Digest yearender for domestic stories for month of May, 2020

May 1: New Delhi: India will now be under lockdown till May 17 with a complete ban on air travel, trains and inter-state road transport for the general public while educational institutions, theatres, malls, hotels and bars will also remain shut, the government announced on Friday but gave some relaxations for various business activities and people's movement within areas with limited or no COVID-19 cases. May 2: New Delhi: The nationwide tally of confirmed COVID-19 cases was seen approaching 40,000 with a record number of new cases getting detected in the last 24 hours, but recoveries from the deadly virus infection also crossed 10,000 while efforts to revive economic activities appeared getting stepped up too. May 3: New Delhi: India prepared for the third phase of the national lockdown from Monday with ''considerable relaxations'' in several districts but curbs will continue in containment areas even as Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal said people will have to be ready to live with coronavirus and that time has come to re-open the city.

May 4: New Delhi/Bengaluru: Impatient to end a nearly 40-day dry spell, a multitude of tipplers descended on liquor shops that reopened in many parts of India, jostling and pulling at each other in total defiance of social distancing norms, forcing authorities to shut the stores in some places to prevent near-riot situations. May 5: Srinagar: Three photojournalists from Jammu and Kashmir have been awarded the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for their ''striking images of life'' in the valley. May 6: New Delhi: The Delhi government ordered the release of 4,000 Tablighi members who have completed their required quarantine period in centres in the national capital, sources said.

May 7: Visakhapatnam/New Delhi: Gas leaked from a chemical plant in Visakhapatnam in the early hours of Thursday and quickly spread to villages in a five-kilometre radius, killing at least 11 people and impacting about 1,000. May 8: Aurangabad/Lucknow: A goods train ran over a group of migrant workers who fell asleep on the rail tracks killing 16 of them in Aurangabad district of Maharashtra, in a tragedy that highlighted the plight of thousands of labourers hit by coronavirus lockdown walking long distances back to their native states. May 9: New Delhi: The testing capacity for COVID-19 has been scaled up to around 95,000 tests per day and a total of 15,25,631 tests have been conducted so far across 332 government and 121 private laboratories, Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said. May 10: New Delhi: As India enters the last week of the 54-day coronavirus lockdown, the Railways said 15 air-conditioned special trains will operate from May 12 in a gradual resumption of passenger services announced on the eve of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's video conference with chief ministers that is expected to focus on a strategy for a phased exit from the shutdown. May 11: New Delhi/Mumbai: The Centre decided to run 100 special trains daily for migrants during the coronavirus lockdown and asked the states to ensure that they avail the facility.

May 12: New Delhi: In a big push to revive the COVID-hit economy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday announced massive new financial incentives on top of the previously announced packages for a combined stimulus of Rs 20 lakh crore, saying the coronavirus crisis has provided India an opportunity to become self-reliant and emerge as the best in the world. May 13: New Delhi: The government on Wednesday announced about Rs 6 lakh crore package, including Rs 3 lakh crore of collateral-free loans for small businesses and a Rs 30,000 crore lifeline to non-bank and housing finance companies as part of measures to help the economy tide over disruptions caused by the coronavirus lockdown.

May 14: New Delhi: Firing a second salvo to limit COVID fallout, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday announced a Rs 3.16 lakh crore package comprising free foodgrains for migrant workers, Rs 2 lakh crore concessional credit to farmers and working capital for street vendors in a bid to help those hit hard by the nationwide lockdown. May 15: New Delhi: In the third tranche of the COVID-19 economic package, the government on Friday announced a slew of measures for agriculture sector, including a Rs 1.63 lakh crore outlay, and amending the stringent Essential Commodities Act to remove cereals, edible oil, oilseeds, pulses, onions and potato from its purview. May 16: Auraiya (UP): At least 25 migrants were killed and 40 others injured when a trailer and a stationary truck on which they had hitched rides collided on a highway near here in the early hours of Saturday, the latest in a string of accidents involving workers returning to their native states amid the coronavirus lockdown.

May 17: New Delhi: Around 10 lakh jobs have been lost in Punjab and the state is set to lose a whopping Rs 50,000 crore this year due to the coronavirus lockdown, Chief Minister Amarinder Singh said while hinting at some ''tough measures'' for revenue generation. May 18: New Delhi: The nationwide tally of COVID-19 cases crossed one lakh with more people testing positive for the deadly virus in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and other states.

May 19: New Delhi: The Supreme Court refused to quash the initial FIR against Republic TV Editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami over his news show on the Palghar mob lynching but gave some relief by setting aside related multiple FIRs and complaints holding they had a ''stifling'' effect on the exercise of freedom and expression. May 20: New Delhi: Amid mounting worries about a deep recession due to the coronavirus lockdown, authorities on Wednesday announced plans to resume domestic flights from next week and also asked the entertainment industry to restart shoots and post-production activities. May 21: Kolkata/Bhubaneswar: Cyclone Amphan weakened Thursday, a day after tearing through West Bengal where 72 people were killed and two districts were “completely devastated” with thousands of people left homeless, bridges washed away and low-lying areas in waist deep water. May 22: Mumbai: The Reserve Bank on Friday unexpectedly slashed benchmark interest rates to their lowest levels since 2000 and extended the moratorium on repayment of loans for three months to ramp up support for the economy which is likely to contract for the first time in over four decades. May 23: New Delhi: The Chinese military is fast increasing its troops in areas around Pangong Tso lake and Galwan Valley along the Line of Actual Control in Ladakh, sending a clear signal that it was not ready to end its confrontation with the Indian Army anytime soon, people familiar with the situation in the disputed region said on Saturday.

May 24: New Delhi: India saw the biggest spike in COVID-19 cases for the third consecutive day on Sunday with 6,767 new infections reported in the last 24 hours taking the nationwide tally to 1,31,868, while the death toll due to the disease rose to 3,867 with 147 more fatalities, according to the Union Health Ministry. May 25: New Delhi: India’s domestic flight services resumed on Monday today after a gap of two months but a large number of last-minute cancellations by airlines triggered chaos leaving thousands of passengers stranded.

May 26: New Delhi: The nationwide tally of COVID-19 cases crossed 1.47 lakh on Tuesday with states like Bihar, West Bengal, Assam and Odisha reporting significant rise in their numbers amid large-scale return of migrant workers from other states. Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik warned of more challenging days ahead and called for a new strategy to check the pandemic. May 27: New Delhi/Jhansi/Nagpur: After damaging crops in Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, swarms of locusts entered Uttar Pradesh’s Jhansi district Wednesday and could head towards Maharashtra’s Ramtek city amid what is being described as the worst attack in 26 years.

May 28: New Delhi: Foreign direct investment (FDI) in India rose by 13 per cent - the sharpest pace in the last four fiscals - to a record of USD 49.97 billion in 2019-20, according to official data. May 29: Raipur: Ajit Jogi, an IAS officer-turned-politician who went on to become the first chief minister of Chhattisgarh in 2000, died on Friday at a city hospital where he was being treated for the last 20 days, doctors said. May 30: New Delhi:The countrywide lockdown in containment zones has been extended till June 30, while hospitality services, hotels and shopping malls will be allowed to open from June 8, the Union home ministry said on Saturday.

May 31: New Delhi: State governments on Sunday came out with varied ‘Unlock 1’ guidelines including on allowing inter-state travel even as Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Telangana extended the lockdown till June 30 with several relaxations, a day after the Centre eased the 68-day shutdown curbs significantly with an economic focus..