International

At least 22 members of Indian security forces were killed in a central Indian state by Maoist fighters, in one of the bloodiest attacks by the extreme left-wing insurgent group this year, officials said on Sunday. Security personnel belonging to the Central Reserve Police Force's elite CoBRA unit, the District Reserve Guard, and the Special Task Force were attacked on Saturday in the tribal-dominated Chhattisgarh state during an anti-insurgency operation. "We can confirm that 22 of Indian force members have been killed by Maoist fighters," said a senior government official in Raipur, the capital of mineral-rich Chhattisgarh. They were killed in firing that lasted for four hours in the border district of Sukma, 540 kms  south of Raipur. Om Prakash Pal, a senior police official in Raipur, said combing operations to trace one missing security force member were being conducted. The death toll was the heaviest for Indian security forces battling the far-left guerrillas since 2017. Home Minister Amit Shah said the government will not tolerate such bloodshed and "a befitting response will be given to prevent such attacks." The Maoists, also known as Naxals, have waged an armed insurgency against the government for decades. Leaders of the hardline leftist militant group say they are fighting on behalf of the poorest, who have not benefited from a long economic boom in Asia's third-largest economy. Since 1967 the group seen as the greatest threat to the country's internal security have asserted control over vast swathes of land in central and eastern India, establishing a so-called "red corridor". The militant group operate from thick forests, and their operations against the Indian administration and forces are shrouded in secrecy. The group has not claimed responsibility for the latest attack. Hours after the attack, Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote on Twitter that the "sacrifices of the brave martyrs will never be forgotten. May the injured recover at the earliest." Last month, five policemen were killed and several others were injured in a blast in what police said was a Maoist strike targeting a bus carrying more than 20 security personnel.

India’s biggest cities braced for stricter lockdowns and other Covid-19 curbs yesterday as infections hit a six-month high, as a month-long surge continued in the country third-worst hit by the pandemic.  India’s richest state, Maharashtra, accounted for more than half of the 89,129 new cases reported by the national health ministry in the last 24 hours, with a record 47,827 infections. The state’s chief minister warned citizens of a lockdown if cases continued to rise at their current rate, saying medical infrastructure would be inadequate in a couple of weeks. In the southern state of Karnataka, home to India’s tech capital Bengaluru, authorities ordered gyms to be closed, barred functions at religious places and told cinema halls, bars, pubs and restaurants to limit the number of people allowed in. India’s capital, New Delhi recorded more than 3,500 cases, its highest this year, but its chief minister ruled out another lockdown for now. Daily coronavirus cases have surged from around 15,000 in early March to 88,000 or so at the start of April. The south Asian nation recorded 89,129 new infections and 714 deaths, the ministry said. That was the biggest daily rise since Sept. 20 and the most deaths since Oct. 21, according to a Reuters tally. India follows only the United States and Brazil in infections, with more than 12 million recorded since the start of the outbreak. The government has intensified its vaccination drive in recent weeks, but the shots have been slow to reach India’s 1.3bn people. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has faced criticism for exporting vaccines produced in India when most Indians are yet to get them.

India's biggest cities braced for stricter lockdowns and other Covid-19 curbs on Saturday as infections hit a six-month high, as a month-long surge continued in the country third-worst hit by the pandemic. India's richest state, Maharashtra, accounted for more than half of the 89,129 new cases reported by the national health ministry in the last 24 hours, with a record 47,827 infections. The state's chief minister warned citizens of a lockdown if cases continued to rise at their current rate, saying medical infrastructure would be inadequate in a couple of weeks. In the southern state of Karnataka, home to India's tech capital Bengaluru, authorities ordered gyms to be closed, barred functions at religious places and told cinema halls, bars, pubs and restaurants to limit the number of people allowed in. India's capital, New Delhi recorded more than 3,500 cases, its highest this year, but its chief minister ruled out another lockdown for now. Daily coronavirus cases have surged from around 15,000 in early March to 88,000 or so at the start of April. The south Asian nation recorded 89,129 new infections and 714 deaths, the ministry said. That was the biggest daily rise since Sept. 20 and the most deaths since Oct. 21, according to a Reuters tally. India follows only the United States and Brazil in infections, with more than 12 million recorded since the start of the outbreak. The government has intensified its vaccination drive in recent weeks, but the shots have been slow to reach India’s 1.3 billion people. Prime Minister Narendra Modi has faced criticism for exporting vaccines produced in India when most Indians are yet to get them.

