Nagpur: Vidarbha once again reported a hike of over 3,000 Covid cases — 11th in 15 days of September — on Tuesday. This took the total case count of the region to 1,04,686. However, 45,773 (44%) of these cases have been reported in just 15 days of September. This number is even bigger than cases reported in the entire August (43,981).
Total 93 deaths were reported in the region on Tuesday taking the toll to 2,719. Barring Gadchiroli, all districts in Vidarbha reported deaths. These include Nagpur (51), Amravati (11), Wardha (7), Chandrapur (6), Yavatmal (5), Gondia (4), Bhandara (3), Akola (3), Buldhana (2), and Washim (1). Of the total deaths, 42% have been reported in 15 days of September.
The new cases include Nagpur (1,536), Amravati (296), Chandrapur (251), Yavatmal (245), Buldhana (218), Washim (165), Bhandara (142), Gondia (138), Wardha (122), Akola (73), and Gadchiroli (47).
On the other hand, 2,666 patients recovered and were discharged during the day. These include Nagpur (1,666), Buldhana (273), Washim (167), Bhandara (133), Amravati (121), Gondia (103), Chandrapur (88), Wardha (56), Akola (31), and Gadchiroli (28). Now, recoveries are nearing the 75,000 mark. The recovery rate of Vidarbha has surpassed 70%. In the last 15 days, Vidarbha’s recovery rate has seen surge of 7%.
Amravati records 11 deaths, toll reaches 215
AMRAVATI: Eleven deaths, including six of two days ago, and a spike of 296 cases took the district’s Covid death toll to 215 and count to 9,381 on Tuesday. The civil surgeon’s office stated that five patients succumbed to Covid in the last 24 hours while there were six more deaths two days ago that were not reported earlier. The 11 deceased included three women aged 59 ( Ravinagar, Paratwada), 43 (Patvipura) and 39 ( Kasbegawhan, Anjangaon Surji). The deceased males included a 45-year-old from Paratwada, 50-year-old from Bhatkuli, 53-year-old from Navsari, 64-year-old from Yashodanagar lane no. 2, 53-year-old from Rukmininagar, 50-year-old from Turanjade in Anjangaon Surji, 45-year-old from Rampuri Camp here and a 60-year-old from Dhamangaon.
With 121 getting discharge, the number of recovered patients has reached 7,212. There are now 1,954 active cases, including ten taking treatment in Nagpur and 488 in home isolation.
The rural belt accounted for 86 cases, taking the count to 2,973. Anjangaon Surji reported 19 cases while Daryapur ten. Bhatkuli and Chandur Railway reported eight each while Purva Daturna village recorded seven. Chandur Bazar reported five while Rajura four. Three cases came from Warud while two each from Nandgaon Peth, Nandgaon Khandeshwar, Teosa, Achalpur, Dharni, Rahatgaon and Mahuli Jehangir. Single cases came from eight other villages and eight cases were from outside the district.
The remaining 202 cases were reported from the city with Yashodanagar reporting nine. Rajapeth reported six cases while five each came from SRPF Camp and Sainagar . Four each came from Police Ashiana Club, Amba Apartment, Jewadnagar and Shikshak Colony in Ramnagar. Three cases each were reported from Dasturnagar, Badnera, Ravinagar, Gopalnagar, Mohannagar, Surajnagar, Girls High School Square, Kalyannagar and Budhwara. Sixteen localities reported two cases each while the rest came from different localities.
CHANDRAPUR: There was uproar in the city over lack of beds for Covid patients and private hospitals asking for advance deposits up to Rs1.50 lakh as the total surged to 6,309 with detection of 251 new cases. Meanwhile, six deaths were registered during the day taking the toll to 84. There was also a record discharge of 493 patients during the day, taking the recoveries to 3,538. There are now 2,687 active patients here.
Guardian minister Vijay Wadettiwar agreed that the health department lacks manpower to deal with the situation as the number of patients is rising rapidly, but said they will recruit manpower through outsourcing. President of Chandrapur IMA Dr Anil Madurwar clarified that private hospital are charging as per the directives of the government.
