India-UK flights to remain suspended till Jan 7: Hardeep Singh Puri

Passenger flights between the UK and India would remain suspended till January 7 and they will resume in a strictly regulated manner thereafter Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on WednesdayThe Civil Aviation Ministry had last week suspended all flights between the European country and India from December 23 to December 31 as a mutated variant of the coronavirus was detected therePuris announcement has come following a recommendation by the Union Health Ministry to extend the suspension of IndiaUK flights till January 7Puri said on Twitter Decision has been taken to extend the temporary suspension of flights to amp from the UK till 7 January 2021Thereafter strictly regulated resumption will take place for which details will be announced shortly he saidEarlier during the day Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan said in a communique to Aviation Secretary Pradeep Singh Kharola that it is recommending extending temporary suspension of IndiaUK flights till January 7 based on the inputs received from the Joint Monitoring Group JMG headed by the Director General of Health Services DGHS and the National Task Force jointly headed by DG ICMR and member Health NITI AayogBhushan also suggested that after January 7 2021 strictly regulated resumption of limited number of IndiaUK flights may be considered and the specifics of such a mechanism may be worked out by the Ministry of Civil Aviation in consultation with the Ministry of HealthTwenty people in India have tested positive for the new UK variant of SARSCoV2 so far the Union Health Ministry said on WednesdayThe tally includes six people who were found positive for the new virus strain on TuesdayThe Health ministry had announced on Tuesday that samples of all international passengers who arrived in India from December 922 and tested positive for COVID19 will be subjected to genome sequencing which helps in understanding how the new virus variant spreads and evolvesThe presence of the new UK variant of the virus has already been reported by Denmark Netherlands Australia Italy Sweden France Spain Switzerland Germany Canada Japan Lebanon and SingaporeScheduled international passenger flights continue to remain suspended in the country since March 23 due to the pandemicHowever airlines have been permitted to operate special international flights under the Vande Bharat Mission since May this year and under the bilateral air bubble pacts since JulyIndia has formed air bubble pacts with 24 countries including the UKThis story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed agencies Midday accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability trustworthiness reliability and data of the text Midday managementmiddaycom reserves the sole right to alter delete or remove without notice the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever