International

At least 112 people have died in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, authorities said yesterday, after torrential monsoon rains caused landslides and flooded low-lying areas, cutting off hundreds of villages. Parts of India’s west coast received up to 594mm (23 inches) of rainfall over 24 hours, forcing authorities to evacuate people from vulnerable areas as they released water from dams that were threatening to overflow. “Unexpected very heavy rainfall triggered landslides in many places and flooded rivers,” Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, who heads Maharashtra’s state government, told journalists. “Dams and rivers are overflowing. We are forced to release water from dams, and, accordingly, we are moving people residing near the river banks to safer places.” The navy and army were helping with rescue operations in coastal areas, he added. At least 38 people were killed in Taliye, 180km southeast of the financial capital Mumbai, when a landslide flattened most of the small village, state government officials said. In nine other landslides in other parts of Maharashtra 59 people died and another 15 were killed in accidents linked to the heavy rainfall, they said. A few dozen people were also feared to have been trapped in landslides in Satara and Raigad districts, said a state government official who asked not to be named. “Rescue operations are going on at various places in Satara, Raigad and Ratnagiri. Due to heavy rainfall and flooded rivers, we are struggling to move rescue machinery quickly,” he said. Thousands of trucks were stuck on a national highway linking Mumbai with the southern technology hub of Bengaluru, with the road submerged in some places, another Maharashtra government official said. Meanwhile, hundreds of villages and towns were without electricity and drinking water, he said. Rivers were also overflowing in the neighbouring southern states of Karnataka and Telangana where authorities were monitoring the situation, government officials there said. Seasonal monsoon rains from June to September cause deaths and mass displacement across South Asia every year, but they also deliver more than 70% of India’s rainfall and are crucial for farmers.

At least 67 people have died in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, authorities said on Friday, after torrential monsoon rains caused landslides and flooded low-lying areas, cutting off hundreds of villages. Parts of India's west coast received up to 594 mm of rainfall over 24 hours, forcing authorities to evacuate people from vulnerable areas as they released water from dams that were threatening to overflow. "Unexpected very heavy rainfall triggered landslides in many places and flooded rivers," Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, who heads Maharashtra's state government, told journalists. "Dams and rivers are overflowing. We are forced to release water from dams, and, accordingly, we are moving people residing near the river banks to safer places." The navy and army were helping with rescue operation in coastal areas, he added. At least 36 people were killed in Taliye, 180 km southeast of the financial capital Mumbai, when a landslide flattened most of the small village, said Vijay Wadettiwar, a minister in the state government. At least four people died in Mumbai after a building collapsed, and another 27 were killed in other parts of Maharashtra due to landslides and accidents linked to the heavy rainfall, state government officials said. Several dozen people were also feared to have been trapped in landslides in Satara and Raigad districts, said a state government official who asked not to be named. "Rescue operations are going on at various places in Satara, Raigad and Ratnagiri. Due to heavy rainfall and flooded rivers, we are struggling to move rescue machinery quickly," he said. Thousands of trucks were stuck on a national highway linking Mumbai with the southern technology hub of Bengaluru, with the road submerged in some places, another Maharashtra government official said. Meanwhile, hundreds of villages and towns were without electricity and drinking water, he said. Rivers were also overflowing in the neighbouring southern states of Karnataka and Telangana where authorities were monitoring the situation, government officials there said. Seasonal monsoon rains from June to September cause deaths and mass displacement across South Asia every year, but they also deliver more than 70% of India's rainfall and are crucial for farmers.

