NEWS

Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray on Friday said health facilities in rural areas should be upgraded to tackle a possible third wave of COVID-19 pandemic. His government will provide all help to district administrations for this, he said after the virtual inauguration of an oxygen refilling plant at Kudal in Sindhudurg district.

Upgradation of health infrastructure was now a priority for his government, he said. District authorities should increase oxygen production capacity and expand testing facilities, Thackeray said.

The BJP has ruled out the possibility of a change in leadership in Uttar Pradesh and dismissed reports that Yogi Adityanath’s government is in jeopardy over its handling of the Covid-19 situation, but the cabinet could still witness changes in the year leading up to the UP elections. Former bureaucrat AK Sharma, who is believed to be one of Prime Minister Narendra Modi‘s close advisers, may be given a key post in the UP government, a news channel reported.

Gujarat cadre IAS officer A K Sharma joined the BJP in January this year after taking voluntary retirement from the service. Sharma, a 1988 batch officer from Mau district in Uttar Pradesh, is considered close to PM Modi and had worked with him in Gujarat. Sharma joined the party in the presence of state BJP president Swatantra Dev Singh and Deputy Chief Minister Dr Dinesh Sharma at the party headquarters in Lucknow.

After heavily criticising the Centre for continuing with the Central Vista project amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the Congress-led Rajasthan government has started the construction of 160 “luxurious flats” for MLAs near the state legislative assembly in the Jyoti Nagar area. The project, which started on May 20, will cost a total of Rs 266 crore for constructing these 160 flats.

The project was initiated by the Rajasthan Housing Board (RHB) in which each flat will be constructed over an area of 3,200 square feet and comprise four bedrooms, a news agency quoted Housing Board official as saying. Though the project is scheduled to be completed within 30 months the RHB is likely to finish it before the given time.

India has sent a Bombardier Global 5000 jet to get fugitive businessman Mehul Choksi back from Dominica in case the courts there order his deportation to India. The aircraft took eight Indian officials to Dominica on May 27 from New Delhi and is parked there since May 28.

However, soon after news broke that India has sent a high-end private jet to Dominica to get Mehul Choksi back, many on social media have been asking how much would it cost a person to hire a private jet in order to travel to Dominica from India and return.

A national news channel spoke to travel agencies and people associated with the business of renting charter private jets to find out how much one would have to pay for a private jet in order to fly eight people to Dominica from New Delhi and return within a week.