India's COVID-19 recoveries cross 30 lakh-mark, over 60,000 recoveries for 8th consecutive day
New Delhi: India's total COVID-19 recoveries crossed the 30 lakh-mark on Friday, taking the recovery rate to over 77 per cent, the Union Health Ministry said on Friday, asserting that the figures show that the number of patients recovering is steadily rising.
One of the goals of the 'Test-Track-Treat' strategy of the Centre is to reduce COVID mortality and keep the case fatality rate low, the ministry said in a statement.
There has been sharp attention on sustaining high levels of recoveries and to strengthen the clinical treatment protocols to provide a uniform standardised level of medical care to save lives, it said.
"Not only is India's case fatality rate lower than the global average and progressively declining (current figure is 1.74 per cent), but a very small proportion of active cases, amounting to less than 0.5 per cent, are on ventilator support," the ministry said.
Data also shows that two per cent cases are in ICUs and less than 3.5 per cent of the active cases occupy oxygen supported beds, it said.
As a result of these measures, India's total COVID-19 recoveries crossed 30 lakh (30,37,151) on Friday.
With the recovery of 66,659 patients in the last 24 hours, India has continued its trajectory of posting more than 60,000 recoveries for the eighth consecutive day, the ministry said.
The recovery rate amongst COVID-19 patients is 77.15 per cent demonstrating that the number of patients recovering is steadily rising over the past several months, it said.
The higher number of recoveries has also led to a steady enhancement in the difference between the recovered and active cases, and this difference has crossed 22 lakh, as on date.
This ensured that the actual caseload of the country (8,31,124 which are under active medical care), has reduced and currently comprises only 21.11 per cent of the total positive cases.
The total number of COVID-19 cases mounted to 39,36,747, while the death toll due to the disease climbed to 68,472 with 1,096 people succumbing to it in a day, the ministry's data updated at 8 am showed.
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NEET-UG: 2 more held, role of several NTA officers under scanner; CBI focussing on source of leak
New Delhi (PTI): The CBI has arrested two more persons in connection with the NEET (UG) paper-leak case, with the role of several officers of the National Testing Agency (NTA) and other organisations, who had access to the printing press where the papers were printed, coming under the scanner, officials said on Thursday.
The agency has arrested Dhananjay Lokhanda from Ahilyanagar and Manisha Waghmare from Pune and conducted searches at 14 locations across the country in the last 24 hours, they said.
The CBI is focussing on identifying the source of the leak that has caused massive disappointment to lakhs of aspirants eyeing a seat in undergraduate medical courses, which are allotted after the highly-competitive examination, the officials said.
According to the CBI probe so far, the involvement of public servants in the leak cannot be ruled out.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has arrested three individuals from Jaipur -- Mangilal Biwal, Vikas Biwal and Dinesh Biwal -- along with Yash Yadav from Gurugram and Shubham Khairnar from Nashik.
Khairnar was in touch with Yadav and informed him in April that Mangilal Biwal was ready to pay Rs 10-12 lakh for arranging leaked NEET (UG) 2026 questions for his younger son.
Khairnar allegedly provided 500 to 600 questions from the leaked paper to Yadav, the officials said, adding that the questions could have helped score enough marks to get a seat in a reputed medical college.
Mangilal Biwal allegedly procured the paper from Yadav, who was known to his elder son Vikas Biwal from an NEET coaching in Rajasthan's Sikar. The deal between Mangilal Biwal and Yadav was for Rs 10 lakh, if 150 questions from the question bank matched with those in the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test (NEET) paper, the officials said.
Mangilal Biwal shared the paper with his son and further distributed it among relatives.
Yadav also told Vikas Biwal to find additional candidates for the questions to recover some of the money that he had spent on getting those, the officials said.
An analysis of digital devices has given the agency incriminating chats, leaked question papers and other digital evidence. The CBI will subject the devices to a forensic examination to get the deleted data, the officials said.
The federal agency has registered an FIR and formed teams to probe the alleged NEET (UG) paper leak that resulted in the cancellation of the exam held on May 3.
The NEET (UG) 2026 was conducted across 551 Indian cities and at 14 overseas centres. Nearly 23 lakh candidates had registered for the test, which was administered by the NTA at centres across the country.
According to the NTA, information regarding alleged malpractice was received on the evening of May 7, four days after the examination was held. The NTA said the inputs were escalated to central agencies the following morning for "independent verification and necessary action".
The Rajasthan Police's Special Operations Group (SOG) has claimed that a "guess paper" for chemistry, allegedly circulated among students ahead of the examination, had approximately 410 questions, including roughly 120 that appeared in the test.