Indian cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar entered hospital Friday as a precautionary measure six days after announcing that he had coronavirus. The 47-year-old "little master" of batting is one of the most high-profile cases of a new pandemic surge in the country of 1.3 billion people. "As a matter of abundant precaution under medical advice, I have been hospitalised," Tendulkar said on Twitter. "I hope to be back home in a few days. Take care and stay safe everyone." Tendulkar is adored across India, and fans took to social media to wish their cricket "God" a speedy recovery. Indian Premier League teams like the Delhi Capitals all released messages of goodwill. "Wishing a speedy recovery to the little master," IPL player Mufaddal Vohra said on Twitter. "Praying for the speedy recovery of Sachin Tendulkar," said Jay Shah, secretary of the BCCI, India's national cricket board. Former Pakistan arch-rival Wasim Akram also sent special wishes. "Even when you were 16, you battled world's best bowlers with guts and aplomb... so I am sure you will hit Covid-19 for a six!" said Akram, who bowled at Tendulkar in his debut series as a 16-year-old. "Recover soon master! Would be great if you celebrate India's World Cup 2011 anniversary with doctors and hospital staff... do send me a pic!" Tendulkar is the highest run-scorer ever in Test matches and one-day internationals. He retired in 2013 after playing in 200 Tests, in which he made 15,921 runs. He scored another 18,426 runs in 463 ODIs and hit 100 centuries across both formats. Just days before announcing he had the coronavirus, Tendulkar had led an India Legends team to a win over Sri Lanka in a Twenty20 exhibition series. Three other players who took part in the so-called Road Safety World series, including brothers Yusuf and Irfan Pathan, have also tested positive for the virus. Crowds were allowed into the stadium in Mumbai for the matches. India is battling a new wave of Covid-19 cases -- daily infections rose to more than 81,000 on Friday with 469 deaths, the highest since October. Tendulkar's home state of Maharashtra, which includes Mumbai, accounted for more than 43,000 cases and 249 deaths.

India reported 81,466 new Covid-19 infections on Friday, the highest daily number in six months, as several states were hit by a second wave of the coronavirus. Health ministry data showed the total number of cases surged to 12.3 million, making India the third-most hit country from the virus after the United States and Brazil. The number of those dead rose by 469 to 163,396. Vaccination drives have been intensified amid the recent surge of cases, and many states are considering imposing fresh curbs on movement of people. Maharashtra, the western state that has been worst-hit from Covid-19 so far, reported as many as 43,183 new cases on Friday — its highest since the pandemic spread to India in March 2020. Officials in the state imposed a night curfew over the weekend but are considering stricter control measures, including shutting down religious places and restricting train travel. India imposed one of the world’s harshest lockdowns to control the coronavirus early last year, but it was eased to salvage the economy, and cases gradually fell later in the year. The new surge this year presents a challenge to the government, which already struggled to implement last year’s lockdown. Infection numbers were also up on Friday in the states of Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Punjab, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh.

India yesterday expanded its coronavirus vaccination drive to the 45-60 age group as the country tries to tackle a surge in new infections. Public and private centres offering jabs would be open every day throughout April including on public holidays in a “significant step to exponentially expand the countrywide vaccination drive”, the health ministry said. The increased urgency follows a rise in cases since early February — when new daily infections dropped below 9,000 — to more than 72,000 yesterday, the highest level since October. Experts have warned that infections are increasing at a faster pace compared to last year, when single-day cases peaked at almost 100,000 in September. India has administered more than 65mn vaccination shots to the elderly and other vulnerable groups but at a pace too slow to hit the government’s ambitious target of inoculating 300mn people by the end of July. The state worst hit by the virus has been Maharashtra, home to the country’s financial capital Mumbai. At a makeshift hospital at Bandra Kurla Complex in Mumbai, the number of coronavirus patients admitted had jumped to 940 from 180 three weeks ago, its director Rajesh Dere said. He said the complex, also the site of one of Mumbai’s key vaccination centres, was increasing staffing and its opening hours. “From today, we are running double shifts and can vaccinate 7,000-8,000 in a single day,” Dere added. Bookings for vaccinations are meant to be made via a nationwide government app, but officials at the complex said people could walk in without an appointment. “There were no hiccups. I didn’t register online or via the app, I just came directly to the centre and got the shot,” 61-year-old lawyer Ashok Sawant said. The capital New Delhi has also been experiencing a spike in cases but its zoo reopened to visitors yesterday, more than a year after it closed its doors. Hazia Ali, 21, who was visiting Delhi with her family from the neighbouring state of Uttar Pradesh, said they were worried about the virus “but life has to go on”. Housewife Swati Garg, 32, said she brought her children to the zoo as they were bored at home during the school holidays. “Not many places are open in Delhi so we decided to come here. We are wearing masks and sanitising ourselves so I think we are safe,” Garg said.

