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The number of COVID-19 cases in India has doubled in the past week, with 328 more cases and 12 deaths reported on April 2. According to the Union Health Ministry, the tally now stands at 2,069 cases, with 53 deaths and 155 cured of the novel coronavirus infection. The Health Ministry said there were reports of several doctors, nurses and paramedics testing positive. The number of cases increased sharply from 909 this weekend, and the Health Ministry confirmed that it was looking at tweaking the testing protocol, with a rapid anti-body test in hotspots, where those indicating a positive would be sent for confirmation and the others would be quarantined.

The Centre is using powers under the Indian Telegraph Act to “fetch information” from telecom companies every 15 minutes to track COVID-19 cases across the country. The government has tested an application that triggers e-mails and SMS alerts to an authorised government agency if a person has jumped quarantine or escaped from isolation, based on the person’s mobile phone’s cell tower location. The “geo-fencing” is accurate by up to 300 m, a government communication said.

With coronavirus (COVID-19) claiming its first victim in Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum is a hotspot. On Wednesday, Dharavi reported its first case, a 56-year-old garment shop owner from Baliga Nagar, and the person died on the same day. The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and the Mumbai Police are checking whether he had come in contact with anyone from Tablighi Jamaat. He had no history of foreign travel.

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) said on Thursday that persons being released from government-run quarantine centres are to further quarantine themselves at home for 14 days as a “measure of abundant precaution” in the wake of coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. The MHA issued another set of guidelines to be followed by States and administrations during the ongoing 21-day lockdown period. The guidelines also detailed the standard operating procedure (SOP) for making transit arrangements for foreigners stranded in India.

The BJP on Thursday reacted sharply to Congress president Sonia Gandhi’s statement that the all-India lockdown by the Centre to arrest the spread of COVID-19 was ill planned. A slew of leaders including Union Home Minister Amit Shah and party president J.P. Nadda termed it as “petty politics” at a time when the crisis at hand called for a unified response. Ms. Gandhi’s statement made at a video meeting of the Congress Working Committee (CWC) termed the lockdown as necessary but ill planned causing misery to millions of unorganised sector workers.

Has Tamil Nadu really got the lid on what it perceived as a big threat to its efforts to control the pandemic? With 1,103 people who attended the Tablighi Jamaat conference in Nizamuddin in Delhi, identified, health authorities do believe that the bulk of cases are under control. The transformation from apprehension to confidence has been literally overnight.

To start off the 14th episode of our daily updates on COVID-19, U.S. Correspondent Sriram Lakshman describes the alarming numbers being reported in the United States — over 120,000 cases, with New York City death toll alone passing 1,000 — the response of the Trump administration and the economic impact that is already being felt by millions.

The number of coronavirus infections worldwide has hit 1 million, with more than 50,000 deaths, according to the tally kept by Johns Hopkins University. The figures were another bleak milestone in the epidemic that has forced the lockdown of entire countries and brought economies to a shuddering halt.

U.S. President Donald Trump is resisting calls to issue a national stay-at-home order to stem the spread of the novel coronavirus despite his administration’s projections that tens of thousands of Americans are likely to be killed by the disease. One by one, though, States are increasingly pushing shutdown orders of their own. Trump said on Wednesday he wants to give governors’ “flexibility” on whether a stay-at-home policy is the best option for their constituents but acknowledged that he’s looking at limiting air and rail travel between hotspots within the United States.

President Donald Trump announced Thursday that he has taken his second coronavirus test at the White House since the outbreak began and was found to be negative. This was Mr. Trump’s second test. This time he used a new rapid method that he said took a minute to complete and barely 15 minutes to return a result.

Iran said on Thursday it “only acts in self-defence” after President Donald Trump warned it against attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq, as a new war of words heated up despite the pandemic. Tensions between the arch-foes flared in Iraq where the U.S. deployed Patriot air defence missiles, prompting Iran to warn of consequences and demand a withdrawal. Both countries have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has claimed more than 5,000 lives in the United States and more than 3,000 in Iran.

On December 31, 2019, the Wuhan government announced an outbreak of viral pneumonia. Until January 19, Wuhan authorities would maintain there was no proof of human-to-human transmission but the following day, China’s government would reveal otherwise.

The Sindh High Court on Thursday overturned the conviction of four persons accused of kidnapping and killing Daniel Pearl, a reporter of Wall Street Journal, in Pakistan for lack of evidence. “No evidence has been brought on record by the prosecution to link any of the appellants to the murder of Pearl, and as such, all the appellants are acquitted of murder u/s 302 PPC,” said the court in its judgment.

The decision by a Pakistani court in Sindh to acquit Ahmed Omar Sheikh Saeed of murdering journalist Daniel Pearl will be raised by India at the next meeting of the Financial Action Task Force, where Pakistan’s greylist status will come up for discussion, officials said.

Externally supported terrorism does not exist in Afghanistan, the Taliban said on Wednesday and urged India to ensure welfare of its Muslim community. Spokesman of the Taliban’s Political Office, Suhail Shaheen, said the main problem of Afghanistan is foreign occupation and suggested India should not be at “loggerheads” with real Afghan aspirations.

A song to make people aware about taking precautions against COVID-19 composed by Pune-based classical khayal vocalist Sandeep Ranade has mesmerised celebrities — from Oscar winning musician AR Rahman to Padma Vibhushan awardee Pandit Jasraj — and social media users. Ranade, who worked with companies like Google, Microsoft, Citrix and VMware as a software engineer in the US, has also created an iOS app for practicing riyaaz and developing shrutis called ‘NaadSadhana’.

Tony Lewis, one of the men behind the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern (DLS) method used in weather-affected limited-overs matches, has died aged 78, the England and Wales Cricket Board announced on Wednesday.

"It is with much sadness that the ECB has learned of the passing of Tony Lewis MBE, aged 78," said a statement.

England all-rounder Ben Stokes will trade his cricketing gear for some virtual fun when he competes in the Formula One Esports race this Sunday (April 5). With the F1 season affected by the pandemic, the sport is planning to run virtual races, on the scheduled race weekends which have been cancelled, with gamers, celebrities and F1 drivers taking part.

The Wimbledon tennis championships were cancelled for the first time since the Second World War on Wednesday. Here are some reactions from former champions to the Grand Slam — originally scheduled for June 29-July 12 — being cancelled for the first time in 75 years.

or almost the whole of last year, India’s preparations in athletics for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics seemed riddled with problems. Confirmation of these fears came at the 2019 Asian championships in Doha, where the country could win just two golds compared to eight at the Jakarta Asian Games just eight months earlier. Now, the move to postpone the Olympics to 2021 could see stars like javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra and long jumper M. Sreeshankar emerge stronger, feels Volker Herrmann, the Athletics Federation of India’s High Performance Director.