Corovavirus COVID-19 (Click for details)
-
March 13th 2020: India suspends all foreigner visas indefinitely.
This effectively meant that any foreigner arriving in India after noon that day would be refused entry. Exceptions were made to those arriving on Indian bound transport that was already in transit.
-
March 22nd 2020: Indian nation observes a 22 hour voluntary curfew on the appeal of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
-
March 24th 2020: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered a nationwide lockdown for 21 days, limiting movement of the entire 1.3 billion population of India as a preventive measure against the COVID-19 pandemic in India.
-
March 25th 2020: Lockdown 1 begins.
-
April 4th 2020: Most states appealed that lockdown be extended to effectively grapple with the pandemic. Lockdown extended across the nation until 3 May, with a conditional relaxation after 20th of April for the regions where the spread has been contained.
-
May 1st 2020: GOI extends nationwide lockdown further by two weeks until the 17th of May. Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), on Friday 1st of May 2020, post a comprehensive review of the situation, issued an Order under the Disaster Management Act, 2005, to further extend the lockdown for a further period of two weeks beyond May the 4th 2020. The nation now divided into three zones - Green Zone, Red Zone, Orange Zone, with Red being the most affected and to have tightest regulations. Relaxation will be allowed accordingly. The Centre has identified at least 130 districts in the country as red zones, 284 orange zones and 319 green zones. Goa was at this point a Green Zone with less than ten cases and no fatalities.
-
May 17th 2020: Lockdown 4.0: Centre extends lockdown until May 31st
-
May 18th 2020: Building and renovation work comenced in our complex.
-
May 30th 2020: It was announced that lockdown restrictions were to be lifted from then onwards, while the ongoing lockdown would be further extended until the 30th of June for only the containment zones. Services would be resumed in a phased manner starting from the 8th of June. It was termed as "Unlock 1.0". PM Modi later clarified that the lockdown phase in the country was over and that 'unlock' had already begun.
-
June 29th 2020: Unlock 2.0, was announced for the period of the 1st to the 31st of July, with more ease in restrictions.
-
July 15th 2020: Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawat has announced fresh lockdown restrictions (total lockdown except for medical purposes), starting Thursday July the 16th at 8 pm until Monday July the 20th at 6 am, in a bid to contain the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.
Aditionally, a fresh night curfew from 8 pm July the 15th until 6 am August 10, would also be enforced.
-
July 16th 2020: Goan three day/night total lockdown begins.
-
August 24th 2020: Apply to the FRRO for an Indian Visa Extension
At the time of writing all visa extension requests are being deleted on the status page of the FRRO web site and a new entry of visa conversion is introduced. The end result being that you are granted a Stay Duration Conversion along with a new visa number which has an expiry date the last day of month following the date of the extension being granted. But nobody knows for sure if this is effectively replacing the original visa which in my case has nearly two years validity left on it.
No matter what, the current proviso is that all foreigners exit must be from India within thirty days of schedule flights resuming but only time will tell if a new visa is required to re-enter India.
September 2nd 2020: Stay Duration Extension granted and valid until October 31st 2020 (curiously dated as having a conversion date of September the 10th).
To add to the confusion, whilst COVID-19 is escalating in India pubs and restaurants are set to re-open on September the 4th and there are reports of the beach shacks opening at the start of October (not the end of October as usual) to accomodate proposed charter flights from Russia.
-
September 19th 2020: The Times of India reports "Goa worst hit in cases per million population".
October 2020: From hereon until the end of the year life gets pretty much back to normal with the exception of the lack of non-domestic tourists.