With nearly 10,000 fresh cases registered within a span of 24 hours, the Covid-19 tally in India rose to 2,86,579 on Thursday, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

The Tamil Nadu government has ordered a Covid death audit in Chennai after it came to light that “not less than” 200 fatalities suspected to be linked to the infection did not make it to the state’s official toll, a senior health official told The Indian Express. The estimate is based on a “preliminary assessment” of the city corporation’s records, the official said. Tamil Nadu had reported 326 Covid deaths till Wednesday evening, including 260 within Chennai city limits alone. Officials blamed the “mismatch” on a “procedural lapse” since there was no system of reporting deaths recorded in the Chennai corporation’s registry to the government on a daily basis.

More than 67 lakh migrants returned to 116 districts in six states from urban centres. Of these, about 44 lakh, or about two-third, returned to 53 districts. And, Bihar topped the six states with 23.6 lakh returning to 32 districts, followed by UP with 17.48 lakh to 31 districts. These are the key pointers from preliminary data compiled by the Union Skill Development Ministry on the return of migrant workers since the Covid lockdown was imposed in March. Sources told The Indian Express that the final numbers would be much more as the data available so far does not include West Bengal and Chhattisgarh, two major destinations for returning migrants. Besides, the Supreme Court has directed the Centre and states to facilitate the return of migrants to their home states within the next 15 days.

For the first time since the outbreak of Covid-19 in India, the number of ‘recovered’ cases exceeded the number of ‘active’ cases on Wednesday. “As many as 5,991 patients were cured of Covid-19 in the last 24 hours. This takes the total number of patients recovered to 1,35,205, while the total number of active cases is now 1,33,632. For the first time, the total number of recovered patients has exceeded the active cases. The recovery rate now stands at 48.88%,” the health ministry said in a statement. An analysis of the 1,42,950 ‘closed cases’ shows that while 1,35,205 have recovered (94.5%), 7,745 have died.

Different quarantine rules in various states for incoming passengers has led to “confusion and uncertainty” that has prevented demand for air travel from being fully realised and led to an uptick in cancellations by the few business travellers that airlines are banking on, aviation sector players told The Indian Express. Kapil Kaul, CEO & director at aviation consultancy firm CAPA South Asia, said, “Demand is lower than expected largely due to the confusion and uncertainty at the state level regarding resumption, quarantine rules and continuing escalation in the infections. The expected pent-up demand has not been fully realised largely due to the confusion — which may be settling now.”

India’s Central Drug Authority on Tuesday permitted the Maharashtra government to undertake convalescent plasma therapy trials in severe Covid-19 patients at 21 government medical college hospitals (GMCHs).

Earlier, Dr Sushant Meshram, Dean, Government Medical College, Nagpur, and the trial’s principal investigator, had sought the drug authority’s permission for conducting multi-centric plasma trials in severe Covid-19 cases in a randomised control format. Read more here

As per the revised estimate that the AAP government is citing now, Delhi will have 5.5 lakh coronavirus patients by July end, and will need 1.5 lakh beds. As of now, the Capital has 9,179 beds — 4,929 occupied and 4,250 vacant — and 582 ICU beds set aside for treatment of Covid patients.

The gap is a factor of many things, including faultlines between the Delhi government and private hospitals, pending procurement of oxygen concentrators and ventilators, insufficient clarity on facilities where additional beds can be set up, and resistance from hotels meant to be attached to hospitals. Read more here

AS MUMBAI crosses the 50,000-patient mark, an estimated 40 per cent of the city’s population now stays in containment zones and sealed buildings as of June 9, shows data released by the BMC.

The data also shows that while close to 42 lakh people are living in 798 containment zones, more than eight lakh are residing in 4,538 sealed buildings as of June 9. This means, out of the city’s 1.25 crore population, more than 50 lakh people are in containment zones and sealed buildings. Read more here

At least seven persons died and 370 more tested positive in last 24 hours taking Haryana, taking the state’s total count to 5,579 and 52 deaths. While three persons died due to Covid-19 in Faridabad, two persons lost their lives in Gurgaon and one each in Sonipat and Charkhi Dadri.

Coronavirus continues to spread in NCR with Gurgaon getting 217 fresh cases along with Faridabad (41) and Sonipat (28) in the last 24 hours. Till Wednesday evening, Gurgaon had 1709 active Covid patients, Faridabad had 531 and Sonipat had 289 active cases. Read more here

THE STATE government has deferred the monsoon session of the state legislature to August 3 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

“It is difficult to hold the session from June 22 amid the outbreak. So, we have deferred the monsoon session, scheduled to start from June 22, and have now decided to hold it from August 3,” said Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray while addressing the media on Wednesday. Read more here

Eighty-six new cases were reported from Punjab on Wednesday, driving up the total tally of people reporting positive for novel coronavirus in the state to 2,805.

