ˆ ˆ ) ˇ˝ *˝ˆ+ - The Pioneer...2020/04/20 · moved to Swarg Ashram, Rishikesh where they will...
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A fter a week-long “strict enforcement” of the lock- down post-April 14, the Government is set to relax activ- ities in some sectors on Monday though no relaxation would be given in the containment zones and e-commerce companies will not be allowed to sell non- essential commodities. A day ahead of the reopen- ing of the agriculture, industry and construction sectors in “Green Zones” (non-hotspot zones), the Home Ministry on Sunday paved the way for migrant workers and labourers to return to their place of work in cities, given they do not show any symptoms of coronavirus. Though migrants will be allowed to return to their places of work in cities, which are non- containment zones, State bor- ders will remain closed for any movement. The Government’s decision comes in the wake of thousands of workers being stranded across the country, along State border lines, since the national lockdown was imposed on March 25. The Government had first imposed a nationwide lock- down for 21 days till April 14, and then extended it to May 3 in the wake of rising number of Covid-19 cases in the country. The Home Ministry’s deci- sion to reverse its decision on sale of non-essential items through e-commerce platform is a U-turn on its April 15 cir- cular. “In this regard I would like to clarify that while oper- ations of e-commerce for non- essential goods stand prohibit- ed, they will continue to oper- ate for essential goods as has been allowed earlier and con- tinue to be allowed under clause 13(i) of these guidelines,” said Home Secretary Ajay Bhalla in a letter to all States, changing provisions on Clause 14(v) which allowed transport of vehicles related to e-commerce. The Clause 14(v) gave per- mission to all vehicles trans- porting of e-commerce goods, while Clause 13(i) gave only sale of essential commodities. This loophole in the April 15 MHA guidelines may be mis- used by e-commerce compa- nies, alleged trade bodies. The Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) petitioned to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal for banning the sale of non-essential com- modities by e-commerce giants like Amazon and Flipkart. They alleged that e-com- merce giants are manipulating the guidelines and got clearance from Maharashtra, Odisha and Rajasthan Governments. “On behalf of the seven crore traders of India, the Confederation of All India Traders today lauded Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah for the most pragmatic decision of prohibiting e-commerce com- panies to deliver non-essentials amid lockdown period. Continued on Page 6 A day after Union Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri advised airlines to open bookings only after the Government takes a decision on resuming passenger flight services, the Director General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) on Sunday directed all airliners to refrain from booking of tickets. In a circular issued on Sunday, the DGCA said that decision has not been taken to commence the domestic /inter- national flights from May 4. In view of this, all airliners are hereby directed to refrain from booking tickets. Further, air- lines may note that they shall be given sufficient notice and time for restarting the opera- tions, the circular read. The circular said that there was no directions/clearance which allows the airlines to start ticket booking for the journey from May 4 onwards. All Indian airlines, includ- ing Vistara and AirAsia India, are currently taking bookings on select flights from May 4. On Saturday night, Puri said on Twitter the Government has not taken any decision to open domestic or international flight operations so far. All domestic and international commercial passenger flight operations have been suspended during the lockdown period. S ix foreign tourists who tried to sit out the coronavirus pandemic in a cave in Rishikesh have been sent to quarantine at an ashram in the town after they ran out of money, police said Sunday. The four men and two women — from France, the United States, Ukraine, Turkey and Nepal — had been living in the cave near Rishikesh in Uttarakhand since March 24, police inspector Rajendra Singh Kathait told AFP. They have now been moved to Swarg Ashram, Rishikesh where they will be quarantined for 14 days, although none have shown coronavirus symptoms. “Before the lockdown began, they were living in a hotel in the Muni Ki Reti region but they moved to the cave after they ran out of money,” Kathait said. “However, they had saved some money to buy food and other supplies.” The Nepali man had been helping the group buy essential items, Kathait added. About 700 foreign tourists remain in Rishikesh, according to the Uttarakhand’s tourism department, and the Government has launched the website “Stranded in India” to help travellers from abroad. The Rishikesh town was made famous by the Fab Four, who came to Rishikesh in 1968 looking for refuge from Beatlemania, for spiritual enlightenment and to immerse themselves in Indian culture. Numerous governments, including Germany, the US and Britain, have chartered flights to take their nationals home from India. The world’s second-most populous nation of 1.3 billion people has reported more than 15,700 coronavirus cases including 507 deaths from the disease. P osts by celebrities in the vir- tual world during lock- down are landing them in major controversy. If actor Ajaz Khan was arrested on Saturday for a controversial Facebook post, actress Kangana Ranaut’s sister Rangoli Chandel’s twitter account has been suspended. Wrestler Babita Phogat is in soup over her unsavoury tweet against Muslims with badminton star Jwala Gutta and actor Swara Bhaskar slam- ming her. In the midst of all this, a man has been arrested in Gujarat for a controversial post. Khan had reportedly said in a Facebook live session that, “If an ant dies, a Muslim is responsible, if an elephant dies, a Muslim is responsible. If there is an earthquake in Delhi, a Muslim is responsible, i.e. a Muslim is responsible for any incident. But have you ever thought who is responsible for this conspiracy?” Supporters of Khan are campaigning on twitter for his release. Besides, several celebrities on social media have demanded a similar action against Phogat and Chandel for their com- munal remarks. Earlier wrestler turned politician Phogat sparked a row with her tweets that coro- navirus is the second biggest problem in India and that uncivilised Jamaati are India’s number one enemy. She went to the extent of com- paring them with “pigs.” But no action has been taken against her. Badminton player Gutta and boxer and Congress leader Vijender Singh have urged Phogat to take back her con- troversial views. Vijender also reacted on the backlash for the wrestler with hashtags like #SuspendBabitaPhogat trend- ing on Twitter. He wrote on the Twitter that there was no reli- gion in the world that gives one the permission to show enmi- ty towards another religion. Defending her tweets on Tablighi Jamaat, Phogat said she stands by her tweet and she wrote nothing wrong. Phogat also said she is not ‘Zaira Wasim’, and would not get bogged down by any kind of threat. Continued on Page 6 Mumbai: Maharashtra Government has announced that the State, which is hit badly by the coronavirurs, will open up limited business activities in green and orange zones from April 20. Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said on Sunday that despite resumption of business activities in certain pockets, the borders of the districts will be sealed and e production work in indus- tries/businesses falling in the green zone will be allowed. Green zones are areas where no coronavirus case has been reported. Orange zones are areas where coronavirus has been reported in a limited area. Maharashtra is the worst-hit Indian State from Covid-19 outbreak with 4,200 con- firmed cases. Mumbai: IT and ITeS providers can work at 50 per cent strength from April 20, according to the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs. Majority of the IT companies had asked their employees to work from home during the lockdown. “Digital economy is critical to the services sector and is important for national growth. Accordingly, e-commerce oper- ations, operations of IT and IT- enabled services, data and call centres for Government activ- ities, and online teaching and distance learning are all per- mitted activities now,” the Government said. A mid the coronavirus upsurge in Maharashtra, a major political controversy broke out on Sunday, as the ruling Shiv Sena launched a sharp attack against Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari for his “failure” to act on the State Cabinet’s recommendation to nominate Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray as a mem- ber of the State Legislative Council by saying “Raj Bhavan should not become centre for political conspiracy”. In normal course, the Governor has to go by the rec- ommendation of the State Cabinet without any undue delay. Kohsyari’s failure to nominate Uddhav has sur- prised many in the State polit- ical circles and that too at a time when the State is passing through a coronavirus crisis. The Governor has given no indication that he would go by the recommendation made by the State Cabinet on April 9 to nominate Uddhav as a Member of Legislative Council from one of the two vacant slots. Uddhav took up the reins as the Chief Minister on November 28, 2019 and needs to become a member of the either House, Assembly or Council, before six months, May 27, as prescribed under Article 164 (4). If Uddhav fails to get the nomination, he will have to resign from his post. In that scenario, it will be up to the Governor to invite Uddhav to take oath as the Chief Minister once again. Once Uddhav is sworn into the office as the Chief Minister, he will have another six months to get elected to either of the Houses. Subsequently, Uddhav’s other Ministers will have to be once again administered oath of office by the Governor. If any- thing, he will be at the mercy of the Governor. More than anything else, the Government re-formation exercise — which will take at least three to four days — will affect the MVA Government’s ongoing efforts to combat coranavirus situation in the State. An angry Shiv Sena spokesperson and MP Sanjay Raut lashed out at Koshyari through two tweets — one in Marathi and another in English. In a tweet that he put out first in Marathi, Raut said, “Raj Bhavans should not become dirty den for politics. I am sud- denly reminded of a ‘shameless’ late Andhra Pradesh Governor Ramlal. This clue is enough for those who can understand”. Continued on Page 6 ❝ C hief Minister Yo g i Adityanath has authorised district magistrates to take a call on giving relaxation in lock- down from Monday, depend- ing upon the ground reality, and to inform the state gov- ernment but said special pre- cautions need to be taken in 19 districts which have reported 10 or more coronavirus positive cases. “No relaxation would be given in those areas which come under hotspot. Only san- itation, health and delivery boys would be allowed in these areas. Strictness will continue in the red zones till lockdown,” Yogi said while giving direction during video-conferencing with district magistrates on Sunday. Some selected sectors would open from Monday to speed up economic activity but norms of social distancing would be enforced in a strict manner. The chief minister said that on relaxation to industries, the district magistrates, district police chiefs, DIG and officials from industry department should hold a meeting and decide what kind of industry could open. “There should not be crowding, violating the spir- it of social distancing,” he said. Yogi said work should start for construction of express- ways, state highways, housing societies, medical colleges and roads. “Daily wagers will ben- efit from this conditional approval but they will have to strictly follow social distancing and other conditions suggest- ed by the government,” he said. The chief minister was informed that in view of the ongoing harvesting season, the government had created pro- curement centres across the state to buy produce from the farmers and wheat purchase had already started at all the centres. “Instructions have been given to follow social distanc- ing in the mandis. Farmers should not face any problem in bringing their produce to the mandis,” Yogi said. The chef minister also directed the district magis- trates to make arrangements to send home people who had come from other cities and were put in quarantine. “Medical check-up of those people should be ensured who are sent home after completing 14-day institutional quaran- tine. Also, the person should be given ration packet,” he said. “Around 8,000 students from Kota have returned to UP. They should also be put in quarantine in their homes,” Yogi said, adding that in view of coming month of Ramzan, religious leaders should ask Muslims to offer prayers at their homes only. The chief minister empha- sised on more testing of the coronavirus suspects and full protection to medical staff by providing them personal pro- tective equipment (PPE) kits, N-95 masks and other equip- ment. “Emergency services in selected hospitals should also commence from Monday but only if they gave adequate numbers of PPE and N-95 kits,” he said. The UP government, on April 16, had issued lockdown guidelines wherein specific industrial sectors were allowed to resume operations from Monday with certain condi- tions according to the central advisory. L ucknow Divisional Commissioner Mukesh Meshram said that lockdown conditions would continue in the city as they had been pre- vailing and in the hotspot areas, only three categories of people would be allowed to move — Nagar Nigam and Cantonment Board employees for sanitisation work, police for enforcing lock- down and health workers for taking swab samples for test. He said the administration would ensure supply of essential com- modities at the doorsteps of the people living in such areas. Lucknow District Magistrate Abhishek Prakash said that extra caution had to be taken in the state capital because of the rise in number of coron- avirus cases. He said that status quo would remain and no new office, whether private, govern- ment or aided, would be allowed to open on Monday. Meanwhile, two persons tested positive for coronavirus in Lucknow on Sunday — a 20- year-old youth from Sadar and a destitute who was brought to RML Hospital on Saturday night. The 20-year-old youth who tested positive for coron- avirus in the Sadar is the ninth member of a grocer’s family to test positive A senior official said the youth belonged to a grocer’s family whose eight members had already tested positive. “This family has the maximum num- ber of people who have tested positive for coronavirus in the Sadar area. Even in the families residing close to the masjids, the maximum number of people testing positive in any one fam- ily has been 5. The youth is a nephew of the grocer who first tested positive and lives with his mother who has also tested positive” he said. The official said that exten- sive announcements were made in the Sadar area to tell the peo- ple to stay indoors and a rigor- ous sanitisation exercise was carried out. The second coron- avirus positive case in the state capital is a destitute who was brought to the RML Hospital on Saturday night, He had fled the hospital but was caught by the police and brought back the same night after his samples test- ed positive and the hospital authorities informed the police about his disappearance. RML Hospital Director Dr AK Tripathi said the person was mentally unstable and unkempt when he was brought to the hos- pital and said he was from Jaipur. Dr Tripathi said the CMO had shifted him to Lok Bandhu Hospital on Sunday because he had fled the RMLH. Meanwhile, ADM (East) KP Singh inspected the Top Khana Bazaar and visited all the three areas where coronavirus positive cases have been detect- ed — Top Khana Bazaar, Ramji Ka Hata and Ghosiana in Telibagh. He made public announcements, appealing to the people to stay indoors lest they cause the spread of the deadly virus. The ADM said that contact tracing was carried out in each of the areas where the positive cases were detected. The CMO office said that 324 people were in quarantine in the city.
Transcript of ˆ ˆ ) ˇ˝ *˝ˆ+ - The Pioneer...2020/04/20 · moved to Swarg Ashram, Rishikesh where they will...
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After a week-long “strictenforcement” of the lock-
down post-April 14, theGovernment is set to relax activ-ities in some sectors on Mondaythough no relaxation would begiven in the containment zonesand e-commerce companies willnot be allowed to sell non-essential commodities.
A day ahead of the reopen-ing of the agriculture, industryand construction sectors in“Green Zones” (non-hotspotzones), the Home Ministry onSunday paved the way formigrant workers and labourersto return to their place of workin cities, given they do not showany symptoms of coronavirus.
Though migrants will beallowed to return to their placesof work in cities, which are non-containment zones, State bor-ders will remain closed for anymovement. The Government’sdecision comes in the wake ofthousands of workers beingstranded across the country,along State border lines, sincethe national lockdown wasimposed on March 25.
The Government had firstimposed a nationwide lock-down for 21 days till April 14,and then extended it to May 3in the wake of rising number ofCovid-19 cases in the country.
The Home Ministry’s deci-sion to reverse its decision onsale of non-essential itemsthrough e-commerce platformis a U-turn on its April 15 cir-cular. “In this regard I wouldlike to clarify that while oper-
ations of e-commerce for non-essential goods stand prohibit-ed, they will continue to oper-ate for essential goods as hasbeen allowed earlier and con-tinue to be allowed under clause13(i) of these guidelines,” saidHome Secretary Ajay Bhalla ina letter to all States, changingprovisions on Clause 14(v)which allowed transport ofvehicles related to e-commerce.
The Clause 14(v) gave per-mission to all vehicles trans-porting of e-commerce goods,while Clause 13(i) gave onlysale of essential commodities.This loophole in the April 15MHA guidelines may be mis-used by e-commerce compa-nies, alleged trade bodies. TheConfederation of All IndiaTraders (CAIT) petitioned toPrime Minister NarendraModi, Home Minister Amit
Shah and Commerce MinisterPiyush Goyal for banning thesale of non-essential com-modities by e-commerce giantslike Amazon and Flipkart.
They alleged that e-com-merce giants are manipulatingthe guidelines and got clearancefrom Maharashtra, Odisha andRajasthan Governments.
“On behalf of the sevencrore traders of India, theConfederation of All IndiaTraders today lauded PrimeMinister Narendra Modi andHome Minister Amit Shah forthe most pragmatic decision ofprohibiting e-commerce com-panies to deliver non-essentialsamid lockdown period.
Continued on Page 6
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Aday after Union CivilAviation Minister Hardeep
Singh Puri advised airlines toopen bookings only after theGovernment takes a decisionon resuming passenger flightservices, the Director Generalof Civil Aviation (DGCA) onSunday directed all airliners torefrain from booking of tickets.
In a circular issued onSunday, the DGCA said thatdecision has not been taken tocommence the domestic /inter-national flights from May 4. Inview of this, all airliners arehereby directed to refrain frombooking tickets. Further, air-
lines may note that they shallbe given sufficient notice andtime for restarting the opera-tions, the circular read.
The circular said that therewas no directions/clearancewhich allows the airlines tostart ticket booking for thejourney from May 4 onwards.
All Indian airlines, includ-ing Vistara and AirAsia India,are currently taking bookingson select flights from May 4.On Saturday night, Puri said onTwitter the Government hasnot taken any decision to opendomestic or international flightoperations so far. All domesticand international commercialpassenger flight operationshave been suspended duringthe lockdown period.
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Six foreign tourists who triedto sit out the coronavirus
pandemic in a cave inRishikesh have been sent toquarantine at an ashram in thetown after they ran out ofmoney, police said Sunday.
The four men and twowomen — from France, theUnited States, Ukraine, Turkeyand Nepal — had been livingin the cave near Rishikesh inUttarakhand since March 24,police inspector RajendraSingh Kathait told AFP.
They have now beenmoved to Swarg Ashram,Rishikesh where they will bequarantined for 14 days,although none have showncoronavirus symptoms.
“Before the lockdownbegan, they were living in ahotel in the Muni Ki Retiregion but they moved to thecave after they ran out ofmoney,” Kathait said.
“However, they had saved
some money to buy food andother supplies.”
The Nepali man had beenhelping the group buy essentialitems, Kathait added.
About 700 foreign touristsremain in Rishikesh, accordingto the Uttarakhand’s tourismdepartment, and theGovernment has launched thewebsite “Stranded in India” tohelp travellers from abroad.
The Rishikesh town wasmade famous by the Fab Four,who came to Rishikesh in 1968looking for refuge fromBeatlemania, for spiritualenlightenment and to immersethemselves in Indian culture.
Numerous governments,including Germany, the USand Britain, have charteredflights to take their nationalshome from India.
The world’s second-mostpopulous nation of 1.3 billionpeople has reported more than15,700 coronavirus casesincluding 507 deaths from thedisease.
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Posts by celebrities in the vir-tual world during lock-
down are landing them inmajor controversy. If actor AjazKhan was arrested on Saturdayfor a controversial Facebookpost, actress Kangana Ranaut’ssister Rangoli Chandel’s twitteraccount has been suspended.
Wrestler Babita Phogat isin soup over her unsavourytweet against Muslims withbadminton star Jwala Guttaand actor Swara Bhaskar slam-ming her. In the midst of allthis, a man has been arrested inGujarat for a controversial post.
Khan had reportedly saidin a Facebook live session that,“If an ant dies, a Muslim isresponsible, if an elephant dies,a Muslim is responsible. If
there is an earthquake in Delhi,a Muslim is responsible, i.e. aMuslim is responsible for anyincident. But have you everthought who is responsible forthis conspiracy?”
Supporters of Khan arecampaigning on twitterfor his release.
Besides, severalcelebrities on socialmedia have demanded a
similar action against Phogatand Chandel for their com-munal remarks.
Earlier wrestler turnedpolitician Phogat sparked arow with her tweets that coro-navirus is the second biggest
problem in India and thatuncivilised Jamaati are
India’s number one enemy.She went to the extent of com-
paring them with “pigs.” But
no action has been takenagainst her.
Badminton player Guttaand boxer and Congress leaderVijender Singh have urgedPhogat to take back her con-troversial views.
Vijender also reacted onthe backlash for the wrestlerwith hashtags like#SuspendBabitaPhogat trend-ing on Twitter. He wrote on theTwitter that there was no reli-gion in the world that gives onethe permission to show enmi-ty towards another religion.
Defending her tweets onTablighi Jamaat, Phogat saidshe stands by her tweet and shewrote nothing wrong. Phogatalso said she is not ‘Zaira Wasim’,and would not get bogged downby any kind of threat.
Continued on Page 6
Mumbai: MaharashtraGovernment has announcedthat the State, which is hitbadly by the coronavirurs,will open up limited businessactivities in green and orangezones from April 20.
Chief Minister UddhavThackeray said on Sundaythat despite resumption ofbusiness activities in certainpockets, the borders of thedistricts will be sealed and e
production work in indus-tries/businesses falling in thegreen zone will be allowed.
Green zones are areaswhere no coronavirus case hasbeen reported.
Orange zones are areaswhere coronavirus has beenreported in a limited area.Maharashtra is the worst-hitIndian State from Covid-19outbreak with 4,200 con-firmed cases.
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Mumbai: IT and ITeSproviders can work at 50 percent strength from April 20,according to the guidelinesissued by the Ministry of HomeAffairs. Majority of the ITcompanies had asked theiremployees to work from homeduring the lockdown.
“Digital economy is criticalto the services sector and isimportant for national growth.Accordingly, e-commerce oper-ations, operations of IT and IT-enabled services, data and callcentres for Government activ-ities, and online teaching anddistance learning are all per-mitted activities now,” theGovernment said.