A proposed Indian law on the collection and use of genetic data to tackle crime can violate privacy, and target minorities and marginalised communities disproportionately, according to technology experts and human rights groups. The DNA Technology Regulation Bill allows the profiling of victims, those accused of crimes, and those reported missing, and storing of their DNA information in national and regional data banks. It also aims to set up a DNA Regulatory Board. The bill was tabled in parliament in February, and is expected to be passed in the current session that runs until August 31. Privacy advocates say the data can be misused for caste-based or community profiling in a country where minority groups are disproportionately criminalised, and that privacy violations are also likely as there is no law to protect personal data. “The bill creates an umbrella databank for multiple purposes; the main concern is the lack of clarity on what data may be stored,” said Shambhavi Naik, a research fellow at Takshashila Institution’s technology and policy programme. “There are privacy concerns because DNA discloses information about one’s relatives and ancestors, as well,” she added. There are some 40,000 unidentified bodies and more than 60,000 children reported missing in India every year, according to official data. The use of DNA technology, while not infallible, will minimise errors in criminal investigations and “improve the justice delivery system,” said Jairam Ramesh, head of the parliamentary committee that examined the bill. The bill provides for safeguards “to ensure privacy is not violated wantonly and egregiously. More safeguards should certainly be considered as we gain further experience with the use of technology,” said Ramesh, a member of the opposition. A spokesperson for the information technology ministry did not respond to a request for comment. DNA can reveal sensitive information that can be used to criminalise a community or caste, said Asaduddin Owaisi, a member of parliament, noting that a majority of those arrested belong to the Dalit, Muslim or indigenous Adivasi communities. “When the data being collected is as sensitive as DNA, it requires additional protections,” he said in a note of dissent against the proposed bill, as “the potential for misuse is high, and the possible harm is so significant.” “In the absence of a statutory framework protecting the right to privacy, this bill will cause irreversible damage to individuals’ right to privacy, as well as the criminal justice system,” he added. With an aim to modernise India’s police force and its information gathering and criminal identification processes, authorities are installing facial recognition systems in airports, railways stations and polling booths in the country. If the DNA data bank is linked to other surveillance systems like facial recognition “without accountability or oversight, that’s a big problem,” said Raman Jit Singh Chima, Asia policy counsel at Access Now, a digital rights group. “A DNA database can be useful, but it needs a regulatory backstop that India does not have. The DNA Tech bill should not come before the personal data protection bill,” Chima stressed.

The Indian government yesterday rejected recent studies suggesting that millions of people have died in the country from Covid-19, several times the official toll of almost 420,000. It said in a statement, however, that several Indian states were now “reconciling” their data after dealing with a spike in cases in April and May. On Tuesday a study by US research group the Center for Global Development suggested anywhere from 3.4mn to 4.7mn people had died in India, between eight and 11 times the official number. That would give the country the world’s highest number of fatalities. Currently its official toll of 419,000 trails the US on 610,000 and Brazil with 545,000. The study is the latest to cast doubt on India’s official numbers, pointing to poor record-keeping and the death rate per million being around half the global average. Researchers have looked in particular at “excess mortality”, the number of additional fatalities compared with normal times, and at death rates in other countries. But the Indian government yesterday said it was an “audacious assumption that the likelihood of any given infected person dying is the same across countries”. The studies, it said, ignored “factors such as race, ethnicity, genomic constitution of a population, previous exposure levels to other diseases and the associated immunity developed in that population”. Assuming that all excess deaths were from coronavirus was “not based on facts and totally fallacious”, the government said. It added that India has a “thorough contact tracing strategy”, a “vast availability” of testing labs and that while some cases may go undetected, “missing out on deaths is unlikely”.

Up to two-thirds of India's population may have been infected with Covid-19, a government study suggested on Tuesday. The blood serum survey of about 29,000 people in June and July showed 67.6 percent of those tested had antibodies. The results of the study by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) show the impact of a devastating surge of cases in April and May, when India reported about 400,000 cases and 4,000 deaths per day. In December and January, less than 25 percent of those in a similar study had positive antibody tests. ICMR chief Balram Bhargava said that the study shows "there is a ray of hope". "But there is no room for complacency. We must maintain Covid-appropriate behaviour," he said in New Delhi on Tuesday. The hundreds of millions in India without antibodies are more susceptible to severe infection. Only 13 percent of the adults in the study were fully vaccinated. India, home to 1.3 billion people, has only vaccinated about eight percent of eligible adults, triggering fears of an imminent wave of cases as it eases Covid curbs. India's official Covid death toll of 418,480 is the world's third-highest after the United States' 609,000 fatalities and Brazil's 544,000. But a US research group report, also released on Tuesday, estimated that the actual death toll could be up to 10 times higher, citing the number of extra people who died compared with pre-crisis figures.

