9.23 pm: Maharashtra government announces that shops can operate in Mumbai from Monday to Friday between 7 am and 2 pm while adhering to the odd-even rule, reports ANI.

9.17 pm: A consignment of 2.79 million Sputnik V vaccine doses is expected to reach India by Monday night, reports the Hindustan Times.

9.15 pm: Maharashtra registers 15,077 new coronavirus cases in 24 hours – the lowest single-day count in three months, reports NDTV. The daily death count also falls to a two-month low after the state reports 184 fatalities.

8.49 pm: India’s decision to ban Covid-19 vaccine exports has had a severe impact on 91 countries that are dependent on Serum Institute of India’s Covishield vaccine and the upcoming Novavax, World Health Organization chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan tells NDTV.

6.51 pm: Singapore will begin vaccinating children aged between 12 and 18 from Tuesday, reports Reuters. The city-state is among the first countries in the world to offer vaccines to teenagers before completing the inoculation of adults.

6.48 pm: Delhi reports 648 new coronavirus cases, pushing the infection tally in the national Capital to 14,26,240. The positivity rate stands at 0.99%. The toll climbs by 86 to 24,237. There are 11,040 active cases in the city.

6.46 pm: Lakshadweep administration extends shutdown by one more week from May 31, reports PTI. The complete lockdown was first announced on May 24 for a week.

6.44 pm: Kerala registers 12,300 new coronavirus cases, 28,867 recoveries and 174 deaths, reports ANI.

6.39 pm: Banaras Hindu University researchers claim that a single dose of vaccine is enough for patients, who have recovered from the coronavirus infection, reports ANI. “We studied the effect of the vaccine on Covid recovered and non-infected people,” said Gyaneshwer Chaubey, a professor in the Zoology department of the university.

Chaubey said that 90% of the non-infected participants developed antibodies after 3-4 weeks but the recovered patients developed antibodies after the first dose. “By giving a single dose to recovered people, we can overcome vaccine shortage,” he added. “We’ve also written a letter to PM [Narendra Modi] in this regard.”

6.34 pm: The Chandigarh administration extends restrictions imposed in the Union Territory till 6 am on June 9, reports ANI. It also allows shops to open between 9 am to 4 pm.

3.50 pm: Dr NK Arora, chairperson of Covid-19 working group under National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation, says India may soon begin testing the feasibility of a regimen that mixes two different Covid-19 vaccines to see if it helps boost immune response to the virus, reports ANI.

3.45 pm: Khattar has accused the Delhi chief minister of doing “drama” by shutting vaccination centres. Claiming that Arvind Kejriwal always has a critical tone, Khattar said Delhi is getting more vaccine doses due to its population size.

“Even we [Haryana] can administer two lakh doses in one day and exhaust our stock,” he says. “But we know how much stock we are getting and if we keep administering 50,000 to 60,000 doses to people daily, this [stock] will keep going on.”

3.44 pm: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal also criticises BJP leader and his Haryana counterpart ML Khattar. “My goal is to save lives, not vaccines,” tweets Kejriwal.

3.38 pm: Haryana Chief Minister ML Khattar accuses his Delhi counterpart Arvind Kejriwal of playing politics in administering vaccines, reports PTI. Khattar says Delhi government is finishing its supply of doses too soon, while his own state is stretching it over a longer period.

Congress leader Randeep Singh Surjewala attacks Khattar, saying Haryana is administering vaccines to people in small numbers over several days. “Deliberate delay in administering vaccines is also being termed as a strategy,” tweets Surjewala.

2.01 pm: The Serum institute of India will increase production of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine to about 90 crore doses in June from about 65 crore a month now, a company spokesman tells Reuters.

1.56 pm: Residents of Odisha have been seen gathering at a market in Bhadrak as it operated between 7am and 11am, reports ANI.

The state has extended restrictions, with some relaxations, till June 17.

Read more here:

Coronavirus: Telangana extends curbs till June 9, Odisha to continue lockdown for another 16 days

1.54 pm: At least 400 people from the LGBT community get their first dose of Covid-19 vaccine in West Bengal’s Siliguri, reports ANI.

1.50 pm: The owner of a Stainless Steel Utensils factory in Delhi tells ANI that the lockdown has not impacted the industries, “unlike the last year’s blanket lockdown”.

Under the Delhi government’s ease on curbs, factories, construction activities have been allowed for one week.

Read more here:

Coronavirus: Curbs in Delhi extended till June 7, manufacturing, construction to resume from Monday

1.49 pm: India has recorded under two lakh new cases for four continuous days, says the Centre.

1.48 pm: The Centre says there are 1,75,48,648 Covid-19 vaccines that are still available with the states and Union Territories.

1.45 pm: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal inaugurates a free coronavirus vaccination facility at a government school at ITO for journalists and their family, reports ANI.

