The Union home ministry May 17, 2020 extended the countrywide lockdown to curb the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) through May 31.
- Deliniation of containment, buffer, red, orange and green zones by states.
- Inter-state passenger vehicle movement, except in containment zones, will be allowed (subject to state government approvals).
- Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman May 17 starts her fifth tranche of break-down of the Rs 20 crore relief announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
- States’s borrowing cap raised to 5 per cent of gross state domestic produce from 3 per cent.
- The first 0.5 percentage point (pp) unconditional.
- The next pp to be released in four equal tranches, dependent on designated ‘reforms’ — one nation one ration card, ease of doing business at district levels, power distribution and urbal local bodies.
- The remaining when three of the four are achieved.
- All sectors to be opened up the private sector.
- At least one public sector enterprise in sectors notified.
- Not more than four PSEs in sectors notified strategic.
- She announces an additional Rs 40,000 crore for Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.
- All districts to have infectious disease blocks.
- Public health labs at block levels.
- Push for health research through the Indian Council of Medical Research.
- One educational television channel per class.
- Educationa content for those with disabilities.
- Debts incurred due to COVID-19 to be excluded from ‘default’ list.
- Threshhold for insolvency raised to Rs 1 crore from Rs 1 lakh.
- Companies Act: Technical defaults to be decriminalised.
- Compundable offences list slashed.
- By May 17 morning, the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic cost 313,200 lives worldwide.
- There were 2,595,953 active cases around the world.
- About 2 per cent of them remained critical / serious.
- The United States remained the most affected country, with 1,507,773 cases and 90,113 deaths, according to aggregator Worldometer.info.
- India had the eleventh-highest case load at 90,927.
- Among them, 53,946 cases were active.
- India’s death toll was at 2,872.
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