US President declares national emergency as coronavirus crisis deepens and the declaration comes amid criticism over the Trump administration’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. As the coronavirus pandemic tore deeper into the fabric of American public life, United States President Donald Trump declared a national emergency on Friday to provide more money to fight a pandemic that has killed 41 people in the US. “I am officially declaring a national emergency,” he said from the White House’s Rose Garden. The declaration of a national emergency, a rarely used presidential power, allows the Federal Emergency Management Agency to assist state and…
Author: Our Correspondent
Former CEO and co-founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates is stepping down from the board of the company. Gates previously served as CEO of Microsoft until 2000 when he stepped down from the position in order to spend more time on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In 2008, Gates left his full-time role at Microsoft in an official capacity to focus all of his efforts on philanthropy. Gates stepping down from the board is apparently due to similar motivations, with a press release announcing the news citing a desire to “dedicate more time to his philanthropic priorities.” Gates will still…
US President Donald Trump has nominated Kenneth Weinstein, the president and CEO of the conservative think tank Hudson Institute, as the US ambassador to Japan. Weinstein, a fluent speaker of French and German, also serves on the Advisory Committee on Trade Policy and Negotiations, which advises the US Trade Representative, the White House said in a statement on Friday. Weinstein’s nomination still requires confirmation of the Senate. The position of the US ambassador to Japan has been vacant since July, when then Ambassador William Hagerty resigned from his post to run for Tennessee’s open US Senate seat.
A Delhi court on Friday sent suspended Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) councillor Tahir Hussain to three-day police custody in connection with the recent violence in northeast Delhi and the killing of an Intelligence Bureau (IB) staffer. Tahir was produced before Duty Magistrate Vinod Kumar Gautam at the end of his seven-day police remand amid high security. The police sought four days’ custody but the counsel representing Tahir opposed it. He is in the eye of a major controversy for his alleged involvement in the recent communal riots in Delhi’s northeast area and the killing of an Intelligence Bureau (IB) staffer,…
As some of the Congress MLAs are upset with the party’s alliance with Badruddin Ajmal-led All India United Democratic Front (AIUDF), they are soon to join BJP. Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and Assam Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Friday claimed that “many” Congress MLAs in the state would join the saffron party soon. The Assam minister claimed that Congress MLA from Barak Valley Rajdeep Gowala and some other party legislators want to switch over to the BJP. “Congress MLA Rajdeep Gowala has decided to join the BJP and he is the chairman of public accounts committee and two…
A 68-year-old woman who was the sixth case of coronavirus to be reported from the capital, died on Friday. This is the second death linked to the global pandemic in the country. The woman had other conditions including high blood pressure and diabetes. A resident of West Delhi, she had come in contact with her son who had contracted the virus after travelling to Switzerland and Italy last month. While her son had not shown any symptoms of an infection initially, he reported to Delhi’s Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital on March 7 with a fever and cough. As per protocol,…
The three-match ODI series between India and South Africa has been called off in the face of the growing threat of the coronavirus pandemic. A BCCI press release said, “The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) along with Cricket South Africa (CSA) on Friday announced to reschedule the ongoing ODI series in view of the Novel Corona Virus (COVID-19) outbreak. Cricket South Africa will visit India at a later date to play 3 One-day Internationals. The BCCI-CSA will jointly work out the revised schedule.” “With the IPL being postponed, it only made sense that at this point of…
International carrier Vistara Airlines has banned standup comedian Kunal Kamra till April 27 for heckling journalist Arnab Goswami on an Indigo flight in January, PTI quoted an airline official as saying on Friday. Confirming the same, Kamra said he is not surprised by the action taken by the airlines. “Air Vistara has also banned me now till the 27th April, following orders like they show… at a time where no one can fly, all I want to say is, neither am I sorry nor am I surprised, nor am I suffering…,” Mr Kamra wrote on Twitter. In late January, Kamra…
A total of 6,127 schools in Himachal Pradesh are functioning with a student strength of less than 20, state Education Minister Suresh Bhardwaj informed the Vidhan Sabha Friday. “There are schools having a single student as well, and 80 schools have a strength less than five. Even in such schools, teaching takes place and mid-day meals are prepared. In some cases, children of migrant labourers are enrolled in these schools,” the minister said in a written reply, adding that under the Right to Education Act, there should be a school within a 1.5 km radius of each child’s habitation provided…
Taking note of global pandemic novel coronavirus (COVID-19), the Supreme Court on Friday decided that from March 16 it will take up for hearing only urgent matters and no persons except lawyers concerned will be allowed inside its courtrooms. The apex court, which has been mulling over the issue in its meetings held at the residence of Chief Justice of India S A Bobde on Thursday and Friday, took note of the government”s March 5 advisory cautioning against mass gatherings in view of the fact that the World Health Organisation has declared COVID-19 a “global pandemic”. The apex court”s notification,…