Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday conducted an aerial survey of rain-ravaged areas of Uttarakhand to asses the damage which the state government has pegged at Rs 7,000 crore.

Talking to reporters at the Jollygrant airport here after returning from the survey of affected areas in Kumaon region, Shah said that alertness of the central and state government agencies had helped contain the damage.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday agreed for disbursal of over Rs 25 crore deposited with it five years ago by the Maharashtra government in the apex court registry towards educational expenses of children who have lost either or both parents during the COVID-19 pandemic in the state

Maharashtra, one of the worst affected states during the second wave of pandemic earlier this year, had deposited the money in the apex court registry in an old matter related to medical college admissions.

WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the scientists, health workers and citizens of India for equitable vaccine distribution as the total Covid vaccine doses administered in the country surpassed the 100-crore mark on Thursday.

India took 279 days to administer 100 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses.

In a major development, teams of Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) are paying a 'visit' to the residences of Bollywood megastar Shah Rukh Khan in Bandra West, actress Ananya Pande in Khar west, and raided a location in Andheri on Thursday as part of the ongoing probe into the October 2 luxury cruiser rave party.

The reasons for the raids at Khan's sea-facing bungalow, 'Mannat' were not immediately available, but took place shortly after the Bombay High Court this morning decided to take up his son Aryan Khan's bail plea on next Tuesday, October 26.

The Supreme Court on Thursday said farmers protesting at Delhi borders against the three farms laws have the right to agitate but they cannot block roads indefinitely.

A bench headed by Justice S K Kaul said it was not against the right to protest even when the legal challenge is pending but ultimately some solution has to be found.

A single-day rise of 18,454 fresh cases pushed India's COVID-19 tally to 3,41,27,450, while the number of active infections rose to 1,78,831, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Thursday.

The death toll from the pandemic climbed to 4,52,811 with the addition of 160 fatalities, showed the data updated at 8 am.

India completed administering 1 billion doses (100 crore) of Covid-19 vaccines on Thursday: an event the government is celebrating with a song, promotional film and announcements on airplanes, ships and railway stations.

Congratulations India! This is the result of the leadership of our visionary Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya said on Twitter at 9:48am.

Markets regulator Sebi on Wednesday imposed a total fine of Rs 50 lakh on three entities and two individuals and also restrained them from accessing securities markets for one year for indulging in fraudulent trading in the scrip of Asian Granito India Ltd.

The entities are Pasha Finance Pvt, Pat Financial Consultant Pvt Ltd and Hridaynath Consultancy Pvt Ltd, while the individuals facing the penalty are Minal Bharat Patel and Ruchit Bharat Patel.

India reported an 18 per cent decrease in the new COVID-19 cases along with a 13 per cent decline in the number of deaths during the week of October 11 to 17, the WHO has said, highlighting that all the regions globally, except the European Region, reported a fall in new weekly cases of the deadly virus.

The COVID-19 Weekly Epidemiological Update, released by the World Health Organisation on Tuesday, said that with just over 2.7 million new cases and over 46,000 new deaths reported during the week of October 11 to 17, the global number of new cases and deaths remained similar to that of the previous week.

India logged 14,623 new coronavirus infections, taking the total tally of COVID-19 cases to 3,41,08,996, while the active cases declined to 1,78,098, the lowest in 229 days, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Wednesday.

The death toll climbed to 4,52,651 with 197 fresh fatalities, according to the data updated at 8 am.

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