NEW DELHI: India will reopen gyms and end a nighttime curfew from August, but cinemas, bars and schools will remain closed in the vast South Asian nation as the number of coronavirus cases passed 1.5 million and deaths neared 35,000 on Wednesday.
The country of 1.3 billion people — the world’s third-most infected nation — has gradually eased its virus restrictions imposed since late March to boost the flagging economy.
But the latest reopenings from August 5 are limited to gyms and yoga teaching facilities, as well as an end to the curfew, currently from 10 p.m. to 5 am.
Case numbers in India are soaring and more states are reimposing shutdowns to stem the spread of the virus.
Independence Day celebrations on August 15 will go ahead, but with “social distancing and by following other health protocols” such as mask-wearing, the home affairs ministry said.
Metro train services, cinemas, swimming pools, entertainment parks, theaters, bars, auditoriums and assembly halls will remain closed for now, it added.
Schools and other educational institutions will also remain shut through the end of August, at least.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said this week that India was in a “better position that other countries,” and winning international praise.
The health ministry website — which no longer includes total infections as the government puts more emphasis on recoveries — on Wednesday reported almost 50,000 new infections and 768 more deaths.
India, home to some of the world’s most crowded cities and where health-care spending per capita is among the world’s lowest, passed one million cases only 12 days ago.
But many experts have said the country is not testing enough people, and that many coronavirus-linked deaths are not being recorded as such.
A study released Tuesday that tested for coronavirus antibodies reported some 57 percent of people in Mumbai’s teeming slums have had the infection — far more than official figures suggest.
The Tata Institute of Fundamental Research’s Ullas S. Kolthur, who was involved in carrying out the survey, said he was surprised by the results.
“At least in the slums, we think it is largely because social distancing wouldn’t work simply because of the population density,” Kolthur told AFP.
Last week, a similar study indicated that almost a quarter of people in the capital New Delhi have contracted the virus — almost 40 times the official total.
There are, however, doubts about the accuracy of such tests, since other coronaviruses — not just this one — may also produce antibodies that could give a false positive result.
The Mumbai survey also covered a relatively small sample of around 7,000 people.
India now has the third-highest number of cases in the world behind the United States and Brazil, although the official number of deaths in the South Asian nation is far lower.
As a proportion of its population, India also lags behind, with only 1,110 cases per million people, compared to 13,148 for the United States, according to an AFP tally.
India reopens further as virus cases hit 1.5 million
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India reopens further as virus cases hit 1.5 million
- The country of 1.3 billion people is the world’s third-most infected nation
Minneapolis mayor demands transparent investigation into ICE shooting as protests spread
- Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary, said on Thursday that Minnesota authorities had no “jurisdiction” over the investigation
- Portland Mayor Keith Wilson said he could not be sure the government’s account was grounded in fact until an independent investigation took place
MINNEAPOLIS: Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey on Friday demanded the federal government permit state authorities to take part in the investigation into a US immigration officer’s fatal shooting of a 37-year-old woman in her car, an incident that has sparked nationwide protests.
Frey, a Democrat, accused the Republican Trump administration of trying to predetermine the investigation’s outcome after the state’s lead investigative agency, the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, said the FBI had reversed its initial cooperation and blocked the BCA’s access to scene evidence, witness interviews and other material.
“This is a time to follow the law,” Frey said. “This is not a time to hide from the facts.” He added that despite the lack of aid from federal authorities, state or local prosecutions of the officer were still “potential.”
Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary, said on Thursday that Minnesota authorities had no “jurisdiction” over the investigation. Frey’s comments underscored the extent to which President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in mostly Democratic-run cities — despite the opposition of their mayors — has severely frayed the trust between local and federal officials. Trump administration officials have defended Wednesday’s shooting as self-defense and accused the woman, Renee Good, a US citizen and mother of three, of deliberately aiming her car at the officer in an act of “domestic terrorism” — a narrative belied by video evidence and described by Frey as “garbage.” In Portland, Oregon, on Thursday afternoon, a US Border Patrol agent shot and wounded a man and woman in their car after an attempted vehicle stop. As in Minnesota, the Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that the driver “weaponized” the car in an effort to run over the agent, who fired in self-defense.
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson, echoing Frey, said he could not be sure the government’s account was grounded in fact until an independent investigation took place.
“There was a time when we could take them at their word,” Wilson, a Democrat, said of federal officials. “That time is long past.”
Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield told CNN on Friday morning that there is cooperation between federal and state investigators so far but that it was too early to draw any conclusions.
STATES ACCUSE FEDS OF SOWING CHAOS
In both cases, Democratic mayors and governors have called on the Trump administration to pull federal officers out, arguing that their presence is sowing chaos and needlessly creating tensions on the streets.
The US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer who shot Good was one of more than 2,000 federal personnel whom the Trump administration has ordered deployed to Minneapolis in what DHS described as the “largest operation” in its history.
He was identified as Jonathan Ross, based on comments by federal officials that the officer had previously been dragged by a migrant’s car during an attempted arrest last summer, suffering serious lacerations. The details matched those reflected in the court records of a case in Bloomington, Minnesota, in June 2025, in which a man was eventually convicted of assaulting Ross.
DHS has declined to confirm the officer’s name.
Bystander videos of the shooting appear to show Good turning her wheels away from the officer as she drives forward, while he fires three shots while jumping backward from the front of the car. The final two shots appear to be aimed through the driver’s side window, after the car’s front bumper has already passed by the officer’s legs.
Since the killing, Trump administration officials have doubled down on the government’s version of events. Trump said on social media that the car “ran over” the officer, while Vice President JD Vance on Thursday accused Good of “attacking” agents and praised the officer for his actions.
The two shootings have drawn thousands of protesters in Minneapolis, Portland and other US cities. In Minnesota, Democratic Governor Tim Walz has put the state’s National Guard on alert. While the Minnesota operation is part of Trump’s broader immigration crackdown, the president has for months aimed political attacks at the state, particularly its large Somali-American community. Trump has called Somali immigrants “garbage,” railed against a sprawling welfare-fraud scandal and ridiculed Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee in 2024. Walz announced earlier this week that he would not run for a third term, citing the time necessary to address the fraud scandal.
