Twenty-one states and UTs, including Delhi, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, have a COVID-19 recovery rate higher than the national average of 60.77 per cent, the Union Health Ministry said on Sunday as India's case count mounted to 6.73 lakh and the death toll rose to 19,268.

In a newly acquired daily ritual, students in Haryana's Jhamri village open their textbooks at the sight of the cart that arrives near their homes, filling the vacuum left by the closure of schools due to the lockdown and lack of digital infrastructure such as feeble internet connectivity.

The main aide of gangster Vikas Dubey involved in the attack in which eight police personnel were killed was arrested in a pre-dawn encounter in Kanpur, a senior police official said on Sunday.

A 15-year-old girl's determination to pursue her studies by cycling 24 km every day to and from her school in a Madhya Pradesh village has paid off as she has secured 98.75 per cent marks in her Class 10 exams.

 Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday called on President Ram Nath Kovind and the two leaders discussed issues of national and international importance, Rashtrapati Bhavan officials said.

At least four Maoists were killed during an exchange of fire with security forces in a dense forest in Odisha's Kandhamal district on Sunday, a top police officer said.

With 24,850 people testing positive for coronavirus infection and 613 succumbing to the disease in a day, the highest so far, India's COVID-19 caseload soared to 6,73,165, while the death toll climbed to 19,268 on Sunday, according to the Union Health Ministry data.

At a time when wearing face mask is mandatory to contain the spread of coronavirus, a businessman from Maharashtra's Pune district has got himself a customised gold mask worth Rs 2.89 lakh.