Health minister Rajesh Tope held a video conference with people’s representatives and officials on Monday and directed them recruit 50 doctors immediately. He directed to set up a taskforce for Covid-19 and take over private ambulances.
WARDHA: As many as 7 deaths were recorded for the second consecutive day. Total 122 new cases were reported while 56 were discharged after recovery.
The deceased included four men from Wardha, a 65-year-old man from Pulgaon, 54-year-old woman from Hinganghat and a 70-year-old man from Karanja. The cases were recorded from Wardha (53), Hinganghat (27), Deoli (21), Ashti (4), Arvi (3) and two each from Selu and Samudrapur.
Of the 630 reports, 84 men and 28 women tested positive. The total case count in the district has reached 2,741. The active cases are 1,313 in the district .
YAVATMAL: The district recorded 5 deaths on Tuesday. The deceased include a 49-year-old man and a 30-year-old woman from Yavatmal, 66-year-old man from Pandharkawda, 65-year-old man from Darwha and a 60-year-old woman from Pusad. There are 245 new positive patients of which 165 are men and 80 women. Yavatmal alone has reported 64 new positive patients of whom 46 are men and 18 women. According to GMC sources, there are 306 patients in isolation wards. Total 63,444 swab samples have been sent to the lab so far of which 62,014 reports were received.
BULDHANA: Recording another 200+ spike, Buldhana’s case count surged to 5254 on Tuesday. Two men — a 55-year-old and a 75-year-old — both under treatment in Buldhana died taking the toll to 66. Record breaking 273 patients recovered on Tuesday. With this, the number of recovered patients surpassed the 4,000-mark. Buldhana’s recovery rate is about 77%. Total 1,155 patients are under treatment.
WASHIM: It was a record-breaking day for Washim district as 165 new patients were detected while 167 recovered. Total number of cases surpassed the 3,000-mark and reached 3,041. Recoveries surpassed the 2,000-mark and reached 2,128. Washim’s recovery rate is still at 70%. A Covid-19 patient died in Washim taking the death toll to 55. Now, 858 patients are under treatment here.
AKOLA: Three women patients died during treatment in Akola taking the death toll of the district to 189. All three deceased women were senior citizens and were under treatment since September 8 and 12. Akola witnessed a spike of 73 cases and taking the total to 5,796 while 31 patients were discharged. Now, the district has 1,204 patients under treatment.
GADCHIROLI: The district reported 47 new cases and 28 recoveries. Now, there are 1,709 patients in the district — 1,251 of them recovered and 7 dead. The district has 451 patients under treatment.

Nagpur: Workers of Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind (JuH), who are carrying out last rites of Covid victims in Kamptee, lost a comrade while on the job. Naqeeb Akhtar, 54, died of cardiac arrest on Sunday as he was waiting with the team to go for a funeral.
JuH, an organization of clerics, has volunteered to carry out funerals of Covid victims irrespective of the religion. Dressed in PPE kits, a team of four handles Covid body as others like Naqeeb assisted them from a distance. “Our team had returned from one funeral and were waiting to receive the second body. Naqeeb offered us to have a cup of tea till then. As we waited at the shop ,Naqeeb tumbled, we rushed him to hospital but he was dead by then,” said Maulana Mumtaz Ahmed, president of JuH Kamptee. He was accompanying Naqeeb at that time.
Ahmed said JuH had conducted nearly 50 funerals in Kamptee out of which 30 may have been persons of other religions. “Naqeeb used to accompany us often, he would stand at a distance and provide us assistance. As wearing PPEs left us sweating, Naqeeb was always there to offer water,” he said. “We continued the work, as Naqeeb’s body was taken to his home. Another team took over to do the last rites for which we had come,” said Ahmed.
Soon messages were spread on the social media with condolence pouring in. Naqeeb was an active worker and had taken part in relief work during lockdown and also last month’s flood that had affected Kamptee too, said his colleague.

