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No appointments to the boards before Governor clears names of 12 MLCs: Ajit Pawar
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Making a point: Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole protests the fuel price hike on the first day of the Budget session, in Mumbai on Monday.
No appointments to the boards before Governor clears names of 12 MLCs: Ajit Pawar
The Maharashtra Budget session was off to a stormy start on Monday after the Opposition walked out of the Assembly protesting the government stand to wait till the appointment of 12 Council members from the Governor’s quota before making appointments to the Vidarbha and Marathwada statutory development boards.
Maharashtra: Strict curbs on inter-district, state movement; no entry from hotspot Vidarbha to Marathwada (PTI Photo)
Mumbai: Taking a cue from the governments of Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Delhi governments, who have made negative RT-PCR test reports compulsory for those coming from Maharashtra, within the state itself, district collectors have prohibited inter-district and inter-state movement.
Marathwada borders are off-limits for people from Vidarbha, where the spike has been drastic, especially in Yavatmal, Akola, Amravati, Buldana and Washim districts. Special checkposts have been set up to curb entry, to avoid spurt in infection. Similar checkposts have been set up at the Andhra Pradesh and Telangana borders.
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MUMBAI: The daily positivity rates of Yavatmal, Akola, Amravati and Wardha districts from Vidarbha region are higher or almost as bad as the September peak. State experts believe that if Pune and Mumbai were driving the September peak, Vidarbha is the epicentre for the February surge.
Data accessed by TOI showed that Yavatmal’s daily positivity on Sunday was a whopping 41.4%, double that of September 15, when it recorded 21.7%. Amravati’s daily positivity was 38%, higher than its September rate of 32.5%. Significantly, Wardha’s daily positivity of 24% is almost three-fold higher than September’s 8.5%. Even Akola’s positivity of 29% is marginally higher than September, although it carried out more than double tests now.
At GMC, Yavatmal, dean Milind Kamble said that the only thing that separated the current incidence with the September peak is the infection of entire families. “We have at least six families whose all members are affected and currently hospitalised,” he said, adding that the hospital currently has 221 patients of which 95 are critical. “All critical patients have pneumonia, some with involvement of 4-5 lung lobes. Most have delayed coming to hospital by 10-12 days,” he said. The hospital’s oxygen requirement has jumped since January 15 when cases started to rise.
Dr Suresh Asole, district health officer of Akola, said that they have as many active cases now (2,319) as they had in September (1,981). “We are not overwhelmed currently as most patients are stable,” he said.
The Nagpur bench of Bombay High Court on Tuesday granted interim bail on medical grounds to ailing poet-activist Varavara Rao in connection with a 2016 Surjagarh iron ore mine arson case. Rao, 82, and advocate Surendra Gadling were arrested by the Gadchiroli police in Maharashtra in February 2019 in connection with the case. Justice Swapna Joshi of the HC s Nagpur bench granted bail to Rao on similar grounds on which the principal bench of the high court on Monday granted bail to him in the Elgar Parishad-Maoist links case. Rao suffers from a host of ailments, including symptoms of dementia, as per his lawyers.