From The Newsroom: India's Covid-19 recoveries over 40 lakh; Govt aims to reduce coronavirus fatality rate to under 1%

In your evening news brief, From The Newsroom, Rajnath Singh says India and China have different perceptions of LAC; the government aims to bring the Covid-19 mortality rate down to less than 1% and India's Covid-19 recoveries have crossed 40 lakh.

India's Covid-19 recoveries have crossed 40 lakh. This exceeds the active cases of infection by 30,15,103, taking the recovery rate to 78.64 per cent, the Union Health Ministry said.

Close to half -- 48.45 per cent, to be precise, of the active cases are concentrated in Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh.

Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said India's Covid-19 mortality rate at 1.64 per cent is the lowest in the world and the government is targeting to bring it down to less than 1 per cent.

Replying to a debate in the Rajya Sabha, he said India's recovery rate of 78-79 per cent is one of the highest in the world. He said though total cases may have crossed 50 lakh, active cases are less than 20 per cent. Deaths in India due to coronavirus pandemic are less than many nations in Europe, he said, adding the government was determined to cross the US in testing rate as well.

Fifteen anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (anti-CAA) protesters were on Wednesday named by Delhi Police in a voluminous charge-sheet on riots in February that left 53 people killed and 583 people injured. Running into around 17,000 pages in 11 volumes, the first charge sheet in the riots in north-east Delhi filed by Delhi Police's Special Cell, however, does not name a single a CAA supporter. Those who are named in the charge sheet are charged under sections of Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act and Indian Penal Code. Opposition leaders and activists have accused the Delhi Police of targeting anti-CAA protesters and linking them with the riots while ignoring the role played by Hindutva supporters and hate speeches by BJP leader Kapil Mishra among others.

Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday said that China continues to be in illegal occupation of approximately 38,000 sq kms in the Union Territory of Ladakh. He added that Chinese actions reflect a disregard of various bilateral agreements and the amassing of the troops by China goes against the 1993 and 1996 Agreements. for peace and tranquility in the border areas, the minister said. The defence minister added that India and China have different perceptions of the LAC.

Stepping up attack on the BJP government, Congress on Thursday marked Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 70th birthday as ‘National Unemployment Day’.

AICC General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra kick-started a dialogue with the youth on the issue of employment, seeking to reach out to the section of voters who had supported Modi overwhelmingly in the 2014 and the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.

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