Healthcare worker administers Covid-19 vaccine to a beneficiary in Jangpura, in New Delhi. (Express Photo by Tashi Tobgyal)Delhi Live News: Daily Covid cases in Delhi continued to decline, with 1,410 new infections being reported on Sunday. The positivity rate was recorded at 2.45 per cent. The city had reported 1,604 cases at a positivity rate of 2.87 per cent on Saturday.
With the number of cases declining at a rapid pace, hospital occupancy has also dipped. According to Sunday’s health bulletin, only 6.32 per cent of the 15,416 hospital beds were occupied.
Meanwhile, authorities at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi permitted schools and centres to resume offline teaching and learning activities for students from Monday.
This comes after the District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) on Friday allowed higher education institutes to resume physical teaching and learning activities amid declining cases of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in the national capital.
Since the vaccination for the 15 to 18 age group began, Delhi has vaccinated 82 per cent of adolescents with the first dose of Covid-19 before the schools reopen for 9th to 12th standard in the city on Monday. With the decreasing number of infections, the Delhi government has decided to reopen schools, colleges and gyms with strict Covid-19 protocols. The night curfew will continue in the capital but will begin at 11 pm instead of 10 pm.
The Delhi Police arrested two more persons, including an autorickshaw driver, in connection with the Shahdara rape-assault case.
On January 26, a young woman was abducted, allegedly gangraped by her neighbours, and paraded on the streets. The accused also allegedly assaulted the woman with weapons and blackened her face. Several videos of the incident went viral on social media where the family can be seen thrashing and harassing the victim inside their homes and on the streets.
Their motive was personal enmity. Police said the family held her responsible for the death of one of their relatives – a teenager who was allegedly stalking the woman and proposed to her, which she rejected. Read more
The strike by medical staff and doctors at the East Delhi Municipal Corporation’s Swami Dayanand Hospital, who have been protesting against salary delays for the past six days, ended on Sunday.
A senior official of the East MCD said a meeting was held with union officials of Group A, B, C and D employees and it was conveyed to them that if they return to work, then no disciplinary action would be taken against anyone and their demands would be considered sympathetically.
Post this, the official said, the unions decided that the strike should be ended immediately and staff return to work. Read more
Daily Covid cases in Delhi continued to decline, with 1,410 new infections being reported on Sunday. The positivity rate was recorded at 2.45 per cent. The city had reported 1,604 cases at a positivity rate of 2.87 per cent on Saturday.
With the number of cases declining at a rapid pace, hospital occupancy has also dipped. According to Sunday’s health bulletin, only 6.32 per cent of the 15,416 hospital beds were occupied.
Of the 975 suspected Covid patients admitted in hospitals across the city, 913 have been confirmed with the infection. Of these, 401 are admitted in the ICUs and 95 are in ventilator support. Read more
The Delhi BJP on Sunday symbolically "sealed" a liquor shop situated near a temple in Moti Nagar by putting a lock on the premises and demanded that the Kejriwal government shut all "illegal" liquor vends in the national capital. This comes two days after the state unit of BJP threatened to seal liquor vends situated in residential areas, near schools and religious places if the Arvind Kejriwal government fails to shut down these shops within the next 48 hours.
Addressing the media in front of the liquor shop in west Delhi, BJP's Delhi unit president Adesh Gupta accused Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal of "supporting the liquor mafia. I want to tell Kejriwal that he should shut all the liquor shops that he has opened to benefit liquor mafia immediately," he said.
"If you will not take any action, the BJP workers and leaders would seal these shops situated near residential areas, religious places, schools," he warned. (PTI)
Authorities at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi permitted schools and centres to resume offline teaching and learning activities for students from Monday.
This comes after the District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) on Friday allowed higher education institutes to resume physical teaching and learning activities amid declining cases of coronavirus disease (Covid-19) in the national capital. Read More
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Sunday said with the demise of singing legend Lata Mangeshkar, an era of music in India has ended. "The demise of 'swar kokila' of India Lata Mangeshkar is the end of an era of music in India. Her melodious voice will remain immortalised among us and in the entire world. I pray to God to give the departed soul a place at his feet," Kejriwal tweeted in Hindi.
