Coronavirus: India's 150,000 Keralites register to return home; North-East free of Covid-19

The South Indian State of Kerala, which has the largest number of Indians in the Arabian Gulf, said on Monday that just over 150,000 people from the state had registered online globally for returning home.
They will be able to return as soon as the nation-wide lockdown to control the pandemic ends and international flights into India are resumed, according to the government's Press Information Bureau in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala's capital.
Meanwhile, India's North-East region, comprising a contiguous cluster of eight states, is now free of any new cases of the new coronavirus, Covid-19.
Dr Jitendra Singh, the Minister in charge of Development of North Eastern Region, DoNER, said on Monday that five North Eastern States are totally free of the coronavirus. These are Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland, Sikkim, and Tripura.
Until Sunday night, three other states of the region have added no new cases during the normal period when people who are exposed to coronavirus turn positive and require treatment for Covid-19.
States which fall into the second category - Assam, Meghalaya and Mizoram - had a collective total of 19 people who had earlier become infected with the disease and are now well on the way to full recovery.
Dr Singh made this announcement after an extensive pandemic review meeting by video conference with senior officials of these eight states.
He said the North-East region's success in controlling the pandemic had made it "a model for effective, diligent and disciplined health care management",
However, during a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi by video conference on Monday, Chief Ministers of North Eastern states emphasised the need to seal the borders of these states with foreign countries so that there are no new infections from abroad. The North East region of India has borders with five foreign countries.
Modi said during a virtual meeting on Monday with Chief Ministers of all states that a total of 85 districts in India had not reported any new cases of Covid-19 in the last 14 days.
Of these, 16 districts in the country, which earlier had positive cases, had not reported any fresh infections in 28 days until April 24. India is comprised of more than 300 districts.
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare here announced on Monday evening that India had so far recorded 28,380 Covid-19 infections of which 6,362 patients have been cured and discharged from hospitals. There have been 886 deaths as of Monday.