An eight-year-old girl from Ludhiana who was a contact of a positive case, a jail inmate lodged in Ludhiana jail and hailing from Fatehgarh Sahib, a shopkeeper from Sangrur, a pregnant woman and a police official, both from Pathankot, were among the new cases.

The maximum cases on the day were reported from Pathankot (19 cases). Amritsar, Faridkot and Gurdaspur reported 13 cases each. Ludhiana reported 11 new cases.

The district has 884 cumulative tally of positive cases till date with 265 still under treatment. Death-wise, Amravati district is the second biggest hotspot in the region with 17 deaths followed by Nagpur, which has 15 deaths from 862 cases. Amravati has a cumulative tally of 287 with 100 being under treatment.

The Amravati division consisting Amravati, Akola, Buldana, Yavatmal and Washim districts has death tally of 67 from a total patient of 1,450 cases with a death rate of approximately 4.8. The recovery rate of the division comes to about 67%.

Nagpur saw its biggest single-day jump in positive cases on the day with 86 new cases being reported from the city. The district's cumulative tally stands at 863.

Nagpur division comprising Nagpur, Chandrapur, Bhandara, Gondia, Gadchiroli and Wardha had a cumulative tally of 1092 cases with 17 deaths and 669 discharges. The division had an impressive recovery rate of 66 pc and death rate of 1.6%.

Vivek Deshpande reports from Nagpur

Taking cognisance of complaints from residents of housing societies regarding arbitrary restrictions on their movements as well as those on domestic helps and other service providers, Pune District Collector Naval Kishore Ram has issued directives to housing societies asking them to desist from making own rules and follow guidelines issued by the state government and district administration. Read more here

Stepping in to help stranded migrants reach their villages, Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan on Wednesday arranged for four special flights to send about 700 people to their homes in Uttar Pradesh. Two more flights with migrant workers will take off on Thursday, said sources close to Bachchan, adding he wanted to book a train for the migrants but the logistics did not work out.

The flights were ?organised? on Bachchan's directive by his close aide Rajesh Yadav, managing director of his home production company AB Corp Ltd. The flights took off from Mumbai for Allahabad, Gorakhpur and Varanasi on Wednesday morning with 180 passengers in each, the sources said. Yadav, on Bachchan's behalf, had also recently flagged off 10 buses for 300 migrants to reach their villages in Lucknow, Allahabad, Bhadohi and other places in Uttar Pradesh. This was done in partnership with the dargahs in Mahim and the Haji Ali, a statement said.

Bachchan's magnanimity evoked a wave of gratitude from the poor migrant workers reaching home free of cost in flights. After landing at Allahabad airport from Mumbai in a special IndiGo flight, an overwhelmed Korawan village native Ghulam Hassan profusely thanked Bachchan for helping him reach his home, that too in a flight free of cost.

Thirty one COVID-19 patients were detected afresh on Wednesday in Tripura, raising the state's gtotal corona tally to 898. Among these, 660 are active patients while 238 others earlier 'recovered' and were discharged from hospital In a late evening Tweet today, Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb wrote, "Out of 1375 samples tested for COVID19, 31 people found POSITIVE. All of them have travel history. The count includes: West Dist: 17 Sepahijala Dist: 8 Dhalai Dist: 1 Unokoti Dist: 2 Gomti District: 3 #TripuraCOVID19Count" The state government has tested 38573 persons for coronavirus till date.

IndiGo on Wednesday said it repatriated 666 Indians from the middle-eastern countries of Qatar and the UAE through four chartered flights.

'The IndiGo flight 6E 9076 transferred 210 passengers from Doha to Mumbai, flight 6E 9431 transported 168 passengers from Doha to Mumbai, flight 6E 9438 transferred 168 passengers from Doha to Kolkata and flight 6E 9245 carried 120 passengers from Dubai to Lucknow on Tuesday,' the airline said.

Scheduled international passenger flights continue to remain suspended in the country since March 23 due to the COVID-19 outbreak. However, after a gap of two months, domestic passenger flights began in India from May 25.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal Wednesday met Union Home Minister Amit Shah to discus the Covid-19 situation as the number of positive cases in the national capital crossed 32,000 mark. The chief minister said Shah has assured him of all cooperation in the fight against the coronavirus.

Met Sh Amit Shah, Hon’ble HM. Discussed the situation on corona in Delhi in detail. He assured of all cooperation.

— Arvind Kejriwal (@ArvindKejriwal) June 10, 2020

28 CRPF personnel deployed in Kashmir test positive for Covid-19 on Wednesday. (PTI)

Delhi records 1,501 fresh coronavirus cases, taking tally to over 32,000. Meanwhile, the death toll had climbed to 984.