NEWS

A cloudburst hit Devprayag in the Tehri district of Uttarakhand on Tuesday (May 11), razing two municipal buildings to the ground and damaging several shops.

It also damaged pedestrian bridges, water pipelines and electricity supply lines, an official said.

The cloudburst occurred over the Shanta river, causing inundation of areas along its banks with a huge amount of slush containing boulders, SHO of the Devprayag police station Mahipal Singh Rawat said.

The BJP on Monday (May 10) hit out at Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal over the COVID-19 crisis in the national capital claiming that latter has been busy spending crores on publicity and misleading people while washing his hands of responsibility and leaving everything to the Centre. The party claimed that instead of pushing the vaccination programme in time, the Delhi government was busy advertising and is now doing politics over the availability of oxygen.

Addressing a virtual press conference, BJP spokesperson Sambit Patra cited a RTI reply to say that the Kejriwal government has spent around Rs 805 crore on advertisements since 2015 but not opened a single new hospital in the city. He has been making daily appearances on the TV, 'misleading people and lying', Patra said, attacking the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader.

While district Meerut recorded the highest number of 2190 Covid positive cases on Saturday in the state, 4 cases of potentially fatal and rare “black fungus” infection have also been detected in Covid 19 patients here.

Cases of black fungus have been reported so far in Maharashtra and Gujarat and now it is perhaps for the first time that Covid 19 patients in Uttar Pradesh are reported to have been infected with this disease in Meerut.

Assistant Chief Medical Officer (ACMO) Dr Pooja Sharma confirmed to the media on Tuesday that the rare black fungus infection has been detected in two Covid-19 patients undergoing treatment in a private hospital in Meerut. Dr Sharma told the media that of these two patients one is from Muzaffarnagar and another from Bijnor.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday (May 10) allowed religious and cultural programmes ahead of the upcoming festival of Eid.

However, a cap has been placed on 50 people. Eid prayers and gathering at Red Road in Kolkata will also not be held this year amid the surge in coronavirus cases.

"In this COVID-19 situation, we have allowed religious and cultural programs with a maximum of 50 people. No Eid prayers and gatherings will be there at Red Road as decided by Muslim leaders. I request that there should be no big gatherings as Azaan can be heard from home," the Chief Minister said.