1. India recorded over 4.40 lakh coronavirus cases on Tuesday with 14,933 new cases in 24 hours. The toll rose to 14,011 with 312 new deaths. So far, 2,48,190 people have recovered from the disease.
  2. Delhi recorded 3,947 new coronavirus cases and 68 deaths. This is the biggest single-day spike in the number of cases so far. The national Capital now has 66,602 cases and the toll has risen to 2,301. Meanwhile, a total of 2,516 persons tested positive in Tamil Nadu, taking the state’s count to 64,603. In Maharashtra, India’s worst affected state, the total rose to 1,39,010 and the toll to 6,531 on Tuesday.
  3. The Ministry of AYUSH asked Patanjali Ayurved to stop advertising some preparations that the company claims can cure the coronavirus, according to a government press release. The ministry said that it does not know the facts related to the claim and details of the studies carried out to test the preparations. Yoga guru Ramdev, the founder of Patanjali Ayurved, had made the announcements at a media interaction in Haridwar earlier in the day.
  4. Union Minority Affairs Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said that Indian pilgrims will not go to Saudi Arabia for the Hajj pilgrimage this year amid risks over the spreading coronavirus. His comment came a day after Saudi Arabia announced that it would only allow people living in the kingdom to take part in the pilgrimage.
  5. One of the traditional servitors at the Puri Jagannath Temple in Odisha tested positive for the coronavirus ahead of the annual Rath Yatra. This came a day after the Supreme Court had directed that only those who test negative would be allowed to pull the chariots and participate in the rituals.
  6. Congress President Sonia Gandhi accused the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government at the Centre of mishandling the coronavirus pandemic. Gandhi pointed to what she described as “grave deficiencies” in India’s health infrastructure that were exposed due to the outbreak of the coronavirus.
  7. Under the PM CARES fund, Rs 2,000 crore has been allocated for the supply of 50,000 ventilators, which are produced in India, to government-run Covid-19 hospitals across the country, the Prime Minister’s Office said. A sum of Rs 1,000 crore has also been provided for the welfare of migrant labourers.
  8. The Arvind Kejriwal government issued new Standard Operating Procedures for management of coronavirus patients in Delhi. There are separate guidelines for people who test positive through a rapid testing process, whose results are available in around 30 minutes, and the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction – or RT-PCR test – which takes 24 to 48 hours to provide results.
  9. The World Health Organization said that many countries reporting a record number of new coronavirus cases cannot be attributed to more testing. Countries like India and the United States have linked the rise in infections to increased testing regime.
  10. Globally, the coronavirus has infected 91.5 lakh people so far, and 4.73 lakh people have died of it, according to the Johns Hopkins University. More than 45.7 lakh people across the world have recovered.