Coronavirus death toll climbs to 2,943 in China, infected cases witness surge globally
Beijing: The coronavirus death toll in China climbed to 2,943 with 31 more deaths, while 125 confirmed cases were reported, the lowest since the virus outbreak in the country, Chinese health officials said on Tuesday even as the deadly disease wrecked havoc globally with the total number of deaths crossing 3,000 and infections surging past 89,000.
China's National Health Commission, (NHC) said on Tuesday it received reports of 125 new confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 31 deaths on Monday in the country.
According to the World Health Organisation, there are 89,527 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 3,056 deaths reported globally in 67 countries.
In terms of confirmed cases in China, officials said Monday's numbers were the lowest since the country began to report about the coronavirus epidemic, showing signs of stabilising, especially in the Chinese mainland.
All the deaths were in Hubei Province and its capital Wuhan, the epicentre of the virus, the officials said, adding that of the 125 new confirmed cases reported on Monday, 114 are from Hubei.
NHC said the overall confirmed cases on the Chinese mainland had reached 80,151 by the end of Monday.
This included 2,943 people who died of the disease so far, 30,004 patients still undergoing treatment and 47,204 patients discharged after recovery, the officials said.
In Hubei province, the total confirmed cases climbed to 67,217 and total deaths rose to 2,834, including 2,251 in Wuhan, local health commission said.
Wuhan reported 111 confirmed cases and 24 deaths on Monday.
A total of 2,410 patients were discharged from hospital after recovery in the province, bringing the total number of patients in the province to 36,167.
Among the 25,050 patients in hospitals, 5,407 were still in severe condition and another 1,186 in critical condition, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
All over China, 2,742 people were discharged from hospitals after recovery on Monday, while the number of severe cases decreased by 304 to 6,806.
The commission said that 587 people were still suspected to be infected with the virus.
By the end of Monday, 100 confirmed cases including two deaths had been reported in Hong Kong, 10 confirmed cases in Macao and 41 in Taiwan, including one death.
With the virus spreading at a rapid pace globally, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said it is an infectious disease caused by a new coronavirus introduced to humans for the first time and it can be contained with the right measures.
Noting that knowing and understanding the epidemic is the first step to defeating it, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus tweeted on Monday that "we are in unchartered territory with COVID-19. We have never before seen a respiratory pathogen that is capable of community transmission."
"It spreads from person to person mainly through the droplets produced when an infected person speaks, coughs or sneezes," Ghebreyesus, who visited China in January, said.
A 12-member WHO team also visited the virus-hit areas in China and submitted a detailed report.
Ghebreyesus said containment of COVID-19 is still feasible and must remain the top priority for all countries right now, though there is no one-size-fits-all approach.
"Our message to all countries is: this is not one-way street. We can push this coronavirus back," he said. "Your actions now will determine the course of the COVID-19 outbreak in your country. There's no choice but to act now," he said.
WHO has been advising countries to take actions on the "first case, first cluster, first evidence of community transmission."
Meanwhile, Ghebreyesus also deplored stigmatizing during the outbreak, which he said is "more dangerous than coronavirus itself."
"It is painful to witness the level of stigma we are seeing. We are not angels, we are human beings, but we can do the right thing," state-run Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying.
Meanwhile, six people died of the deadly virus in the United States, while over 90 confirmed cases have been reported from the country.
Two people tested positive of the disease in India on Monday, including one in the national capital. South Korea reported 29 COVID-19 deaths and 477 more confirmed cases, raising the total number of infections to 4,812.
In Japan, the total number of infected cases increased to 980, while 12 people died of the disease. Italy reported a jump in the death toll to 52, with more than 2,036 people infected with the virus.
In Iran, the virus has claimed 66 lives, while confirmed cases climbed to more than 1,500 Three people have died of the disease in France, while the confirmed cases increased to 191.
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Single higher education regulator bill tabled in LS; Oppn flags ‘centralisation,' JPC likely
New Delhi: A bill to set up a 13-member body to regulate institutions of higher education was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Monday.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan introduced the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, which seeks to establish an overarching higher education commission along with three councils for regulation, accreditation, and ensuring academic standards for universities and higher education institutions in India.
Meanwhile, the move drew strong opposition, with members warning that it could weaken institutional autonomy and result in excessive centralisation of higher education in India.
The Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan Bill, 2025, earlier known as the Higher Education Council of India (HECI) Bill, has been introduced in line with the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
The proposed legislation seeks to merge three existing regulatory bodies, the University Grants Commission (UGC), the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and the National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE), into a single unified body called the Viksit Bharat Shiksha Adhishthan.
At present, the UGC regulates non-technical higher education institutions, the AICTE oversees technical education, and the NCTE governs teacher education in India.
Under the proposed framework, the new commission will function through three separate councils responsible for regulation, accreditation, and the maintenance of academic standards across universities and higher education institutions in the country.
According to the Bill, the present challenges faced by higher educational institutions due to the multiplicity of regulators having non-harmonised regulatory approval protocols will be done away with.
The higher education commission, which will be headed by a chairperson appointed by the President of India, will cover all central universities and colleges under it, institutes of national importance functioning under the administrative purview of the Ministry of Education, including IITs, NITs, IISc, IISERs, IIMs, and IIITs.
At present, IITs and IIMs are not regulated by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
Government to refer bill to JPC; Oppn slams it
The government has expressed its willingness to refer it to a joint committee after several members of the Lok Sabha expressed strong opposition to the Bill, stating that they were not given time to study its provisions.
Responding to the opposition, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju said the government intends to refer the Bill to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) for detailed examination.
Congress Lok Sabha MP Manish Tewari warned that the Bill could result in “excessive centralisation” of higher education. He argued that the proposed law violates the constitutional division of legislative powers between the Union and the states.
According to him, the Bill goes beyond setting academic standards and intrudes into areas such as administration, affiliation, and the establishment and closure of university campuses. These matters, he said, fall under Entry 25 of the Concurrent List and Entry 32 of the State List, which cover the incorporation and regulation of state universities.
Tewari further stated that the Bill suffers from “excessive delegation of legislative power” to the proposed commission. He pointed out that crucial aspects such as accreditation frameworks, degree-granting powers, penalties, institutional autonomy, and even the supersession of institutions are left to be decided through rules, regulations, and executive directions. He argued that this amounts to a violation of established constitutional principles governing delegated legislation.
Under the Bill, the regulatory council will have the power to impose heavy penalties on higher education institutions for violating provisions of the Act or related rules. Penalties range from ₹10 lakh to ₹75 lakh for repeated violations, while establishing an institution without approval from the commission or the state government could attract a fine of up to ₹2 crore.
Concerns were also raised by members from southern states over the Hindi nomenclature of the Bill. N.K. Premachandran, an MP from the Revolutionary Socialist Party representing Kollam in Kerala, said even the name of the Bill was difficult to pronounce.
He pointed out that under Article 348 of the Constitution, the text of any Bill introduced in Parliament must be in English unless Parliament decides otherwise.
DMK MP T.M. Selvaganapathy also criticised the government for naming laws and schemes only in Hindi. He said the Constitution clearly mandates that the nomenclature of a Bill should be in English so that citizens across the country can understand its intent.
Congress MP S. Jothimani from Tamil Nadu’s Karur constituency described the Bill as another attempt to impose Hindi and termed it “an attack on federalism.”
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