India’s excess deaths during the Covid-19 pandemic could be as high as 4.9mn, a new study shows, providing further evidence that millions more may have died from coronavirus than the official tally. The report by the Washington-based Center for Global Development, co-authored by India’s former chief economic adviser Arvind Subramanian, included deaths from all causes since the start of the pandemic through June this year. India’s official tally of more than 414,000 deaths is the world’s third highest after the US and Brazil, but the study adds to growing calls from experts for a rigorous nationwide audit of fatalities. A devastating rise in infections in April and May, driven largely by the more infectious and dangerous Delta variant, overwhelmed the healthcare system and killed at least 170,000 people in May alone, official data show. “What is tragically clear is that too many people, in the millions rather than hundreds of thousands, may have died,” the report said, estimating between 3.4mn and 4.9mn excess deaths during the pandemic. But it did not ascribe all excess deaths to the pandemic. “We focus on all-cause mortality, and estimate excess mortality relative to a pre-pandemic baseline, adjusting for seasonality,” the authors said. The health ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters e-mail seeking comment. Some experts have said excess deaths are the best way to measure the real toll from Covid-19. “For every country, it’s important to capture excess mortality — the only way to prepare the health system for future shocks and to prevent further deaths,” Soumya Swaminathan, the chief scientist of the World Health Organisation, said on Twitter. The New York Times said the most conservative estimate of deaths in India was 600,000 and the worst-case scenario several times that. The government has dismissed those figures. Health experts blame the undercounting largely on scarce resources in the vast hinterland home to two-thirds of India’s population of nearly 1.4bn, and also many deaths at home without being tested. India has reported a decline in daily infections from a May peak, with 30,093 new cases yesterday making up its lowest daily count in four months. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has also been criticised for a messy vaccination campaign that many say helped worsen the second wave of infections. Just over 8% of eligible adult Indians have received both vaccine doses. In July, the government administered fewer than 4mn daily doses on average, down from a record 9.2mn on June 21, when Modi flagged off a free campaign to inoculate all 950mn adults. Meanwhile, according to data released yesterday, two-thirds of India’s population have antibodies against the coronavirus, from a survey of 29,000 people across the nation conducted in June and July. The fourth national blood serum survey which tests for antibodies, known as a sero survey, included 8,691 children aged 6-17 years for the first time. Half of them were seropositive. The survey showed 67.6% of adults were seropositive, while more than 62% of adults were unvaccinated. As of July, just over 8% of eligible adult Indians had received two vaccine doses. About 400mn of India’s 1.4bn people did not have antibodies, the survey showed. India’s daily cases have fallen to four-month lows after a second-wave that crippled the healthcare system. But experts have warned the authorities against swiftly reopening cities and voiced concerns about overcrowding at tourist sites. “The second wave is still persisting. The danger of new outbreaks is very much there,” Vinod Kumar Paul, a top government adviser, told a news conference. “One out of three, wherever you are,...is still vulnerable and therefore the pandemic is no way over,” he said. The study also surveyed 7,252 healthcare workers and found 85% had antibodies, with one in 10 unvaccinated. Last month, data showed at least half of under-18s in India’s financial capital of Mumbai were exposed to Covid-19 and had antibodies against it. Some experts have said a third wave could hit children. Mumbai has joined other cities in building huge paediatric wards in preparation.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s most prominent political rival, opposition figure Rahul Gandhi, was twice selected as a potential surveillance target in leaked phone number data, making him one of dozens of Indian politicians, journalists, activists and government critics whose numbers were identified as possible targets for the Israeli company’s government clients. Two numbers belonging to Gandhi, who led the Congress party during India’s 2019 national elections, were selected as candidates for possible surveillance in the year before the vote and in the months afterwards by NSO, whose spying tool Pegasus allows customers to infiltrate mobile phones and monitor messages, camera feeds and microphones. Phones belonging to at least five of Gandhi’s close friends and other Congress party officials were also identified as potential targets using the spyware, according to a leaked list of potential targets selected by NSO customers. The data was accessed by the non-profit journalism organisation Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International and shared with the Guardian and other media outlets as part of the Pegasus project. It is not possible to say whether a phone in the leaked data was successfully hacked without forensic analysis. But the consortium confirmed Pegasus infections, or signs of potential targeting, on phones linked to 10 Indian numbers and on an additional 27 phones around the world. Gandhi, who changes his device every few months to avoid surveillance, was not able to provide the phone he used at the time for examination. A successful hacking would have granted Modi’s government access to the private data of the prime minister’s primary challenger in the year before the 2019 elections. “Targeted surveillance of the type you describe whether in regard to me, other leaders of the opposition or indeed any law-abiding citizen of India is illegal and deplorable,” Gandhi said. “If your information is correct, the scale and nature of surveillance you describe goes beyond an attack on the privacy of individuals. It is an attack on the democratic foundations of our country. It must be thoroughly investigated and those responsible be identified and punished.” The selection of the opposition leader’s phone as a possible surveillance target in 2019 coincided with the identification of the numbers of two staff members, Sachin Rao and Alankar Sawai, who at the time were working on forthcoming state election campaigns against Modi’s party in Haryana and Maharashtra. Forensic analysis conducted on Wednesday on the phone of Prashant Kishor, a political strategist working for the party that defeated Modi’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) in the West Bengal state election earlier this year, established it had been hacked using Pegasus as recently as the day it was examined. The examination by Amnesty’s Security Lab also found evidence of intrusion by Pegasus in April – in the midst of the election campaign – indicating Kishor’s phone calls, e-mails and messages were being monitored throughout the final weeks of the bitter contest. Kishor said the findings were “really disappointing”.“Those who did (the hacking) were looking to take undue advantage of their position of power with the help of illegal snooping,” he said. Analysis of the more than 1,000 mostly Indian phone numbers selected for potential targeting by the NSO client that hacked Kishor strongly indicate intelligence agencies within the Indian government were behind the selection. NSO has always maintained it “does not operate the systems that it sells to vetted government customers, and does not have access to the data of its customers’ targets”. In statements issued through its lawyers, NSO said it would “continue to investigate all credible claims of misuse and take appropriate action”. Following the launch of the Pegasus project, Shalev Hulio, the founder and chief executive of NSO, said he continued to dispute the leaked data “has any relevance to NSO”, but added he was “very concerned” about the reports and promised to investigate them all.“We understand that in some circumstances our customers might misuse the system,” he said. NSO markets Pegasus as a tool for fighting terrorism and crime, but the inclusion of a major Indian opposition leader in the records – alongside political staffers, labour unionists, Tibetan Buddhist clerics, social justice campaigners and a woman who accused India’s most senior judge of sexual harassment – raises troubling questions about the way the hacking software may have been used in India.