Nagpur: After Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR), Pench and Bor tiger reserves as well as Umred-Paoni-Karhandla wildlife sanctuary will also open for tourism from October 1 as per the protocol issued by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA).
In a release, Pench Tiger Reserve (PTR) filed director Ravikiran Govekar said, “From October 1 to 15, tourism will remain open offline in a restricted way depending on the condition of roads. From October 16 to 30, online bookings can be done on the mahaecotourism.gov.in website for 50% vehicle capacity. From November 1 to June 30, 2021, bookings will be normal.”
With Covid cases on the rise, only 30% of the accommodation capacity will be allowed for booking. There is no accommodation available for now at the complexes at Kolitmara and Surewani.
Not only masks, the tiger reserve has also made face shield compulsory for guides, drivers, and tourists. Gypsies will be mandatory at Bor dam and Karhandla gates while the Adegaon gate has been closed till further orders due to bad roads.

Ludhiana: The two-day statewide strike called by tent house owners, caterers and other allied service providers started here on Tuesday. Accusing the state government of not paying any attention to their woes, the businessmen related with the industry held car rallies in different parts of the city, along with the drivers of commercial vehicles, workers, staff, etc. The businessmen have stopped accepting any work orders till Wednesday and they will keep their shops shut and will hang posters of their demands on their properties.
Giving more information, Raj Aggarwal, president of the Ludhiana Tent Dealers Welfare Association (LTDWA), said “The first day of our strike was very successful as all our members participated in the protest with full enthusiasm and car rallies were conducted in different parts of the city. We got huge support from our staff, workers and all other persons attached with us who also participated in these rallies. The main motive of this entire movement which will continue on Wednesday as well is to wake up the state government and ask it to pay attention towards the huge problems we are facing and the plight of businessmen, workers and their families who are attached with this business.”
He further said, “Our major demands include doing away with the capping of number of persons allowed in marriage and other functions as this is killing our business. Until the capping goes, there will be no revival of our businesses and along with loss of thousands of jobs in Ludhiana alone, hundreds of businesses will shut down permanently.”
According to Shiv Shankar Rai, general secretary of the association, “Along with the restriction on the number of persons, the 9pm deadline to close everything is killing our industry. We want the deadline to be extended to at least till 11pm as this will give push to our business as people will start organising functions with proper budget. Presently, we are incurring huge losses as no functions are allowed beyond 30 persons and the function should end by 9pm as per the lockdown guidelines.”
He added, “On Tuesday, we kept our offices and shops completely closed and did not attend even a single query. Our protest will continue on Wednesday as well and we plan to hang banners of our demands on the shutters of our shops and take selfies. Then we will post our pictures on social media by tagging all leaders of ruling and opposition parties, so that they wake up to our problems.”

Ludhiana: City residents will have to travel on potholed roads for some more time because the civic body will not start work on its bitumen plant this week, as stated by mayor Balkar Sandhu recently. Officials said they would start the plant only after they were absolutely sure that there would be no more rain.
Last week, Mayor Sandhu said if everything went according to plan, they would start repair work from September 15. Officials said they tried to fill the potholes with tiles and other material but it did not hold as roads were damaged due to rain and waterlogging. However, they said patch work done before the rainy season sustained for a long time and now roads were damaged in new areas.
Superintending engineer of bridges and road department Parveen Singla said, “We will be able to start road repair work most probably by next Monday. Though rainfall has stopped and it did not rain from almost 15 days, but they want to be completely sure that rainy season is over. If they started patch work and repair of roads now, another spell of rain will render the work futile.” He said major roads would be repaired first, followed by internal streets so that patch work could be finished before the onset of winter.
Under the circumstances, residents have no choice but to wait. Ashok Parmar, a resident of Chander Nagar complained, “Here in the area, a few roads are in such a condition that nobody can say a road was constructed at this place because now only potholes are left.” He underlined the need to do something to strengthen the roads.
Another resident from Jassian Road, Krishan Gopal Dutt said, “The problem of roads is not only because of the material but also because of poor drainage system. The civic body has failed to solve the problem of waterlogging and when rainwater gathers at one place for a few hours, the road will be damaged.” He said civic authorities should consider this factor and resolve both issues.