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Amid the coronavirusupsurge in Maharashtra, a
major political controversybroke out on Sunday, as theruling Shiv Sena launched asharp attack against GovernorBhagat Singh Koshyari for his“failure” to act on the StateCabinet’s recommendation tonominate Chief MinisterUddhav Thackeray as a mem-ber of the State LegislativeCouncil by saying “Raj Bhavanshould not become centre forpolitical conspiracy”.
In normal course, theGovernor has to go by the rec-ommendation of the StateCabinet without any unduedelay. Kohsyari’s failure tonominate Uddhav has sur-prised many in the State polit-ical circles and that too at atime when the State is passingthrough a coronavirus crisis.
The Governor has given noindication that he would go bythe recommendation made bythe State Cabinet on April 9 tonominate Uddhav as a Memberof Legislative Council fromone of the two vacant slots.
Uddhav took up the reinsas the Chief Minister onNovember 28, 2019 and needsto become a member of theeither House, Assembly orCouncil, before six months,May 27, as prescribed underArticle 164 (4).
If Uddhav fails to get thenomination, he will have toresign from his post. In thatscenario, it will be up to theGovernor to invite Uddhav totake oath as the Chief Ministeronce again. Once Uddhav issworn into the office as theChief Minister, he will haveanother six months to getelected to either of the Houses.Subsequently, Uddhav’s other
Ministers will have to be onceagain administered oath ofoffice by the Governor. If any-thing, he will be at the mercyof the Governor.
More than anything else,the Government re-formationexercise — which will take atleast three to four days — willaffect the MVA Government’songoing efforts to combatcoranavirus situation in theState. An angry Shiv Senaspokesperson and MP SanjayRaut lashed out at Koshyarithrough two tweets — one inMarathi and another inEnglish.
In a tweet that he put outfirst in Marathi, Raut said, “RajBhavans should not becomedirty den for politics. I am sud-denly reminded of a ‘shameless’late Andhra Pradesh GovernorRamlal. This clue is enough forthose who can understand”.
Continued on Page 6
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Chief Minister YogiAdityanath has authorised
district magistrates to take a callon giving relaxation in lock-down from Monday, depend-ing upon the ground reality,and to inform the state gov-ernment but said special pre-cautions need to be taken in 19districts which have reported10 or more coronavirus positivecases. “No relaxation would begiven in those areas whichcome under hotspot. Only san-itation, health and deliveryboys would be allowed in theseareas. Strictness will continuein the red zones till lockdown,”Yogi said while giving directionduring video-conferencingwith district magistrates onSunday.
Some selected sectorswould open from Monday tospeed up economic activitybut norms of social distancingwould be enforced in a strictmanner.
The chief minister saidthat on relaxation to industries,the district magistrates, districtpolice chiefs, DIG and officialsfrom industry departmentshould hold a meeting anddecide what kind of industrycould open. “There should notbe crowding, violating the spir-it of social distancing,” he said.
Yogi said work should startfor construction of express-ways, state highways, housingsocieties, medical colleges androads. “Daily wagers will ben-efit from this conditionalapproval but they will have tostrictly follow social distancingand other conditions suggest-ed by the government,” he said.
The chief minister wasinformed that in view of theongoing harvesting season, thegovernment had created pro-
curement centres across thestate to buy produce from thefarmers and wheat purchasehad already started at all thecentres.
“Instructions have beengiven to follow social distanc-ing in the mandis. Farmersshould not face any problem inbringing their produce to themandis,” Yogi said.
The chef minister alsodirected the district magis-trates to make arrangements tosend home people who hadcome from other cities andwere put in quarantine.
“Medical check-up of thosepeople should be ensured whoare sent home after completing14-day institutional quaran-tine. Also, the person should begiven ration packet,” he said.
“Around 8,000 studentsfrom Kota have returned to UP.They should also be put inquarantine in their homes,”Yogi said, adding that in viewof coming month of Ramzan,religious leaders should askMuslims to offer prayers attheir homes only.
The chief minister empha-sised on more testing of thecoronavirus suspects and fullprotection to medical staff byproviding them personal pro-tective equipment (PPE) kits,N-95 masks and other equip-ment.
“Emergency services inselected hospitals should alsocommence from Monday butonly if they gave adequatenumbers of PPE and N-95kits,” he said.
The UP government, onApril 16, had issued lockdownguidelines wherein specificindustrial sectors were allowedto resume operations fromMonday with certain condi-tions according to the centraladvisory.
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Lucknow DivisionalCommissioner Mukesh
Meshram said that lockdownconditions would continue inthe city as they had been pre-vailing and in the hotspot areas,only three categories of peoplewould be allowed to move —Nagar Nigam and CantonmentBoard employees for sanitisationwork, police for enforcing lock-down and health workers fortaking swab samples for test. Hesaid the administration wouldensure supply of essential com-modities at the doorsteps of thepeople living in such areas.
Lucknow DistrictMagistrate Abhishek Prakashsaid that extra caution had to betaken in the state capital becauseof the rise in number of coron-avirus cases. He said that statusquo would remain and no newoffice, whether private, govern-ment or aided, would be allowedto open on Monday.
Meanwhile, two personstested positive for coronavirus inLucknow on Sunday — a 20-year-old youth from Sadar and
a destitute who was brought toRML Hospital on Saturdaynight. The 20-year-old youthwho tested positive for coron-avirus in the Sadar is the ninthmember of a grocer’s family totest positive
A senior official said theyouth belonged to a grocer’sfamily whose eight membershad already tested positive. “Thisfamily has the maximum num-ber of people who have testedpositive for coronavirus in theSadar area. Even in the familiesresiding close to the masjids, themaximum number of peopletesting positive in any one fam-ily has been 5. The youth is anephew of the grocer who firsttested positive and lives with hismother who has also testedpositive” he said.
The official said that exten-sive announcements were madein the Sadar area to tell the peo-ple to stay indoors and a rigor-ous sanitisation exercise wascarried out. The second coron-avirus positive case in the statecapital is a destitute who wasbrought to the RML Hospital onSaturday night, He had fled the
hospital but was caught by thepolice and brought back thesame night after his samples test-ed positive and the hospitalauthorities informed the policeabout his disappearance.
RML Hospital Director DrAK Tripathi said the person wasmentally unstable and unkemptwhen he was brought to the hos-pital and said he was fromJaipur. Dr Tripathi said theCMO had shifted him to LokBandhu Hospital on Sundaybecause he had fled the RMLH.
Meanwhile, ADM (East)KP Singh inspected the TopKhana Bazaar and visited all thethree areas where coronaviruspositive cases have been detect-ed — Top Khana Bazaar, RamjiKa Hata and Ghosiana inTelibagh. He made publicannouncements, appealing tothe people to stay indoors lestthey cause the spread of thedeadly virus. The ADM said thatcontact tracing was carried outin each of the areas where thepositive cases were detected.
The CMO office said that324 people were in quarantinein the city.
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MEERUT (PTI): Police have bookedthe management of a cancer hospital hereafter it put out an advertisement saying itwould treat Muslims only when they pro-duce a report showing they have testednegative for coronavirus.
The newspaper advertisementreleased by the Valentis Cancer Hospitalon Friday also said most Hindus and Jainsare “misers”, and asked them to contributeto the prime minister’s fund to help fightcoronavirus. Facing flak on social media,the hospital came up with another adver-tisement on Sunday, carrying an apology.
The original advertisement blamedthe Tablighi Jamaat — whose congrega-tion in Delhi last month was seen as acoronavirus hotspot — for spreading thedisease in the country and then set con-ditions for admitting Muslim patients.
They must get themselves and their
attendants tested for coronavirus andbring the report along, it said.
Police have registered a case againsthospital manager Amit Jain, Incholi SHOBrijesh Kumar Singh said on Sunday.
Asked to comment on the controver-
sial advertisement, Meerut’s Chief MedicalOfficer Raj Kumar said, “This is certain-ly wrong and we are sending a notice tothe administration of the concerned hos-pital.” He said further action will be takenafter a reply is received from them.
In the second advertisement issuedSunday, the hospital said it apologises ifanyone’s sentiments are even slightlyhurt. Referring to the coronavirus pan-demic, the hospital said it wanted peopleof all religions to fight the emergencytogether. “We never had the intention tohurt anyone’s feelings. If anyone from theHindu, Muslim, Jain, Sikh or Christiancommunity has been hurt, we extend ourheartfelt regrets. The new advertisementsaid the hospital was wrong in callingHindus and Jains “misers”. The hospitaladministration could not be contacteddespite several attempts.
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Attacks on corona warriorscontinued unabated in the
state with a sanitation workerdying after a group of menforced him to drink the disin-fectant he spraying when it fellon a man’s foot during saniti-sation drive in Rampur.
As per reports, KunwarPal had gone to Motipura vil-lage in Bhot police station areato spray disinfectant to combatcoronavirus last Tuesday.While he was spraying the dis-infectant, some of it accidental-ly fell on the foot of a man iden-tified as Indrapal. Annoyedwith this, Indrapal and his
aides inserted the pipe of thesanitising machine in theemployee’s mouth and forcedhim to drink the disinfectantafter which he fell uncon-scious.
Kunwar Pal was rushed toa nearby hospital from wherehe was later shifted to TMUMedical College hospital inMoradabad, where he died onFriday.
The victim’s family mem-bers contacted the police afterhis death. His brotherHarishankar alleged, “Mybrother had gone to sanitise thevillage on April 14 where fivepeople brutally thrashed himand forced him to drink the
disinfectant that he wasspraying. The locals rushedhim to a local hospital inRampur first from where hewas referred to TMUMedical College hospital inMoradabad where he died onFriday.”
On Sunday, a case wasregistered against Indrapal andhis aides under sections 147,323 and 304 of the IndianPenal Code (IPC) but noarrests could be made by thepolice yet.
The police said thatKunwar Pal’s post-mortemreport was awaited and actionwould be taken on the basis ofevidence.
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Uttar Pradesh ChiefMinister Yogi Adityanath
has set up a high-level commit-tee to provide employmentopportunities to labourersreturning to the state fromother parts of the country inthe wake of the coronaviruslockdown.
Headed by the agricultureproduction commissioner(APC), the committee has prin-cipal secretaries of RuralDevelopment , Panchayati Raj,Micro Small and MediumEnterprises (MSME) andKaushal Vikas (Skill develop-ment) departments as mem-bers.
On Sunday, in a meetingwith Team-11 in Lucknow, thechief minister said that themigrant workers who hadreturned to the state leavingtheir jobs should be providedwork on the line of OneDistrict, One Product (ODOP)scheme and also facilities ofbank loan. Yogi said that thecommittee, apart from creatingjobs under ODOP scheme,should organise loan melas toprovide employment to moreand more persons.
“Also, the committee willsuggest ways and means to cre-ate new jobs and exploreemployment opportunities indifferent industries underMSME,” he said.
The chief minister alsosaid that the Government ofIndia had increased the revolv-ing fund with the aim to rampup job creation.
“Self-help groups (SHGs)of women should be engagedfor various activities likesewing, pickle making andspices production. Marketingof their products could bedone through ODOP mecha-nism,” he added.
Yogi also declared thatsome industries would beallowed to function from April20 but with certain conditionsand district magistrates wouldbe given the necessary instruc-tions so that they could chalkout effective action plan at thelocal level.
The chief minister reiterat-ed that his government wassympathetic towards small timevendors, porters, daily wagers,rickshaw-pullers, e-rickshawdrivers as they did not havework at present and the govern-ment would provide all possi-ble help to them.
Yogi told the additionalchief secretary (revenue) toensure proper sanitisation ofshelter homes and stressed thatcommunity kitchens be runcarefully, and quarantined peo-ple while being discharged beprovided food by the districtadministration.
The chief minister alsodirected officials concerned tomake adequate arrangement offodder for animal and ensureavailability of fodder and strawin gaushalas (cow shelters) runby government and other char-itable organisations.
The officers present in themeeting included ChiefSecretary RK Tiwari,Agriculture Production
Commissioner Alok Sinha,Infrastructure and IndustrialDevelopment CommissionerAlok Tandon, Additional ChiefSecretary (Home andInformation) Awanish Kumar
Awasthi, Additional ChiefSecretary (Finance) SanjivMittal, Additional ChiefSecretary (Basic Education)Renuka Kumar, DirectorGeneral of Police HC Awasthi,
Principal Secretary (Health)Amit Mohan Prasad, principalsecretaries to CM, SP Goyaland Sanjay Prasad, DirectorInformation Shishir and othersenior officers.
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With the announcement oflockdown, the Uttar
Pradesh unit of BharatiyaJanata Party has been workingon a multi-pronged strategy,not only providing food andsupport to the needy and thepoor but also galvanising partyworkers to educate peopleabout the benefit of frequenthand washing and social dis-tancing.
Senior leaders said that sofar the BJP had supplied foodand ration to over two crorepoor and needy people acrossthe state through a systematiccampaign which was beingmonitored regularly.
“Every day, we are distrib-uting NaMo tiffin and NaMotiffin kit. While cooked food issupplied in the former, thesecond consists of ration. Wehave made a record of thenumber of beneficiaries andthousands of party workersare involved in this campaign,”said BJP state general secretaryVijay Bahadur Pathak here onSunday.
“Besides, BJP workers aredistributing masks among thepeople and also motivatingthem to download AarogyaApp and donate to the PMCovid Fund. People are alsotold about hand washing andsocial distancing. Party work-ers also write ‘dhanyavaadpatra’ (thanks letters) to doc-tors, health workers, policemenand sanitary staff for theirunprecedented work duringthis crisis,” he said.
BJP corporator DilipSrivastava claimed that he haddistributed ration comprisingrice, flour, cooking oil, vegeta-bles and spices to over one lakhpeople under #feed the poorcampaign in Lucknow till date.The corporator started thecampaign with the help ofsome benevolent persons andorganisation.
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Chief Minister YogiAdityanath expressed
annoyance over laxity inenforcing complete lockdownto prevent the spread of coro-navirus in 60 per cent of thedistricts, including Lucknow,Gautam Buddha Nagar(Noida), Varanasi, Prayagrajand Meerut.
Notices were issued to theauthorities of these districts byAdditional Chief Secretary(Home) Awanish Awasthi onSaturday night.
Speaking to media per-sons in Lucknow on Sunday,Awasthi said of the 75 districtsin the state, 33 were found tobe satisfactory in enforcinglockdown and containing thespread of coronavirus, but 42districts were found wanting intheir effort.
“We have asked these dis-trict authorities to pull up theirsocks and enforce all guidelinesto control the pandemic,” hesaid.
In the notices sent to thedistrict authorities, it has beenpointed out how coronaviruspositive cases have spiked intheir jurisdictions and that ofmembers of Tablighi Jamaat.The notices also mention thenumber of attacks on police,medical staff and sanitisationworkers in the districts, beside
violations of lockdown.The notices point out that
in districts like Lucknow andGautam Buddha Nagar, therehas been lack of coordinationbetween the police and districtadministration. Incidentallythe government had recentlyintroduced police commission-erate system in both thesecities, .
Out of these districts,attack on police and coronawarriors has been reportedfrom 15 districts. In 33 districts,a large number of TablighiJamaat members has beendetected and they have had amajor role in spreading of thecoronavirus infection.
The government also tooka strong note on hooch tragedyin Kanpur Dehat and KanpurNagar in which two personswere killed.
Prominent districts whichhave been found to be satisfac-tory in the war against coron-avirus are Gorakhpur, thehome district of Chief MinisterYogi Adityanath, Ayodhya,Aligarh, Etah, Hathras andPilibhit,
Meanwhile, Uttar PradeshPolice issued a look-out noticeto trace 369 Rohingya Muslimswho attended Tablighi Jamaatcongregation in Nizamuddin(Delhi ) in mid-March butwent missing after that.
The district police chiefs ofAligarh, Mathura, Kanpur,Meerut, Muzaffarnagar,Saharanpur, Firozabad andGautam Buddha Nagar havebeen alerted in this connectionand asked to look out forRohingyas on a priority.
“The SSP/SPs of these eightdistricts have been asked tosend their reports on tracingRohingyas by Sunday evening,”a top police official said inLucknow.
It has been reported thatUP Police had identified 2,812Tablighi Jamaat members whoreached the state after attend-ing a Nizamuddin markaz meetin March. Out of these, 2,539Jamaatis, including 325 foreign-ers, were quarantined.
The police had lodged 45FIRs against these foreignJamaatis while passports of259 were confiscated.
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Congress general secretaryPriyanka Gandhi Vadra
appealed to Chief MinisterYogi Adityanath to spare athought for migrant workersof UP stranded in other statesand on the verge of starvationdue to lockdown.
She however, hailed thechief minister for bringingback students of the statepreparing for competition inKota, Rajasthan.
Priyanka released a videoclip on Sunday through whichshe tried to attract the atten-tion of the chief ministertowards migrants labourersfrom UP stuck in variousplaces due to lockdown.
“For the last many days,labourers and their families arestranded in different placesdue to lockdown, We are intouch with them. In the lastcouple of days, I spoke tolabourers in Rajasthan, Delhi,Surat, Indore, Bhopal,Mumbai and other places.They are stranded and the
money they had has beenspent. Now they have no foodand are forced to live in manynumbers in just one room.They are in fear and they wantto somehow return to theirhomes in UP,” Priyanka said inher video.
“How can we hold themguilty for no fault of theirs. Thegovernment should immedi-ately find a solution to ensurethat all stranded labourersreached their native towns at
the earliest just like students inKota were united with theirfamilies due to concern shownby Yogi Adityanathji. It is ourduty to worry about every cit-izen of UP wherever he or sheis working, studying or doingany other job,” Priyanka said.
Meanwhile, the Congressleader received a threat on herTweeter account and a casewas registered with Bastipolice on Sunday.
Local Congress leaderPankaj Kumar Dwivedi ofSonha hamlet lodged a reportwith Kotwali police station,alleging that a tweeter accountregistered in the name of AartiPandey posted some letterswritten by Priyanka Gandhi toChief Minister YogiAdityanath and later threat-ened to kill the Gandhi scion.
Station House Officer ofKotwali police station, RamPal Yadav, said that a caseunder Section 506 of IndianPenal Code and Section 66 ofInformation Technology Actwas registered and investiga-tions were on.
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U t k a r s hKathpaliya, astudent of CityM o n t e s s o r iSchool, KanpurRoad campus,has been select-ed for admissionby six noted uni-versities of theU K a n dAustralia. Hisacademic excel-lence, diligenceand talents brought him the opportu-nity to get into these prestigious for-eign universities. He has given creditfor his success to the robust academ-ic atmosphere of CMS. Utkarsh hasbeen offered admission by the six uni-versities, including University ofGlasgow, Newcastle University,University of York, University ofBristol, Durham University, andUniversity of Technology (Sydney).Chief PRO of CMS Hari Om Sharmasaid that this year, 78 CMS studentshave been offered admission to manyof the top universities of USA, UK,Canada, Australia, Japan, Singapore,Germany etc till date, with majority ofthem on scholarship.
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Uttar Pradesh has becomethe first state in the coun-
try to geotag its 7,368 commu-nity kitchens and communityshelters across 75 districtswhich produce 12 lakh foodpackets a day, a senior officialsaid on Sunday.
The state government hasalso tied up with Google to‘Geo-map’ the locations of allthese establishments on theGoogle Maps app for ease ofbeneficiaries, he said.
“The sudden onset of theCOVID-19 lockdown in the
country threw normal life outof gear but it was the dailywagers and constructionlabourers who especially borethe brunt,” ReliefCommissioner Sanjay Goyalsaid.
The Yogi Adityanath gov-ernment had anticipated thecrisis early on and successful-ly started establishing commu-nity kitchens by mobilisingstate resources on a massivescale and also reaching out tocivil society, religious establish-ments and non-governmentalorganisations, he said.
“Establishing community
kitchens in adequate numbersin each of the 75 districts wasa mammoth task but ourrespective district magistratestook the challenge head-on,”Goyal said.
“The problem was com-pounded by an influx ofmigrants who set out for theirvillages to avoid getting trappedin other states. However,despite the odds, we have man-aged to start 7,368 communi-ty kitchens in all 75 districts.These kitchens are producing12 lakh food packets every day,”he said.
More than two crore food
packets have been distributedin Uttar Pradesh since March25.
Out of these 7,368 commu-nity kitchens, 668 are being runby NGOs and religious institu-tions, he added.
“The concept of reliefcamps and communitykitchens is not new as everyyear, the DMs work out simi-lar plans in areas affected byyearly droughts/floods. Hence,all our DMs are well-versed inproviding relief to the commonman,” the official said.
