements would be put in place to enable ICMR and central government laboratories to do 10,000 more tests a day. Besides that, 10 mobile laboratories will be deployed in the national capital.

“We will utilize the capacity of science and technology research institutes for testing too,” he said.

“If cases go up higher, we plan to ramp up the capacity to monitor 35,000 to 40,000 active cases in home isolation at any given time. We have a plan along with the Delhi government on that,” he said.

During the media briefing, Kejriwal thanked the central government for helping the people of Delhi in “such difficult times” and appealed to Delhiites with folded hands to wear masks and follow social distancing norms.

Meanwhile, the North MCD said it has kept 20 ICU beds for COVID-19 patients at its Hindu Rao Hospital, the biggest municipal hospital in the national capital.

New Delhi: The Delhi High Court Tuesday modified its earlier direction and made it clear that from now if an advocate or litigant stays away from the virtual proceedings after being intimated about the case, the concerned subordinate court can proceed in the matter depending on the urgency of circumstances.

In an administrative order, the high court said it has reviewed its August 15 office order by which it was directed that the courts subordinate to it shall not pass any adverse order in non-urgent or routine matters where the concerned advocate or litigant is unable to join the proceedings through video conferencing, till the time the physical functioning of the courts is resumed.

The courts are conducting proceedings through video conferencing in a restricted manner since March to contain the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The matter has been reviewed by this court and the aforesaid direction (of August 15) stands modified to the extent that if an advocate/ litigant stays away from the virtual proceedings after being intimated that a case would be taken up on a particular date, it be left to the discretion of the concerned court to proceed further in the matter, depending on the urgency and/ or other attending circumstances, the order said.

The air quality deteriorated to ‘severe’ category in Ghaziabad, Noida, Greater Noida, Faridabad and Gurugram in the National Capital Region (NCR) on Sunday. 

The air quality deteriorated to ‘severe’ category in Ghaziabad, Noida, Greater Noida, Faridabad and Gurugram in the National Capital Region (NCR) on Sunday. The concentration of major air pollutants PM 2.5 and PM 10 remained high in the five immediate neighbours of Delhi, according to the air quality index (AQI) maintained by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB). 

According to the index, an AQI between zero and 50 is considered ‘good’, 51 and 100 ‘satisfactory’, 101 and 200 ‘moderate’, 201 and 300 ‘poor’, 301 and 400 ‘very poor’, and 401 and 500 ‘severe’. The AQI in Faridabad (426) and Gurugram (424) was in the ‘severe’ category, while the average 24-hour AQI at 4 pm on Sunday was 448 in Ghaziabad, 441 in Noida, 417 in Greater Noida, according to the CPCB’s Sameer app. On Saturday, the average AQI was 456 in Ghaziabad, 425 in Noida, 394 in Greater Noida, 378 in Faridabad and 358 in Gurugram.

On Sunday, PM 2.5 and PM 10 were the prominent pollutants in Noida, Greater Noida, Ghaziabad, Faridabad and Gurgaon, according to the Central Pollution Control Board. The CPCB states that an AQI in the ‘very poor’ category may cause respiratory illness on prolonged exposure, while air quality in the ‘severe’ zone affects even healthy people and seriously impacts those with existing diseases.

The incident took place on Saturday, the police official said, adding that the reason behind the attack was not yet known.

AURANGABAD:A woman has died after her boyfriend allegedly threw acid on her and tried to set her ablaze in Maharashtra’s Beed district, a police official said on Sunday.

accused has been arrested and directions have been issued to try the case in a fast track court”.

Night that the accused, identified as Avinash Rajure (25), has been nabbed in Nanded.

The incident took place on Saturday, the police official said, adding that the reason behind the attack was not yet known.

The woman, originally hailing from Shelgaon in Nanded district, was travelling from Pune to her native place along with the accused, he said.

They took a halt at a lonely spot at Yalamb Ghat in Beed where the accused allegedly attacked the woman with acid and later tried set her on fire by dousing her in petrol, another official from Neknur police station in Beed said.

The accused then fled from the spot, he said.

The woman was later taken to a hospital where she died, the official said.

The victim’s age was not specified by police.

“The incident took place around 3 am on Saturday and the police came to know about it in the afternoon. We took her to a hospital around 2 pm,” the official said.

“We took a statement of the woman on Saturday, but she didn’t tell anything about why she was attacked. She later died. A police team is going to the hospital to get further information,” the official said.

The Nanded police have also been alerted and teams have been sent out to nab the accused, he said.

A case has been registered Indian Penal Code Sections section 326A (voluntarily causing grievous hurt by use of acid ,etc) and 307 (attempt to murder), the official said.

Places of worship geared up to re-open in Maharashtra from Monday with all SOPs in place for devotees visiting them amidst the Covid pandemic.

MUMBAI: Places of worship geared up to re-open in Maharashtra from Monday with all SOPs in place for devotees visiting them amidst the Covid pandemic. As per the Standard Operating Procedures  released by the Maharashtra government, religious places located out of COVID-19 containment zones will be allowed to remain open as per the timings decided by authorities, and devotees will be allowed inside in a staggered manner.

Face masks will be mandatory for devotees along with social distancing protocols. Earlier this year, all major organisers of the state’s biggest festival Ganeshotsav cancelled their celebrations and even the iconic Mohammed Ali Road street-food market remained shut during Ramzan due to Covid.

Sai Baba Temple in Shirdi, Dadgusheth Halwai Ganpati Temple in Pune are among the places of worship that will be opened for the people. “Devotees won’t be allowed to offer elaborate prayers. Only ‘darshan’ with COVID protocols permissible,” said a temple trust member of the Dadgusheth Ganpati temple. 

Similarly, the Shirdi Trust will only allow 6,000 devotees per day. Devotees can apply online for the ‘darshan’ besides the usual tokens from the counter. People above the age of 65 year and children below 10 will not be allowed entry, the Shirdi trust said.

Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut said the Uddhav Thackeray-led MVA government’s decision to reopen places of religious worship was neither a victory nor defeat of anybody. “The SOPs drafted by the government need to be followed strictly. There is no need to take credit. It was God’s will that people stay at home, and now it is God’s will that places of worship reopen with precautions,” Raut said. The BJP and various socio-religious outfits had been demanding that the government reopens places of worship for the devotees.