According to Maharashtra's health department, the Pune division's COVID-19 tally has increased to 5,24,760 with 1,765 new cases, while six fatalities took the death toll to 11,742

Vaccines will be given free of cost at govt centres. Amount people will need to pay in private hospitals will be decided by health ministryin 3-4 days, says Union minister Prakash Javadekar

The market in Wuhan, in the end, was more of an amplifying event rather than necessarily a true ground zero, said Dominic Dwyer, part of the WHO team that visited Wuhan

The commissioner said that these cases were detected between February 15 and 22, following which nine mobile teams were deployed and 500 RT-PCR samples were taken

Only two states, Maharashtra and Kerala, account for 75.87 per cent of the total number of active COVID-19 cases, as per the union health ministry

Google on Wednesday said it would invest $15 million (around Rs 109 crore) to support small and micro enterprises in India in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic; The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation to register offences against people who violate COVID-19 safety guidelines; Air pollution caused an estimated 54,000 premature deaths in the Indian capital New Delhi last year, according to a study released on Thursday. Watch this and more on News Blast.Also Read: Drug marketing firms, manufacturers to be made equally responsible for medicine quality

The vaccines currently approved for emergency use in India are Covishield, from the Oxford-AstraZeneca stable manufactured by Pune's Serum Institute of India, and Covaxin, developed by Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research and the National Institute of Virology (NIV)

The surge in COVID-19 cases in some areas of Mumbai has triggered possibilities of another lockdown in the city. Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) is planning to impose local lockdown measures and also seal the society in case of high prevalence of positive cases among residents.  Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray also issued instructions for all districts to make COVID norms stringent, including limited gathering during marriages, fines for face mask violations, geo-mapping in rural areas to identify regions with high positivity rate, and sealing of buildings where a cluster of cases are found. Watch the video for more details.Also Read: Mumbai to face another lockdown if people violate COVID-19 rules: BMC mayor

China shared the genetic sequence with WHO in early January. However, scientists studying the origin had indicated that the virus might have been spreading long before it was officially reported

IndiGo CEO said on an earnings call on Thursday that short-haul international flights might start during April-June period. He said that the government is working on reopening international flights gradually

Budget Session 2021: Chief Economic Advisor KV Subramanian launches Economic Survey; says India took \"short term pain for long term gain\" and recognised that GDP growth will recover, lost human lives cannot be brought back, adds the CEA

Tax policies must adapt to changing times to provide buoyancy and enable companies to undertake business in a time-bound and efficient manner

Dr Harsh Vardhan attributes success to \"preemptive, proactive and collaborative\" efforts taken by countries affected by global pandemic. He says despite wide disparity in epidemiological trends, world is close to defeating pandemic

According to the ICMR, 19,01,48,024 samples have been tested up to January 21 with 8,00,242 samples being tested on Thursday

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 1,02,28,753, pushing the national COVID-19 recovery rate to 96.66 per cent

Our finding that smokers are less likely to be seropositive is the first report from the general population and part of growing evidence that despite COVID-19 being a respiratory disease, smoking may be protective, CSIR said

Police are also probing if other officials helped Gawande to get the bribes as well as the number of flyers he cleared with fake document

With eight different coronavirus spike fragments, the scientists said this vaccine platform can generate a diverse antibody response -- an advantage over traditional vaccine methods that present pieces from only a single type of virus

Coronavirus vaccine: A royal source said the vaccines were administered by a household doctor at the queen's Windsor Castle residence, adding that she made the news public to counter any speculation

Coronavirus pandemic: Without the uniform implementation of effective face masking and strict social distancing, epidemics could quickly worsen as these variants spread and become predominant, said the task force