Indian authorities clamped down on one of the country’s biggest Hindu festivals yesterday as the country passed 12mn coronavirus cases with financial hub Mumbai recording its highest-ever rise in daily infections.  Public celebrations to mark Holi — a popular festival where people smear colour on each other — were banned in some states and territories, including the capital Delhi, over fears they could become ‘super-spreader’ events, with police patrolling streets in Mumbai to prevent large gatherings. Despite the restrictions, revellers still gathered in neighbourhoods across the country, banging drums and hurling coloured powder at each other. “We are aware of the pandemic, but we can not ignore the wishes of the people who want to celebrate the festival of colour,” TV actor Debdut Ghosh, who is campaigning for an election in West Bengal state, told AFP in Kolkata. Many people also took to the streets in the northern city of Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh state, the country’s Hindu heartland of 1.3bn people.  “Had it not been a festival, I would not have stepped out,” septuagenarian B K Tiwari told AFP as he carried his colour-smeared facemask. The muted celebrations went ahead despite a nationwide surge in coronavirus cases. India reported 68,020 new daily infections on Monday — a significant rise from below 9,000 in early February — taking the total number of cases to more than 12mn. “If the outbreak grows at that pace — about five times in five weeks — that’s worrisome,” virologist Shahid Jameel told AFP, adding that the lack of mask-wearing and social distancing was fuelling the surge. Mumbai reported more than 6,900 new cases — a record for the city of 20mn and more than double last year’s peak. The western state of Maharashtra, home to Mumbai, is mulling a full lockdown to tackle the spread of the disease after imposing a nightly curfew from Sunday.  India — the third-most infected nation — has shied away from harsh restrictions to combat Covid-19, after gradually lifting one of the world’s strictest lockdowns last year to revive the devastated economy. Optimism that India’s vaccine drive would ease the impact of the virus has also faltered with sluggish inoculation rates. More than 60mn shots have been administered since mid-January, a far slower pace than needed to reach the ambitious target of vaccinating 300 million people by the end of July. India, home to the world’s biggest vaccine manufacturer, has meanwhile slowed its export of shots due to the spike.

Authorities in India’s western state of Maharashtra imposed night curfews on Sunday to tackle a record surge in Covid-19 cases with the financial capital Mumbai reporting 6,123 new cases, the highest single-day spike since March last year. “We are seeing a higher Covid positive rate in high-rise residential buildings than in slums...to stop the spread only essential services will be allowed,” said Kishor Pednekar, the mayor of Mumbai adding that hotels, pubs and shopping malls must observe the night curfew rules. India recorded 62,714 cases of the coronavirus in the last 24 hours, the country’s health ministry said on Sunday, the highest single-day tally since mid-October last year. With 312 deaths, single-day mortality figures were also at their highest since Christmas, according to ministry data. Several government hospitals reported they were running out of critical-care beds in Mumbai city. While Maharashtra leads the surge, several other states - Kerala, Punjab, Karnataka, Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh - are also seeing a rise in cases. Many Indians have started questioning the government’s highly publicised vaccine exports campaign when only a fraction of the country’s population has been inoculated. India has supplied 61 million vaccine doses to as many as 77 countries as part of both grants and commercial arrangements. Officials in the health ministry in New Delhi said the government had decided to focus on its domestic vaccination programme following a spike in Covid-19 cases and there will be no immediate expansion of vaccine exports. Experts said more than 40 million people in India have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine so far, but that is less than 4% of the country’s 1.35 billion population. “The vaccination drive has to be scaled up massively, and test and trace and isolation protocols have to be strengthened across the country,” said S.K. Sinha, a health ministry official.

Voting began in Assam and West Bengal on Saturday in state elections that will show how support for Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is holding up following a coronavirus-stricken year, and months of protests by farmers against his agricultural reforms. Re-elected for a second five-year term in 2019, Modi's grip on power is under no threat, but the elections in the two eastern states are the first since the farmers launched protests that have been mainly in the north, around the capital Delhi. It was the first phase of voting in both states, and the results won't be known for months. For all the concerns over the coronavirus, politicians out on the campaign trail often showed scant regard for social distancing, but as people waited in long queues outside polling centres in West Bengal on Saturday, security personnel and election workers handed out masks, sanitizers and gloves. Modi and his home minister Amit Shah campaigned aggressively for their Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal, luring local politicians away from the Trinamool Congress (TMC) party, whose firebrand leader Mamata Banerjee has been chief minister since 2011. ‘The main contending parties are strong this time and it is difficult to gauge the mood,’ Mahadeb Hansda, a retired school teacher told Reuters by telephone from Purulia district, as he waited to cast his vote. The BJP currently controls a dozen of India's 28 states, with alliance partners in several others. But it has never won power in West Bengal, once a communist bastion for more than three decades, and should the BJP defeat Banerjee, analysts say, it would deal a body blow to the broader opposition. The country's fourth most populous state, with 90 million people, is key to controlling the upper house of the federal parliament whose members are elected by state assemblies. In neighbouring Assam, where a BJP-led alliance is seeking a second term, brisk polling began early. Women, clad in traditional dresses, lined up outside voting centres before the polls opened at 7 am. ‘I want to cast my vote early and be free for the rest of the day,’ said Malini Gogoi, a housewife from the northern Assam town of Biswanath.    

The death toll in the massive blaze, which ravaged the Dreams Mall in Bhandup area in Mumbai, India -- where a Covid centre, Sunrise Hospital is located -- shot up to 10 with 3 injured and another 60 patients rescued, early on Friday, officials said. The 10 dead and three injured were all senior citizens undergoing Covid-19 treatment at the hospital, and efforts were on to trace some others feared missing. According to the BMC Disaster Control, the fire was noticed around midnight on the first floor and it quickly spread to the two upper floors of the 3-storey mall, which houses the Covid-19 hospital on the top floor. Mumbai Fire Brigade with 10 tenders and disaster teams rushed to combat the blaze and to rescue and transfer the Covid patients to other hospitals in the vicinity. Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, Mumbai Guardian Minister Aslam Shaikh, Mumbai Police Commissioner Hemant Nagrale, Additional Municipal Commissioner Suresh Kakani, other top fire brigade, police and civic officials rushed to the spot. The dead victims have been identified as: Nisar Javedchand, 74, Govind Das, 80, Manjula Batharia, 65, Ambaji Patil 65 and his wife Sunanda Patil 58, Sudhir Lad, 66, and others have yet not been identified, said a BMC official. Opposition Bharatiya Janata Party former MP Kirit Somaiya alleged that the Sunrise Hospital and Dreams Mall were constructed by scam-hit HDIL from the PMC Bank's monies and were allegedly given a conditional Occupation Certificate by the BMC. Refuting the charges, the Operations Head of the Sunrise Hospital, Satyendra Tiwari said that the recently-started hospital had all the licences/permissions in place and the fire broke out in the mall below and not in the third floor hospital premises. While the BMC has ordered a probe into the incident, CoP Nagrale warned that anybody found guilty in the incident would face stringent action. Meanwhile, the rescued patients were shifted to the jumbo Covid field hospital in Mulund, Fortis Hospital and other hospitals in the vicinity.

India said yesterday it would expand its vaccination campaign from April 1 to include everyone above 45, and denied there was any shortage as a second surge in infections drives up demand. The assurance on supplies comes as the government’s highly publicised vaccine diplomacy is being questioned at home. India, the world’s biggest vaccine maker, has exported more than 60mn doses but given only about 50mn to its own people. Currently, only the elderly and those over 45 with other health conditions are eligible. Health and frontline workers were first in line when India began its drive in mid-January. “Our appeal is that all above 45 should take vaccine as early as possible,” Information Minister Prakash Javadekar said, adding that inoculations in the past 24 hours had reached a record. He brushed aside a question on when the government would include all adults, as demanded by states such as Punjab and the capital Delhi. Javadekar and the health ministry sought to allay fears over supplies expressed by some states, such as Odisha. “There is no shortage of vaccines in the country,” the ministry said in a statement. The sudden increase in demand, nevertheless, is piling pressure on vaccine makers the Serum Institute of India (SII) and Bharat Biotech to step up output. SII has already delayed shipments of the AstraZeneca vaccine to Brazil, Britain, Morocco and Saudi Arabia. Odisha state has warned the health ministry that it expects vaccine stocks to be exhausted by March 30, with another batch of the AstraZeneca vaccine scheduled to arrive only on April 2. “We will have no vaccines for four days,” state health official P K Mohapatra said in a letter seen by Reuters. Overall vaccinations have climbed to a daily record in India, with 3.2mn doses given in the past 24 hours. Total vaccinations in India, which aims to vaccinate 300mn of its 1.35bn people by August, rank as the world’s third highest after the United States and China, but the figure per capita is lower, the website Our World in Data shows. That has worried many Indian states as infections have soared since late February, following a near-full reopening of the economy. India is expected to soon approve Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine for emergency use, which would boost availability. India reported 40,715 new cases in the 24 hours until yesterday morning, with its richest state of Maharashtra contributing more than 60% of the total. Deaths rose by 199 to 160,166. Late yesterday, Maharashtra alone reported 28,699 new cases and 132 deaths, the most fatalities in months.

