Tablighi leader booked to GMAT online exam: The latest on Covid-19 crisis

Kandhalvi had organised the religious gathering at Nizamuddin Markaz last month against the social distancing protocol imposed by the Centre to curb the spread of the deadly disease.

Tablighi Jamaat leader Maulana Saad Kandhalvi has been booked for culpable homicide after some of the attendees of the religious congregation died due to Covid-19, police said on Wednesday.Kandhalvi had organised the religious gathering at Nizamuddin Markaz last month against the social distancing protocol imposed by the Centre to curb the spread of the deadly disease. An FIR was registered against the cleric on March 31 at Crime Branch police station on a complaint of the Station House Officer of Nizamuddin.

Refunds worth Rs 4,250 crore issued in a week: CBDTThe Income Tax department has issued over 1.02 million refunds worth Rs 4,250 crore within a week, the Central Board of Direct Taxes said on Wednesday. The Finance Ministry had last week said it will fast track issuance of pending income tax refunds up to Rs 5 lakh, which will benefit around 1.4 million taxpayers, to provide relief to individuals and businesses hit by Covid-19 outbreak.
GMAT to be conducted online from April 20

The Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT), accepted as admission criterion by over 2,000 business schools across the globe, will be conducted online from April 20 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The Global Management Admission Council, which conducts the test, said the registrations were opened on Tuesday. The test is conducted at over 650 test centres in 114 countries…Read More

Covid-19: How Indian Railways is transforming coaches into isolation wards

“Each cabin of a coach has been converted into an independent isolation ward which will accommodate one patient

With cases of coronavirus escalating in the country, the government has come up with measures including converting number of places into isolation wards. In view of this, Indian railways, the operator of the fourth-biggest network in the world, has started converting more than 5,000 train coaches into isolation wards, fearing the country may not have adequate infrastructure to combat the pandemic.

“Out of the 17 railway zones in India, the Railway Board has asked Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) and the Northern Railway to modify train coaches into isolation wards on experimental basis to deal with patients of novel coronavirus,” the NFR Chief Public Relations Officer Subhanan Chanda told IANS. He said such a plan can help the government and all other authorities to be well-prepared to meet any emergency. Chanda said a non-AC sleeper coach is already converted into an isolation ward for probable patients suffering from COVID-19. Besides, mosquito nets and charging points have also been fitted, and space for paramedics is also allocated

“Each cabin of a coach has been converted into an independent isolation ward which will accommodate one patient. There are nine such cabins in one coach. One of the four toilets of the coach has been converted into a bathroom with facility for shower,” the NFR official said. He said that insulated bamboo sheets were put up on the roof and the side walls of the modified coach for reducing the heat transfer and temperature inside the converted isolation wards…Read More

Covid-19: Trains, thousands under lens over travel to Tablighi Jamaat

State officials said that the railways is providing lists of passengers to the district authorities which are being compared to the list of participants of the event to ensure contact tracing

Railways is scrambling to provide information regarding thousands of passengers who travelled on five trains with people who participated in the Tablighi Jamaat congregation in Delhi, many of whom have tested positive. All these trains began from Delhi between March 13 and March 19 – the Duronto Express to Guntur in Andhra Pradesh, the Grand Trunk Express to Chennai, the Tamil Nadu Express to Chennai, New Delhi-Ranchi Rajdhani Express and the AP Sampark Kranti Express.

While there are yet no definite numbers with the railways on the actual number of people who could have come in contact with the participants of this event, sources say that each train carried around 1000-1200 passengers and other staff members which could put them all at risk. State officials said that the railways is providing lists of passengers to the district authorities which are being compared to the list of participants of the event to ensure contact tracing. Of the contacts being traced, one is the case of 10 Indonesians who took the AP Sampark Kranti Express back to Karimnagar district after the event on March 13, and subsequently reported positive for coronavirus.

Around 60 passengers who travelled on the New Delhi-Ranchi Rajdhani Express in the same B1 coach as a Malaysian woman who tested positive for the virus, believed to be part of the Nizamuddin Tablighi cluster, are under the scanner with the district authorities scrambling to find their whereabouts. The woman who travelled on the train on March 16 with 23 others tested positive and is Jharkhands first confirmed case of COVID-19…