India's Omicron count crosses 150
New Delhi/Mumbai (PTI): India's Omicron Covid count rose to 153 on Sunday after Maharashtra reported six and Gujarat logged four more cases of the new variant of coronavirus, respectively.
According to central and state officials, omicron cases have been detected in 11 states and union territories -- Maharashtra (54), Delhi (22), Rajasthan (17) and Karnataka (14), Telangana (20), Gujarat (11), Kerala (11), Andhra Pradesh (1), Chandigarh (1), Tamil Nadu (1) and West Bengal (1).
Six persons tested positive for the Omicron variant of coronavirus in Maharashtra on Sunday, raising the state's tally of such cases to 54, the health department said.
While two of these patients had a history of travel to Tanzania, two others had returned from England and one from the Middle East. All five of them are fully vaccinated.
Another patient is a five-year-old boy from Junnar in Pune who is a close contact of Dubai travellers from Junnar, it said in a statement.
"Total six cases were diagnosed today - four of them found during the airport screening in Mumbai. One of these four patients is from Mumbai, two from Karnataka and one from Aurangabad," it said.
Out of 54 cases in the state, 22 have been found in Mumbai.
In Gujarat, a 45-year-old NRI and a teenage boy who came from the UK, a Surat-based woman who had recently visited Dubai and a Tanzanian national are the new patients of the Omicron variant.
The non-resident Indian tested positive for the coronavirus infection in the RT-PCR test carried out at the Ahmedabad international airport soon after he arrived from the UK on December 15, a health department official said on Sunday.
"The man's sample was later found infected with the Omicron variant," Anand district health officer Dr M T Chhari said.
He was scheduled to reach the state's Anand city from Ahmedabad.
"But, after he tested positive for the coronavirus, he was taken to the Ahmedabad civil hospital from the airport. The patient is currently recovering at the Ahmedabad civil hospital," Dr Chhari said.
His co-passengers and other contacts have tested negative for the viral infection, the official said.
A 15-year-old boy from Gandhinagar was also detected with the Omicron variant after returning from the UK, Gandhinagar Municipal Commissioner Dhaval Patel said.
The Tanzania national, who arrived at Ahmedabad via Zanzibar and Dar-es-Salaam, was found negative in the RT-PCR test carried out at the airport. However, when he was tested again upon reaching Rajkot, he was found positive on December 15, said Rajkot collector Arun Mahesh Babu.
"Genomic sequencing of his sample on Sunday confirmed him to be infected with the Omicron variant," he said.
The woman from Surat had gone to Dubai with her two sons and returned on December 5. On December 13, while on her way back to Dubai, she tested positive for COVID-19 in an RT-PCR test carried out at the Surat airport, health officials said.
All her contacts, including her son and daughter, have tested negative for the virus, the official said.
On Saturday, Maharashtra had reported eight more cases, Telangana's tally jumped from eight to 20, while Karnataka and Kerala reported six and four cases respectively.
Of the six cases reported in Karnataka on Saturday, one was a passenger from the UK, while five others were from COVID-19 clusters in two educational institutions in Dakshina Kannada district, officials had said.
While Omicron was first reported in South Africa on November 24, India's first two cases of the this heavily mutated version of the coronavirus were detected in Karnataka on December 2.
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Red Fort blast: Al Falah University gets show-cause from NAAC over false accreditation claim
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New Delhi (PTI): The National Assessment and Accreditation Council has issued a show-cause notice to Al Falah University, which is under scanner following the Delhi blast, for displaying false certification on its website, officials said on Thursday.
The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) is an autonomous government body that evaluates and certifies the quality of higher education institutions like colleges and universities.
In its show-cause notice, the NAAC said it has noted that the university, "which is neither accredited nor applied for accreditation by NAAC", has publicly displayed on its website that some of its colleges are NAAC-certified.
The notice quoted the website as reading, "Al Falah University is an endeavour of Al Falah Charitable Trust, which has been running three colleges on the campus, namely Al Falah School of Engineering and Technology (since 1997, Graded A by NAAC), Brown Hill College of Engineering and Technology (since 2008), and Al Falah School of Education and Training (since 2006, Graded A by NAAC)."
"This is absolutely wrong and misleading the public, especially the parents, students and stakeholders," the NAAC notice said.
The accreditation body has sought an explanation from the university and directed it to remove the portions on its website and other publicly available documents that claim false NAAC certification.
The accreditation for Al Falah School of Engineering and Technology expired in 2018, while that of Al Falah School of Education and Training expired in 2016, the notice said.
"The accreditation status of both the colleges has expired. Both the colleges have not yet volunteered for fresh Assessment and Accreditation process of the NAAC," the notice said.
According to its website, Al Falah University was established by the Haryana Legislative Assembly under the Haryana Private Universities Act.
It started as an engineering college in 1997. In 2013, the Al Falah Engineering College received A-category NAAC accreditation. In 2014, the Haryana government granted it university status. The Al Falah Medical College is also affiliated with the university.
According to several observers, in its early years, the Al Falah University presented itself as an excellent alternative to Aligarh Muslim University and Jamia Millia Islamia for minority students pursuing quality education.
On Monday, a high-intensity blast ripped through a car near Red Fort in Delhi, killing 13 people and injuring several others, hours after the busting of a "white collar terror module" and the arrest of eight people, including three doctors. The arrested doctors were linked to the Al Falah University.
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