Air India crew members, widely hailed as corona warriors for operating rescue flights during the Covid pandemic, are reaching a “breaking point” with their salaries due for the last three months now. As they embark on the Vande Bharat Mission, AI pilots have told aviation minister H S Puri that only “lip service” is being done for the airline.

Aarogya Setu, a government app developed for tracking Covid-19 patients, has become the most downloaded healthcare application and also featured among the top 10 downloaded apps in the world in April, Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant said on Friday. Close to nine crore users had downloaded the Aarogya Setu mobile application till May 4.

For Air India officials and passengers, a major cause of concern with the ongoing repatriation flights to and from different countries are the visa regulations and immigration policies of different lands. Late on Thursday night, Air India was informed by an official from an Indian ministry that US visa rules have changed to restrict passengers with student visa and Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card holders from entering the US.

The deal will make Vista the largest shareholder of Jio after Facebook (9.99%) and parent RIL (86.54%). With this, RIL has raised a total of Rs 60,596 crore ($7.9 billion), boosting its efforts to pare debt.

The govt on Friday said it will borrow about Rs 12 lakh crore from the market in fiscal year 2020-21, an increase of Rs 4.2 lakh crore, or 54% jump over the Budget estimate of Rs 7.8 lakh crore. This, the economists said will push the fiscal deficit from 3.5% for 2020-21 to 5.5%. The decision for higher borrowing has also been prompted by severe loss of govt revenues.

The Vande Bharat Mission gained momentum, with two flights — one from Singapore and another from Riyadh — landing in Delhi and Kairapur airport in Kerala. The Operation Samudra Setu by the Indian Navy to evacuate Indians stranded abroad using naval ships kicked off from the Maldives on Friday. ​​The ship of the Eastern Naval Command is scheduled to reach Kochi by Sunday.

The finance ministry on Friday announced relief to those who have been facing difficulty with the status of their residency in India under Income Tax Act, 1961 due to suspension of international flights owing to the Covid-19, as they were required to prolong their stay. Several people expressed concerns that they will have to file tax returns as Indian residents.

The Pune labour commissioner’s office recently issued a notice to technology giant Wipro after receiving complaints of the alleged benching of 300 employees, and salary cuts of an undisclosed number of entry-level staffers, most of whom are BPO employees. The May 1 notice of labour office told the company to “refrain from laying off any employee or face legal action.

Three promoters of Ram Dev International, recently booked by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for allegedly cheating a consortium of six banks to the tune of Rs 411 crore, have already fled the country before the State Bank of India (SBI) reached the agency with the complaint, officials said on Saturday.

Owing to lack of adequate security and other infrastructural facilities, all the 72 liquor shops in the district remained closed on Monday despite the orders of the state government to open them from 10.00 am to 7.00 pm. Now, the administration will make adequate arrangements to open shops from Tuesday.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) is expecting a windfall from the Indian Premier League (IPL) media rights auction, which gets underway here on Monday with top companies from across the globe participating.

Days after Congress president Sonia Gandhi offered to pay for the travel of stranded migrant workers by trains to their homes, a Bihari NGO has offered to pay for the travel cost of 50 trains to carry Bihari migrants and students stranded in Mumbai.

Bombay high court on Friday sought a reply from the state on a public interest litigation by a Pune woman on permission to take pet dogs for their daily walks, while observing that walking them within housing society compounds for now, as permitted, was adequate for the moment.

The state government would be short of Rs1.4 lakh crore, or 40 % of the projected revenue for the 2020-21 fiscal, if any financial package were announced for the migrant workers’ assistance, sources in the finance department said on Friday.

University students not in the final semester of graduation and postgraduation will be promoted automatically without having to appear for any exam, state higher and technical education minister Uday Samant announced on Friday.

The Pune Municipal Corporation is likely to seek help from the State Reserve Police Force to intensify the monitoring at the containment zones following the recent spurt in coronavirus infection cases in the city.

(This story originally appeared in PuneMirror on May 9, 2020)

Three members of a family, including two women, were found murdered in Andhi village under the limits of Manda police station of Prayagraj district on Thursday morning.

The rapidly increasing tally of novel coronavirus cases in the state has alerted jail authorities who are fretful of the fallouts of Covid-19 outbreak within the prison walls and are taking preventive steps besides social distancing to ensure all staff and inmates stay healthy.

Directing officials to ensure that nobody walks back home, chief minister Yogi Adityanath on Thursday said that the government was making all efforts in deploying buses and trains to bring back stranded migrant workers.