It was described as a dialogue, the first high-level meeting in months between the Indian and Chinese foreign ministers to address the ongoing border aggression that have pushed the two nuclear-armed countries to the brink of war. But those hoping Wednesday’s meeting would help break a year-long stalemate during which 200,000 troops have built up on both sides of the Himalayan frontier were to be left unsatisfied. There was one point of agreement, however. As Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister, noted, “relations between India and China are still at a low point”. In June last year, following several months of rising tensions along the India-China border in the Himalayan region of Ladakh, 20 Indian soldiers and reportedly four Chinese soldiers were killed in the deadliest clash between the two countries in more than 50 years. Forbidden from firing weapons, the two sides instead fought on the icy mountain precipice of Galwan valley in medieval fashion, using spiked clubs and engaging in hand-to-hand combat, with several soldiers falling to their deaths. The clash did not result in all-out declarations of war, but pledges of de-escalation and multiple rounds of failed military talks have instead been overshadowed by a year of troop, artillery and infrastructure buildup on both sides of the 2,100-mile border unlike at any other time in history, including when China invaded India in 1962. Indian army officials allege the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is becoming more aggressive with every passing day. Though recent skirmishes between the two sides have been denied by the Indian government, army officials told the Guardian that the situation in areas of eastern Ladakh including Galwan valley and Hot Springs remained extremely tense. “Every month there are two to three face-offs in these areas,” said another army officer posted in the area, the information corroborated by local police and intelligence officers. “To avoid further escalations we started fencing some areas around Galwan but Chinese objected to it and we had to remove it,” said another officer. The ministry of defence and the military did not respond to requests for comment. Indian army officers described the military buildup on the border in Ladakh as “like never before”.

India's capital New Delhi and the main financial centre of Mumbai were drenched with heavy rain on Monday, a day after at least 35 people were killed across the country in landslides and house collapses triggered by downpours. The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has predicted heavy to very heavy rain in north India, including New Delhi, over the next two days. In Mumbai, the IMD has issued a heavy rain and thunderstorm alert for the city and surrounding districts. At least 30 people were killed on Sunday in three Mumbai suburbs when several houses collapsed in landslides after rain. At least three people were also killed when a house collapsed in the northern state of Uttarakhand after a downpour, Reuters partner agency ANI reported. In a separate incident on Sunday evening, a three-storey building collapsed in the city of Gurugram, bordering Delhi. Two people were killed and rescue operations were still underway. Several low-lying areas of Delhi and Mumbai were flooded and Twitter was filled with images of submerged vehicles and people wading through waist-deep water. Mumbai's water treatment plant in the suburbs was flooded on Sunday forcing the municipal council to impose water cuts in some parts of the city. India is in the midst of its annual rainy season but the downpours over the past few days have been particularly heavy. Extreme weather has hit several parts of the world in recent weeks with flooding in Europe, dam collapses in China and heatwaves in North America adding to worries about climate change.

