NEW DELHI: The number of people infected with the coronavirus in India rose by another 80,000 and is near Brazil’s total, the second-highest in the world.
The 83,341 cases added in the past 24 hours pushed India’s total past 3.9 million, according to the Health Ministry. Brazil has confirmed more than 4 million infections while the US has more 6.1 million people infected, according to Johns Hopkins University.
India’s Health Ministry on Friday also reported 1,096 deaths in the past 24 hours, taking total fatalities up to 68,472.
India’s case fatality rate of 1.75 percent is well below the global average of 3.3 percent, the ministry said. Experts have questioned whether some Indian states have undercounted deaths.
India added nearly 2 million coronavirus cases in August alone. Pune, Mumbai, New Delhi and Chennai are its worst-hit cities, but new hot spots continue to feed surges in cases in rural areas of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and other states.
In a country of 1.4 billion people, only those places most affected by the virus remain under lockdown. People are crowding markets and other public spaces with potential safety measures like masks and social distancing largely unenforced.
Justifying lifting of lockdown restrictions while infections are surging, Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said the testing capacity has been ramped up and safety procedures put in place.
“While lives are important, livelihoods are equally important,” Bhushan said.
India’s economy contracted by 23.9 percent in the April-June quarter, its worst performance in at least 24 years.
India adds another 83,000 coronavirus cases, nears second-most in world
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India adds another 83,000 coronavirus cases, nears second-most in world
- Cases added in the past 24 hours pushed India’s total past 3.9 million
- India’s economy contracted by 23.9 percent in the April-June quarter
Philippine VP Sara Duterte faces new impeachment bids as 1-year reprieve ends
- House voted to remove Duterte last year but process was stopped by Supreme Court
- Daughter of ex-president Rodrigo Duterte is seen as the frontrunner for 2028 vote
MANILA: Philippine Vice President Sara Duterte was hit with new impeachment complaints on Monday, in a relaunch of a political fight she survived last year.
The two complaints were filed to the House of Representatives accusing Duterte of misusing government funds — an accusation she already denied in 2025, when the House voted to remove her from office, but was prevented by a Supreme Court verdict, which stopped it citing constitutional safeguards.
The verdict gave Duterte temporary immunity against the same or similar complaint for one year, which lapsed in mid-January.
The first refiled complaint was endorsed by the three-member Makabayan bloc — a coalition of parties representing labor, peasant, youth, and human rights advocacy groups in the House — while the second was by Tindig Pilipinas, a coalition of pro‑democracy and civil society groups.
Both accused Duterte of betrayal of public trust over her alleged misuse of public funds and corruption, and one revived allegations that she threatened to assassinate her former ally President Ferdinand Marcos.
Representative Leila De Lima from the Mamamayang Liberal Party-list, who endorsed the Makabayan complaint, said in a statement that while last year’s impeachment move was stopped by the Supreme Court “based on a technicality,” now there are “sufficient grounds and impeachable offenses that could be proven during the hearings of the Committee on Justice.”
Duterte is the first sitting vice president to face impeachment in the country’s history. She has been embroiled in a row with Marcos, following the collapse of a powerful alliance between their families that brought them a landslide victory in the 2022 election.
Last year, she faced several impeachment complaints by a number of legislators and activist groups over a range of issues, including an alleged death threat that she publicly made against Marcos, his wife and the House speaker in 2024, and allegedly misusing millions of dollars in public funds.
The daughter of former president Rodrigo Duterte, widely seen as a frontrunner for the 2028 presidential election, has consistently denied wrongdoing, describing the moves against her as a political vendetta.
While last year’s attempts to remove Duterte from office were stopped, this time efforts are wider, according to Ben Cy, a lawyer with experience in political and criminal cases, as another complaint filed last month to the Office of the Ombudsman by former senator Antonio Trillanes — a vocal critic of the Duterte political family — who accused the vice president of plunder, malversation and graft.
“It will go to the impeachment court. There will be a trial based on the information released by Trillanes,” Cy told Arab News. “These I think are the strong cases.”
