11.32 am: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will meet Union Minister of Education Ramesh Pokhriyal and other top officials at 12 pm to discuss the Central Board of Secondary Education board examinations scheduled for May and June, the Hindustan Times reported, citing officials.

10.37 am: Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav tests positive for Covid-19. “My Covid-19 test report has just come up as ‘positive’,” he tweets. “I have isolated myself and the treatment has started at home. I urge those who have come in contact with me in the last few days to also get tested. I request them to also remain in isolation for a few days.”

10.18 am: The Indian Medical Association on Tuesday urged the medical fraternity to make sure that anti-viral drug Remdesivir was used judiciously among Covid-19 patients, reported NDTV.

10.15 am: West Bengal records the biggest one-day spike of 4,817 Covid-19 cases in 24 hours, pushing the state tally to 6,24,224, the health department says, reports PTI. The toll rises to 10,434 after 20 new fatalities.

10.10 am: Uttarakhand Chief Minister Tirath Singh Rawat on Tuesday said the Kumbh Mela, being hosted in his state, should not be compared with the Nizamuddin Markaz event held last year, reported PTI. The event had then been blamed for the surge in Covid-19 cases in the country.

10.07 am: Vice President Venkaiah Naidu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi are scheduled to interact with governors and lieutenant governors of all states and Union Territories on Wednesday to go over the the Covid-19 situation in India, reports .

10.06 am: The Centre has asked Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Gujarat to boost testing through RT-PCR (reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction) method, reports PTI.

10.04 am: The four-day-long “Tika Utsav”, which began as an effort to fast-track the countrywide vaccination programme, will conclude on Wednesday, reports Hindustan Times.

10.02 am: The Union government on Tuesday said the “second wave” of Covid-19 has crossed the previous highest rise in cases, adding that the upward trend of new infections is a cause of concern, reported Hindustan Times.

10 am: The Allahabad High Court on Tuesday asked the Uttar Pradesh government to think about enforcing complete lockdowns for two to three weeks in districts that have been reporting a sharp rise in Covid-19 cases, reports NDTV.

9.56 am: NITI Aayog member (Health) Dr VK Paul on Tuesday recommended Covid-19 patients with mild or no symptoms to consult Ayurveda practitioners to improve their immunity, reports Hindustan Times. “If you get Covid-19, consult ayurveda practitioners for treatment if symptoms are mild or asymptomatic,” he said during a briefing. “Take what they give after proper consultation to fight the disease. It is a treatment modality in itself so this also needs to be adopted.”

9.40 am: India reports 1,84,372 new Covid-19 cases and 1,027 more deaths in the last 24 hours. The country’s overall case count since the pandemic broke out in January 2020 rose to 1,38,73,825 and the toll to 1,72,085.

Active cases stood at 13,65,704, while 1,23,36,036 people have recovered from the disease.

9.30 am: Brazil reports more than 3,800 Covid-19 deaths, and 82,186 new cases in 24 hours, according to Hindustan Times.

9.10 am: Due to a surge in Covid-19 cases, Chhattisgarh has extended restrictions, including a night curfew, in Sukma and Durg districts. Strict curbs will remain in place in Durg till April 19, and till April 15 in Sukma, reported Hindustan Times.

9.05 am: Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday asserted that the Centre will not announce lockdowns “in a big way”. “Even with the second wave, we [the Union government] are very clear that we are not going in for lockdowns in a big way,” she said. “We don’t want to totally arrest the economy.”

9 am: The Covid-19 vaccination programme was stopped on Tuesday in 11 of Odisha’s 30 districts due to shortage of vaccines, a senior health department official said, according to PTI. This came on the day the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare claimed there was no shortage of vaccines in the country amid a record surge in coronavirus cases.

Also read:

Coronavirus: Problem not of vaccine shortages but of planning, claims Centre

Here’s what happened on Tuesday: