Italy’s prime minister announced a sweeping coronavirus quarantine early Sunday, restricting the movements of about a quarter of the country’s population in a bid to limit contagions at the epicenter of Europe’s outbreak. Shortly after midnight, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte signed a decree affecting about 16 million people in the country’s prosperous north, including the Lombardy region and at least 15 provinces in neighboring regions. The extraordinary measures will be in place until April 3. “For Lombardy and for the other northern provinces that I have listed there will be a ban for everybody to move in and out of…
Author: Our Correspondent
A private school in Varanasi has come up with a novel method to create awareness about coronavirus and remove misconceptions about it. It has prepared a list of do’s and don’ts and named it as a ‘karo na’ (don’t do) list. The school has started a corona class for students in which they are given information about the virus and the precautionary measures needed to escape from getting infected. Jayashri Gupta, a teacher in the school, said, “We have started these extra classes from Saturday. We are informing the children about the symptoms of the coronavirus and how to avoid…
Night curfew which was in force in Meghalaya capital Shillong for more than a week has been withdrawn following improvement in the law and order situation, officials said on Sunday. Night curfew was imposed in Shillong and nearby areas after violence erupted in East Khasi Hills district on February 28 following the death of a Khasi Students Union (KSU) member during an anti-CAA rally at Ichamati that also demanded the implementation of the Inner Line Permit (ILP). “Night curfew has been totally lifted in the whole of Shillong and its adjoining areas with effect from Sunday,” Assistant Inspector General of…
Two days after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) proposed a revival plan for Yes Bank, India’s apex monetary regulator on Sunday took to micro-blogging website Twitter to address the concerns raised by several experts. In a tweet sent out at 5:10 pm, RBI said, “Concern has been raised in certain sections of the media about the safety of deposits in certain banks.” “This concern is based on analysis which is flawed,” said the tweet adding “the solvency of banks is internationally based on capital to risk-weighted assets (CRAR) and not on the market cap”. In the second part of…
Seven Sri Lankan fibre boats were found adrift in Indian waters by Coast Guard Ship Rani Abbakka engaged in IMBL operations as part of St Antony’s Festival at Kachchativu. All these boats were immediately recovered by Coast Guard Ship C-432. A thorough search was carried out on board these boats, however, nothing suspicious was found. In the meantime, a request for assistance from Sri Lankan Coast Guard was received to search for few fibre boats belonging to Sri Lankan pilgrims which were secured at Kachchativu and had gone adrift towards Indian waters due to bad weather in the early hours…
Telangana Finance Minister T. Harish Rao has presented a huge, ₹ 1.82-lakh crore tax-free, budget for the financial year 2020-21, with a people-centric approach in the Legislative Assembly here on Sunday. Coming in the backdrop of the economic challenges faced by the country and the State, the budget has projected revenue expenditure at ₹ 1.38 lakh crore, and a capital expenditure of ₹ 22,061 crore. The annual financial statement estimated a revenue surplus of ₹4,482.12 crore, while the fiscal deficit is pegged at ₹ 33,191.25 crore. Mr. Harish Rao asserted that there was no reduction in the funds pertaining to…
The ruling Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) has termed Budget 2020-21 introduced in the Assembly by Minister for Finance T. Harish Rao on Sunday as the best possible effort in the wake of severe economic slowdown being faced by the country. Reacting to the budget, Government Whip Balka Suman said it would help all sections of Telangana live with self esteem, and would come in hand as the backbone of the State’s progress. He thanked Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, and Finance Minister T. Harish Rao for presenting a practical budget taking care of all needy sections, including the farming community…
Officials of the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) collected water samples from Yamuna river here on directions from the Supreme Court regarding overflowing drains in the Taj Trapezium Zone, an activist said. TTZ is an area of about 10,400 sq km spread over the districts of Agra, Firozabad, Mathura, Hathras and Etah in Uttar Pradesh and Bharatpur district of Rajasthan. In December last year, an apex court bench had asked noted environmentalist M.C. Mehta and NEERI to inspect the city of Agra and file a report within eight weeks suggesting measures to deal with the problem of overflowing drains.…
A war of words broke out between the BJP and Congress on Sunday over the Yes Bank crisis with the ruling party seeking to link it with the Gandhi family, while the Opposition wondered if the Prime Minister and Finance Minister were “complicit” as the bank’s loan book grew manifold. Posting on Twitter a clip of a news channel report that Rana Kapoor, the arrested Yes Bank founder, had bought a painting from Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, BJP’s information and technology wing in-charge Amit Malviya alleged that every financial crime in India has “deep links” with the Gandhis. The Congress termed the…
In a novel tribute to women achievers on the International women’s day, PM Modi makes seven women achievers to handle his social media account. Bomb-blast survivor Malvika Iyer, the second woman achiever handling Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s social media account on International Women’s Day on Sunday, tweeted a message of courage — How we survive our challenges matters the most. “Acceptance is the greatest reward we can give ourselves. We can’t control our lives but we surely can control our attitude towards life. At the end of the day, it is how we survive our challenges that matters the most.…