* India adds 46,951 new infections, most since early November * Deaths rise by 212 deaths, biggest increase since early Jan * Demand for vaccination increases as cases rise * India widens interval between doses of AstraZeneca shot India reported its most Covid-19 cases and deaths in months on Monday, on the first anniversary of the start of a chaotic nationwide lockdown that left many people jobless and shrank the economy. Authorities reintroduced some curbs to slow the spread of the virus, especially in the western state of Maharashtra, which accounted for nearly two-thirds of the 46,951 new infections and the majority of the 212 deaths. Some hospitals in the country's worst-affected districts have begun to run short of beds, and there is a rising clamour for the immunisation campaign to be widened to cover more people, instead of just the elderly and those suffering from other health conditions. With the biggest rise in cases since early November, India's total has surpassed 11.65mn, the highest in the world after the United States and Brazil. The increase in deaths was the largest since early January, and took the total to 159,967. In some parts of India, most people still go out without masks and flout advice on social distancing, including politicians campaigning in four states where elections will begin later this month. The health ministry has also warned that a huge gathering of devotees for a Hindu festival could lead to a spike in cases as people from all over the country flock to the banks of the Ganges river in the holy northern town of Haridwar. Local authorities have said they expect 150mn visitors at the weeks-long Mahakumbh that began this month and peaks in April. The festival is held only once every 12 years, and many Hindus believe bathing in the river during this period absolves people of sins. The surge in cases has also brought into focus India's low rate of immunisation relative to population, despite being the world's biggest maker of vaccines. India has administered more than 44mn doses since starting its vaccination campaign in mid-January, but wants to cover 300mn of its 1.35bn people by August. VACCINE EXPORTS India has donated or sold more than 60mn vaccine doses to 76 countries, saying some shipments are necessary to meet contractual obligations. As vaccine demand rises at home, top vaccine manufacturer the Serum Institute of India (SII) has delayed further shipments of the AstraZeneca shot to the United Kingdom, Brazil, Saudi Arabia and MorocCo India has accepted experts' recommendation to widen the interval between two doses of the AstraZeneca shot - branded as COVISHIELD by SII - to 4-8 weeks, from 4-6 weeks currently. The longer interval could help India cover more people with at least one dose. In Britain, regulators have said shots can be given up to 12 weeks apart. India's health ministry said ‘it appears that protection is enhanced if the second dose of COVISHIELD is administered between 6-8 weeks, but not later than the stipulated period of 8 weeks’. Maharashtra, India's richest state, has offered to make doses itself to ease the supply pressure on SII and vaccine developer Bharat Biotech, whose COVAXIN shot is also being used in the country's inoculation programme. The state reported 30,535 new coronavirus infections in the past 24 hours, forcing local authorities to reopen some quarantine centres. The centres had been closed after the national daily caseload began to decline after peaking at nearly 100,000 cases a day in September. Maharashtra, home to Mumbai, has been accounting for more than half of India's total cases after the full reopening of its economy unleashed a second wave of infections late last month. Nearly a dozen other states, including Punjab, Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka, home to the tech hub of Bengaluru, have also seen a spike in cases in the past few weeks.      

Russia's RDIF sovereign wealth fund said on Monday it had reached an agreement with India's Virchow Biotech to produce up to 200 million doses a year of the Sputnik V vaccine in India. RDIF said full-scale commercial production would start after completing the transfer of technology in the second quarter. The announcement follows similar deals with Indian pharmaceutical firms Gland Pharma, Stelis Biopharma and Hetero. "Virchow's proven capabilities in large-scale drug substance manufacturing should help meet the global demand for this vaccine," Dr. Tummuru Murali, Managing Director of Virchow Biotech, said in a statement issued by RDIF. India, the world's largest vaccine maker, has become one of the biggest producers of the Sputnik V shot outside Russia. Other countries producing it include Brazil, China and South Korea. Dr. Reddy's Laboratories Ltd, which has run small clinical studies of Sputnik V in India, sought emergency-use approval for the vaccine last month, but India's drug regulator asked for more data from the Sputnik V developers.

Pentagon chief Lloyd Austin arrived in India yesterday for the first face-to-face meetings between New Delhi and the Biden administration, with shared alarm about China set to figure highly. India is a key US ally in the region and the visit comes hot on the heels of frosty first talks between Secretary of State Antony Blinken with top Chinese officials in Alaska. Prior to that, Austin and Blinken visited Japan and South Korea, two other important partners in the Asia-Pacific region where China’s growing assertiveness has alarmed its neighbours. The two also attended a virtual summit between leaders of the so-called “Quad”, which groups the US, Australia, Japan and India and is seen as a check on China’s ambitions. The two-day visit to New Delhi will see Austin meet Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a senior US official said, as well as Foreign Minister S Jaishankar, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and Ajit Doval, a national security adviser. US-Indian relations have long been prickly but shared misgivings about China pushed them closer together under Modi and US President Joe Biden’s predecessor Donald Trump. Twenty Indian soldiers and four Chinese troops were killed in June 2020 in a clash on their disputed border in the Himalayas, the first combat fatalities there in decades. The Asian giants then sent thousands of extra troops to the frontier although tensions have eased in recent months with an agreement to pull back from one area of contention. Beijing has irked New Delhi with its support for Pakistan, as have Chinese investments in Indian Ocean nations such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Nepal. India and China have also engaged in a tussle of “vaccine diplomacy”, competing to supply other countries with coronavirus shots to secure goodwill and influence. In 2016, the US designated India as a “Major Defence Partner”, and they have since signed a string of deals easing the transfer of advanced weaponry and deepening military co-operation. US defence firms have inked billions of dollars in deals to supply military hardware, including helicopters, under India’s $250bn modernisation of its armed forces. But Russia remains India’s biggest armaments supplier and Modi agreed in 2018 with President Vladimir Putin a $5.4bn deal to buy Moscow’s S-400 missile defence system. The deal falls foul of a US embargo on sales of Russian arms and India has been negotiating for years to avert sanctions, as happened with Nato ally Turkey when it ordered the S-400. “The partnership is based on shared strategic interests that we have with India, and support and co-operation that we have together to reinforce the rules-based international order,” the senior US defence official said. But Austin may also raise the question of human rights in India, with the official calling the issue “an important part of the Biden administration defence and foreign policy”. The fact that Austin’s visit comes so soon after Biden taking office “shows the priority Washington is assigning to New Delhi,” Manoj Joshi from India’s Observer Research Foundation said. “Our relationship with the US on the military side has enhanced enormously and the US has been helping us in our confrontation with China,” Joshi said.

