3 flights of Air India, operating under the aegis of the mission ‘Vande Bharat’, landed in India today, i.e., Friday, May 8, 2020, from Singapore, Bangladesh and Saudi Arabia respectively.
Under the ‘Vande Bharat’ mission, India is sending 64 flights and 3 Navy ships to repatriate Indians stranded abroad due to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. A total of 15,000 Indians are expected to return home over the next week.
The first flight to land today was that of Air India (AI 381), which had 234 passengers. Taking off from Singapore, the flight landed in New Delhi around noon. The 2nd flight to land was AI 1242, coming from Dhaka in Bangladesh to Srinagar at 2:00 p.m. It carried the first batch of 168 Indian students, stranded in Bangladesh due to the global travel restrictions. The third flight from Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, landed at Kozhikode Airport in Kerala at around 8:10 p.m.
Taking it to twitter, the Minister of External Affairs – Dr. Jaishankar tweeted, “Flight no. AI381 from Singapore has landed in Delhi. Welcome home. Thank @airindiain @MoCA_GoI, Bureau of Immigration and Delhi Government for cooperation and support. Appreciate the exemplary effort of Team @IndiainSingapor led by HC @JawedAshraf5.”
He further tweeted, “AI flight 1242 from Dhaka carrying Indian students just landed in Srinagar. Thank @airindiain, @MOCA_GOI, Bureau of Immigration and J&K Government for cooperation and support. Kudos to HC @rivagdas and her Team @ihcdhaka. #VandeBharatMisssion”
The mission ‘Vande Bharat’ started yesterday, i.e., Thursday, May 7, 2020, with 2 flights landing in Kerala. An Air India flight from Abu Dhabi landed at Cochin International Airport around 10:00 p.m. The 2nd flight landed at Kozhikode Airport from Dubai at 10:30 p.m. Together, there they brought home over 400 passengers.
Meanwhile, India reported 3,561 new cases of COVID-19 and 89 casualties in the past 24 hours. Dharavi, Asia’s largest slum in Mumbai, recorded 25 new cases today. 600 new cases were reported in Tamil Nadu, taking the total tally to 5,49 cases. Kerala and Rajasthan reported 48 and 64 cases in the past 24 hours, respectively.
Maharashtra remains the worst affected State with a total of 17,974 cases and 694 casualties. Gujarat is the 2nd most affected State with 7,012 cases and 425 cases. Standing behind is Delhi with 5,980 cases and 66 casualties.
The State Government of Gujarat has increased the quarantine period from 14 days to 28 days. Of this, 21 days are of institutional quarantine and 7 days are of home quarantine. Addressing the daily media briefing, the Joint Secretary of Ministry of Health & Family Welfare (MoHFW) – Lav Aggarwal said that Indian Railway has converted 5,231 coaches as COVID-19 care centres. They will be placed on 250 identified stations and will be used for treatment of mild and very mild cases while ensuring that different coaches are designated for suspected and confirmed cases.
The Chief Minister of Maharashtra – Uddhav Thackeray, while addressing an all-party leaders’ meeting via video conference, has hinted at extending the lockdown in red zones till the end of May 2020. Mumbai and Pune metropolitan regions have contributed 90% of Maharashtra’s cases.
As per MoHFW, Government of India, there are more than 56,342 cases in India and there have been 1,886 casualties.