At least 34 people were killed after several homes were crushed by a collapsed wall and a landslide triggered by heavy monsoon rains in India’s financial capital Mumbai, authorities said yesterday. Rainwater also inundated a water purification complex, disrupting supply “in most of the parts of Mumbai”, a megacity of 20mn people, civic authorities said. A falling tree demolished a wall in the eastern suburb of Chembur during yesterday’s early hours, burying nearby residents, the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) said. Twenty-one bodies have been recovered from the rubble, it added, with rescue operations ongoing. “In the adjacent house, I saw a small girl who was trapped in the debris. She was shouting ‘save me, save me’,” Firoz Khan, who was caught up in the downpour in Chembur, said. “Her body was trapped in the mud. Somehow, I managed to pull her out. She had injuries in her legs. I narrowly survived this collapse.” Another resident, Manda Gautam Pradhan, said she had seen “rocks and mud...gushing down the hill along with the rainwater”. Rescuers resorted to using their hands to dig up the ground in an attempt to find survivors, local television showed, as authorities said more people could be trapped inside the debris. Emergency workers carried the injured through narrow lanes on makeshift stretchers. In the suburb of Vikhroli in the city’s northeast, six people were killed after a landslide hit five homes early yesterday, the NDRF added. The Central Railway and Western Railway suspended suburban train services due to waterlogging in the tracks after the overnight heavy downpour.  Building collapses are common during India’s June-September monsoon season, with old and rickety structures buckling under days of non-stop rain.  Last month, 12 people were killed when a building collapsed in a Mumbai slum. And last September, 39 people died when a three-storey apartment block collapsed in Bhiwandi near the financial capital. Mumbai has been hit by downpours since Saturday, with local transport services affected. The city’s civic body did not say when the water supply was expected to be restored, but advised residents to boil the liquid before using it. The Indian Meteorological Department said early yesterday that “moderate to heavy rain or thundershowers” were forecast for the next two days. “We’ll take the decision to shift the people who are living in a dangerous situation to permanent settlements immediately,” said Nawab Malik, a state cabinet minister, according to a tweet by news agency ANI, a Reuters partner. Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted his condolences and added that there would be financial compensation for victims’ families.

At least 25 people died in three Mumbai suburbs when several houses collapsed after landslides triggered by heavy rain, local officials said on Sunday. Rescuers were seen using their hands to dig up the ground and retrieve bodies, local television showed, and authorities said more victims could be trapped inside the debris. Rescuers were also shown carrying the injured through narrow lanes on makeshift stretchers. Within the last 24 hours authorities have so far reported 11 incidents of houses or walls collapsing in the Mumbai area, officials said. In one neighbourhood about half a dozen shacks located at the base of a hill collapsed on top of each other, officials said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered condolences in a tweet and announced aid for the victims. Several areas in the city were flooded after heavy rainfall over the last 24 hours and suburban train services were disrupted, crippling India's financial capital. Mumbai and the coast of India's industrial Maharashtra state are expected to receive heavy to very heavy rainfall in the next four days, the weather department said on Sunday. Torrential rain, especially during India's July-September monsoon, often triggers the collapse of buildings, especially older or illegally built structures.

The Indian government has ordered 660mn vaccine doses for August-December, its largest procurement, local news reports said yesterday, as state authorities and health experts warned that shortages could leave millions vulnerable if coronavirus infections surge again. The federal government aims to inoculate all of the country’s estimated 944mn adults by December, a target health experts have said is ambitious, as only 8% of that number is currently vaccinated with the mandatory two doses. Several states have reported vaccine shortages, with many inoculation centres shut and people having to wait for long hours at others for their shot. The government has now ordered 375mn more doses of AstraZeneca’s locally produced Covishield and 285mn doses of Bharat Biotech’s homegrown Covaxin, the Economic Times newspaper reported, citing sources. The health ministry did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. The Serum Institute of India, which manufactures Covishield, has raised monthly production to about 100mn doses. The government says Bharat Biotech’s monthly output will jump to as much as 70mn doses in July/August, from about 10mn doses in April. Production could rise further to nearly 100mn by September, it says. Bharat Biotech, which has been struggling to raise output of its vaccine, did not respond to a request for an update on its production plans. “I expect the vaccine shortage to continue and as per the planned vaccine supply, it appears that the daily average for the whole of July will stay below 4mn,” said Rijo John, health economist and a professor at the Rajagiri College of Social Sciences in the southern city of Kochi. After a record 9.1mn doses were administered on June 21, fewer than 4mn doses per day have since been given on an average this month. A full rollout of Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine in India has also been delayed due to a lack of imported supplies. Commercial production of the vaccine in India, however, could begin soon. India’s daily Covid-19 cases have dropped to nearly two-month lows, the country remains the second-highest globally in terms of daily infections. India yesterday reported 38,949 new coronavirus cases over the last 24 hours, health ministry data showed, taking the nationwide tally above 31mn. Total fatalities were 412,531. Earlier this week the INdian home ministry flagged the increase in the infection rate as a cause for concern in some states, urging officials nationwide to enforce social distancing and clamp down on overcrowding at tourist sites.