Mangeshkar (92), one of the biggest music icons of the country, died due to multiple organ failure at a Mumbai hospital earlier in the day.
Conman Sukesh Chandrashekhar has been shifted to another jail in Tihar while three officials, including two assistant superintendents, have been sent to the district lines of the jail headquarters after authorities found that one of them allegedly received Rs 1.25 lakh from Sukesh.
An initial probe revealed that instead of transferring the money directly, Sukesh allegedly sent it via a bank account of an inmate’s brother. Read More
To provide last-mile connectivity and curb pollution, the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) will purchase 1,000 electric scooters under its app-based scooter rental project for the general public that has been delayed due to Covid-19. The e-scooters will be set up in two phases at around 100 locations in the New Delhi area.
In the first phase, 500 e-scooter will be set up at 50 charging stations in a public-private partnership (PPP) model outside metro stations, bus stops, hospitals, railway stations and other public places from where people can rent them out for last-mile connectivity, said NDMC vice-chairman Shri Upadhyay. Tenders have been floated for the first phase, added Upadhyay.
A fire broke out inside the courtroom of an Additional Sessions Judge at Karkardooma court early on Sunday. No casualties were reported, but several court documents and furniture were gutted.
It is suspected that a short circuit near the courtroom led to the fire which later spread to the corridor. Officials said the fire spread to two different floors of the same court building and several teams were rushed to douse the blaze.
According to the Delhi Fire Services (DFS), they received a call around 3.25 am about a fire in court no. 52 at Karkardooma Court, CBD Shahdara. Twelve fire tenders were deployed and 50 firemen worked for over two hours to control the blaze.
The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) will Sunday take out a march in all wards of Delhi demanding action against BJP councillor Manju Khandelwal for giving away land that was earlier used to dump waste to an NGO owned by her husband.
AAP senior leader and MCD In-charge Durgesh Pathak said the Bharatiya Janata Party leader is giving land to its members for free using non-governmental organisations as a medium. This is completely unethical, he said.
“All the three leaders of opposition and AAP councillors will raise awareness about the corruption throughout Delhi. The AAP had raised the matter during a North MCD session; forget about action, BJP leaders ran away from the discussion. The AAP will keep protesting against the BJP until action is taken against the accused,” he said.
The updated Delhi Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) guidelines might have done away with the 50 per cent cap for classroom learning but reopening directives continue to ask them to be cautious in the wake of Covid-19.
Education institutions in the city are allowed to reopen for students of classes 9 and above from Monday and for nursery to class 8 from February 14, emphasizing that the ‘hybrid mode’ of teaching-learning is to continue in schools. Hybrid mode essentially means that students will have the option not to attend offline classes and schools will have to arrange online classes for them. (More here)
The weather office has predicted dense fog conditions in the capital for Sunday. The maximum and the minimum temperatures are expected to settle around 21 and 8 degrees Celsius respectively.
The maximum temperature in the national capital was recorded at 19.5 degrees Celsius on Saturday, four notches below the season's average, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
According to the IMD, several parts of the city witnessed dense fog in the morning and the minimum temperature settled at 6.9 degrees Celsius, two notches below normal. The visibility at the Safdarjung observatory, which provides representative data for the city, was 100 metres at 8.30 am. Visibility at the Palam observatory was 50 metres.
The Delhi government has instructed all district magistrates to review Covid-related expenditure and procurement along with allied relief activities and submit a report at the earliest.
A report by the districts for 2019-20 and 2020-21, would include expenses on tentage, ex gratia, food, vehicles, civil defence volunteers remuneration and others and submitted to the Revenue department headquarter at the earliest, said an order issued earlier this week. It has also instructed all the district magistrates to seek financial sanctions adhering to procedures laid down in general financial rules, citing many such proposals were improperly drafted.