The challenge here, howev-er, was how to maintain socialdistancing and still feed theneedy.
“Therefore, we focused onproviding food packets at thelocation itself so that therequired social distancing pro-tocol is maintained,” Goyal
said.One of the biggest prob-
lems that the state faced earlyon during the lockdown wasthe lack of information amongthe general populace regardingthe location of shelter homesand community kitchens.
The government recog-nised the issue and directed theDepartment of InformationTechnology to find a solution,he said.
The IT Department, inturn, approached the RemoteSensing Applications Centre(RSAC), Lucknow, for a solu-tion.
The RSAC promptlydeveloped an application byfeeding location data as perthe latitudes and longitudes ofall community kitchens andshelter homes across thestate.
“The app is revolutionaryin terms that it will help guidethe needy to the nearest centre,”the official said.
To simplify it further,Google has been roped in toprovide geo-location of all suchcentres through the GoogleMaps app.
“We have asked Google tointegrate geo-locations of all
community kitchens and shel-ter homes on its mobilemap application for ease of gen-eral public. As of now, locationof all shelter homes andcommunity kitchens in andaround Aligarh have been inte-grated with Google Mapsand anyone can access themby searching with thekeyword ‘community kitchen’,followed by the district’sname,” the ReliefCommissioner said.
The data regarding all suchfacilities will go live on GoogleMaps in the next couple ofdays, he added.
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With barbershops closed due tothe coronavirus lockdown,
an Uttar Pradesh minister decidedto wield the scissors and give hischildren a haircut.
Satish Dwivedi, the minister ofstate for basic education, said thehair of his son and daughter hadgrown long and messy and hedecided to give them a haircut.
“It did not go well for my four-and-a-half-year-old daughterSukriti. However, it looked fine onmy eight-year-old son Kartikeya,”Dwivedi said. A video showing himcutting the children’s hair has goneviral on social media, drawing anumber of reactions. “The videowas made by my wife to show myact to family members and relatives.Later, when I saw the video, Ishared it,” the minister said.
Salons in Uttar Pradesh likeelsewhere have been shut sinceMarch 25 when the entire countrywent into a lockdown imposed tocurb the spread of coronavirus.
Asked how the children react-ed to the new skill he has developed
but not yet perfected, the ministersaid they were happy.
“I was apprehensive but thechildren were happy. In fact, mydaughter said, ‘no problem, father’.The son did not want his hair tolook weird but now he tells every-one he got a haircut from hisfather.”
About his daily routine at home,Dwivedi said it begins with yogaand watching Ramayan on TV.
“After this, I speak to workersin my assembly constituency Itwa.Since March 24, I have been con-necting with people daily from 11am to 12 noon on Facebook Live.Then it is time for Mahabharat.”
Then again from 1 pm to 6 pm,he remains in touch with the peo-ple of the district.
“People of Siddharthanagar,especially the labourers who are inLudhiana, Pune, Mumbai,Bangalore, Hyderabad and otherplaces, call up and narrate theirproblems. The location and phonenumber of a person among thecallers is noted and shared with thenodal officer appointed for therespective state by the UP govern-
ment and their problems areredressed,” the minister said.
-# ���'-'($"���#��� �.�:��#� ��BALRAMPUR: When SonuKumar Chauhan set out homewardson his bicycle from Ludhiana inPunjab, it was to somehow reach intime for his wedding slated for April15 in a UP district bordering Nepal.
Cycling day and night foralmost a week, the 24-year-oldalong with his three friends covereda distance of 850 km but landed ina quarantine centre here on Sundaylast. His home was still 150 km awayin Pipra Rasulpur in Maharajganjdistirct. Chauhan, who works in atiles factory in Ludhiana, and threeof his friends set out on bicycles asall other means of transportationwere closed down because of thecoronavirus lockdown and he hadto reach home for his wedding.
The four covered a distance of850 km, cycling day and night fora week, but on Sunday they werecaught by the authorities here whileentering the district and placed inquarantine.
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Doctors at the district hospital inUP’s Mahoba have designed
their own version of an air tight cabinfor collecting swab samples to testcoronavirus.
Called the Sample CollectionCabin for COVID-19, the structurehas been inspired by one planned bya doctor in Kanpur and also by test-ing facilities in South Korea.
Behind the designing of thecabin is a team comprising ChiefMedical Superintendent of Mahobadistrict hospital Dr R P Mishra, DrGulsher Ahmed, Dr Narendra andDr Yogendra.
“We modified a structureplanned by a doctor in Kanpur,about which we came to knowthrough newspapers. As we workedon it we encountered difficulties andworked on removing them. We alsogot suggestions from some people,”the CMS said.
The cabin has two holes throughwhich the doctor can pass his handsfor collecting the swab sample.Glovesattached to a long sleeve are affixedto the glass cabin through which thedoctor can pass his hands to collect
the sample. “This cabin was inspired by a
photograph of a testing facility inSouth Korea, which we saw on theInternet. As the idea came to ourmind, we spoke to our CMS,explained him the entire concept, andhe agreed to it,” Dr Gulsher Ahmedtold PTI on Sunday.
The booth was made in two days.“The person to be tested is outsidethe booth while the person from themedical team is inside the booth andwearing a complete PPE kit. If a per-son whose samples are being takensneezes, then the droplets will fall onthe outer walls of the testing booth.After the sample is taken, one mem-ber of our medical team sprays theentire booth with sodium hypochlo-rite solution. The one who is wear-ing PPE kit sprays alcohol on thegloves of the lab technician (takingsample),” he said.
“The second sample at theSample Collection Cabin forCOVID-19 is taken after a gap of 10minutes. We are exercising extracaution to ensure that infection doesnot spread,” Dr Ahmed, who is post-ed as master trainer for COVID-19said.
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Haemophilia patients inthe state are facing many
problems due to lockdowneven though they are fullysupported by the government.
Secretary of HaemophiliaSociety, Lucknow, VinayManchanda said therearound 800 patients regis-tered in Lucknow and 3,000across Uttar Pradesh.
“Haemophilia is a raregenetic disorder that affectsblood’s abi l ity to clot .Haemophilia patients in UttarPradesh are faced with the
non-availability of factors,protein in the blood that con-trols bleeding, which areessential for the treatment.Furthermore, they are beingrestricted from accessinghealthcare facilities under thelockdown,” he pointed out.
Talking about the chal-lenges faced by the patients,he said: “Haemophil iapatients have low immunity,which makes them moreprone to contracting Covid-19. The lockdown is adding tothe woes of the patients andtheir families. It is our requestto the departments concerned
to ensure the availability offactors (protein in the blood)across the state. Also, policeauthorities should help thepatients in safely reachinghealthcare facilities duringthese times. Since ambulancefacilities are mainly used tocarry Covid-19 patients, pri-vate vehicles should also bearranged by the governmentto ensure intra-state travel forthe patients.”
He admitted that there islimited awareness abouthaemophilia and its treat-ment among the general public.
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The prestigious projectknown as Atal Smriti
Upvan will be completed byJanuary 1 next year. LucknowDevelopment Authority(LDA) Vice-Chairman SKDwivedi, while speaking at aspecial meeting held onSunday, said the project is ontop of their priority list andshould be developed at theearliest.
The project is coming upover a land measuring 90acres on Hardoi road at anestimated cost of Rs 400crore. Lucknow DevelopmentAuthority secretary MPSingh said the sculptorsengaged in making threeprominent statues would bearriving here to discussdetails of the plan. He saidthe project would be complet-ed and opened for publicwithin three to four monthsof its launch.
Vaastu experts will alsobe joining the sculptors at ameeting, dates of which havenot been finalised as yet.However, the meeting is like-ly to be held in the first weekof May. The experts will beassigned the task of designingand developing the mediationauditorium. The experts areconducting research andupgrading the civil engineer-ing science for internationalcultural organisation.
The sculptors are theemployees of a Jaipur-basedorganisation. The project willbe funded by the state gov-ernment and 4-member teamwill be set up to monitor theprogress of the project andrelease the money accordingly.
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With the arrest of twoaccused on Sunday, the
Sushant Golf City policeclaimed to have worked out overa month-old murder case inwhich Vivek Singh aka Golu(22) of Gosainganj was killed inroad rage and his body dumpedon roadside on March 8 night.
The police got the break-through a couple of days backafter one of the accusedswitched on the mobile phonewhich he had looted from thedeceased. A surveillance teamlocated his hideout and a raidwas conducted. Those arrestedwere identified as Balram Rawatof PGI police station area andBablu Rawat of Gosainganj andthe duo reportedly owned uptheir crime. The police alsorecovered the looted mobilephone from their possession.
According to police, afterVivek overtook the motorcyclewhich the accused were riding,Balram confronted him. A ver-bal spat ensued and escalated in
no time. In the meantime,Balram picked a brick and bat-tered him to death. He pocket-ed Vivek’s mobile phone afterswitching it off and the duo fledthe scene. On the fateful day, thepolice had claimed that Viveksuffered injuries in a roadmishap and he died due toexcessive bleeding as heremained unattended for hours.However, the autopsy reportrevealed that there were bruis-es on the body and doctorsopined that the same wereinflicted during a scuffle. Itwas only after that the policethoroughly investigated the caseand put the mobile number ofthe deceased on surveillance.Vivek was scheduled to getmarried on April 19. A functionwas slated to be organised at hishouse a day after he was mur-dered.
Meanwhile, a missing 69-year-old man on pacemaker,who is also suffering fromdementia, was tracked earlySunday morning. The operationwas conducted on the interven-
ing night of Saturday andSunday and five teams workedin sync. PC Bajpai, a resident ofLDA Colony (Sector D) inKrishna Nagar, was recoverednear a dhaba at Lucknow-Unnao border around 5.15 amon Sunday. As per reports,Bajpai left his house some timeon Saturday night. Around 2.30am, his wife Ranjana Bajpai con-tacted ADCP (Central) CNSinha, who passed on the infor-mation to senior officials
Ranjana told the police thather husband was suffering fromdementia and needed medicinesat regular intervals to keep hisblood pressure in control. Later,the Krishna Nagar police, led bySHO DK Upadhyaya, launchedthe operation. The policescanned hundreds of CCTVcamera footages. The teamlocated Bajpai near PradhanDhaba at the Lucknow-Unnaoborder and Ranjana, who waswith the police team, identifiedhim. The police team was hon-oured with a cash prize of Rs 20,000.
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As many as 700 LucknowUniversity students
attended online counsellingon the last day of the six-dayworkshop organised by theuniversity’s Counselling andPlacement Cell (CPC).
Counsell ing andPlacement Cell directorMadhurima Lall said it wasobserved that female studentswere more concerned withtheir studies, results andcareer issues as compared to
their male counterparts.“The online counselling
dealt with the psychologicalconcerns of students duringthe coronavirus pandemic.As per the University GrantsCommission (UGC) direc-tives to all universities andcolleges to set up mentalhealth helplines to addressstudents' concerns,” she said.
The main queries werepertaining to the study sce-nario and job opportunitiesafterwards, especially in viewof the shrinking economy.
She said that the studentswere told not to get depressedwatching news about coron-avirus, but engage themselvesmore in their studies followedby entertainment activities.
“I feel students shouldlearn how to have a timemanagement plan instead ofthinking too much about thethings out of their control.They were told how to be suc-cessful despite adversities,how to avoid unnecessaryarguments, how to groom
their soft skills, enhance per-sonality traits, and how todraft CVs,” Lall said.
Meanwhile, a webinarwas organised on Sundayunder the aegis of DSWPoonam Tandon on the coro-navirus pandemic affectingthe whole world. The webinarwas attended by 192 partici-pants. Vice-Chancellor ofLucknow University AK Raibriefed the students aboutthe initiatives being taken bythe university in view of thecoronavirus outbreak.
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Mango growers ofMalihabad are facing
immense problems due tocoronavirus pandemic andconsequent lockdown.Chairman of Mango Growers’Association of India InsramAli said they were facing elec-tricity, water and labour prob-lems for their orchards and thesame were likely to aggravatein future.
“We have little water in thecanals and there is no electric-ity in the dehat areas eventhough we are being chargedrates equivalent to those inurban areas. We get electrici-ty only for a few hours,” hesaid. He pointed out that man-
goes have grown in theorchards and are two-and-a-half inches in size. “This is thetime when trees need agood amount of irrigation forthe fruits to grow. The cropwill be less this year as com-pared to the previous years,”Ali said. “What we foresee isthe problem of packing mate-rial required for mangoes. Thefactories which make theboxes in which the mangoesare packed have not beenopened as yet, which raisesconcern amongst the mangogrowers,” he added.
He further pointed outthat transport was a majorproblem and they had no ideahow the mandis would be setup, keeping social distancing
in mind. “The issue which willcrop up in the coming days ishow will the mangoes be takento the mandis since no sugges-tion is coming from the gov-ernment,” he added.
Ali said they were alsowary of police action in themandis since there would bestress on social distancing.
“Labour is a major prob-lem. We need labourers forirrigation but they are notbeing allowed to come to theorchards even though theyare ready. There are directivesfor e-passes but the mangofarmers are not tech-savvyand cannot obtain these e-passes,” he said, adding that hehas sent his complaint on theCM’s portal.
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King George’s MedicalUniversity has placed an
order for a COBAS machine forrapid testing of samples.According to Vice-ChancellorDr MLB Bhatt, this machinehas the capacity to test 1,200samples in one go.
He said it would make thetesting of samples simpler
because they were currentlytesting 900 samples with thehelp of four machines, and thattoo in three shifts. “OnSaturday, we processed over1,064 samples in one day,” hesaid. He admitted that most ofthe labs functional in the statewere not working to their fullcapacity and that KGMU wastesting the maximum numberof samples. Dr Bhatt said that
the machine which they wouldbe acquiring is known as thehigh throughput machine.
“This is the need of thehour because the governmenthas increased the testing. UttarPradesh is testing 3,000 sam-ples per day and the numberneeds to be doubled, and thismachine will be of great help,”he said. However, he said itcould not be termed a rapid
testing machine as it measuresantibodies and it primarilyhelps in processing of morenumber of samples.
“Here we take only thethroat swab like any otherRTPCR machine. In thismachine, so many things aredone automatically, makingthe process rapid,” he pointedout. He said that the machinewould take a couple of weeks
to arrive because it had to beimported.
“The international freightis still operational and acrossthe globe, the supplies pertain-ing to COVID- 19 have beenexpedited. We will begin withthe testing as soon as themachine arrives. In the mean-time, we will make arrange-ments for insulation of themachine,” he said.
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Twenty-three foreign nation-als, members of Tablighi
Jamaat, including four women,who were detained after a raidat different mosques in the cityon April 1, were put in a tem-porary jail set up at MunicipalGirls’ Inter College in KashmiriMohalla under Saadatganjpolice station on Saturdaynight. Additional DeputyCommissioner of Police (West)Vikas Tripathi said the stategovernment asked the admin-istration to use the school as amakeshift jail to keep theJamaatis. “In compliance withthe order, the district adminis-tration used the school as astemporary jail on Saturdaynight and the detainees werelodged there,” he said.
Tripathi said adequatesecurity arrangements hadbeen made around the schoolto ensure that the Jamaatiscould not escape.
“The Saadatganj policehave been asked to remainalert round the clock whileadditional CCTVs have beeninstalled around the temporary
jail for continuous monitoring,”he said. All the Jamaatis weredetained by the police on April1 after cases were lodgedagainst them at Kakori,Kaiserbagh and Madiaonpolice stations.
The Jamaatis were testedfor coronavirus on the day oftheir detention and were latersent into quarantine after theytested negative. “Their quaran-tine period was over on April17 after which they were sentfor another test and all of themtested negative again. Afterthat, they were taken into judi-cial custody and shifted to thetemporary jail,” Tripathi said.
Earlier, the Jamaatis wereproduced before a remandmagistrate and were sent to thetemporary jail for 14 days judi-cial custody. The police haddetained 17 foreign membersof Tablighi Jamaat from amosque in Madiaon, 10 froma mosque in Kakori, and sixfrom a mosque in Kaiserbagh.The police had registered a casefor violation of prohibitoryorder, under Passport Act andother sections of IPC againstthem.
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Twenty-four studentsarrived at the state capi-
tal from Kota in Rajasthan inUPSRTC buses on Sundayevening. Two buses carryingthe students reached BBDUniversity where the admin-istration had made arrange-ments for their medicalscreening. ADM (East) saidthat the rapid testing of allstudents was carried out andthey were found to be nega-
tive for coronavirus.“They have been sent to
their homes and advisedhome quarantine,” he said. Headded that the results of rapidtesting were obtained in 15minutes. Asked whether theadministration assessed theneed of keeping them in iso-lation, he said that only coro-navirus positive patients werekept in isolation.
UPSRTC officials saidthat medical screening of thestudents were carried out at
Agra and Kanpur. “The busescame via Kanpur and Unnaoand medical screening wascarried out in those citiestoo,” he said.
As many as 250 UPSRTCbuses had been sent by thestate government on Friday tobring back the students whohad were facing problems due to the lock-down. The buses havebrought back 7,000 students,who were sent to their respec-tive cities.
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Poultry business in the statehas virtually collapsed
because of the coronaviruspandemic and nearly 40 percent of the traders have givenup. President of PoultryFarmers’ Association (UP)Nawab Ali Akbar said thatsmall-t ime traders havealready shut shop while big-wigs have opted for otherbusinesses.
Akbar also said he did notsee any scope of the revival ofpoultry. “There are some bigcompanies with hatcherieswho may bring in the product(chicken) in the market.However, the small poultryfarmers are disappointed by
the losses which they have suf-fered and they are not readyto return to the business,” hesaid.Akbar said there wereseveral factors which led tothe collapse of the industry.“Initially, the rumours thateggs and chicken are the car-riers of coronavirus impactedthe business so badly thatseveral farmers tried to sell theproduct at throwaway costs.Then came the problem ofgetting the feed, the cost ofwhich increased, and it wasdifficult to procure the seeds.Many poultry farmers evenculled the birds in the absenceof buyers,” he pointed out.
He said it takes fourmonths to bring a bird to thestage of laying eggs and it
costs Rs 300 on each, whichmeans that any farmer whowants to rear 10,000 birdswould have to have a workingcapital of Rs 30 lakh, hence thepoultry farmers are shyingaway from the business.
He added that he hadadvised the small farmers tokeep a fewer number of birdswhen they started facing loss-es in 2019, which would helpthem tide over the problemsof getting ingredients forseeds.
He said that over 1.5 croreeggs were acquired fromPunjab and Hyderabad tomeet the daily demand andone crore eggs were producedin the state to meet thedemand but currently, the
eggs production in the stateare less than 50 lakh, and thewholesale prices of eggs havedropped immensely.
Akbar said that in UttarPradesh itself, poultry produc-tion has reduced to 30-40 percent. He said that the few largefarmers who used to keepover one lakh birds now haveonly 25,000-30,000 birds.
He admitted that thedemand of chicken hasincreased in the lockdownbecause of the gap but there has been no chicken tosupply.
“Almost all hatcherieshave closed and those whichare open have small birds andit will take at least a month’stime to grow. In addition to
this, there is a problem of sup-ply since vehicles cannot besecured. This is the situationwhich exists all across thecountry,” he said.
He added that even thosewho have indigenously pro-duced seeds have to procurethe ingredients such as cornand soya from Indore(Madhya Pradesh). “If thebirds do not get adequatefeed, it will again impact theproduction of chicken,” hepointed out. Akbar said thatthe association hasapproached the Central andstate governments to extendsubsidy on seeds and keepelectricity charges under agri-culture rather than commer-cial use.
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Lucknow (PNS): MayorSanyukta Bhatia has appealedto all residents to felicitate thesafai workers in their respectiveareas on April 21. She request-ed residents to step out andshower flowers on the safaikarmacharis in a thanksgivinggesture. She said that smallefforts like this would encour-age these workers who havebeen working day in and dayout.
She also held a meetingwith corporators throughvideo-conferencing andappealed to them to felicitatesafai workers in their respectivewards. Earlier, in a bid to set anexample, she stepped out of herAlambagh residence to felici-tate the safai workers. Sheshowered flowers on the safaikarmacharis and gave choco-lates and sanitiser to their chil-dren. She said the sanitationworkers were playing in a greatrole in keeping the city cleanand they were ambassadors ofcleanliness in true sense. Shesaid that being frontline work-ers, they were the backbone ofthe system in place to fight bat-tle against coronavirus.
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The Federation of IndianExport Organisation
President SK Saraf said theReserve Bank of India’s initia-tives would help economy butthey should be supplementedby a comprehensive economicpackage for industry.
Responding to RBIannouncements made onFriday, Saraf said that it wouldhave substantial positiveimpact on the financial systemand the economy in this diffi-cult time.