A rise in India’s Covid-19 infection rate is worrying authorities who are concerned that religious events and tourism could prove to be “superspreader” events in the battle to douse a devastating second wave of infections that has killed thousands. This month, thousands of Hindus are set to walk hundreds of miles across northern cities, carrying pitchers of water from the Ganges in a religious ritual. They could act as “super spreaders” and set off a third wave of infections, a top medical body has warned. The Supreme Court this week questioned federal and state authorities in the most populous state of Uttar Pradesh on why the mass religious gathering should be allowed. The home ministry flagged the increase in the infection rate as a cause for concern in some states, urging officials nationwide to enforce social distancing and clamp down on overcrowding at tourist sites. “We must guard ourselves against complacency and laxity, which creep in as positivity declines,” Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla told them in a letter, at a time when most cities have lifted strict lockdowns. The effective reproduction rate of the disease, which health experts call the “R” factor, now stands at 0.86 in the world’s second most populous nation, online publication Our World in Data shows, a jump of more than 25% in a month. Bhalla warned of the risk of a faster spread of infection when the rate exceeds 1. “You may be aware that any increase in ‘R’ factor above 1.0 is an indicator of spread of Covid-19,” he added. Still, the website showed the 0.86 figure is off an April 9 peak of 1.47. By May, that had propelled India’s daily cases to a staggering 400,000, leaving thousands in cities, including the capital New Delhi, scrambling for oxygen, hospital beds, ambulances and ultimately, morgues. Bodies washed up on the banks of the Ganges. States had largely lifted curbs as infections slowed, but the second wave has not yet ended, top officials have warned. India’s tally of 30.99mn infections is second only to the US, with 411,989 deaths. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has warned against overcrowding and called for vigilance against new variants, saying vaccination efforts needed to be sped up. India is trying to inoculate all 950mn adults by year-end, but vaccine shortages and logistics hurdles have meant just 8% have received both doses.infection rate edges up

India’s first coronavirus patient, a student who was in the Chinese city of Wuhan, has tested positive for a second time, a medical official said yesterday. The 21-year-old woman from the southern state of Kerala has no symptoms but is in isolation at her home, Thrissur district medical officer Reena K J said. The woman tested positive again during a routine check ahead of a trip to New Delhi. “Health teams are in constant touch with her,” Reena said. The patient was among Indian medical students who fled Wuhan in January 2020 after the virus first appeared in the Chinese city. She developed mild symptoms and tested positive on January 30, becoming India’s first Covid-19 patient. India has since accumulated nearly 31mn cases and suffered more than 410,000 deaths, many in a devastating wave that hit in April and May. Experts have warned that a new wave could hit India within weeks and authorities have launched a frantic vaccination campaign that has been hindered by a critical shortage of doses. The government has set a target of vaccinating all adults by the end of the year but the campaign has fallen behind and major cities such as Delhi and several states say they have run out of vaccines. India administered more than 9mn doses on June 21 after the government kicked off a new vaccine drive. But numbers have since come down to less than 3mn shots a day. The Kerala student had not been vaccinated because she was waiting to see which version would be approved by China for her to go back to the country. Kerala is in the grip of a massive Covid-19 surge with more than one-third of total nationwide cases coming from the state.