* Cases rise by 35,871, highest in over 3 months, to 11.47 million * Deaths rise by 172 to 159,216, health ministry data shows * Maharashtra accounts for 65% of new cases New coronavirus infections in India rose by the most in more than three months as a second wave of the epidemic gathered momentum, with Maharashtra, the country's richest state, accounting for two-thirds of the latest daily tally. Home to India's commercial capital Mumbai, the western state reported 35,871 new cases in the past 24 hours, and the fast spreading contagion in major industrial areas raised risks of companies' production being disrupted. India's total cases stood at 11.47 million, the highest after the United States and Brazil. Deaths rose by 172 to 159,216, according to health ministry data released on Thursday. The country's first wave peaked in September at nearly 100,000 cases a day, with daily infections hitting a low of just over 9,000 early last month. Cases have been rising in Maharashtra since the reopening of most economic activities in February. Mumbai's suburban trains, which carry millions of people daily, also resumed services. The state, of 112 million people, ordered a fresh lock down in some districts and put curbs on cinemas, hotels and restaurants until the end of the month after infections rose to a multi-month high earlier this week New cases have more than doubled in the past two weeks in Maharashtra’s industrial towns such as Pune, Aurangabad, Nashik and Nagpur, known for their automobile, pharmaceutical and textile factories. ‘We have asked industries there to operate with minimum manpower as much possible,’ said a senior Maharashtra government official, declining to be named as he was not authorised to talk to the media. ‘Most of the IT companies have allowed their employees to work from home.’ Hospital beds and special Covid-19 facilities were filling up fast, especially in Mumbai, Nagpur and Pune, said another state official. Earlier this month, more than 80% of oxygen and intensive-care beds in Maharashtra were unoccupied. Half a dozen other states, such as Punjab and Madhya Pradesh, have also seen a rise in cases this month. The government has blamed crowding and a reluctance to wear masks for the rise. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday asked state leaders to quickly increase testing and expand vaccination to ‘stop the emerging second peak of corona’. India has administered more than 36.5 million vaccine doses since starting its immunisation drive in the middle of January. In neighbouring Pakistan, 3,495 people tested positive in the past 24 hours, the most daily infections since early December. Total cases rose past 615,000. Deaths rose by 61 to 13,717. Pakistani minister Asad Umar said on Twitter that hospital beds were becoming occupied fast, warning of stricter curbs if rules were not followed. ‘The new strain spreads faster and is more deadly,’ he said on Twitter, referring to the UK variant of the virus that has been found in Pakistan.    

The coronavirus pandemic may have indirectly contributed to around 228,000 additional child deaths in 2020, 11,000 maternal fatalities and 3.5 million unwanted pregnancies in South Asia, the UN said in a report Wednesday. The study commissioned by UNICEF blamed "drastic cuts in the availability and use of essential public health services" because of the pandemic across India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Sri Lanka, home to 1.8 billion people. "The fall-off of these critical services has had a devastating impact on the health and nutrition of the poorest families," said UNICEF regional director George Laryea-Adjei. "It is absolutely vital that these services are fully restored for children and mothers who are in desperate need of them, and that everything possible is done to ensure that people feel safe to use them," Laryea-Adjei said. The estimates were based on actual observed changes and modelling exercises using data from before the pandemic in South Asia, where in 2019 alone 1.4 million children under five died, 63 percent of them newborn babies. Countries in the region, like elsewhere, imposed stringent lockdown measures to halt the spread of coronavirus. Many restrictions have since been eased although many schools remain shut. The report said that even where health services were not shut down, the number of people visiting them declined. In Bangladesh and Nepal, for example, the number of young children being treated for severe acute malnutrition (SAM) fell by over 80 per cent, while child vaccinations fell sharply in India and Pakistan. With some 420 million children in South Asia out of school due to the pandemic, the report also warned that nine million children were likely never to return to school, the report added. This in turn is expected to lead to an increase in child marriages, resulting in an additional 400,000 adolescent pregnancies, as well as an increase in the number of maternal and neonatal deaths, and in rates of child stunting.