He also welcomed themeasures to maintain adequateliquidity in the system throughTLTRO 2.0. He said loweringof Liquidity Coverage Ratio,incentivising the bank lendingby cutting reverse repo rate to3.75 per cent and facilitatingnormal functioning of marketswere the most welcome initia-tives.
He added that refinancingof � 15,000 crore to SIDBI and90 days NPA norms to excludemoratorium or deferment peri-od would give relief particular-ly to MSME units that werestruggling to stay alive with no
business but saddled with fixedcosts.
Saraf said that the govern-ment should immediatelyannounce a comprehensiveeconomic package forthe industry to provide reliefin payment of wages, statuto-ry obligations, rental and util-ities.
He said that exporters’interest should be paramountin the package as they were theworst sufferers facing chal-lenges both at the domestic turfand in the global market.
The FIEO chief advocatedextension of pre and post-shipment credit tenure, inter-est equalisation scheme, inter-est-free loan to cover forwardlosses, automatic enhancementof limit by 25 per cent withoutfurther condition/collaterals,enhancement in MEIS rate by2 percent for all sectors and 4per cent for intensive sectorsand amnesty for the defaultunder advance/EPCG authori-sation or EOU etc.
Earlier, reacting to a high-est ever double digit decline inmonthly exports during March,2020 by 34.57 per cent at USD21.41 billion, Saraf said that
spread of Covid-19 across theglobe had not only pulleddown the world sentiment to itslowest but had also affected theglobal supply chain andbrought economies in reces-sionary condition.
He said global economieswere facing the worst crisis interms of slowdown comparedto the global depression of the1930s.
He added that the annualmerchandise exports figure ofUSD 314.31 with a nominalnegative growth of 4.78 percent was on the expected linesas exporters were not able toexport during the second halfof March due to lockdown,cancellations and delay ofshipments and orders.
He further said that atleast during the first quarter ofthe current financial year 2020-21, the sector would see a sim-ilar growth trend, which wouldbe a global trend. However,from the second quarter of thefiscal, exports may start show-ing nominal growth dependingon the condition evolving inthe international market, headded.
The FIEO chief said with
major global players, includingChina, the US, economies ofEurope, Japan, South Korea,Australia, Russia, Gulf coun-tries facing the brunt as oil andother commodity prices haddrastically declined duringrecent days, the short-termperspective of the exports sec-tor looked grim.
Saraf said that 29 out of the30 major product groups werein negative territory duringMarch 2020 except for iron-ore.He said similar trend was alsoobserved in the annual figuresof 30 major product groups,where 22 out of the 30 majorproduct groups were in nega-tive territory.
He said further imports ofUSD 31.16 billion with a veryhigh double digit decline of28.72 per cent during themonth and an annual dip of9.12 per cent had come as reliefboth on the trade balance andcurrent account deficit front.He said with crude prices mov-ing southwards and supply dis-ruptions extending to Europeand the US, due to COVID-19,more comfort was expected inimports during the next fewmonths.
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Internationally famousSankatmochan Sangeet
Mahotsav, which is inching tocomplete its centenary of suc-cessful journey, maintained itstradition of continuity. Due tonationwide lockdown in viewto prevent worldwide coron-avirus pandemic, instead ofpresenting their programmesin Sankatmchan templepremises, the artistes did thesame from their homes andtheir virtual shows were seenlive on various social mediaplatforms like Facebook,Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. Seeing the increasingpopularity of this 97th edition,this six-day festival was extend-ed by a day this time as whileon the first day, it was watchedby around 10,000 music lovers,the figures had reached about4.5 lakhs on the last day. OnSaturday night, the main attrac-tions was programme of emi-nent drummer Pt Shivmaniwho presented his heart-beat-ing performance from hishouse in Chennai live. The dayalso saw the show of great man-dolin player U Rajesh, alsofrom Chennai apart fromBhajan Samrat Anup Jalotawho presented programmefrom Mumbai, mesmerisingthe audience with his famous
bhajans like ‘aisi laagi lagan…’,‘maiya moori…’ and others.Appealing to the people tomaintain social distancing dur-ing lockdown, he said that bypresenting his show he wasfeeling that he was sitting intemple’s premises. Besides, PtPradyut Mukherjee (Kolkata-solo tabla) and Manali Dev(Kolkata-kathak) and UstadMoinuddin Khan-MominKhan (Jaipur-sarangi) wereamong the 17 artistes present-ed their programmes on theday. Earlier, on the sixth day,Padma Bhushan vocalistsRajan-Sajan Mishra presentedtheir programmes from Delhialong with Ritesh Rajneesh-Swaransh while Padma ShriMalini Awasthi sang thumriand folk songs from Lucknow.Besides, among many others PtRatikant Mahapatra and his
troupe presented Oddissi dancedigitally. On the fifth day,Bhopal’s Anuradha Singh pre-sented Kathak, whileBengaluru’s Srividya AngaraSinha Kuchipudi dance, amongmany other artistes. The fourthday’s attraction was sitar play-er Padma Bhushan Pt DebuChaudhary who presented hisprogrammes along with hisson Prateek Chaudhary andgrandson Adhiraj from Delhi.On the third day, Ustad AkramKhan presented solo tabla,while Padma Shri Pt SureshTalvalkar and his daughterSavni Talvalkar from Pune.However, the main attraction ofthe day was presentation of 90years old great vocalist PadmaVibhushan Pt Jasraj who waslive from New Jersey in the US.On the second day BhadraSinha presented Bharatnatyam
from New Delhi, while sitarplayer Pt Devbrat Mishra fromVaranasi and on the openingday, the festival began withKathak of Pt Krishna Maharajand Ram Mohan Maharaj fromDelhi and the main attrac-tions of the day were RonuMazumdar on flute fromMumbai and Shakir Khan onsitar from Pune. Besides, in thevirtual festival, several dozensof other artistes also showedtheir presence. The pro-grammes were telecast live onvarious social media platformsby IIT-BHU students AnkitSrivastava and Anurag PratapSingh, while camera was han-dled by Anup Chaudhary. TheMahant of the temple ProfVishambhar Nath Mishra waspresented at temple premiseson all the days during the pre-sentation by the artistes.
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Additional Director General(Varanasi Zone) Brij
Bhushan, while directing theofficers to ensure strict adher-ence to the lockdown imple-mented in view to preventworldwide coronavirus pan-demic, said that action shouldbe taken against those whounnecessarily move on theroads. ADG also directed thesecurity personnel present atthe barriers located at variousplaces in the city to interrogatesuch persons. He was presidingover a meeting held onSaturday. Brij Bhushan alsodirected the officers that thepass holders should also bechecked so that they also notmove on the roads unneces-sary.
Divisional Commissioner(DC) Deepak Agrawalinstructed to take action againstsuch persons moving on theroads without any reason dur-ing the lockdown and an FIRshould be lodged if someone isfound misusing the pass. Hesaid that only one person canride on a two-wheeler whileboard two on four-wheeler.
District Magistrate (DM)Kaushal Raj Sharma said thatthe pass can only be used forcommuting to and from worksite and they cannot go any-where else. Ration distributionwill have to be done only aftercompliance of social distancingand public representatives havealso been given the responsibil-ity to monitor compliance withthe lockdown. He gave infor-mation about opening of officesby the government from April20 giving its details includingindustrial activities in rural
areas. IG (Range) Vijay SinghMeena, SSP PrabhakarChaudhary, ADM (City), SP(City), ADM (Administration),all SDMs and other seniorofficers were also present in themeeting. Meanwhile, at anoth-er meeting the DM reviewedthe progress of the survey workof the beneficiaries under thePradhan Mantri Garib KalyanYojana. Project Officer(DUDA) informed that aftersurveying 849 poor residing inKashiram Awas and 4,433street vendors, the report hasbeen given to Nagar Nigam.DM directed the ARTO to listthe auto and e-rickshaw driverswithin three days and providethe data along with theAadhaar cards and bankaccount numbers and theoffice-bearers of Auto Drivers’Association were informed inthis regard 10 days ago. So far,� 1000 have been transferred tothe accounts of about 7,000
people in rural areas and thedata of nearly 9,000 people havebeen collected. He has direct-ed that minimum 30,000 peo-ple should be benefited inrural areas and sought the listby Monday.
Additional LabourCommissioner informed thatthe amount of Rs 1000 has beentransferred to the accounts of22,923 workers against 29,000registered workers and datacollection work is going on.DM said that vendors, e-rick-shaw drivers, boatmen, work-ers of cremation ghats, show-room salesmen, securityguards, gatemen etc. shouldalso be included in the list.Chief Development Officer,ADM (Finance and Revenue),Additional MunicipalCommissioner, ARTO(Administration) and otherswere also present in the meet-ing.
Besides, DM informed that
one person, Jagan Yadav ofPindra area, died due to light-ning and his wife Kalavati wasgiven government assistance of� 4 lakh within 12 hours apartfrom providing medical facil-ities and funds to all the injuredpersons. Sharma also informedthat on Saturday, ration kitpackets were provided to 6,045family members including5,724 in 26 wards of the munic-ipal corporation in urban areaand 321 in eight rural areasadjoining the city area underTehsil Sadar.
Thus, after the lockdown,so far, the packets of 27,995ration kits have been madegiven to the poor familiesunder Sadar Tehsil areas. Hefurther informed that undermedicine at doorstep scheme,a total of 400 people weredelivered medicines and about7,200 people received the med-icines through 77 delivery boysof 35 medical stores.
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With the detection of yetanother positive coron-
avirus patient, the number ofhotspots in this holy city hasincreased to six. The positivepatient is 75 years old traderfrom Patarkunda area underthe Sigra police station. Withthis, the number of positivecoronavirus patients has goneup to 15, while out of them fivewere recovered and one died.The rest of nine are still beingtreated. Out of them, one is inSir Sundarlal Hospital (SSH) inBanaras Hindu University(BHU), while eight others arein Pt Deen Dayal Upadhyay(DDU) Hospital, Pandeypur.Besides, the other nine positivepatients of the division includ-ing five from Ghazipur andfour from Jaunpur are also inDDU Hospital.
The new COVID-19patient is suffering from dia-betes but he has yet not needventilator support. In the sec-ond week last month, thepatient had gone to Delhi and
before visiting to SSH BHU onFriday last, he was treated at aprivate hospital for fever andrespiratory problems. After,receiving the report, theDistrict Magistrate (DM)Kaushal Raj Sharma declaredPitarkunda also a hotspot andthe entire buffer zone areashave been sealed. The admin-istration has also asked the con-cerned doctor and nursingstaff of private hospital and alab where CT scan of positivepatient was done for quaran-tine. In all the six sealedhotspots including Madanpura,Bajardiha, Lohta, Gangapur,Nakkhighat and Pitarkunda,elaborate security arrange-ments have been made to keepwatch on activities of the resi-dents.
DM has informed that inview to maintain law and ordersituation in the entire districtSection 144 would remaineffective till May 3. However,for the conveniences of the res-idents, wholesale markets offruits, vegetables and food-grains will remain open daily
till 10 am, while retail shopsselling essential items apartfrom seed, farm equipment,fertiliser, fodder, poultry feedsetc. will also remain open till 10am. The wholesale medicineshops can remain open till 12noon, while home delivery ofessential items including milk,LPG cylinders, ration, fruits,vegetables will continue dailytill 6 pm. He said that shopsdoing home delivery will notsell articles from shops andthey would keep the shutters ofshops half down. He said thatthe transport, logistics, couri-er ware house, cold storage,food processing units can alsoremain open till 6 pm. Besides,he informed that during theforthcoming auspices Ramzanmonth, there would be permis-sion to the units makingsavaiyya, khameer-roti, bis-cuit, bhujia, bread etc. toremain open. He said that dueto failure of maintaining socialdistancing, ban has beenimposed on sale of fisheryitems in jurisdiction areas ofNagar Nigam but they would
be allowed in rural areas oncondition to maintain socialdistancing.
Meanwhile, District JudgeUmesh Chandra Sharma hasalso informed that the HighCourt has kept its earlier ordersto open the subordinate courtsfrom April 20 in abeyance tillApril 27 so all the courts in thedistrict will remain suspendedtill April 27.
Earlier, the district policelodged an FIR against oneshopkeeper under the Bhelupurpolice station area for violatingthe lockdown on Saturday. Asmany as 48 persons werearrested under Section 151CrPC.
During checking at 14 bor-der points and 49 police barri-ers, 2043 vehicles were chal-laned apart from seizing of 17vehicles. Since the imposing oflockdown, 204 FIRs have beenlodged against 351 personsand 573 were arrestedunder Section 151 of CrPC.Besides, so far 29,387 vehicleswere challaned and 685 wereseized.
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In view of the prevailingextraordinary circumstances
due to the COVID-19 pandem-ic, Allahabad High Court onSunday deferred its earlierorder of reopening of subordi-nate courts in Uttar Pradeshfrom Monday.
Registrar General of theAllahabad High Court hasclarified that its previous orderrelating to operation of subor-dinate courts in the state fromApril 20 will be kept inabeyance for a week.
In a letter addressed to allthe District Judges in UP, theRegistrar General intimatedthat in view of spread of thevirus in various districts in thestate and on account of ‘safe-ty concerns’ of various stake-holders, its order dated April 18will be kept in abeyance tillApril 27.
Earlier, on Saturday ie April18 a communication was sentby Registrar General to all dis-trict judges of the state that allcourts, tribunals and judicialbodies of the state that wereoutside the COVID-19 con-tainment zone will resumejudicial work from April 20.
The communication, datedApril 18 addressed to all districtjudges of the state stated thatthe concerned district judgewill obtain a status report from
the district magistrate regard-ing the containment zones andthen resume work fromMonday. All other courts thatwere within containment zoneswill remain closed till furtherorder.
PATIENT TESTS NEGA-TIVE: The last COVID-19patient of Kaushambi districtwho was admitted to the level1 hospital in Kotwa on the out-skirts here tested negative in hisfourth sample test on Sunday.
According to reports madeavailable by office of the ChiefMedical Officer Prayagraj thealready cured 8 patients of thecoronavirus availing treatmentat level 1 hospital in Prayagrajincluding 6 patients ofPratapgarh and one each ofKaushambi and Prayagraj weresent back to their districts onSaturday evening. After thefourth sample of the patient ofKaushambi tested negative onSunday, the youth was declaredhealthy. According to nodalofficer of COVID-19 level 1hospital Dr VK Mishra, afterthe sample of the Kaushambiresident tested negative onSunday, he was sent back toKaushambi where he alongwith his another cured patientwould be kept in quarantine..
Similarly, the 6 curedpatients of Pratapgarh havealso been kept in quarantine for14 days at district hospital,
while the lone case of COVID-19 in Prayagraj has been shift-ed to a guest house in Karelilocality.
Meanwhile, the three-kilo-metre radius around the Covid-19 hospital Kotwa CHC wasconsidered highly sensitive.Hence, all families living in thisarea will be tested, consideringthem as suspect patients ofcoronavirus.
It may be pointed out herethat coronavirus positivepatients were admitted to theCovid hospital Kotwa CHC fortreatment. Apart fromPrayagraj, patients fromneighbhouring districts ofPratapgarh and Kaushambiwere admitted here. If anyoneis found with the symptoms ofcoronavirus, then the samplewill be taken and examined. Atotal 50 teams have beenformed for this purpose.
Under the pilot project,people living in villages aroundKotwa CHC will be screened.Among the teams formed bythe Health department, Ashaand Anganwadi workers arealso included. They will go todoor-to-door to take details ofevery family member andupload it on the app. The smartcity team will monitor thisapp, in which if anyone isfound with the symptoms likecough, fever or having difficul-ty in breathing, then it will be
immediately reported to therapid response team of theHealth department. This teamwill immediately reach the per-son concerned and after takinga sample, it will send it for test.
N C R T R A N S P O RT S74.32 TONNES MEDICALITEMS: North CentralRailway has contributed med-ical items transport of 74.32tonnes in total 1150 tonnes byIndian Railways during lock-down till April 18,2020.
North Central Railway attop in transport of medicalitems after Zonal Railways hav-ing metro cities i.e. Delhi ,Mumbai and Chennai. In thisnationwide fight against Covid-19 pandemic. North CentralRailway has taken series ofsteps to run timetabled parceltrains on time and with theseefforts 17 parcel trains run with100 per cent punctuality onApril 18 and during the weekfrom April 12 to 18 NCR oper-ated 109 parcel trains withexcellent average punctuality of88 per cent.
North Central Railwaycontinues to deliver medicines,masks, hospital items and othermedical commodities throughrunning of average 18timetabled parcel services tostrengthen Government’sefforts in managing the chal-lenges and adverse impact ofcoronavirus in the country.
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Kanpur District MagistrateDr BR Tiwari said on
Sunday that in view of the newcoronavirus hotspot emergingin the city, the district author-ities were making every effortto enforce complete lockdownthere. He said both in rural andurban areas, the lockdown wasnow being enforced in thestrictest terms.
The DM said the majorproblem was that the people insuburbs and rural areas werenot taking social distancing andhand washing seriously. Hesaid special medical teamswere creating awareness amongthe people, telling them thatsocial distancing and handwashing were the two potentweapons in their fight againstthe deadly coronavirus andalso the need to keep their sur-roundings clean.
Dr Tiwari said the medicalteam was also gathering factsrelated to health and preparingan inventory to monitor illpatients. He said the majorfocus was on identifying peo-ple having cough, cold andfever. He said the facts werebeing gathered from door todoor. The DM said in thehotspot areas, no one wasbeing allowed to move out, anddrones were keeping a close eyeon the area. He said the admin-istration was ensuring doorstepsupply of essential commodi-ties and medicine.
Dr Tiwari said socialorganisations were coming outwith financial and other help in
large numbers. He said GoldieeMasale, ParleG and a few moresocial organisations had donat-ed 500 packets of ration com-prising flour, rise, pulse, salt,cooking oil, turmeric, corian-der, chillies etc., all wrapped inone packet. He said these pack-ets were handed over by thehead of the organisations onSunday. The DM said specialsanitisation operation wasbeing carried out, adding thatthe Kanpur Nagar Nigam teamcarried out sanitisation inYatimkhana, Lakadmandi andadjoining areas.The DM laterordered distribution of 1,000 kgof oranges, 1,060 kg of cucum-ber, 980 kg of bananas to thoseserving as frontline workerslike police personnel, medicalstaff and paramedical staff.
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As many as 43 coronavirusactive cases have come to lightin Ghatampur and Kanpur cityduring the last two days.
Chief Medical Officer DrAK Shukla told reporters onSunday that out of 45 tests car-ried out at the KanpurCOVID-19 hospital, 43 wereactive. The CMO said that sixmembers of Tablighi Jamaatwho had been quarantinedafter testing positive for coro-navirus infection, had testednegative after 14 days and theywere released from quarantine.
Dr Shukla said KidwaiNagar had emerged as anoth-er coronavirus hotspot after
positive cases were detectedthere. He said special teamshad been deployed there sinceSunday morning to carry outidentification and take nasaland throat swabs for tests. TheCMO said all the 14 positivecases detected there had beenshifted to hospital for isolationand treatment. He added thata COVID-19 patient had beenreferred to GSVM MedicalCollege for treatment after thetest carried out by a privatepathology found the patient toby coronavirus positive.
The CMO said house tohouse survey was being carriedout in the new hotspot areas toidentify other cases. He said aspecial medical team armedwith testing kits was moving inKidwai Nagar and surroundingslums and shanties to carry outthermal tests. He said throatand nasal swabs of the suspect-ed cases would be taken fortesting. Dr Shukla said withmajority of the third tests com-ing negative, it had given hopethat the fight against coron-avirus would be won. He saidthe two most importantweapons against the deadlyvirus were social distancing andhand washing.
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In a tragic incident, twochildren of a family werecharred to death, while theirtwin sisters sustained seriousburns when their hut sudden-ly caught fire in Gopalpur vil-lage, under the Ghatampur
police station on Sunday morn-ing. Villagers anyhow con-trolled the fire while the offi-cials of revenue departmentcarried out investigations. Fieldlabourer Santram Sankhwarlives with family members in aroadside hut situated betweenGopalpur and Rawaipur vil-lages. His uncle Ram Bharosealso lives with family membersin the adjacent hut. On Sundaymorning, Santram along withwife Radha and his uncle RamBharose with family membershad also gone to harvest thecrop in the field. Around 9.30am, the hut of Ram Bharosesuddenly caught fire whichsoon engulfed the hut ofSantram also. Seeing the dev-astating fire, villagers attempt-ed to extinguish the flames andinformed the fire brigade. Aftercontrolling the fire, they tookout the children of Santramfrom the hut and found his 4years old son Gopal dead.Three years old twin daughtersRita and Geeta and one-year-old daughter Anita alias Sitahad sustained serious burns.SDM, Tehsildar along withpolice force reached the spotand sent seriously burnt chil-dren to CHC. After the first aid,doctors referred them for LLR(Hallet) Hospital. TehsildarVijay Yadav said while beingtaken to LLR Hospital, one-year-old Anita alias Sita alsosuccumbed to her burns on theway. He said the kin of thedeceased would be extendednecessary financial helpaccording to rules of the stateadministration.
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Co m m i s s i o n e rChitrakootdham Division
Gaurav Dayal and DIGChitrakootdham DeepakKumar inspected the disastercontrol room established in theCollectrate here recently.Commissioner Dayal told ThePioneer that he checked the reg-isters and the complaints notedin them. Dayal inquired aboutthe redressal of the publicgrievances from the officials.Dayal said that he had issuedstrict instructions to the offi-cials to solve the problems ofthe people on top priority andsend him and other concernedauthorities a regular feedback.Commissioner said thatinstructions were also issued tothem to maintain social dis-tancing in the disaster controlroom as well. Commissionersaid that the officials wereasked to wear face masks andkeep them sanitised duringtheir routine work. Dayal saidthat they were directed to notedown the full details of thecomplainants and its disposal.
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Chitrakootdham DivisionGaurav Dayal has sent a letterto Agriculture ProductionCommissioner, UPGovernment, on April 18 in
which he had given details ofsupply of essential food itemsamong residents ofChitrakootdham divisionthrough doorstep system andabout the regular supply oflunch packets among the poorand needy through communi-ty kitchens. CommissionerDayal told The Pioneer thattotal 43 complaints were
received regarding the non-delivery of lunch packets in theentire division. All these com-plaints were resolved on pri-ority. Dayal said that total 168
complaints regarding theration distribution werereceived in the entire division.All of them had been for-warded to DSOs of the divisionfor taking essential action andmake ration available withoutany further delay.Commissioner Dayal said thatlunch packets among the needyand poor persons were being
distributed in the divisionthrough 41 communitykitchens. Commissioner Dayalsaid that Additional ChiefSecretary UP GovernmentAvinish Kumar Awasthi hadsent a letter to all commis-sioners, DIGs, police com-missioners, Gautam BuddhNagar/ Lucknow, all DMsand SPs of Uttar Pradesh inwhich law and order situationin Banda, Mahoba, Chitrakootand Hamirpur districts wasfound to be satisfactory dur-ing lockdown period. Dayalsaid that it was a matter ofgreat happiness for him andother officials. CommissionerDayal said that it could bemade possible with support ofall administrative officials,police officials and the sub-ordinates of entire division.
Commissioner Dayal saidthat best efforts were beingmade to ensure cent per centimplementation of lockdownguidelines in the division.He congratulated officialsand subordinates and askedthem to work with moreenthusiasm throughout thelockdown period. Dayal saidthat he was regularly inspect-ing the implementation of lock-down guidelines in the entiredivision.
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Lalit Narayan Mishra RailwayHospital of North Eastern
Railway (NER), Gorakhpur, isfully ready to face the Covid-19 pandemic. A separate blockof 200 beds has been identifiedand prepared for Covid-19patients besides suspected ones.It has been named dedicatedcovid health centre (DCHC)where all facilities are available.All preparations have beenmade to fight Covid-19.Adequate personal protectiveequipment (PPE) kits, N-95masks and other necessarymaterials have been madeavailable in this hospital.Doctors and paramedical staffhave been given proper train-ing. The entire team of doctorsof Lalit Narayan MishraRailway Hospital is ready toserve the patients 24 hours andwas in regular contact with thestate health and administrative
authorities. The entire medicalteam is well aware of the guide-lines and protocols issued bythe Ministry of Health andFamily Welfare from time totime. Moreover, arrangementfor fever clinic had been madein the hospital and everyminute medical team was
working to prevent Covid-19infection.
Reports of patients whohad fever and other relatedsymptoms besides those suf-fering from serious diseaseswere being made sent afterassessing the situation to thehealth-related departments.
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District MagistrateShailendra Kumar Singh,
Superintendent of PolicePoonam, Chief DevelopmentOfficer (CDO) Arvind Singh,Chief Medical Officer (CMO)Dr Manoj Aggarwal flagged off15 ‘Covid Aarogya Raths’ fromVikas Bhawan campus for ruralareas. Loudspeakers have beeninstalled in all of them for pub-licity purposes through whichspecial audio clip developed forLakhimpur Kheri district willbe played to make people alerton how to protect themselvesfrom coronavirus.
It may be pointed out herethat in the rural area of eachdevelopment block a CovidArogya Rath will do wide pub-licity about how to protectoneself from Covid-19. It willcovering each village, revenuevillage, majra, street of thefour gram panchayats of thatdevelopment block. The routechart of each block has beenprepared and made available tothe authorities concerned. Athree-four member coronavirus team has been constitut-ed in each gram panchayatwhich mainly consists of roz-
gar sevaks, shiksha mitras,instructors, Anganwadi work-ers, Yuvak Mangal Dal, YuvaMandal and enlightened citi-zens who are local residents.When the Covid Aarogya Rathreached the gram panchayat asper the prescribed route chartthe said coronavirus team willdo wide publicity about themeasures to protect from selffrom the pandemic by going toall the revemie villages andevery lane of the majra. Ablock-wise control room hasbeen set up at district level forsupervision of Covid AarogyaRath through which arrange-ment for second level supervi-sion would be done. At the firstlevel a control room has beenset up in each developmentblock, through which secondlevel supervision will bearranged. In each developmentblock at the first level an ener-getic and self-motivated teacherhad been appointed to ensurethat Covid Arogya Rath didpublicity in the gram pan-chayats fixed in the route chart.At the second level the blockeducation officer of the devel-opment block concerned hasbeen assigned the responsibil-ity of supervision and ensuringproper coordination in his
development block. After theCovid Aarogya Rath did pub-licity in the gram panchayat onreturn the coronavirus teamappointed there will inform themembers of the next grampanchayat as per the routechart.
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A 30-year-old man con-sumed some poisonous susb-stance here recently. Accordingto a report, Ankit Verma (30),son of a pesticide seller, ShivPrasad Verma, a resident ofSarsawa village under theDhaurahra Kotwali, had con-sumed some poisonous sub-stance. When his conditiondeteriorated he was rushed tothe district hospital where hedied. Reports said that he usedto sit in the shop with his son.They had an argument oversome thing following whichAnkit consumed the poiso-nous substance. He was rushedto community health centre(CHC) situated in Khamariafrom where he was rushed tothe district hospital where hedied. The police took his bodyinto custody and sent it for thepost-mortem examination.
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A youth who was angryfollowing an altercation over atrivial issue suddenly openedfire in Hidayat Nagar Mohalla.Fortunately the bullet missed a17-year-old youth. Accordingto Arshad, a resident of themohalla, his brother Anas (17)was going to fetch milk from ashop situated nearby alongwith his friend Rishu (16). Onthe way a youth stopped himand threatened to kill him.When he objected to it theyouth opened fire at his broth-er and fled from there. he saidthat he informed the personneldeployed on UP 112 service.Thereafter the police reachedthere and launched a search butcould not trace the where-abouts of the assailant.
The boy and family mem-bers were scared after the inci-dent and had lodged a com-plaint against the assailantswith the police in this connec-tion. When contacted theinspetcor incharge AjayPrakash Mishra said that theyhad received a complaint anda case would be registeredagainst the culprits after car-rying out necessary investiga-tion in the matter.
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In order to prevent coron-avirus infection and ensure
that social distancing guidelineswere followed DistrictMagistrate (DM) S Rajalingamand Superintendent of Police(SP) Ashish Srivastava duringin a meeting with the officialsof Panchayat Raj departmentand Department of Postsdirected that the wages ofMGNREGA, daily wagers andmoney which was being sent toJan Dhan accounts and ifmoney of needy persons wasthere in the bank account andthey needed to withdrawmoney then by complying withthe lockdown norms instead ofgoing to the bank could with-
draw it at their home. For thismicro ATM had been intro-duced. District Magistrate SRajalingam said that any per-son who had an account in anybank which was linked withAadhaar could withdrawmoney from micro ATM. TheDepartment of Posts haddeployed 144 postmen withmicro ATM for it.
They would go to theneedy people in the rural areaswith micro ATMs and makethem money available as pertheir requirement by with-drawing it immediately. Alsothe DPRO was directed tomake the information availableto all the gram pradhansaccording to the roster. Thepradhan should identify the
needy in their gram panchay-at and make arrangements forwithdrawal money from microATM in coordination with theDepartment of Posts. Besidesarrangement for soap or sani-tiser should be made. It wasmandatory for the postmanwho took micro ATM to ensurethat the beneficiaries washedtheir hands before putting theirthumb impression as well asfollow the social distancingguideline.
Sub-divisional inspectorIndian Postal DepartmentManu Bhai Shah said that forany assistance they could callon the mobile number9839980465 and the mobilenumber of the postmasterRobertsganj i.e 7909065617.
He said that money could bewithdrawn by those beneficia-ries whose accounts would belinked with Aadhaar. DistrictPanchayat Raj Officer RKBharti directed all gram prad-hans and secretaries to informthe villagers in all the grampanchayats that no beneficiaryshould go to the bank for with-drawing money and follow thelockdown guidelines com-pletely. All the village headsshould fully extend their coop-eration to this work in the hourof crisis. District PanchayatRaj Officer RK Bharti, sub-divisional inspector IndianPostal Department Manu BhaiShah and all teams of the postoffice were present during themeeting.
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New efforts are being madeby the North Eastern
Railway (NER) administrationto prevent the spread of novelcoronavirus infection. NERemployees besides discharg-ing their duties during theongoing nationwide lockdownperiod were taking measures toprevent Covid-19. In order toboost the morale of such rail-way workers they were beingdeclared ‘Corona Warriors ofthe Day.’ On April 17 three rail-way personnel were chosenfor the hour for their excellentwork.
Naresh Kumar Meena,who works as an inspector atRailway Protection Force post,Aunrihar Junction, during thislockdown period, distributedmore than 800 foodpackets, 50litres of milk, 500 packets ofbread, 500 cream rolls were dis-tributed among the needy, des-titute, helpless and hungrywomen and children atAunrihar, Tarav, Sadat,Khanpur, Bahriabad etc. Inaddition he distributed 200masks, sanitisers and hand-washing soap among the work-ers. This work of Naresh
Kumar Meena is indeed com-mendable for which he wasdeclared ‘Corona Warriors ofthe Day’ of Varanasi Division.
Ranjit, who works as in-
charge of divisional securitycontrol room of LucknowDivision, during the lockdownwas distributing work amongthe Railway Protection Forcepersonnel, putting them onduty at various RPF posts andplaces and exchanged infor-mation with headquarters andRailway Board. Apart from ithe ensured that all the forcepersonnel downloaded the
Aarogya Setu App within thestipulated timeframe and pro-vided safety kits to all the forcepersonnel. For these importantworks Ranjit was declared the
‘Corona Warriors of the Day’ ofLucknow division. PK Verma,working as Senior SectionEngineer (Telecommunication)at Izatnagar Exchange, duringthis lockdown period was mak-ing arrangements for videoconferencing everyday betweenRailway Board and headquar-ters and between DivisionalRail Manager and officials ofduring this lockdown period.
Verma was also doing the taskof providing railway and civiltelephones at various places forcontrol, installing Dish TV
and providing Railnet facility.Apart from this he providedsanitisers, soaps and masks toall subordinate employees. Forwhich Verma was declared the‘Corona Warrior of the Day’ ofIzzatnagar division. Railwayworkers who continue to dosuch commendable work dur-ing the lockdown period will behonored by the NER adminis-tration. The NER was proud ofthese employees.
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Police arrested three accusedwho were involved in a
theft at a hardware shop inDhuriyapar under the Uruvapolice station area and sentthem to them. Stolen goodshave also been recovered fromtheir possession. According tothe police, the arrested accusedwere identified as Rinku Gupta,son of Shankar Gupta, a resi-dent of Jagdishpur, SangramYadav, son of Narsingh Yadav,a resident of Paharpur andRahul Gupta, son of Ashok
Gupta, a resident of Dhuriaparunder Uruva Bazar police sta-tion. The police registered acase against them underSections 457, 380, 411 of theIndian Penal Code (IPC) andarrested them. Meanwhile theBadhalganj police arrested onehoodlum along with a stolenBullet motorcycle and half akilogram ganja. According toinformation, the BadhalganjKotwali police arrested PrinceSharma, a resident of Gopalpurunder the Gola police stationwith a stolen Bullet motorcycleand half a kilogram of ganja.
Kotwal Ramagya Singh saidPrince was involved in theft ofmotorbikes and smuggling ofganja. He was caught onSaturday morning on infor-mat ion provided by aninformer. An earlier reportsaid that iron rods worth �2.5lakh were stolen from agodown located under theChauri Chaura police station.
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Standing wheat crop wasreduced to ashes when a dev-astating fire broke out in
Ramudeeha under the ChauriChaura police station due toshort circuit late on Fridaynight. Constable Anil Patelposted on the Kushinagar bor-der informed the villagers and theoutpost incharge Vishal Shuklaabout it. He reach there alongwith PRV 112 and colleagues.The fire was doused with thehelp of villagers. In the blaze fiveacres of wheat crop of farmers,Wakil Ansari, Wasir Amin, JaiShri, Ramratan, Harishchandra,Sadhu, Aziz, Shabir, Mushtaqof Ramudiha were reduced toashes.
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National Thermal PowerCorporation (NTPC)
Vindhyachal management wasmaking efforts to fight and pre-vent novel coronavirus.Nationwide lockdown has beenimposed to check its spread.NTPC is continuously pro-ducing electricity so that thecountrymen got its constantsupply. The NTPC manage-ment was extending support tothe common public in variousways. In the same sequenceunder Corporate Social
Responsibility (CSR) gotNTPC-Vindhyachal distrib-
uted foodgrains like flour,rice, pulses, refined oil, turmer-
ic powder, salt besides soap,sanitiser etc distributed among200 poor families living in vil-lages around the projectthrough Seva Bharat, a non-government organisation(NGO) keeping the social dis-tancing guidelines in mind.As many as 200 poor familiesof Navjivan Vihar, Jaitpur,Sarswah Raja, Dekhi,Chandawal, Semria, JamuaJayanagar and Baliyri villagesand others were benefited.Everyone expressed their grat-itude to NTPC after obtainingthe food items.
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The body of an unidentified36-year-old man was recov-
ered near Lochanpur village inMalani area here. It is learntthat the field of Motipur wassituated near the pavementgoing towards Lochanpur fromBankata near Bhelia BabaSthan. The watchman,Hardwari, informed the policeabout the recovery of the bodyin the field. Thereafter inspec-tor incharge Ashok Kumaralong with force rushed to thespot and tried hard to ascertainthe identity of the deceased butall their efforts ended in vain.
When contacted theinspector incharge said that thevictim was wearing a shirt andtrousers and a broke lock wasrecovered from the pocket.The body would be kept in themortuary for 72 hours as itsidentity had not be en ascer-tained yet.
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The Gola Kotwali police,along with the excise inspector,launched a campaign againstillicit liquor. As many as 1,300litres of illicit liquor was recov-ered. Besides, three quintals of‘lahan’ (yeast from the bark oftrees) was destroyed and areport was lodged against sev-eral people in this connection.Gola sub-divisional magistrate(SDM) Akhilesh Yadav, CircleOfficer (CO) RK Verma, andexcise inspector Anand Kumarraided several places inJahanpur where urea-mixedliquor and ‘lahan’ weredestroyed. The police registereda case against Achchey, son ofPappu, Prem Shankar, son ofSugauli, Sunil Kumar, son ofRam Vilas and Guddu, son ofMotilal, residents of Jahanpur,Bhusoria residents, Sunil, Dilip,Pradeep, Kishan, Shivam andAshok, besides Peda, son ofSurendra Singh, a resident of
Bharatbhushan Colony, Jagat,son of Munna, a resident ofDwarkaganj. SDM GolaAkhilesh Yadav, CO RK Verma,and excise inspector AnandVikram raided around half adozen villages. However, theaccused managed to escape.During the raid 300 litres ofillicit liquor and equipment formaking it were recovered anda ton of lahan was destroyed onthe spot. Mitauli SDM DigvijayKumar Singh and CO SitanshuKumar along with excise andlocal police raided the Mitauliarea and recovered around 250litres of liquor and lahan fromthere. CO Mitauli Anil KumarSaini said that accused Rampa,lson of Mohan, a resident ofSimrava, Sanjay, a resident ofChatora village, Tula Ram, aresident of Koroyana werearrested from the area alongwith illicit liquor. On gettinginformation Dhaurahra SDMraided villages Sujanpur,Makhanpurwa, Babapurwa,
Mathurpur and Majra Sujanpurand recovered about 150 litersof illicit liquor from severalhouses.
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A youth was scorchedwhen lightning struck himwhile he was harvesting wheatcrop in Mangapur village underthe Palia area. When he wasrushed to the communityhealth centre (CHC) the doc-tors on duty there declared himdead. According to a report,Avadhesh Kumar, a resident ofthe village, said that he alongwith his son were harvestingthe wheat crop. Suddenly theweather changed and accom-panied by thunderstorm a boltof lightning struck the area andhit his son Mudrika (25). Hisfamily members with the helpof his villagers rushed him tothe Palia CHC where the doc-tor had declared him dead.
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DM Awadhesh KumarTiwari reviewed the lock-
down situation at ParmanandChowk, Jhalkaribai Tiraha,Railway Station Road, FatehpurBajaria, Karhra Kalan village,Charkhari Nagar area and oth-ers on Saturday. While visitingseveral areas, the DM appreci-ated the patience of the resi-dents and their cooperationduring lockdown period.During the inspection of thecommunity kitchen operatingin Charkhari tehsil, the DMdirected SDM Rajesh Yadav totake special care of cleanlinessand maintain social distancingin the kitchen.
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Banda MLA PrakashDwivedi said total 4,500
lunch packets were distributedamong the poor and needypeople at several places in thecity on Sunday. These areaswere Chhiptahari, Rahuniya,Khaipar, Khutla, Aliganj,Station Road, Katra, Kyotara,Kanchanpurwa, Karbala,Swaraj Colony, Jail Road,Ashok ki Lat, Sarvodaya Nagar,Shukul Kuwan, Gayatri Nagar,Kalu Kuwan, Civil Lines, PeeliKothi and Jawahar Nagar.
While talking to ThePioneer the MLA told that hewas visiting the urban andrural areas of Banda VidhanSabha regularly and talking to
the poor and needy about theirrequirements as far as far as
ration kits and lunch packetswere concerned. MLA saidthat he had personally visited
more than 5,000 poor andneedy families in the rural
areas who required ration kits.MLA said that more than 4,000people had already been dis-
tributed ration kits and remain-ing 1,000 would be given soon.Dwivedi said that he was tellingpoor and needy people to takebenefits of several governmentschemes launched for theirwell-being. He said that theyhad been asked to contact himin case of an emergency on hismobile no 9415144025 anytime.
Among those who distrib-uted lunch packets on Sundaywere Rohit Tiwari, SantoshRajput, Anil Singh, PankajRaikwar, Mahendra SinghKachhwah, Ankit Aagnihotri,Anurudha Tripathi, PushkarDwivedi, Rajat Seth, RajeshGupta, Swadesh Shivhare Golu,Rahul Dwivedi, Ram ManoharYadav and Neeraj Tripathi.
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Noida (UP): Two more positivecases of coronavirus werereported in Noida on Sunday,taking the tally in Uttar Pradesh’sGautam Buddh Nagar to 97 sofar, officials said.
The new cases include a 12-year-old girl from Sector 8 anda 40-year-old man fromKendriya Vihar in Sector 82areas of the city, the HealthDepartment here said.
The localities where thesecases were detected have beensealed till May 3, strictly restrict-ing movement into or out of thesectors/societies except in emer-gencies, the officials said.
So far, 38 of the 97 patientshave been cured and dischargedfrom hospitals, the departmentsaid in a statement.
The recovery rate of thepatients in the district adjoiningDelhi in western Uttar Pradeshis nearly 40 per cent, accordingto the statistics available.
“About 100 reports havebeen received in the last 24hours, of which 98 resulted innegative and two positive.Totalcumulative positive cases ofcoronavirus in Gautam Buddh
Nagar so far is 97,” DistrictSurveillance Officer SunilDohare said.
The officer said so far 38patients have been cured anddischarged from hospitals in thedistrict, leaving 59 active casesof Covid-19.
According to the HealthDepartment, 2,289 samples weretaken for Covid-19 test tillSunday evening.
Currently, 1,119 peopleacross Noida and Greater Noidaare under surveillance, whileanother 450 are in institutionalquarantine, the department saidin a statement.
On cluster containmentactivity, the officials said 4,212teams were deployed in the dis-trict for screening people forCovid-19, gathering informationand raising awareness in a con-certed door-to-door campaign.
These teams have visited4,15,369 houses so far andscreened 12,24,278 people. Theyidentified 1,045 people whohad travelled abroad in recentmonths. All travellers have beenput under surveillance, thedepartment said.
The cluster containmentfigures for Sunday were same asSaturday, as apparent from thestatements issued by the depart-ment at the end of the two days.
“So far, 30 places in the dis-trict, including residential soci-eties and sectors, have beenidentified as coronavirushotspots and completely sealed,”the administration said.
Any place where more thanone Covid-19 positive case sur-faces is identified as a hotspot,the officials said.
Meanwhile, the adminis-tration has ordered temporarysealing of Kendriya Vihar inSector 82 and Sector 8 till May3 in compliance with the proto-cols in a bid to contain thespread of the deadly virus, theysaid. During the period, entryinto or exit out of the sealedareas will remain banned exceptonly in emergency cases forwhich residents can informHealth Department’s controlroom on 8076623612 or6396776904 or contact the chiefmedical officer, DeputyCollector Rajeev Rai said in anorder. PTI
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Raigarh: The opposition BJP has accused ChhattisgarhExcise Minister Kawasi Lakhma of violating the coro-navirus lockdown norms during his visit to Raigarh dis-trict on Saturday and demanded registration of a case.
The minister, however, has refuted the charges byterming them as “baseless”.
“At a time when people are being asked to stayindoors and not to step out unnecessarily to preventthe spread of coronavirus, state minister KawasiLakhma made a surprise visit to Raigarh town onSaturday,” said Gomti Sai, BJP MP from Raigarh onSunday.
Without informing anyone, the minister travelledfor about 250 kms from Raipur to Raigarh by road andreturned on Sunday morning, she alleged.
“Neither was he seen wearing a face mask nor hefollowed social distancing protocol,” Sai claimed.
Moreover, a three-star hotel which was shut due tothe lockdown was opened for the minister’s stay, the MPalleged.
“The minister even met with an MLA of his party,the Mayor, the party workers and a few media personsin violation of prohibitory orders,” she said. PTI
Chandigarh: The PunjabGovernment on Sunday ruledout any relaxation in the curfewtill May 3 barring the wheat pro-curement.
The move came after ChiefMinister Amarinder Singhreviewed the current situationarising out of the coronavirusoutbreak with senior officersfrom the administration andpolice department.
On Sunday evening, thechief minister ruled out anyrelaxation in the curfew, exceptas needed to ensure the pro-curement of wheat, till May 3,when he will again review thesituation, a press release said.
With the decision, allexemptions given from April 20to industries in rural areas,booksellers, dhabas, shopkeep-ers dealing in air-conditionersand those involved in sand andgravel mining and stone crush-ing have been withdrawn.
Earlier in the day, the gov-ernment had allowed book-sellers; dhabas; shops sellingair-conditioners, coolers, fans;and those dealing in sand and
gravel mining and stone crush-ing to operate.
In line with the Centre’sguidelines, industrial activitywas also allowed in the state’srural areas, provided that theoperators of industries, employ-ing 10 or more persons, make allarrangements for the stay ortransport of workers.
Singh ordered strict enforce-ment of the curfew in all districtswith no relaxation or conces-sions whatsoever even duringthe Ramzan period beginningthis week.
He also made it clear that nospecial curfew passes should beissued to the people on accountof Ramzan. The CM directed theDCs to take firm steps to ensurethat there is no crowding atshops selling essential itemsand all norms of social distanc-ing are strictly adhered to, as perthe latest release. The decisionassumes significance in thebackdrop of various relaxationsgiven by the Union Ministry ofHome Affairs for non-contain-ment zones in the country,effective April 20. PTI
New Delhi: Asserting that thehallmark of India’s efforts indealing with the coronavirusoutbreak was a pre-emptiveand proactive approach, HealthMinister Harsh Vardhan onSunday underlined the gains ofthe prevailing lockdown andsaid the country created a peo-ple’s movement to combat thepandemic.
Speaking at a meeting ofG20 ministers organised bythe grouping’s chair SaudiArabia via video-conferenc-ing, Vardhan said India hascompleted 25 days of the lock-down which will further extendtill May 3 and its positiveresults were evident.
“The results of the samewere realised when our casedoubling rate which was about3.4 days on March 17, droppedto 4.4 days by March 25, and iscurrently about 7.4 days,” hetold the G-20 health ministers.
India has successfully tack-led public health emergenciesof international concern andpandemic in the past as well,Vardhan asserted.
“This time the hallmark ofour approach has been fivefold
— maintaining a continuoussituation awareness; pre-emp-tive and proactive approach;graded response as per con-tinuously evolving scenario;inter-sectoral coordination atall levels, and lastly but mostimportantly creating a peo-ple’s movement to combat thisdisease,” he said.
Vardhan’s participation atthe virtual meeting of thegrouping comes after theMarch 26 emergency G-20Summit in which PrimeMinister Narendra Modi par-ticipated through video-con-ferencing and pitched for devel-oping a new crisis managementprotocol to deal with the glob-al health crisis.
In his address, Modi hadalso urged the grouping tocome out with a concreteaction plan to fight the pan-demic and said human beingsrather than economic targetsshould be put at the centre ofits vision for global prosperityand cooperation.
The G-20 grouping shares80 per cent of world GDP and60 per cent of world popula-tion.
Vardhan, in his remarks atthe meeting, said India startedsurveillance of flights fromCovid-affected countries twelvedays before the first case inIndia on January 30.
By March 22, with lessthan 400 cases India banned allinternational flights to andfrom India, and by March 25implemented a nationwidelockdown, he pointed out.
“In the past, we as a glob-al community have faced andsuccessfully tackled threats tothe health of our people, by acollective sense of purpose,supporting and collaboratingwith each other. I look forwardto similar cooperation andmutually respectful & usefulcollaborations to deal withcoronavirus,” Vardhan wasquoted as saying in an officialstatement.
While some of the countriesparticularly Japan, Singapore,South Korea have fared well,others are still struggling withCovid-19, he noted. The scaleof impact is unprecedentedand therefore calls for cooper-ation between nations to attainnormalcy, he said. PTI
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New Delhi: The SupremeCourt Collegium has decidedto recommend the elevation ofCalcutta High Court judgeDipankar Datta as Chief Justiceof Bombay High Court.
The collegium headed byChief Justice SA Bobde in itsdecisions taken on Saturdayalso decided to recommendelevation of Allahabad HighCourt judge BiswanathSomadder as Chief Justice ofMeghalaya High Court.
The decisions of SC col-legium were uploaded on theapex court website on Sunday.
The collegium also decid-ed to recommend transfer ofMeghalaya High Court ChiefJustice Mohammad Rafiq toOrissa High Court. PTI
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Ranchi/Dhanbad: Eight more peoplehave tested positive for COVID-19 inJharkhand, taking the total in the state to41, officials said on Sunday.
Of the fresh cases, six are in Ranchi andone each in Simdega and Dhanbad dis-tricts, they said.
Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences(RIMS), Ranchi, Director Dr D K Singhsaid seven samples tested positive for thevirus on Sunday, while Dhanbad DeputyCommissioner Amit Kumar said a railwaytrackman in the district tested positive onSaturday.
The state has recorded two fatalities sofar, one each in Ranchi and Bokaro dis-tricts, Singh said. The trackman workingwith the East Central Railways had visit-ed his in-laws in neighbouring Bokaro dis-trict to meet his pregnant wife andreturned to Dhanbad on a bicycle onMarch 26. He complained of fever the nextday, health officials said. PTI
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Chandigarh: The Chandigarh admin-istration on Sunday asked medicalstores and doctors to maintain a recordof people given medicine for the treat-ment of flu and similar symptoms.
The order issued by ChandigarhDeputy Commissioner Mandip SinghBrar will come into force from Mondayand aimed at tracing coronaviruspatients in the city, from where 26 caseshave been reported so far.
According to the order, all medicalstores, chemists shops, including JanAushdhi shops, and doctors, particu-larly general physicians running privateclinics, will have to maintain a record—name, mobile number and address--ofthe buyers or patients given medicinesfor fever, cold, throat infection, flu andsimilar symptoms.
They will have to hand over thisrecord to the director, health services,on a daily basis. PTI
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Indore: A doctor working in a Covid-19 Laboratory ofthe Madhya Pradesh Government in Indore on Sundaytested positive for the coronavirus infection, a seniorofficial said.
The doctor is responsible for maintaining detailsof the samples being tested for the coronavirus infec-tion.
Indore, which has till now reported 890 cases, hasbeen the state’s worst hit district with 50 deaths so far.
“A doctor, who was working as a demonstrator inthe Physiology Department, was posted in virology lab-oratory to maintain details related to COVID-19 sam-ple testing. He was found positive for coronavirus,” saidDr Jyoti Bindal, Dean, Government Mahatma GandhiMemorial Medical College (MGMMC).
Dr Bindal clarified that the concerned doctor hadnothing to do with the scientific work of examining thesamples of patients in the virology laboratory.
“The condition of the doctor is fine. He has beendirected to get admitted in hospital,” the dean told PTI.
The college staff and others who came in contactwith the infected doctor are being quarantined.
A large number of people have been tested forCOVID-19 in the virology laboratory. PTI
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From Page 1Gutta said, “Sorry Babita I
don’t think this virus sees raceor religion…I request you totake back ur statement…we aresportspersons who represent-ed our great nation which issecular and so beautiful…whenwe win all these people havecelebrated us and our wins astheir own!!” Celebrity Bhaskarposted an image that displayedstatistics of various religioussites in the country, includingKerala’s Aatukal Pongala,Tirupati temple and ISCKON,Ahmedabad, where people hadgathered after lockdown wasannounced. As Tablighi featuresway down on the list, Bhaskarasked Phogat if all the people whogathered at these places were alsotested for Covid-19. She alsodrew Phogat’s attention to the factthe Delhi police had granted per-mission for the Nizamuddinevent.
From Page 1The CAIT has written a let-
ter thanking the Prime Ministerand the Home Minister for valu-ing the sentiments of Indiantraders and protecting their busi-ness interests. Notably, since theday of notification, the CAIT wasup in arms against the notifica-tion and even sought the inter-vention of Prime Minister Modiand Home Minister Amit Shahbesides calling upon DefenceMinister Rajnath Singh andCommerce Minister PiyushGoyal,” said CAIT leaders BCBhartia and Praveen Khandelwal.
When the country reopensin selected zones, exceptionswould be made in the areasincluding healthcare, agricul-ture, horticulture, fisheries, teaand rubber plantations. TheGovernment has also exemptedprojects and activities related toco-operative credit societies, non-banking financial institutions,
water supply, electricity and com-munication in rural areas.
Apart from this, theGovernment has said that bam-boo, coconut, betel nut, cocoa,spices cultivation, harvesting,processing, packaging, fruit andvegetable carts, shops sellingsanitary items, grocery , rationshops, dairy and milk booths,poultry, shops selling meats, fishand fodder, electricians, ITrepairs, plumbers and activities ofmotor mechanics will also beallowed to open up activities withstrict regulations. Prime MinisterNarendra Modi while extendingApril 14 lockdown to May 3 hadcautioned that areas which do notshow compliance with guidelineswould find relaxations with-drawn immediately.
Activities will also beincreased on highways fromMonday. ̀ Dhabas ̀will also openon the highway for truckers withsome restrictions.
Besides, construction workon roads, irrigation, building,renewable energy and all kinds ofindustrial projects outside the citywill also start from April 20.
The Delhi Government hasannounced that it would not giveany relaxation and review situa-tion on April 27. The KeralaGovernment will implement theodd and even scheme in the Statefrom April 20 to allow movementof traffic. “Odd and even schemewill be implemented in the Statefrom April 20. By implementingthe scheme, we can reduce thenumber of vehicles on the roadby 40 per cent. Three persons cantravel in a car, including the dri-ver. Relaxation will be given towomen-driven vehicles andGovernment vehicles,” accordingto the State police.
The Karnataka Governmentwill have partial relaxation mea-sures across the State, excludingthe coronavirus-hit hotspots to
restore normal life gradually.The partial relaxation will allowtwo-wheelers and cars with pass-es given so far to ply on the roads.Construction activities will alsobe allowed across the State exceptin hotspots with the conditionthat workers will have to stay atthe site with all facilities, includ-ing food, water and shelter.However, ban order underSection 144 of the CrPC willremain in place till May 3 andwearing of mask will be manda-tory. Maharashtra Chief MinisterUddhav Thackeray announcedthat limited financial activitieswill begin in the State fromApril 20. Addressing the mediavia video-conference, Thackeraysaid, “tomorrow onwards we’restarting some financial activities.As we don’t run our economynow, we’ll be in financial crisisafter we come out of corona cri-sis. We’re starting some businessactivities in a limited way.
From Page 1In another tweet that he put in English, Raut said,
“Raj Bhavan, Governor’s House shouldn’t becomecenter for political conspiracy. Remember! Historydoesn’t spare those who behave unconstitutionally.”
The reference to late T Ramlal should be seenin the context of the fact when, as he as the Governorof then united Andhra Pradesh had appointed NBhaskar Rao as the Chief Minister when the incum-bent Chief Minister NT Rama Rao was away in theUnited States for a surgery in a much-discussed couppolitical carried out with the support of theGovernor and the then Congress Government at theCentre in August 1984. His reign as the ChiefMinister had lasted for mere 31 days.
Uddhav, who was sworn in as the Chief Ministeron November 28 last year, is not a member of eitherof the Houses of the State Legislature. As providedunder the Constitution, Uddhav will in the normalcourse have to get elected to either of the Houses onor before May 28, the six-month deadline for hisbecoming a member of either of the Houses.
It may be recalled that on April 9, at a meetingpresided over by Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar,the State Cabinet had decided to recommend toKoshyari to nominate Chief Minister UddhavThackeray as a Member of Legislative Council, fromone of the two vacant slots.
In the normal course, the Election Commissionwas to hold the elections to fill the posts of nine
MLCs, who will be retiring on April 24 from UpperHouse, and Uddhav was to contest these elections.However, the EC has postponed these elections inview of the coronavirus-triggered lockdown.
The Shiv Sena-led MVA had recommended tothe Governor to nominate Uddhav from the slotvacated by Rahul Narvekar, who quit the SharadPawar-led party and got elected from Colaba con-stituency to the State Assembly in the October 2019elections.
It was one of the vacant Governor-nominee slots, the other being the vacancy causedby the resignation of NCP MLC Ram Wadkule. TheGovernor had not allowed the NCP earlier to fillup these vacant posts for more than four months.
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Jabalpur (MP): A mandetained under the NationalSecurity Act (NSA), who hadrecently tested coronaviruspositive, escaped from a hos-pital here on Sunday whileundergoing treatment, an offi-cial said.
He escaped when he andother patients were being shift-ed to a super-specialty facilityin the medical college andhospital, District CollectorBharat Yadav said.
This person and three oth-ers had been detained underthe NSA for attacking healthworkers and police in Indore.They had been shifted from ajail in Indore to Jabalpur, hesaid.
The detainee had testedcoronavirus positive on April11, Yadav said.
Jabalpur Superintendent SP Amit Singh said that follow-ing his escape, a search hasbeen launched and a cash
reward of Rs 10,000 announcedfor any information leading tohis arrest.
“All the check posts havebeen informed about theescaped detainee,” he said.
Another police official saidthat they have circulated hisphoto on social media so thatpeople can easily identify himand alert the authorities.
Yadav appealed to the peo-ple to inform the police as soonas they spot the patient. PTI
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Senior BJP leader inHimachal Pradesh Shanta
Kumar on Sunday sought animmediate ban on the TablighiJamaat, claiming it is responsi-ble for spreading coronavirus inhalf of the country.
“Their insolence has notstopped. Stones were pelted onhealth workers. I want to say tothe government that enoughhas been tolerated,” Kumar, aformer chief minister, said in aFacebook post. “It is because ofthe Tablighi Jamaat that the dis-ease spread to almost half of thecountry. Hundreds will die,” hesaid. “Now immediately banthis Jamaat,” the veteran politi-cian added.
The Tablighi Jamaat’sMarkaz (headquarters) inDelhi’s Nizamuddin Westemerged as a coronavirushotspot as hundreds of people,who attended a religious con-gregation there in the secondweek of March, tested positivefor COVID-19.
In an apparent reference toKangra MP Kishan Kapoorand Mandi MP RamswaroopSharma, who recently returnedto the state from Delhi despitethe lockdown, he said, “Somefriends have rightly raised ques-tions about our two MPs.”
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Indian Institute of Technology(IIT)-Bombay start-ups have
developed several novel techno-logical weapons for front-lineprofessionals and workers–including contactless detection,hot spot monitoring and real-time monitoring of logistics—tocombat Covid-19 effectively.
The other weapons thatthe IIT-Bombay have devel-oped include: smart trolleyfor hospitals, rapid ambu-lance service and pregnancycare. “Most of these weredeveloped within days of thenation-wide lock-downannounced by the govern-ment,” an IIT-B spokespersonsaid here on Sunday.
Two start-up companiesAugle AIand Faclon Labshavedevised solutions for detection,tracking and localization in adensely populated city. The tem-perature sensing system devel-oped by Augle skims throughhundreds of people moving inpublic places.
Tejendu, head of their techteam, said: “We are integratingthis with our existing facialrecognition system to strength-en the safety and security inoffices, government buildings,public places, malls – any placewhere people gather in largenumbers.”
The two start-up companieswill also provide drone-basedcrowd analytics for quarantined
areas for increasing the safety ofpolice officials and health work-ers.
Faclon is working closelywith BMC to install automaticplug & play screening devices thatcan be mounted on wall or tri-pod. They capture thermal snap-shots of individuals andactivatealarms upon detectingthose withfever.
A robotic smart trolley withracks designed by the start-upJanYu Technologiesis being test-ed in local hospitals.
Dr. Om Singh of LifecareHospital, Vasai said that the trol-ley with its WiFi connected tabletscreen and in-built camera forpatient interaction through liveaudio-visuals.
Lt. Gen. Subrata Saha (Retd.)tweeted about the smart trolleyfor remote care for COVIDpatients. These trolleys can beremotely operated, for takingfood, medicine, clothing andother critical supplies betweenisolation wards and supply units.
“Our company developsrobots for hazardous workspaces.We modified these to meet thecurrent requirements, and aredelivering trolleys to hospitals inHyderabad, Lucknow and Delhi”Sai Hemanth, founder of thecompany said.
Routetomarket Media India,which offers sales, distributionand media management ser-vices, is manufacturing cus-tomisable personal protectionequipment (PPE) for healthcare
professionals, law and order per-sonnel and other frontline work-ers. Harsh, one of the founders ofR2MI, said: “We are manufac-turing about 5,000 PPEs per dayand have pledged to donate 50%of them.”
Adapt Ideations providesCloud-based platforms for real-time monitoring of logistics anddelivery. They utilized their net-work to manufacture face pro-tection shields with BSL-2 com-pliance for use by doctors, healthworkers and enforcement offi-cials.
The IIT-spokesperson said:“As of today, 200 face shields weredonated to Thane trafficpolice,and 1250 were supplied toAastha Pratishthan for RatnagiriPolice.More are in production, tomeet the requests from AndhraPradesh police, Telangana med-ical authorities, and Dharavi res-idents in Mumbai”.
A PhD student Farha joinedhands with Sukanya, founder ofa bioplastics start-up calledPhabio, to develop a communi-ty engagement project. TheirSpot. Corona app provides a heatmap for informed decisions oncontaminant zones, by predictingthe number of hidden andreported cases. It uses multiplesets of data including symp-toms, detection, travel history andcontact tracing to identify infec-tion hotspots. Thishelps in decid-ing about increased tests, optimalisolation zones and localizedlockdown.
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Refusing to be drawn intoany controversy against the
backdrop of the UPGovernment bringing backthousands of its students inbuses from Kota, Informationand Broadcasting Minister, onSunday, however, called forfully observing Prime MinisterNarendra Modi’s request topeople to stay wherever theyare. He also asserted that unlikeleaders in some other countries,who are “confused” betweenthe choices of shutdown andletting economic activities pickup, Modi is “not in two minds”about the way forward andknows what needed to be doneand when.
The Yogi AdityanathGovernment had on Saturdaysent buses to Kota in Rajasthanto bring back students from theState stuck there. This hadirked Bihar Chief MinsiterNitish Kumar who said it wasagainst the spirit of lockdown
A day before a host ofrelaxations to boost economicactivities kicked in amid thenationwide lockdown,Javadekar said that more reliefmeasures are bound to come ifIndia continues to manage thecoronavirus crisis well, assert-ing that “you cannot (have)lockdown permanently”.
