From The Newsroom: Centre waives custom duty, health cess on oxygen and related equipment for three months

In your evening news brief, basic customs duty, health cess has been waived off on oxygen and oxygen-related equipment for three months; Delhi High Court asks Centre about preparedness to deal with the expected Covid-19 second wave peak in mid-May; Twenty patients died overnight at the Jaipur Golden Hospital in New Delhi due to shortage of medical oxygen and Justice N V Ramana takes over as the 48th Chief Justice of India.

Hi, this is Ahmed Shariff and you are listening to, From The Newsroom— your daily evening news catch up show from Deccan Herald.

Here is the top news of April 24, 2021:

The Centre on Saturday decided to waive off basic custom duty and health cess on oxygen and oxygen-related equipment for three months in order to give a boost to its supply and thereby, address the burgeoning problem of medical oxygen crunch in hospitals across the country.

The Delhi High Court on Saturday asked the Centre about the preparedness to deal with the expected Covid-19 second wave peak in mid-May, terming the massive rise in cases as a ‘Tsunami’, and warned it will "hang" any person who tries to obstruct oxygen supplies to hospitals in Delhi.

Talking tough, a bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Palli, said this during a special hearing on a holiday on the issue of mounting oxygen crisis in various hospitals in Delhi.

Twenty patients died overnight at the Jaipur Golden Hospital in New Delhi on Friday night due to shortage of medical oxygen, hospital officials said on Saturday even as India reported 3.46 lakh new cases of Covid-19.

The hospital in north-west Delhi had been issuing appeals for oxygen supplies since Friday evening and was facing shortages on Saturday as well.

Justice N V Ramana, the senior-most judge of the Supreme Court, took over as the 48th Chief Justice of India on Saturday.

President Ram Nath Kovind administered the oath of office to Ramana in a ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhawan.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu and Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad along with other dignitaries attended the function.

Source: DHNS/PTI