MUMBAI: Bollywood star Akshay Kumar said Sunday he has tested positive for Covid-19, becoming the latest Indian celebrity to contract the virus as the vast nation battles a new wave of cases.
India reported 93,249 new daily infections on Sunday, according to health ministry data, the highest increase since September, taking the total known cases to almost 12.5 million.
“I wish to inform everyone that, earlier this morning, I have tested positive for Covid-19,” the 53-year-old actor tweeted.
Kumar said last year that he drinks cow urine daily to stay healthy — a practice some Hindus believe has medical benefits, including against the coronavirus.
He tweeted that he is now under home quarantine and has “sought necessary medical care.”
Saturday also saw Indian spin star Axar Patel announce he had tested positive and was in isolation ahead of the start of the lucrative Twenty20 Indian Premier League tournament.
The news came just a day after Indian cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar said he had been hospitalized as a precautionary measure after testing positive a week earlier.
Single-day infections in the nation of 1.3 billion have been rising since early February when they fell to below 9,000 after peaking at almost 100,000 in September.
Experts have warned that infections are increasing at a faster pace in India, which has the world’s third-highest number of cases after the US and Brazil, compared to last year.
Maharashtra, where the country’s financial capital Mumbai is located, has been the worst-hit state or territory in recent weeks.
The megacity of 20 million people saw its highest single-day spike on Saturday with 9,090 fresh cases.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray tweeted Friday that “if things do not improve visibly in a couple of days and if no other solution is found, we will have to announce another lockdown like it is being done globally.”
Ahead of Sunday’s figures, India had recorded more than 456,000 cases in the last seven days — an increase of 37 percent compared to the previous week, according to an AFP database.
Brazil recorded over 505,000 cases for the same period but with a decreasing trend from the previous week, and the US reported 451,000 infections.
In neighboring Bangladesh, authorities said a seven-day lockdown would be imposed from Monday, with all domestic travel services including flights suspended, and malls and shops shut.
Banks would be allowed to open for just 2.5 hours on weekdays, while public and private sector businesses were told to only have a skeleton crew in their offices.
“The corona(virus) infections are spreading fast. The infection and death rates are jumping,” Road Transport Minister Obaidul Quader said in a video message late Saturday.
“In view of the prevailing situation, the Sheikh Hasina government has decided to enforce a lockdown across the country for seven days starting from Monday.”
The nation of 168 million people has been grappling with a sharp rise in cases in recent weeks.
Health authorities reported 7,087 new cases on Sunday — the highest since the start of the pandemic — taking the infection toll to just under 640,000.
Bollywood star Akshay Kumar tests positive as India virus surge worsens
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Bollywood star Akshay Kumar tests positive as India virus surge worsens
- Saturday also saw Indian spin star Axar Patel announce he had tested positive
- The news came just a day after Indian cricket legend Sachin Tendulkar said he had been hospitalized as a precautionary measure after testing positive a week earlier
Decoding villains at an Emirates LitFest panel in Dubai
DUBAI: At this year’s Emirates Airline Festival of Literature in Dubai, a panel on Saturday titled “The Monster Next Door,” moderated by Shane McGinley, posed a question for the ages: Are villains born or made?
Novelists Annabel Kantaria, Louise Candlish and Ruth Ware, joined by a packed audience, dissected the craft of creating morally ambiguous characters alongside the social science that informs them. “A pure villain,” said Ware, “is chilling to construct … The remorselessness unsettles you — How do you build someone who cannot imagine another’s pain?”
Candlish described character-building as a gradual process of “layering over several edits” until a figure feels human. “You have to build the flesh on the bone or they will remain caricatures,” she added.
The debate moved quickly to the nature-versus-nurture debate. “Do you believe that people are born evil?” asked McGinley, prompting both laughter and loud sighs.
Candlish confessed a failed attempt to write a Tom Ripley–style antihero: “I spent the whole time coming up with reasons why my characters do this … It wasn’t really their fault,” she said, explaining that even when she tried to excise conscience, her character kept expressing “moral scruples” and second thoughts.
“You inevitably fold parts of yourself into your creations,” said Ware. “The spark that makes it come alive is often the little bit of you in there.”
Panelists likened character creation to Frankenstein work. “You take the irritating habit of that co‑worker, the weird couple you saw in a restaurant, bits of friends and enemies, and stitch them together,” said Ware.
But real-world perspective reframed the literary exercise in stark terms. Kantaria recounted teaching a prison writing class and quoting the facility director, who told her, “It’s not full of monsters. It’s normal people who made a bad decision.” She recalled being struck that many inmates were “one silly decision” away from the crimes that put them behind bars. “Any one of us could be one decision away from jail time,” she said.
The panelists also turned to scientific findings through the discussion. Ware cited infant studies showing babies prefer helpers to hinderers in puppet shows, suggesting “we are born with a natural propensity to be attracted to good.”
Candlish referenced twin studies and research on narrative: People who can form a coherent story about trauma often “have much better outcomes,” she explained.
“Both things will end up being super, super neat,” she said of genes and upbringing, before turning to the redemptive power of storytelling: “When we can make sense of what happened to us, we cope better.”
As the session closed, McGinley steered the panel away from tidy answers. Villainy, the authors agreed, is rarely the product of an immutable core; more often, it is assembled from ordinary impulses, missteps and circumstances. For writers like Kantaria, Candlish and Ware, the task is not to excuse cruelty but “to understand the fragile architecture that holds it together,” and to ask readers to inhabit uncomfortable but necessary perspectives.