When asked about the inci-dent of buses ferrying UP stu-dents, Javadekar told PTI, “Iwill not go into any particularincident but let me make itclear that the Prime Ministerhas spoken about people facinghardship when they are awayfrom home. He has advisedthem to stay wherever you are.That is the real point,”
Some Opposition leaders
have also questioned why theCentral Government is notmaking similar provisions forstranded migrant labourers toreturn to their homes.
“Our policy is stay wher-ever you are and help eachother,” Javadekar said, addingthat Modi’s appeal in thisregard should be observed 100per cent.
A member of the group ofministers to oversee the mea-sures to combat the pandem-ic, Javadekar said, “The PMgave the call of lockdown at theright time and is now partial-ly allowing economic activitywhile the lockdown continues.With such a (huge) populationwe have managed well, if thiscontinues we will get morerelief.”
While the relaxations start-ing from April 20 are primar-ily aimed at boosting the ruraleconomy, Javadekar expressedconfidence that economicactivities will start in cities aswell “sooner than later”.
“The lockdown has beenvery successfully conducted.The world is praising it becausethis is the way to fight the coro-navirus. But even after this youcannot (have) lockdown per-manently. It was needed tostart economic activity. Theworld has seen that in such apandemic the country whichsaves lives actually then getsbetter. We have saved lives andat the same time we must
start economic activity. To thatend Prime Minister has par-tially opened economic activ-ities,” he said.
To a question about RahulGandhi’s claim that the lock-down is not a solution to thepandemic, he took a dig athim, saying that the Congressleader must be “more knowl-edgable” about COVID-19than others.
“The world is praisingIndia for timely lockdown andits good implementation.Compared to what we are wit-nessing in western countries,we are doing much better,” thesenior BJP leader said, in anapparent reference to thou-sands of deaths in developedcountries like the US, Franceand Italy.
Javadekar said, the PMkept a keen eye on the COVIDspread outside India evenwhen there was not a singlecase here and would tell hiscabinet colleagues about itspotential danger and serious-ness.
India now has 700COVID-19 hospitals, over onelakh isolation beds, more than11,000 ICUs for coronaviruspatients and has begun man-ufacturing Personal ProtectiveEquipment (PPE), rapid testkits and masks that it did notno earlier, he added.
The Union Minister saidthe partial resumption of eco-nomic activities, including allagriculture-related work, fish-ery and dairy works besidesindustries active in rural areas,under the prescribed guide-lines, will be a good relief to therural economy. The workunder MNREGA will also startand over 13 crore families willbenefit, he stated.
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An alarming rise in asymp-tomatic persons — they do
not show noticeable symptomslike illness, but can still pass theCoronavirus to others — turn-ing out to be Covid-19 positiveis the next big concern for theGovernment, already grapplingwith an ever-increasing tally ofcases of the deadly pathogen inIndia.
On Sunday, the positivecases crossed the 16,000-markwhile the toll was nearly 550across the States.
With 186 asymptomaticcases, Delhi joined the list ofStates like Karnataka, where 60per cent of the total 315 casesare asymptomatic ones. Inworst-affected Maharashtra,the trend is more worrisomeand alarming as over 70 percent of novel coronavirus casesin the State are asymptomaticwith patients having no knowl-
edge that they were infected.Various studies using the
mathematical modelling of out-breaks in Tianjin, China, andSingapore in January andFebruary have also found sig-nificant amounts of spread bypeople who had not shown ordeveloped Covid-19 symp-toms.
The asymptomatic casescame to the fore only afterIndia started aggressive testingof all foreign-returned andthose with travel history toCovid-19-incidence regions ofthe country. Some even testedpositive way after completingthe 14-day period.
A district-wise analysis ofdata in Karnataka up to April16 shows 186 of the 315 Covid-19 patients to be asympto-matic patients.
Experts say that this trendwill add additional stress on thestate machinery, which isalready struggling to cope with
the increasing samples it has totest daily.
“If there are more asymp-tomatic cases than thosepatients with symptoms, theauthorities will not be able toneglect a large section of thepopulation, which means anadded burden on testing labs,”one of them said. An asymp-tomatic person does not shownoticeable symptoms like ill-
ness, but can still pass thevirus to others.
According to researchers,with a very high viral load intheir upper respiratory tract,such persons can shed thevirus through spitting, touch-ing their mouths or noses andthen a surface, or possiblytalking. People who don't feelill end up coughing or sneez-ing occasionally.
“We are actually dealingwith a very huge challengealong with the rest of theworld. In this particular infec-tious disease, not only peoplewho are symptomatic, but evenasymptomatic persons as acarrier may pass on the infec-tion,” Lav Agarwal, JointSecretary, Union HealthMinistry had said a few daysago.
If the asymptomatic casesare not tracked down early andsubjected to the preventive andtherapeutic interventions, thecountry might witness rapidspurt in the cases.
Maharashtra Chief MinisterUddhav Thackeray too cau-tioned that over 70 per cent ofnovel coronavirus cases report-ed in the state were asympto-matic and the patients did notknow that they were infected."70 to 75 percent positive casesare asymptomatic. At least 52 percent of the patients are in seri-
ous conditions. Many havereported in the last stage. Iwant to appeal that do not hidesymptoms," Thackeray said.
Similarly, in Tamil Nadu,which is the third worst-hitState many patients who havetested positive for COVID-19 ,were asymptomatic. So far, 15COVID-19 positive patientshave died in Tamil Nadu whilein Odisha, asymptomatic casesand discovery of coronavirusinfection in persons even afterthe 14-day quarantine or isola-tion period has added to thetrouble of the Government,underlining an urgent need toredefine efforts for containingspread of COVID-19 in theState.
While asymptomatic casesconstitute almost the bulk ofCOVID-19 cases in the State, thepattern has led to serious con-cerns over their ability to spreadthe virus in the communitywithout knowledge of them-
selves or their contacts.Health experts have called
for aggressive testing apart fromcarrying out strict containmentmeasures at places where clus-ter of positive cases has emerged.
In an article in the NewEngland Journal of Medicine,Bill Gates, co-chair of the Billand Melinda Gates Foundation,expressed concern about thespread of the disease by peoplewho haven't yet developedsymptoms, or who are only a bitsick.
"There is also strong evi-dence that it can be transmittedby people who are just mildly illor even presymptomatic. Thatmeans COVID-19 will be muchharder to contain than theMiddle East respiratory syn-drome or severe acute respira-tory syndrome (SARS), whichwere spread much less effi-ciently and only by symptomaticpeople," he said.
Others agree that people
without serious symptoms playa substantial role in the spreadof the new coronavirus.
"Asymptomatic and mildlysymptomatic transmission are amajor factor in transmission forCovid-19," said Dr. WilliamSchaffner, a professor atVanderbilt University School ofMedicine.
Also, large-scale studiesusing mathematical modellingof outbreaks in Tianjin, China,and Singapore in January andFebruary have found significantamounts of spread by peoplewho had not yet developedsymptoms.
The study shows thatbetween 48% and 66% of the 91people in the Singapore clustercontracted the infection fromsomeone who was pre-sympto-matic. Of the 135 people in theTianjin cluster, between 62% and77% caught it from someonewho was pre-symptomatic.
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Extending all out support inthe national effort to fight
coronavirus pandemic, theArmy is now managing theNarela quarantine here. It is oneof the biggest centres in thecountry to look after coronapatients and now has nearly1,300 people in its care. In asimilar endeavour, the Navy islooking after people of Karwarin Karnataka and its hospitalINS Patanjali, at present, istreating nine corona positive.
Giving details of the armyefforts, officials said here onSunday the force has taken overthe responsibility of managingthe Narela quarantine centre inDelhi during the day fromApril 16. An Army medicalteam was deployed at Narelacentre since April 01 to assistthe civil administration.
“From April 16, the Armyhas taken the initiative to man-age the facility from morning8:00 am to evening 8:00 pmrelieving the DelhiGovernment Doctors and
medical staff to manage thefacility only during the night.The Army team comprising of40 personnel which includes sixmedical officers along with 18paramedical staff have volun-teered to stay within thepremises only,” the Army said.
Presently, 932 memberswho attended a religious con-gregation in Nizamuddin areain Delhi are being taken careat the facility out of whom 367have tested COVID-19 posi-tive, the Army stated.
The inmates have beenvery cooperative and positiveto the Army medical team,thereby, facilitating smoothhandling of all medical pro-cedures, the Army said addingthere is tremendous synergywith the civil administration torun this entire facility. TheNarela centre was establishedby the Delhi Government inthe middle of March.
Narela Quarantine Centrein Delhi is amongst the largestcentres in the country formanaging the COVID sus-pects. Initially, 250 foreign
nationals arriving from friend-ly foreign countries were keptin this centre. Later an addi-tional strength of approxi-mately 1,000 more werebrought here fromNizamuddin Markaz. Theprofessional approach of theArmy Medical Team has wonthe hearts of inmates, whohave been very cooperativeand positive to the ArmyMedical Team, thereby, facil-itating smooth handling of allmedical procedures., officialssaid.
Chief of DefenceStaff(CDS)General BipinRawat had visited the campsome weeks back to boost themorale of the army team andassure the local administrationof all support by the armedforces.
Similarly, the Indian NavalHospital Patanjali at Karwarhas been at the forefront of thefight against COVID-19, bytreating the patients from theUttara Kannada district.
Acting on a request fromthe Karwar District
Administration uponannouncement of nation-widelockdown on 25 Mar 20,Patanjali was prepared in everyaspect within 24 hours toreceive the first group ofCOVID-19 positive patientson 28 Mar 2020. A team ofthree doctors, nine medicalstaff alongwith and nine sup-port staff has ensured 24 x 7care to the nine COVID-19positive patients admitted thusfar.
Out of the nine patientsadmitted at the hospital, eighthave been cured and dis-charged so far. With the dis-charge of these eight patientsover last few days, the hospi-tal is now attending to a lonepatient admitted on April 16who is also respondingfavourably to the treatment.
In view of this additionalresponsibility, INS Patanjalihas made alternate arrange-ments for routine medicalattention to the large popula-tion of service personnel andfamilies dependent on thehospital.
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The fight against coronaviruspandemic is the "biggest
invisible war" facing the human-ity and India is confronting itwith excellent synergy betweenall key organs of the nation,Defence Minister Rajnath Singhsaid on Sunday.
In an interview to PTI,Singh said a wide spectrum ofmeasures has been put in placeto insulate the three services andtheir strategic assets from thedeadly infection while keepingthem fully prepared to dealwith any possible threats includ-ing along the borders.
Singh, who is also headinga Group of Ministers onCOVID-19, said well-thought-out protocols are being imple-mented aggressively to keep theforces fighting fit so that theycontinue to play an active role indealing with the national crisis.
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Aday afters o m e
domes ofG u r d w a r aK a r t a r p u rSahib weredamaged dueto rains andstrong winds,India on Sunday askedPakistan to “urgently” repairthe damage keeping in viewthe sentiments of Sikhs.
Elaborating upon thishere, sources said India hastaken up the issue of the col-lapse of domes at GurdwaraKartarpur Sahib withPakistan. "It has been high-lighted that the damage to thestructures in the Gurdwarahave caused great consterna-tion to Sikhs. Their strongsense of faith and devotion tothe holy site must be fullyunderstood and appreciated."
"India has urged Pakistanthat in deference to the sen-timents of the Sikh commu-nity, the deficiencies whichled to the damage to thenewly constructed structuresbe urgently rectified andremedied," they said.
At least, two domes of theshrine collapsed during heavywinds and rain. Several pho-tos posted on social mediaover the weekend showed atleast two domes of theGurdwara had fallen off dur-ing heavy rains and strongwinds..
The photos were widelyshared on social media, andthe Indian side raised thedamage in a “note verbale”sent to Pakistani authorities.
The pilgrimage and reg-istration for Kartarpur SahibGurdwara was stopped onMarch 15 amid the coron-avirus pandemic.
The Government alsostopped movement of alltypes of passengers throughthe international borderpoints with Pakistan.
A total of 44,951 pilgrimstravel led through theKartarpur corridor to payobeisance at Sri KartarpurSahib Gurdwara, the finalresting place of Sikhismfounder Guru Nanak Dev,since the opening of the routein November 2019.
The Kartarpur Corridorlinks Dera Baba Sahib inGurdaspur in India andGurdwara Kartarpur Sahibin Pakistan.
It was opened onNovember 9 last year in a his-toric people-to-people initia-tive between the two coun-tries.
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The Union Health Ministryhas disapproved spraying of
chemical disinfectants on peopleto disinfect them from COVID-19, saying that it is physically andpsychologically harmful.
"Even if a person is poten-tially exposed to the Covid-19,spraying disinfectants on exter-nal parts doesn't kill the virusthat has entered your body," theMinistry said in an advisoryissued recently.
The advisory came follow-ing reports of some health work-ers in Bareilly in Uttar Pradeshusing hose pipes to douse disin-fectants on a group of migrantworkers, amid fears that a largescale movement of people fromcities to the countryside riskedspreading the coronavirus. Theincident had caught everyone'sattention when its video wentviral on social media.
To ensure that such inci-
dents are not repeated in future,the Government advisory said“Spraying individuals withchemical disinfectants is physi-cally and psychologically harm-ful. Disinfectants were chemicalsthat destroy disease causingpathogens or other harmfulmicroorganisms.”
The Ministry said sprayingof chlorine on individuals couldlead to irritation of eyes and skinand potentially gastrointestinaleffects, like nausea and vomiting."Inhalation of sodium hypochlo-rite can lead to irritation ofmucous membranes in nose,throat and respiratory tract and
may also cause bronchospasm,"it said.
Also, use of such measuresmight lead to a false sense of dis-infection and safety, it said andadded it could hamper publicobservance of hand washingand social distancing measures.
The Union Health Ministrysaid it had received many queriesregarding the efficacy of disin-fectants, like sodium hypochlo-rite, spray to disinfect people.
The strategy seems to havegained a lot of media attentionand is also being reportedlyused at local levels in certain dis-tricts/local bodies.
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Prime Minister NarendraModi on Sunday took to the
employment and business-ori-ented platform Linkedin toshare his thoughts on Covid-19saying the contagion has“changed the contours of pro-fessional life and these dayshome is the new office and inter-net is the new meeting room”.
“For the time being, officebreaks with colleagues are his-tory,” he said and went out tomaintain that he too has adapt-ed these changes. “Most meet-ings, be it with ministerial col-leagues, officials and world lead-ers, are now via video confer-encing," Modi wrote in an arti-cle, ‘Life in the era of Covid-19’,on the networking site.
“It has been a topsy-turvystart to the third decade of thiscentury. COVID-19 has broughtwith it many disruptions,” saidthe PM adding India’s energeticand innovative youth can showthe way in ensuring a healthierand prosperous future.
But at the same time, hecautioned “Covid-19 does notsee race, religion, colour, caste,creed, language or bordersbefore striking. Our responseand conduct thereafter shouldattach primacy to unity andbrotherhood”.
Modi told the young pro-fessionals that digitalization hashelped Government to reach outand deliver to common peoplein the lockdown days of Covid-19 pandemic, overcoming thebureaucratic hurdles. In orderto get ground level feedbackfrom various stakeholders, there
have been videoconferencemeetings with several sections ofsociety.
“There were extensive inter-actions with NGOs, civil societygroups and community organ-isations. There was an interac-tion with Radio Jockeys too.Besides that, I have been mak-ing numerous phone calls daily,taking feedback from differentsections of society. One is see-ing the ways through which peo-ple are continuing their work inthese times. There are a few cre-ative videos by our film starsconveying a relevant message ofstaying home. Our singers didan online concert. Chess playersplayed chess digitally andthrough that contributed to thefight against COVID-19. Quiteinnovative! The work place isgetting Digital First. And, whynot?” said Modi in a lengthy arti-cle.
He reiterated that the mosttransformational impact ofTechnology often happens in thelives of the poor. It is technolo-gy that demolishes bureaucrat-ic hierarchies, eliminates mid-dlemen and accelerates welfaremeasures, he said.
“Let me give you an exam-ple. When we got the opportu-nity to serve in 2014, we start-ed connecting Indians, especiallythe poor with their Jan DhanAccount, Aadhar & Mobilenumber. This seemingly simpleconnection has not only stoppedcorruption and rent seekingthat was going on for decades,but has also enabled theGovernment to transfer moneyat the click of a button. This clickof a button has replaced multi-
ple levels of hierarchies on thefile and also weeks of delay.
“India has perhaps thelargest such infrastructure in theworld. This infrastructure hashelped us tremendously in trans-ferring money directly andimmediately to the poor andneedy, benefiting crores of fam-ilies, during the COVID-19 sit-uation,” wrote Modi, alsoexplaining the role of Internetbrought in the education sector.
“COVID-19 has made usrealise the need to work onhealth solutions at low cost andlarge scale. We can become aguiding light for global efforts toensure the health and well beingof humanity, he said. The PrimeMinister also wrote on the needof new investment models forfarmers.
“COVID-19 does not seerace, religion, colour, caste,creed, language or border beforestriking. Our response and con-duct thereafter should attach pri-macy to unity and brother-hood. We are in this together.Unlike previous moments in his-tory, when countries or societiesfaced off against each other,today we are together facing acommon challenge. The futurewill be about togetherness andresilience,” he said urging theyoung professionals to concen-trate on fitness, Yoga and use oftraditional medicine.
“Lastly, and importantly,please download Aarogya SetuMobile App. This is a futuristicApp that leverages technology tohelp contain the possible spreadof COVID-19. More the down-loads, more its effectiveness,”Modi stressed.
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Both the Secretariats ofParliament- Lok Sabha
and Rajya Sabha- will resumework from Monday after itwas shut in the last week ofMarch in the wake of theCOVID-19 outbreak, accord-ing to an official order.
The Lok Sabha and RajyaSabha were shut on March 24after both houses wereadjourned sine die followingthe passage of the Finance Billfor 2020-21, bringing a pre-mature end to the budgetsession of Parliament, whichwas slated to conclude onApril 3.
Besides the senior level
officials, the other staff willwork on a rotational basis.
The order further saidwhile working, the secretariat staff will ensurethat social distancing normsare observed.
"File movement shall onlybe through electronic modein e-office. The only excep-tion could be urgent files for
the consideration of the LokSabha speaker or the RajyaSabha chairman," sources inParliament said.
According to an orderissued by the Lok SabhaSecretariat, it will resumework from Monday and allofficers of the joint secretaryrank and above will join office.
The same wil l be implied in the Rajya Sabha secretariat and it will have tofunction with only 33 percentwork force of the totalstrength under rotationalbasis regulations similar tothe DoPT circular for CentralGovernment off ices anddepartments.
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Even after the conclusion of the firstphase of the three-week nationwidelockdown imposed by theGovernment and its further exten-sion up to May 3 to curb the spread
of Coronavirus, signs are emerging that thevirus is not going away anytime soon. Thisis grim news for the country from both thehealth and economic perspective, especiallyfor the female population, which is likely tosuffer on multiple fronts due to the spread ofthe virus and the resultant need for the peo-ple to stay indoors.
The first category of affected women arehealthcare staff, including nurses, AccreditedSocial Health Activists (ASHAs) and angan-wadi workers, who have been holding the fortagainst the disease all across the country. AGovernment of India report of 2015 revealedthat 88.9 per cent of the support and ancil-lary staff among health workers, primarilynurses, midwives and ASHAs, are female. Thisis corroborated by earlier data from the 68thround of the National Sample Survey on the“Employment and Unemployment Situationin India” (July 2011 to June 2012). With hos-pitals facing an influx of Coronavirus patientsand given the need for active contact tracingof positive cases, these workers have becomefrontline warriors in times of crisis.
The World Health Organisation (WHO)reported that globally, too, women comprisea majority of the healthcare staff, accountingfor 70 per cent of the total in 107 countries,including India. The COVID-19 outbreak isa physical and emotional nightmare for manyhealthcare workers. Eleanor Holroyd, current-ly Professor at New Zealand’s AucklandUniversity of Technology, recounts her inter-actions with student nurses when she was pro-fessor of nursing at the Chinese University ofHong Kong during the SARS epidemic in2003. A large section of these nurses experi-enced confusion, anxiety and stress from thelong days of caring for patients and seeingmany of their colleagues, too, contracting thedisease in the process. “There’s the idea thatif there’s a gap in the health system, the nurs-es will fill it. Their duty is to be ever-presentand visible, offering empathy and care… Addthat to a sick child or husband or parent andthe very uncertain nature of an epidemic, itcan be hard [for the nurse] to hold on,” saysHolroyd.