Indian authorities began demolishing hundreds of homes in a village on the outskirts of New Delhi yesterday, in a move that housing activists said could leave 100,000 people homeless. India’s top court last month ordered the removal of “encroachers including by forcible eviction” from Khori village, which is home to about 10,000 families of informal workers, including street food vendors, cleaners and tuk-tuk drivers. Their homes were built illegally on protected forest land, which is part of the Aravalli mountain range that stretches nearly 700km through northern and western India. About 300 homes were razed yesterday amid monsoon rains by the municipality of Faridabad district in Haryana state, according to activists at the site, and thousands more are set to be destroyed before the Supreme Court deadline of July 19. “We don’t have anywhere to go. We will get drenched here. I have small children,” one woman – who was not named – told local news channel NDTV after her home of 15 years was demolished. Neither district authorities nor local police responded to requests for comment. The demolition drive started a day after the state announced a rehabilitation plan that would make residents eligible to live in low-cost flats if they met certain criteria, such as having an annual family income of less than Rs300,000 ($4,025). Under the plan, Rs2,000 will be given to the residents to rent alternative housing for a period of six months. Housing campaigners criticised the release of the plan one day before the demolition, and urged the government to conduct a survey to identify beneficiaries, give them ample time to prove their claims, and also link people to welfare schemes for work. “Within 24 hours of just announcing the plan, you destroy the homes? What kind of welfare state is this?,” said Nirmal Gorana, member of the Khori Mazdoor Awas Sangharsh Samiti, an organisation representing the interests of residents. “You cannot uproot them and leave them to die in a pandemic,” he said. India’s coronavirus caseload of nearly 31mn infections is the world’s second-highest behind the US. The United Nations last year said access to adequate housing was the “front line defence against the Covid-19 outbreak”. Video footage posted on Twitter by district authorities showed an earthmover bulldozing and demolishing homes, with bricks and corrugated tin roofs crashing down as police in riot gear and residents looked on.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi warned yesterday against overcrowding at tourist sites and called for faster vaccinations against the coronavirus even as official figures indicated a slower spread of new infections. The Indian Medical Association (IMA) said on Monday it feared gathering of tourists and pilgrims could become super spreader events that fuel a deadly third wave of infections and it warned against complacency. “I will say very emphatically that it is not OK to have huge crowds in hill stations, markets, without wearing masks,” Modi said in comments posted on Twitter while acknowledging the tourism industry has been badly hit by lockdowns. India’s coronavirus caseload of 30.91 million infections is the world’s second-highest behind the United States. Its official tally of deaths is 410,784, many of them coming in a brutal second wave of infections in April and May when people died outside hospitals as they waited for beds and bodies were washing up on the banks of the holy Ganges river. Yesterday, authorities reported 32,906 new cases — the lowest daily tally since mid-March — compared with some 400,000 a day at the height of the second wave.

At least two people were dead and 10 missing after heavy rains in a hilly northern Indian state triggered landslides and flash floods that destroyed homes, damaged roads and swept away cars, a senior government official said on Tuesday. About 50 workers from the National Disaster Response Force and local responders have been deployed to look for survivors in the hard-hit Boh valley in the Kangra district of Himachal Pradesh, said Nipun Jindal, the district's deputy commissioner. "Rescue work there is ongoing," Jindal told Reuters via telephone. "They are clearing the muck and the debris." The fast-moving flood waters ripped away buildings' foundations and threatened to wash away roads. Residents gathered outside in the rain, hauling their belongings away from the flooding. With further rains expected, Jindal said that district authorities were on high alert, and that tourists had been told to either postpone visits or to remain where they are if already in Kangra. Straddling the Himalayan foothills, Kangra is home to the Tibetan government in exile based in the city of Dharamshala and is a popular tourist destination. Television footage from Monday's flooding showed swirling brown waters flowing through narrow streets at a settlement near Dharamshala, sweeping away a large car that was caught in the torrent. In another area, flood waters had damaged several homes abutting a stream, forcing residents out on the streets. In recent weeks, thousands of tourists have thronged to hillside destinations in northern India, including Dharamshala, prompting warnings from authorities to maintain Covid-19 precautions after a catastrophic second wave of infections in the country.