The district magistrates have also been instructed to seek timely administrative approval of competent authority before awarding work to bidders. (With PTI)
Most gym and spa owners in the national capital have said they will open their establishments from Monday ensuring that all COVID-19 protocols are in place and sanitisation of the premises is conducted properly. The Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) had on Friday announced the reopening of gyms after over a month of being shut on account of rising COVID-19 cases in the city.
The decision comes as a sigh of relief for fitness centre owners who have been staging protests and urging the government to allow them to resume businesses which have registered a major slump due to successive coronavirus-induced lockdowns. Owners of gyms in the city welcomed the state government's decision, saying it will help five lakh families survive the pandemic.
A 58-year-old man engrossed in his mobile phone slipped from a Delhi Metro station platform and fell onto the rail tracks, but was rescued by CISF personnel on patrol duty, officials said on Saturday.
The incident took place at platform no. 2 of the Shahdara metro station on Friday around 7.30 pm, they said, adding that the man sustained minor injuries.
"Constable Rothash Chandra of the CISF's quick reaction team acted swiftly and stepped down on the metro track and pulled the passenger out of the track, before arrival of the metro train. The passenger sustained minor scratches on the leg," a CISF spokesperson said. (PTI)
Most gym and spa owners in the national capital have said they will open their establishments from Monday ensuring that all Covid-19 protocols are in place and sanitisation of the premises is conducted properly.
The Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) had on Friday announced the reopening of gyms after over a month of being shut on account of rising Covid-19 cases in the city.
The decision comes as a sigh of relief for fitness centre owners who have been staging protests and urging the government to allow them to resume businesses which have registered a major slump due to successive coronavirus-induced lockdowns. (PTI)
The Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) has reiterated its push for industries in the National Capital Region (NCR) to switch to Piped Natural Gas (PNG) or biomass fuel.
In an order issued recently, the CAQM said that industries in the NCR which have not shifted to PNG or biomass fuel, despite the availability of natural gas infrastructure and supply, are to switch over completely by September 30, “failing which such industries shall be closed down and not permitted to schedule operations thereafter.”
Early in December, the commission had restricted operations of such industries not running on PNG or cleaner fuel to eight hours per day for five days a week, on account of deteriorating air quality in the NCR. These restrictions were in place till Friday, when the CAQM lifted them.
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Sir Ganga Ram Hospital has told the Delhi High Court that there are no laws or legal proceedings in the country to release frozen samples of an unmarried male to his legal heirs, in response to a petition seeking the release of a frozen semen sample of a 30-year-old, who died of cancer in 2020, to his parents.
“The sample is still kept cryopreserved at the centre of Sir Ganga Ram Hospital and respondent is not in a position to release the semen sample to petitioner in the absence of any guidelines/regulations or directions,” the health institute told the court in response to the petition filed by a couple, who are in their 60s.
In June 2020, their son was diagnosed with cancer and other health problems. The patient was told by doctors that due to treatment, his capacity to produce sperm and its fertility level can deteriorate in future. The semen was subsequently preserved in the IVF lab at the hospital in June 2020. In September, he died.
In June 2020, their son was diagnosed with cancer and other health problems. The patient was told by doctors that due to treatment, his capacity to produce sperm and its fertility level can deteriorate in future. The semen was subsequently preserved in the IVF lab at the hospital in June 2020. In September, he died.
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Three men were arrested for allegedly robbing a tempo driver in northwest Delhi's Shalimar Bagh area, police said on Saturday.
The accused has been identified as Karan (18), Raghav (20) and Gulshan (25), all residents of Sahipur, they said, adding the three are childhood friends.
On Thursday, police received information about a person admitted to a hospital due to a stab injury, police said.
During enquiry, the injured person said he was going towards Madhuban Chowk from Badli in his tempo. He stopped his vehicle near a petrol pump in Haiderpur as it started raining, a senior police officer said. Three persons came on a scooter, threatened him with a knife and tried to rob him. When he resisted, one of them stabbed him in the stomach and others took away his mobile phone and wallet, Deputy Commissioner of Police (northwest) Usha Rangnani said.
The three then fled the spot, she added. (PTI)