1.43 pm: Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal says the city will get its first batch of Sputnik V coronavirus vaccine after June 20, reports the Hindustan Times.

1.40 pm: The Andhra Pradesh government extends curfew in the state till June 10, reports ANI, citing the Chief Minister’s Office.

1.34 pm: Indian athlete Milkha Singh has been discharged from a private hospital where he was being treated for Covid-19, reports NDTV.

1.03 pm: The Supreme Court points out several flaws in the Centre’s vaccination policy, including access to CoWIN in rural areas and differential pricing, NDTV reports.

Read more here:

Coronavirus: SC questions Centre’s vaccine strategy, says policy makers must have ‘ears on ground’

12.55 pm: The Chhattisgarh government announces financial help of Rs 5 lakh for the families of journalists who died due to the coronavirus disease, ANI reports.

12.49 pm: The Uttarakhand government extends coronavirus-related restrictions till June 9, while Bihar extends its lockdown till June 8.

11.46 am: The Centre tells the Supreme Court that it will decide on cancelling class 12 CBSE and ICSE exams in two days, Live Law reports.

11.42 am: Yoga guru Ramdev claims that yoga and ayurveda have protected him from the coronavirus disease. “For decades, I have been practicing yoga-Ayurveda doses so I didn’t feel the need to get vaccinated,” he adds.

Read more here: Coronavirus: Ramdev now claims yoga and ayurveda have protected him from the virus

11.31 am: The Centre tells the Supreme Court that it expects everyone eligible for vaccination to get inoculated by the end of 2021, Live Law reports.

11.23 am: Two experts in the United States say the world needs China’s cooperation to locate the origins of Covid-19 and prevent pandemics in the future, Bloomberg reports.

“There’s going to be Covid-26 and Covid-32 unless we fully understand the origins of Covid-19,” Peter Hotez, the co-director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, says.

10.08 am: India is likely to begin testing the possibility of using a mix two different Covid-19 vaccines to see if it helps in increasing immune response to the virus, says chairman of the Covid-19 working group under the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunization, reports The Indian Express.

10.07 am: RSS Sahapracharpramukh (or the joint publicity chief) Narendra Kumar says media reports of corpses flowing through the Ganga and buried on its banks was part of an “agenda”, reports The Indian Express.

10.04 am: Maharashtra prepares for third Covid wave as 8,000 children get affected in Ahmednagar district, reports NDTV.

10.03 am: The United Arab Emirates has extended the suspension of regular flights from India till June 30, reports PTI.

10.02 am: A petition has been filed in the Supreme Court to invoke the National Security Act in hoarding, profiteering and black marketing cases of essentials, including Covid-19 drugs and equipment, reports The Hindu.

10.01 am: Twenty one inmates at nine prisons in Uttar Pradesh have written to authorities against their parole, saying that it would be added to their record, reports PTI.

9.59 am: The central government has used the term “Indian double mutant strain” in an affidavit to the Supreme Court, filed days before it objected to using nationality to identify the more deadly virus variant.

Also read:

Coronavirus: WHO has not called B.1.617 the ‘Indian variant’, says Union health ministry

9.56 am: Tamil Nadu Health Minister Ma Subramaniam says the state is running out of its stock of six lakh Covid-19 vaccines that would be over in about two days, adding the state has sought the Centre’s help, reports The News Minute.

9.55 am: In Karnataka, at least 39 persons are suspected to have died due to mucormycosis, commonly known as “black fungus”, in Karnataka, reports the Hindustan Times, citing data released by the state government.

9.49 am: Two men allegedly rape a woman in Assam’s Charaideo district as she and her daughter were returning from a hospital, where the family was receiving treatment for Covid, reports NDTV.

9.26 am: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath announces Rs 10 lakh financial assistance for families of journalists who died due to Covid-19, reports PTI.

9.22 am: India registers 1,52,734 new Covid-19 cases, taking the case count to 28,04,7,534. The toll goes up by 3,128 to 3,29,100.

9.18 am: Here are the top updates from Sunday

  • India registered 1,65,553 new coronavirus cases on Sunday, taking its tally of infections to 2,78,94,800 since the pandemic broke out in January last year. This is the lowest number of new infections recorded in a single day in 46 days. The country’s toll rose to 3,25,972 as it recorded 3,460 deaths in the last day.
  • The Centre said on Sunday that nearly 12 crore coronavirus vaccine doses will be available in June for the immunisation drive. The Serum Institute of India also informed the central government that it will be able to manufacture and supply nine to 10 crore doses of its coronavirus vaccine, Covishield, in June.
  • The Uttar Pradesh government eased restrictions in districts that currently have less than 600 active coronavirus cases starting June 1. Meanwhile, the Haryana government extended its lockdown till June 7. 
  • Tribal rights activist and Jesuit priest Stan Swamy tested positive for the coronavirus infection after he was moved to a hospital, his friend and colleague Father Joseph Xavier said on Sunday.