Here are the top 5 news updates of March 11, 2021:
A "strict lockdown" will be enforced in Nagpur from March 15 to 21 in view of a spike in COVID-19 cases, district guardian minister Nitin Raut announced today. The district has been reporting a spike in daily cases since the last month. During the lockdown, private offices will remain closed, while government offices will work at 25 per cent capacity, said Raut. Shops of essential commodities will remain open, the minister said. Liquor will be sold online only during the lockdown period. Raut said people should not move out unnecessarily.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee today urged her supporters to maintain peace and not do anything that would cause problems to the public. In a video message from the hospital bed, Banerjee said she would be back for the poll campaign in a few days and use a wheelchair if needed. "It is true that I was badly hurt last night and felt severe pain in the chest and head. The doctors are looking after me," she added. Banerjee was rushed back to Kolkata from Nandigram on Wednesday night and admitted to a state-run hospital with injuries on her left leg, waist, shoulder and neck, said to doctors. The CM has alleged that she was attacked by four-five men who pushed her, besides banging on her the door of her car, leading to the injuries.
India has turned into an “electoral autocracy”, an analytical research project by Sweden-based Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Institute said. A report of the organisation, which conceptualises and measures democracy, was released on Wednesday in the presence of Sweden’s Deputy Foreign Minister. It said India’s autocratisation process has “largely followed the typical pattern for countries in the ‘Third Wave’ over the past ten years: a gradual deterioration where freedom of the media, academia, and civil society were curtailed first and to the greatest extent”. It said that the government has constrained civil society and gone against the Constitution’s commitment to secularism.
The certificates issued for taking COVID-19 vaccine in the poll-bound states of West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Assam and Kerala and the Union Territory of Puducherry will no longer have PM Modi's photo on it. The decision has been taken by the Health Ministry after Election Commission's order as Trinamool Congress pointed that it was a violation of the Model Code of Conduct (MCC). The Election Commission of India (ECI) had earlier asked the Health Ministry to remove PM Modi's photo from COVID-19 vaccination certificates distributed in poll-bound states in order to "maintain the sanctity" of the Model Code of Conduct.
A Telegram channel through which an organisation named Jaish-ul-Hind had claimed responsibility for placing an explosives-laden SUV near industrialist Mukesh Ambani's residence was "created in the Tihar" area of Delhi, a senior Mumbai police official said today. The Delhi police has been informed about it, he added. The police took the help of a private cyber agency to track the location of the phone on which the Telegram channel was created, the official said. During the investigation, the location of the phone was traced near Delhi's Tihar Jail, he added.
(With input from agencies)