Shaking and clutching his T-shirt, Myanmar soldier Kyaw recalled the violence he said he was told to use on people in his own community -- orders that triggered his escape to India. Kyaw, whose name has been changed to protect his identity, was among 40 Myanmar nationals -- mostly police officers -- whom AFP met as they hid in an undisclosed location in India's northeastern state of Mizoram. At least 180 people have been killed in Myanmar since the February 1 coup, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners monitoring group, as the junta has cracked down on relentless democracy rallies across the country. The violence has seen more than 300 Myanmar nationals -- many of them police officers and their families, as well as two military personnel -- enter Mizoram, a local helping with the border crossings told AFP on Monday. Kyaw, a 24-year-old rifleman who said he had served in the military for around four years, is a member of the Chin, a mainly Christian minority in Myanmar. He told AFP he had been ordered to inflict lethal violence among the Chin and inform on them. "The military was giving orders to kill innocent people, who are like my own mother and father," he told AFP. "Why should I kill my own people." He said it took him four days to get to Mizoram on a motorcycle and on foot. After calling home when he reached India, the father-of-two said he found out that his family house had been searched and his father arrested. Another rifleman AFP spoke to said he also feared for his family's safety. "My friends shot at protesters and I was told to shoot as well... But I cannot kill my people. So, I ran away at night," the 21-year-old said. Others can take up to 10 days on foot to reach the remote and mountainous state along Myanmar's western border, including via a river, paddy fields, and sleeping in forests. Those who make it are picked up by sympathetic locals, who help them get to relatives' homes or stay with others willing to shelter them from authorities. But eight Myanmar citizens have been "pushed back", according to a statement last week by Assam Rifles, a national paramilitary force operating in the region. Those AFP met said they had fled without their families because the journey was so difficult. They arrived with just the clothes on their backs and what they could carry, and relied on locals who brought them food, blankets and cash. One of them clutched a Burmese-language bible as they sat huddled together on mattresses and mats laid out on the floor of a partially constructed building. Twenty-four-year-old policewoman Chewa, whose name has also been changed, broke down in tears as she shared her story. She said the soldiers were being given orders to shoot protesters, with police assigned to give extra security. "Even though we are the police, we are still citizens like the people. I didn't want to listen to those kinds of orders, and I did not dare to shoot," she said. Chewa said she did not witness any police officers shooting civilians, but saw protest leaders in a small town in the remote highlands of Chin state being arrested. Chewa said she joined the civil disobedience movement, involving tens of thousands of government workers across Myanmar. "I want democracy back," she said, her voice choking with emotion. "I want the international community to help our country... I am one of the lower-level (officers) so I don't have any power to do much so I joined the (movement) -- that's as much as I can do." She said she feared for the welfare of her family, as she was the sole breadwinner. Kyaw, Chewa and another police officer showed AFP their military or police ID cards to prove their identities. AFP could not independently verify their specific claims. As the group sat in silence, sunlight streaming through open windows, they held their right hands up in a three-fingered salute, a gesture inspired by the "Hunger Games" films and used by protesters. "I don't want to go back yet to Myanmar," Kyaw said, still shaking. "I am a soldier, so I am not safe there if I go back."

