Evening News - 21 March, 2020
03:58 Share

Bihu committees have decided to cancel Rongali Bihu functions in Guwahati due to coronavirus threat.A coordination committee of 26 Bihu committees in Guwahati took the decision after taking stock of the current situation.

As a preventive measure to the Coronavirus outbreak, 50 percent employees from government departments in Assam will work from home on a rotation basis, A roster will be maintained and work will happen on a rotation basis. This instruction will not apply to Offices and employees engaged in essential and emergency services and those directly engaged in taking measures to control spread of coronavirus, according to an official notice.

GoAir, IndiGo and Vistara airlines have limited their domestic operations on March 22, the day of ‘Janata Curfew’ IndiGo has said that it will operate 60 per cent of its domestic flights on Sunday. GoAir will be suspending its domestic operations for that day. Spiceject has cancelled all four flights namely two Kolkata-Dibrugarh-Guwahati flights and two Guwahati-Dibrugarh-Kolkata flights from March 24- March 30.

Guwahati Metropolitan Development Authority(GMDA) has banned visitors’ entry into its office for a period of two weeks due to coronavirus threat. On Saturday, Malay Bora, the Chief Executive Officer, GMDA, served a notice closing the office for public till April 4

Government has decided to put a cap on hand sanitizer and alcohol prices which will stay until June 30. The retail price of a 200 ML bottle of hand sanitizer is Rs. 100. Additionally, Hindustan Unilever reduced prices of products under Lifebuoy and Domex brands.

Various services within the country have been shut down due to coronavirus scare within the country. Daily wage labourers will be hit quite severely as work across the country is suspended on various fronts.To ease the situation for them, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh Yogi Adityanath has announced that the state government will give daily wage labourers and construction workers Rs 1,000 per day to 15 lakh daily wage labourers and 20.37 lakh construction workers so that they can meet their needs.So far 23 people have been infected in UP from coronavirus.

China has apologized to the family of doctor who had sensed the threat of coronavirus quite early on and even tried to raise an alarm about the issue.Dr Li Wenliang warned his colleagues of something strange going around through China’s social media app Weibo where he informed that patients from the local sea food market have been detected with SARS like symptoms and have been quarantined. Post this local police called him and accused him of spreading rumours. He was also made to sign a letter stating that he won’t do something like this again.In a rare and startling admission the Communist party of China has sent “solemn apology” to the family of the doctor who got infected from the virus and later passed away.