India has reported a total of 3.46 million cases during the pandemic, a tally that places them behind the United States and Brazil in terms of total caseload. However, the south Asian country has reported higher single-day case rises than both those countries for almost two weeks. The western Indian state of Maharashtra, home to India's financial capital Mumbai, recorded 331 fatalities, the steepest single-day increase among all states over the past two days. On Friday, lawmaker H. Vasanthakumar from the country's main opposition party Congress became the latest high profile figure to die from Covid-19, the infection caused by the novel coronavirus. "The news of Kanyakumari MP, Shri H Vasanthakumar's untimely demise due to Covid-19 has come as a shock," Rahul Gandhi, a leading member of the Congress party said in a tweet late on Friday.

Source: Dhaka Tribune August 29, 2020 07:41 UTC