US President Joe Biden met leaders of Australia, India and Japan yesterday, a group central to his efforts to counter China’s growing military and economic power, and said a free and open Indo-Pacific region was crucial to all of them. The White House says the virtual meeting of the countries known as the Quad, the first at leader level, shows the importance Biden places on the Indo-Pacific region and that it will focus on tackling the coronavirus pandemic and the climate crisis, and on reviving economic growth. “A free and open Indo-Pacific is essential to each of our futures,” Biden told the meeting from the White House. “The US is committed to working with you, our partners, and all our allies in the region, to achieve stability.” Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said he wanted the four “to forge strongly ahead toward the realisation of a free and open Indo-Pacific”. India and Australia also emphasised the importance of regional security co-operation, which has been enhanced by previous lower-level Quad meetings. A senior US official told reporters yesterday’s meeting involved “an honest, open discussion about China’s role on the global stage,” referencing “challenges in the region” to free and open trade and commerce. The Biden administration has said the Quad nations will announce financing agreements to support an increase in manufacturing capacity for coronavirus vaccines in India, something New Delhi has called for to counter Beijing’s widening vaccine diplomacy.  The virtual meeting, which also included Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and Indian Prime Minster Narendra Modi, aims to lay the groundwork for an in-person meeting later this year, the administration said. Modi told the session the Quad had “come of age” and would “now remain an important pillar of stability in the region”. Earlier, Morrison told reporters: “When governments come together at the highest level, this shows a whole new level of co-operation to create a new anchor for peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific.” Among the issues to be addressed are supply chains exposed as heavily reliant on China during the pandemic. Japan’s Nikkei newspaper reported on Thursday that the four countries would also work together to secure rare earth metals essential for electric car motors and other products. The Biden administration told Reuters on Tuesday the US and Japan would help fund Indian firms manufacturing vaccines for US drugmakers Novavax and J&J. However, Indian government sources say US curbs on exports of critical materials could hamper that effort and those to start large-scale distribution to Southeast Asia. India, Australia and Japan have all faced security challenges from China, strengthening their interest in the Quad. Quad co-operation dates back to their joint response to the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami in 2004. The Quad was revived under the Trump administration, which saw it as a vehicle to push back against China. The US hosted a foreign ministers’ meeting in 2019, which was followed by another in Japan last year and a virtual session in February. Yesterday’s meeting coincides with a major US diplomatic drive to solidify alliances in Asia and Europe to counter China, including visits next week by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin to Japan and South Korea.

A Covid-19 vaccine developed by India’s Bharat Biotech is safe and has shown high levels of antibody response in a mid-stage trial, but follow-on studies are needed to evaluate the shot for children and older people, a peer-reviewed study showed. The vaccine, India’s first successful home-made shot against Covid-19, has attracted interest from more than 40 countries. The company said last week it had shown 81% efficacy in preventing symptomatic Covid-19, based on interim analysis of late stage trials. The double-dose vaccine showed significantly higher neutralising antibody responses in phase II than in phase I due to the difference in dosing regimens that changed to a four-week apart injection schedule from a two-week course, researchers said in the study published in medical journal Lancet. But it said the phase II trial, which had 380 participants, enrolled a small number of participants aged 12-18 years and 55-65 years and follow-on studies are required to establish immunogenicity in children and in older people. It also said that while the trial included participants from across nine Indian states, the study population lacked ethnic and gender diversity, “underscoring the importance of evaluating BBV152 (the vaccine) in other populations”. Female participants, for example, accounted for just one quarter of the study subjects. Its phase III study, Bharat Biotech said last week, has 25,800 participants aged 18-98 and include more than 2,400 people over the age of 60. The peer-reviewed study is another positive for Bharat Biotech, which had drawn criticism in January after the Indian government approved the vaccine, called Covaxin, for emergency use without any efficacy data. Less than 9% of the more than 18.2mn Indians vaccinated so far against Covid-19 had taken Covaxin as of yesterday, government data showed. Many politicians in India, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have chosen to be inoculated with the homegrown shot instead of a rival one developed by AstraZeneca  and Oxford University. India, the world’s biggest vaccine maker, aims to inoculate 300mn of its 1.35bn people by August. It has reported 11.24mn Covid-19 infections, the highest number in the world after the US, with 157,930 deaths. Meanwhile, the Indian government yesterday denied any shortage of coronavirus vaccine doses in a big northwestern state and said it was sending supplies around the country based on demand and consumption patterns. The world’s biggest vaccine maker has so far given 23mn doses to some 17mn people, with the pace picking up significantly since last week after more people were made eligible. And as demand has risen in the country after a slow start and initial hesitation among people, Rajasthan this week became the first state to publicly seek urgent replenishment of its stock. The federal health ministry, however, said there was no shortage in Rajasthan or anywhere in the country. It said Rajasthan, a state of about 70mn people, still had 1.4mn doses left as of Monday night. “The factual position is that there is no shortage of Covid-19 vaccine with the state at present,” the ministry said in a statement. “The central government is regularly monitoring availability of vaccine supply in all states and (federal territories), and providing the doses as per their requirement and consumption pattern.”

An Indian non-profit which runs an independent news website on Tuesday challenged in court the country's new rules that seek to regulate content on digital news media. The so-called Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code was announced by New Delhi last month and is legally enforceable. It also regulates big social media firms such as Facebook and Twitter. In its petition in the Delhi High Court, the Foundation for Independent Journalism, which publishes 'The Wire' news portal, argued the rules formulated under India's Information Technology Act cannot govern online news media. ‘It goes far beyond anything which can be acceptable in a democracy,’ Nitya Ramakrishnan, the Foundation's lawyer said during a virtual court hearing. The rules lay a three-tier regulatory structure for news media including an oversight mechanism by the federal government, sparking concerns that it will curb the freedom of press to report independently. The case will next be heard on April 16. The rules are part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's efforts to regulate online content including on social media and streaming platforms such as Amazon's Prime Video and Netflix.