NEWS

The BJP is likely to enjoy a comfortable victory in Uttar Pradesh even as it may suffer a major loss of seat share in the upcoming state assembly polls, according to the third pre-poll survey conducted by ABP-CVoter. As per the opinion poll, the BJP may finish bagging 212-224 seats in the 403-seat state assembly while the Samajwadi Party is expected to win around 151-163 seats.

The survey, whose October round predicted more seats for the Yogi Adityanath-led BJP government in Uttar Pradesh, clearly indicates that the losses for the BJP may comes as direct gains for Akhilesh Yadav’s party.

The Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP), under former CM Mayawati, is likely to get only 12 to 24 seats, the survey suggests. Meanwhile, the Congress is feared to suffer another poll debacle in the state where it has been trying to regain its lost ground and may end up winning around 2-10 seats.

Covid wave, Kerala all-cause deaths set for record high this year

In the first six months of the year, Kerala registered 1,55,520 all-cause deaths — a 35 percentage jump from the corresponding period in 2020 (1,15,081 deaths), a year of Covid-imposed lockdown, and a 21 percentage jump from the toll in the first six months of the pre-pandemic year of 2019 (1,28,667 deaths).

All-cause mortality is the total number of deaths, including official Covid deaths.

West Bengal reported 583 new Covid-19 cases and six deaths attributed to the virus in the last 24 hours.

According to the state heath bulletin issued on Sunday, the state has so far reported 19,600 Covid-19 deaths and 16,23,191 cases. It has 7,548 active cases.

As many as 591 Covid patients were discharged in the last 24 hours, taking the total to15,96,043 with a recovery rate of 98.33 per cent.

North 24 Parganas on Sunday logged the highest number of deaths at four, followed by Kolkata’s two.

Over 36,000 trees were felled in the past year in Uttar Pradesh's Bijnor district to widen national highways - 119 and 74 - but there is no land available for compensatory afforestation.

Rules say there must be compensatory afforestation of 10 times the number of trees cut, forest department officials said. "We should be planting 3.6 lakh saplings as per the rules. The national highways authority of India (NHAI) has already allotted funds for the purchase of the saplings. We are now looking for land outside our jurisdiction. It is important to maintain greenery," said Bijnor divisional forest officer (DFO) Anil Kumar Patel.