For the first time, India’s parliament met after six months since the coronavirus cases rose by more than 90,000 in the space of a day and the total number of infections neared 5 million in that country.
At the meeting, all members and Prime Minister Narendra Modi wore masks. And they sat in seats enclosed by glass partitions designed to prevent the spread of the virus.
Modi said in remarks to the media, “We hope that a vaccine is available soon, whichever part of the world it comes from. As we know, there can be no laxity when there is no medicine.”
In that session, Modi also explained that the assembly’s hours have been truncated with the lower house will sit in the morning, and the upper house in the afternoon.
But at the meeting, the Federal Home Minister Amit Shah, one of Modi’s close aide, was absent after he spent most of August in the hospital after contracting the virus.
But now, he returned to the hospital over the weekend for a check-up.