Several people reportedly taking selfies near a historical fort in northern India were among nearly 80 killed by lightning strikes during the early stages of the annual monsoon season, officials said yesterday. Deadly lightning strikes are common in the vast Asian nation during the June-September deluge, which bring respite from the summer heat across the northern Indian plains. Of the 76 killed, at least 23 people died in the mostly desert state of Rajasthan, including a dozen who were watching the storm cross Jaipur city from watch towers near the famous 12th-century Amer Fort, a state disaster department official said. “It was already raining when the people were there. They huddled in the towers as the rainfall intensified,” a senior Jaipur police officer, Saurabh Tiwari, added. He said up to 30 people were on the towers when the lightning struck. Emergency teams were checking if any victims had fallen into a deep moat on one side of the towers. “Some of the injured were left unconscious by the strikes. Others ran out in panic and extreme pain,” he added. Officials told local media some of those killed were taking selfies during the storm. Every year, tens of thousands of tourists visit the Amer Fort, a medieval complex on a hilltop outside Jaipur also known as the Amber Fort. People had been flocking to the fort, which gives a panoramic view of the tourist city of Jaipur, after several weeks of intense heat in the state. In the neighbouring state of Uttar Pradesh, at least 42 people were killed in lightning strikes on Saturday and Sunday, officials said. They did not give further details about where they had been killed. Another 11 people died in the central state of Madhya Pradesh over the weekend, an official at the state’s disaster control room said. Two of them, who had taken their camels and sheep for grazing, were sheltering under a tree when they were hit by lightning, the official said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi said the victims’ families would be offered compensation. Last month, 27 people were killed and four passengers on a flight were hospitalised after severe turbulence during monsoon storms the eastern state of West Bengal. Nearly 2,900 people were killed by lightning in India in 2019, according to the National Crime Records Bureau - the most recent figures available. The monsoon is crucial to replenishing water supplies in South Asia, but also causes widespread death and destruction across the region each year.

India’s full rollout of the Sputnik V Covid -19 vaccine will have to be put on hold until the Russian producer provides equal quantities of its two differing doses, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories said yesterday. Dr Reddy’s had received about 3mn first doses by June 1 and about 360,000 doses of the second by early this month, the company and the Indian government have said. “As a matter of responsibility, we would not like to announce a full-fledged commercial launch until we have an equivalent quantity (of the second dose),” Dr Reddy’s said. Dr Reddy’s, which originally planned a full rollout in mid-June, is currently running a pilot programme under which more than 195,000 doses have been administered at hospitals across the country. “It is our commitment to ensure supply of component two in equal quantity and on time to all partner hospitals to whom we have supplied dose one,” the company said, declining to share more details ahead of its financial results. India has approved a gap of 21 days between the two doses. The Russian Direct Investment Fund, which markets the vaccine abroad, did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Indian government expects 100mn locally produced and imported Sputnik V doses to be available in the country between August and December. India is expected to be one of the biggest manufacturing hubs of the vaccine. India has administered more than 375mn vaccine doses, the world’s most after China. It is mainly relying on the AstraZeneca shot and one developed at home by Bharat Biotech and the state-run Indian Council of Medical Research. Daily vaccinations hit a national record of 9.2mn doses on June 21 but have dropped to around 4mn per day Meanwhile, the country’s top doctor’s body warned yesterday that opening India’s tourist destinations and allowing religious travel could act as Covid -19 “super spreaders” of a third wave of infections,  After a catastrophic second wave, driven largely by the more infectious and dangerous Delta variant, ravaged the country’s health system, India is now reporting roughly a tenth of its peak daily numbers in May. But experts worry that a third wave of infections is not far off as travel restrictions are eased in various parts of the country. The Indian Medical Association, India’s top doctor’s body, appealed to state governments and citizens to not lower their guard against Covid-19, saying a third wave was inevitable. “It is painful to note, in this crucial time...in many parts of the country, both government and public are complacent and engaged in mass gatherings without following Covid protocols,” the IMA said in a press release. The comments from the IMA echoed those from senior government officials, who have urged citizens to avoid crowding at tourist places and cautioned that the second coronavirus wave is not yet over. “Tourist bonanza, local travel  are all needed, but can wait for few more months,” the IMA said, adding that opening up for these rituals and enabling unvaccinated people to go to these mass gatherings are “potential super spreaders for the Covid third wave.” India yesterday reported 37,154 new Covid cases and 724 new deaths in the last 24 hours, health ministry data showed, compared to the peak of over 400,000 infections a day in May.

His Holiness Moran Mor Baselios Marthoma Paulose II, Catholicos of the East and primate of the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church, passed away yesterday. He was the 91st reigning Catholicos of the East. The funeral services will be held today at the Catholicate Palace chapel in Devalokam in Kottayam district from 3pm.  The Metropolitan had been ailing for quite some time. His end came at 2.35am yesterday at a private hospital in Parumala in Kerala’s Pathanamthitta district while undergoing treatment for post-Covid-19 complications, a church spokesman said. He was 75. A much-loved personality, Bawa Thirumeni, as he was known to all, was a great source of support to the destitute and the poor for whom he executed many a service scheme. A great humanitarian, he was a votary of social justice and equality.  Bawa Thirumeni was born on August 30, 1946, in Mangad, a village near Kunnamkulam in Thrissur district. He was ordained priest in 1973.