NEW DELHI: Stopping further telecast of a TV programme allegedly insinuating that Muslims were attempting to infiltrate the civil services, the Supreme Court said as the highest court of the land, it could not allow such “insidious” comments in the name of freedom of the press to vilify a particular community to disturb harmony in a country that has been a “melting pot of cultures”.
“The edifice of a democratic society committed to the rule of law under a regime of constitutional rights, values and duties is founded on the co-existence of communities. India is a melting pot of civilisations, cultures, religions and languages. Any attempt to vilify a religious community must be viewed with grave disfavour by this court as the custodian of constitutional values. Its duty to enforce constitutional values demands nothing less,” a bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud, Indu Malhotra and K M Joseph said.
On a PIL seeking to stop telecast of a serialised programme ‘Bindas Bol’ on Sudarshan TV, which has already telecast four out of 10 parts of the “investigative documentary”, the bench made no secret of its deep distress over the content of the programme and said, “When you say students of Jamia are part of the conspiracy to infiltrate civil services, that is not permissible. You cannot target one community and brand them in a particular way, that too on factually wrong facts. As the Supreme Court of India, we cannot allow you to say that Muslims are infiltrating the civil services. It is a slur on the UPSC also. While doing so, you cannot say that journalistic freedom is absolute.”
The bench also asked about the necessity for self-regulation of content on electronic media. It stopped further telecast till September 17, when it will resume hearing on the PIL. It asked the parties to file their responses to the petition as well as issues raised by the court on putting in place a self-regulating regime for electronic media.
"The problem with electronic media is about their race for TRPs. In doing so, they do not bother about damage caused to the reputation of others," the bench said.
The bench’s comment came in the backdrop of TV channels, over the last few months, going berserk in their coverage of cases relating to the suicide of actor Sushant Singh Rajput, alleged involvement of Rhea Chakraborty, Kangana Ranaut's outbursts and demolition of alleged illegal construction in her Mumbai office.

Solicitor general Tushar Mehta recounted a TV channel running a 'Hindu Terror" programme continuously for some days and availability of numerous videos on websites and YouTube vilifying one community or the other. He said it would be difficult to rein in the media in this age and time. There was a web video programme which indulged in scaremongering by airing programmes about alleged food scarcity and food riots immediately after the first pandemic lockdown, leading to massive migration of workers, he said. "That was no less serious than hate speech," he added.
"Regulating media is both disastrous and damaging to democracy," Mehta said and informed the court that the government had issued a notice to Sudarshan TV to ensure that the contents of the impugned programme conformed to the programme code under the Cable and Television Networks (Regulation) Rules. The SC asked him to file what steps were taken by the government after the first four of the 10-part programme was aired on the channel.
Appearing for the channel, senior advocate Shyam Divan said the programme was not about vilifying a community but an investigative journalistic activity. The programme was about huge foreign funding from sources inimical to India, he said and requested the court not to form an opinion by watching snippets from here and there. He said it would be an affront to the sanctity of journalistic freedom if the court stopped telecast of the programme without watching all its 10 parts.
The bench said, "At this stage, prima facie, it does appear to the court that the intent, object and purpose of the episodes which have been telecast is to vilify the Muslim community. An insidious attempt has been made to insinuate that the community is involved in a conspiracy to infiltrate the civil services."
"Several statements in the episodes, which have been drawn to the attention of the court, are not just palpably erroneous but have been made in wanton disregard of the truth. There is no relaxation either in the age limit or in the number of attempts available to the Muslim community in the civil services. The drift, tenor and content of the episodes is to bring the community into public hatred and disrepute."
The bench, which had refused to stop telecast of 'Bindas Bol' on August 28, said it was changing its mind as now it had prima facie knowledge about the nature of the programme. "The remaining episodes admittedly will be in the same vein. On the basis of what has been aired, we are of the view that it will be necessary to interdict any further telecast," it ordered and restrained the channel from airing the same content in any other name.