The crisis is also likely to affect womendisproportionately because of the alreadydeclining female labour force participation(FLFP) rate in India, which according to theEconomic Survey of India of 2017-18, fellfrom 36 per cent in 2005-06 to 24 per centin 2015-16. The India Human DevelopmentSurvey (IHDS), conducted in two waves in2004-05 and 2011-12, too, reported a fall inthe FLFP from 31.12 per cent in 2005 to24.77 per cent in 2012. The IHDS is a multi-topic survey jointly conducted by theNational Council of Applied EconomicResearch (NCAER) and the University ofMaryland, covering 41,554 households in
1,503 villages and 971 urbanneighbourhoods across India.This survey also suggests that thedecline in FLFP could be due tothe lack of demand for femalelabour rather than that of laboursupply. The paucity of demandfor women workers could bereinforced in the comingmonths after the real impact ofthe Coronavirus becomes appar-ent in various sectors of theIndian economy.
Another category of womenlikely to be impacted by the pan-demic are salaried workers, manyof whom are currently working-from-home but could eventual-ly face the prospect of lay-offs andpay cuts once their employersreturn to the normal work rou-tine in a recessionary economy.The temporary or permanentclosure of many businesses is like-ly to have a severe adverse impacton a range of professions domi-nated by women, such as flightattendants, tour operators, salesassistants and frontline hotelstaff and cleaners.
Academics, who have stud-ied past pandemics, includingEbola, Zika, SARS, swine flu andbird flu, report their deep andpersistent effects on genderequality. According to JuliaSmith, a health policy researcherat the Simon Fraser University,Vancouver, Canada, these out-breaks affected everyone’sincomes but “men’s incomereturned to what they had made
pre-outbreak faster than women’sincome.” This outcome is com-pounded by the already-existingwage discrimination in many sec-tors. For example, in the health-care sector, overall, womenreportedly earn 11 per cent lessthan their male counterparts.Anganwadi and ASHA workersreceive salaries in the range ofmerely �3,000-4,500 per month,which is even below the mini-mum wage, without any addi-tional benefits like pension andmaternity leave. These womenmay not lose their jobs but anydecline in their family incomesdue to the pandemic will makethem an equal part of the eco-nomic crisis looming ahead.
Even women, who are out ofthe workforce and traditionallystay at home, are facing a hugechallenge emanating from thelockdown with their alreadyextensive care-giving duties mul-tiplying even further due to thereverse migration of householdservice providers like maids,cooks and nannies to their nativevillages. A 2015 survey by theOrganisation for EconomicCooperation and Developmentfound that an Indian womandoes far more “unpaid work”,almost six hours per day on anaverage, than her peers in mostother countries. The correspond-ing figure for men is just 52 min-utes per day.
In fact, as per an Oxfamreport titled, “Mind the Gap”,
released in March 2019, Indianwomen do the most unpaid careand domestic work in any coun-try, barring Kazakhstan, largelybecause patriarchal norms,which dictate tasks such ascooking, cleaning, looking afterchildren and the elderly andfetching water and firewood,have to be performed by womenalone.
Data for the first wave ofIHDS also highlights the domes-tic drudgery for women, especial-ly in rural areas. The surveyfound that women in India’s vil-lages were spending an averageof 240 minutes per week collect-ing firewood and 66 minutes perday fetching water as comparedto much lower corresponding fig-ures of 136 minutes per week and29 minutes per day, respectively,spent by men in the household.
Last but not the least is theissue of domestic abuse, the inci-dence of which is believed to goup exponentially in any kind ofcrisis, especially the current onethat mandates people to practisesocial isolation and stay at homefor sustained periods. What isworse, in a lockdown situation,women in violent relationshipsare unable to seek help as the per-petrators of the violence arealways around, whereas thosewho can help the victims areinaccessible.
The US, the UK and Chinahave witnessed a significant risein domestic violence since the
advent of the Coronavirus. InIndia, the National Commissionfor Women (NCW) reporteddouble the usual number ofdomestic abuse cases since theimposition of the lockdown.According to the NCWChairperson, Rekha Sharma, atotal of 257 complaints related tovarious offences against womenwere received during the periodMarch 24 to April 1, out of which69 complaints were related todomestic violence. The UNSecretary General AntonioGuterres has, in fact, urgedGovernments “to make the pre-vention and redress of the hor-rifying [domestic] violenceagainst women a key part of theirnational response plans forCOVID-19.”
These gender-based conse-quences of Coronavirus make itimperative for both the admin-istration and social networks toensure that the pandemic doesnot negate the gains of genderequality achieved over the pastfew decades. Diah Saminarsih,Senior Adviser on Gender andYouth to the WHO Director-General, avers that tackling thisissue will be top priority in theWHO’s forthcoming study on theconnections between gender andCOVID-19. It remains to be seenhow well women will be able toride out the Corona storm.
(The writer is ConsultantEditor at NCAER. Views expressedin this article are personal)����!��������������� ���������
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Sir — It is heartening to know thatKerala reported more recoveriesthan new cases in the past week.Out of 387 total recorded cases,218 people recovered so far. Ashort while ago, the largest num-ber of infected patients belongedto this State. But growth rate isnow completely under controland is declining rapidly.Statistically speaking, the well-being rate is about 42 per cent,which is a bit higher than in theentire country. The death rateamong the victims is also quite lowhere. This sends positive signalsthat it will be able to dip the infec-tion curve. According to theKerala administration’s statement,the State is being healed accord-ing to certain rules. Other Statesmust apply the same rules to getover this painful pandemic.
Mamun HasanAssam
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Sir — This refers to editorial,“WHO vs Trump” (April 17). It isunfortunate that US PresidentDonald Trump has halted funding
to the World Health Organistaion(WHO) over its handling of theCoronavirus pandemic. But hedoes have some justification forthis attack on the global body andits leader Tedros Adhanom, whomTrump has accused of being a
Chinese lapdog.Post this development, China
hinted that it would step up its con-tribution to the WHO. It must benoted that a lion’s share of the con-tribution to the WHO comesfrom the US and it is the largest
single Government donor in theworld. China or any other coun-try is far behind here. In this sense,he who pays the piper calls thetune. The US has been devastatedby the spread of the COVID-19pandemic and Americans are
falling dead en masse due to thisdisease. It is, therefore, natural forthe US to be offended due to theWHO’s irresponsible behaviour.
But why did China refuse todivulge details about the diseaseto the outside world even whenhundreds of its own people fellprey to the pandemic? These arequestions to which no definiteanswers have been offered byChinese authorities so far. Theworld body has to initiate a probeinto this matter.
TK NandananChennai
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Sir — Rumours are known to begreat disruptors. The COVID-19pandemic is no exception to it.Various false narratives have beenspread to tarnish the name of aparticular community. Despitediversity being India’s strength,the evil spreading on social mediaand caustic ideologies gravelydamage our syncretism. The statemust act responsibly.
Akash DhimanVia email
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In the prevailing period of uncertainty, unpre-dictability and ambiguity of every aspect ofhuman life, in fact, of life itself, is it a war that
we are fighting and what kind of a war is this? Thetraditional understanding of conflict is violent activ-ity between two or more nations or groups over aperiod of time, bringing death and destruction inits wake. The world has, however, seen other typesof battles. For instance, the war on poverty, class wars,trade wars and so on. So, is our ongoing fight forexistence against COVID-19 to be termed a war?The significance is not merely of the word but theprinciples which should govern this fight.
In the spectrum of conflict, at the lower end islow-intensity engagement and at the highest levelthere is nuclear warfare. Chemical and biologicalwarfare can also be grouped with nuclear conflict.While chemical weapons have repeatedly been usedin some conflicts in the 20th century, the use of bio-logical weapons is relatively less and mostlyunproven. But biological weapons are the easiest andcheapest to manufacture and can adversely affect theentire enemy population. (A biological weapon canbe as simple as dropping a body in the village wellor a town’s water supply.) However, possibly due tomorality aspects and more importantly, the inabil-ity to control the fallout of a biological weapon, itsuse on a large scale has been precluded, though manycountries are reported to have had biologicalweapons programmes in the past.
The present crisis would definitely fall under thecategory of biological warfare. The commencementof this war could be both, natural or man-made. Atthis point of time, due to inadequate credible infor-mation, it would be inappropriate to pronounce adecision as to who is responsible for the commence-ment of this war. However, it is of extreme impor-tance to analyse inputs when available and reach aconclusion on its genesis because, many aspects ofthe post-COVID world, including possibly the worldorder, would depend on it. If this be a biological war,we need to see the scale of it. It is perhaps the firsttime in history that the entire human race, withoutany exception, is combatting a common enemy, theCOVID-19 virus. Though there have been pan-demics in the past, like the Spanish Flu in 1918 andthe Asian Flu in 1957, a global catastrophe of thisscale is unprecedented. It is not only the sickness anddeath which the virus-affected world suffers, seem-ingly at an exorbitantly large scale, but also the eco-nomic devastation that is likely to ensue in its wakein the globalised world, which makes this crisis atruly unparalleled one. Additionally, in all previousbattles whether conventional or otherwise (war onterror, price wars and so on), there have always been“sides.” In this unprecedented situation, the entiremankind is on one side and the virus is on the other.It is therefore, a true Global War On a BiologicalThreat (GWOBT).
Considering this to be a war, the “Principles ofWar” need to be applied to defeat it. While these fun-damentals have been enunciated by different mili-tary theorists from Sun Tzu to Clausewitz and dif-ferent countries have adopted their own dictumsbased on their national and strategic requirements,it is intended to elucidate these principles which aregenerally acceptable. Let’s deliberate upon them inthe context of the GWOBT.
Selection and maintenance of aim: This is thesingle-most important maxim as all actions will
depend upon the aim selected. My expe-rience in the Siachen Glacier and otherbattle situations is that, it is necessary firstto survive to defeat the enemy. A dead manis good to nobody. In the existing situa-tion wherein no treatment is available, theaim must remain focussed on survival.
Concentration of force: Since theentire human race has one deadly enemy,all national boundaries, religions, beliefs,ethnicities, caste, creed and gender areirrelevant in this war. All efforts of thehuman race must, therefore, be concen-trated on defeating the virus. Solidarityand synergy of all resources of the worldwould be necessary to defeat this enemy,which has humbled mankind.
Administration/sustainability: Tobe able to fight the war successfully, thehuman race, especially the economicallydeprived, has to be able to sustain itselfthrough the entire period that the battleis fought. The administration has to beperfected to take care of essential needs,especially food and medical assistance.Though this is already partly visible butit has to be ensured over a long period tillit is business as usual.
Security: In military terms, it meansthat an appropriate environment must becreated and maintained, which will enablenecessary freedom of action to achieveobjectives. In the GWOBT, it wouldentail creating an overall internationalenvironment wherein those scientists, doc-tors and researchers, who are involved infinding a solution, feel fully energised andmotivated to find avaccine/solution/drug/protocol, to end thiscrisis. One of the perils identified by theUN Secretary General on April 9 was ofextremist threats, including bio-terroristattacks. Such dangers need to be dealt withthrough an effective international responseand nipped in the bud. Otherwise these
will seriously hamper our efforts at find-ing a solution.
Economy of effort: With limitedresources, especially in the less developednations and the end not clearly in sight,all efforts must be economised. This wouldbe applicable to both, employment ofmanpower as also utilising resources,including foodgrain. The inability toimplement this dictum will result in seri-ous social disturbances, which willadversely affect preventive measures tocontain the virus.
Offensive action: The key to militaryvictories lies in relentless offensive action.In the current situation, too, bold decisionsby the leadership, which are in tune withthe selected aims and based on availabledata, would be the drivers of victory.Complacency or delay in decision-mak-ing can prove catastrophic.
Flexibility: The world is mostlygroping in a relatively unknown domain.The outcome, results and impacts thatemerge in the changing situation, must befactored in by the leadership in finding theroad ahead. One example is how the ubiq-uitous anti-malaria drugHydroxychloroquine has changed theway the world is looking at possible futureprevention.
Cooperation: Partnership amongall, cutting across boundaries, political ide-ologies and religion, will hold the key toa solution. It is also very important that,post-COVID financial benefits accruingto a nation or company, must not be thekey criterion. A competition at this stagehas the potential to ruin or delay successwhereas, collaboration will speed up theprocess, which in turn can benefit allnations.
Morale: These are times which mostof the present generation would not haveever faced earlier. A positive state of mind
in this situation needs to be created. Asense of well-being, group cohesion andthe feeling that the nation is firmlybehind every individual, need to be reit-erated. An inspired leadership — at theinternational, national, State and local level— is the need of the hour.
India has a lot to contribute to theworld in the current situation. The way thesecond-most populous country on theplanet is controlling the pandemic, willdefinitely be watched globally. The lock-down decision, albeit delayed, is beingappreciated by many the world over. Thesense of discipline in most areas and a highstate of morale, despite the extended shutdown which the country can ill-affordright now due to its precarious econom-ic situation, are examples for the world tofollow.
India has also set the example of inter-national cooperation by releasing theHydroxychloroquine tablets to manynations. In the field of research and find-ing a vaccine/treatment as also finding asolution through traditional methods,India can be a world leader.
Despite all the challenges that thenation is facing today, especially the eco-nomically deprived citizens, India couldbe at the forefront in this GWOBT andthereby be an important contributor in thepost-COVID world.
As in war, leadership in all spheres andat all levels — political, judicial, executive,legislative, military and at the national,State and local levels, will be judged by themanner in which they handle the crisis.
History has also shown us that fromthe ashes of war, great economic giantshave risen. Remember Germany, Japanand more recently Vietnam?
(The writer is a retired military veteran and former Director-General
of the National Cadet Corps)
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As cases of the rapidly spread-ing Coronavirus increase,the world has come to a
standstill. COVID-19, the diseasecaused by the virus which has so farinfected over two million people andkilled 154,388, has also causedsome severe economic and socialdisruptions. Experts believe thesemay lead to political upheavalseven after the spread is somehowneutralised.
In the line of fire are regimeswho seem to be fumbling inaddressing the spread of COVID-19.Over the last two weeks, the inter-national media has specifically tar-getted the bombastic neo-populistregimes that came to power in var-ious countries after 2014.
Unable to comprehend an issuewhich does not fit their blatheringnarratives, such governments inIndia, the UK, the US, Brazil,Hungary, Philippines, Iran andPakistan are now constantly on thereceiving end of criticism. But thisdoes not mean that countries thatseem to be doing a better job of han-dling the crisis know when or howthis crisis will recede; they arebeing forced to think on their feet.Such is the elusive nature of thisvirus.
On March 12, Dr ZhongNanshan, a Chinese pulmonologistwho has been at the forefront of hiscountry’s fight against the pan-demic, told Reuters that the spreadof COVID-19 can be “contained” byJune this year but only if govern-ments continue to enforce strictsocial distancing through lock-downs.
This does not mean that even ifthe world somehow succeeds tocheck the spread in the next twomonths, everything will automati-cally return to normal. First of all,what was considered to be normal
before the outbreak will change,leading to a new normal. But eventhis won’t emerge unless an anti-COVID-19 vaccine appears.
Vaccines usually take up to 10years to develop for mass usage. Butrecent advances in virology havehelped scientists to greatly shave offyears of required testing and launchanti-viral vaccines in much shorterperiods of time.
Pharmaceutical companiesworking frantically in China,Europe, India and the US believethat an effective anti-COVID-19vaccine can appear in the next 12months. That’s still a whole year.However, the US pharmaceuticalgiant Merck was able to produce avaccine against the 1968 influenzapandemic in four months.
Vaccines have saved the humanrace on numerous occasions. Buttheir historic importance always getsdwarfed by other, more glamorousscientific feats. Human beings havebeen victims of catastrophic viralbreakouts for centuries but the firstvaccine wasn’t developed till the18th century.
In the late 18th century, aBritish doctor, Edward Jenner,noticed that those in England’s vil-lages who had contracted cowpox,became immune to smallpox. Forcenturies, smallpox had been one ofthe deadliest and most painful dis-eases that killed millions. It wascaused by a highly contagious virus.Cowpox, on the other hand, was rel-atively mild and not fatal.
In The Life and Death ofSmallpox, Ian and Jenifer Glynnwrite that Jenner drew some matterfrom a sore of a woman sufferingfrom cowpox. He then injected itinto an eight-year-old boy who hadcontracted smallpox. After severaldays, the boy recovered. Jennerthen injected the boy with mattertaken from a fresh smallpox patientto see if he had developed immuni-ty. He had. Compared to modern-day practices of lab sciences, thismethod seems rather cruel but inthe 18th century, it turned Jennerinto a celebrity.
By the 19th century, smallpoxvaccination became compulsory invarious European countries and in
some American States. Almost a 100years after Jenner’s discovery, aFrench biologist, Louis Pasteur, wassuccessful in developing a vaccineagainst another painfully fatal dis-ease, rabies. Caused by a virus thatenters the human body through aninfected animal bite, it can cause ahorrific death. In 1885, Pasteursuccessfully cured a rabies casewith a vaccine. He used the atten-uation method, in which the virusis weakened in the lab and injectedin the patient to prompt the body’simmune system to work harder.
Building on the works of Jennerand Pasteur, the 20th century saw arapid growth in the introduction ofvaccines against ailments that wereonce incurable and contagious. In1914, a vaccine against typhoidbecame common in the US; in 1921,French bacteriologists developed avaccine for TB; in 1939, US doctorsdeveloped a vaccine against whoop-ing-cough; in 1954, an anti-poliovaccine was successfully tested byAmerican scientists; in 1958, thefirst measles vaccine was intro-duced and in 1966 an anti-mumps
vaccine was launched in the US.Between the late 1960s and
1970s, robust vaccination pro-grammes were highly successful inchecking and, in some cases, erad-icating the spread of some of theworst contagious diseases known toman. However, scientists havealways been running a tricky raceagainst flu viruses because they con-tinue to mutate. This means scien-tists have to always be on their feetto readjust flu vaccines according tofresh mutations.
A problem governments havefaced in checking the spread of con-tagious diseases is the continuousexistence of “anti-vax” segments insome societies. These are groupswithin a population who are againstforced vaccination. The WorldHealth Organisation (WHO) hasdescribed them as a “threat” to pub-lic health.
The roots of this phenomenoncan be traced back to the 19th cen-tury when the British Governmentintroduced compulsory smallpoxvaccination. Some groups refused toget their children vaccinated, fear-
ing it was against their religiousbeliefs.
In 1926, newspapers in the USreported attacks on vaccinationteams in certain conservative ruralareas of the country. Even recently,anti-polio vaccination workers wereattacked in some areas of Pakistanby those who believe that polio vac-cines contain harmful chemicals.
According to a June 27, 2016article in Healthline by Dr DeborahWeatherspoon, the “anti-vax” mind-set is often the result of a mistrustof science in some groups whobelieve that pharmaceutical compa-nies are enhancing the fear of oth-erwise benign diseases to sell theirmedicines, or that such sciences areopposed to religious beliefs, or that“natural” cures through homeopa-thy or other traditional means aremore effective.
Among these are also some whoinsist that vaccines stunt the repro-ductive capabilities of men.Ironically, this perception is mostprominent in some of the world’smost densely populated regions.
(Courtesy: Dawn)
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Barcelona: Passengers on a lux-ury liner’s around-the-worldcruise, begun before the globewas gripped by the coronaviruspandemic, are finally approach-ing the end of their odyssey after15 weeks at sea.
The ship, the CostaDeliziosa, was heading onSunday toward a port in Spainbefore ending its journey in Italy— both countries devastated bythe coronavirus outbreak.
Costa Crociere, an Italiancruise company, said that theDeliziosa, which set sail fromVenice in early January with1,831 passengers, had no casesof COVID-19 aboard.
The Deliziosa, a nearly 300-meter (1,000-foot) vessel, willdisembark 168 Spanish passen-gers on Monday at Barcelona’s
port. Then the Deliziosa willhead to its final destination,Genoa, Italy, where it is expect-ed to let off the remaining pas-sengers, Italians and those ofother nationalities, onWednesday. A companyspokesman said a passenger leftthe ship earlier in the week inMarsala, Sicily, for health issuesand had a Covid-19 test, whichwas negative.
Being on the liner for weeksduring the pandemic “was notsurreal, it was incredible,’’ saidpassenger Carlos Paya’, wholives in Valencia, Spain, and issailing with his wife. He addedthat they have family membersin Spain. “The news that wasarriving from home was causingus all a lot of worry and grief,,”he told The Associated Press by
text message Saturday evening. “For us it was a stroke of
good luck to be where we were.”“From Perth (Australia) giventhe growth of the pandemic, andof course for those of us whohave children in Spain, we wouldhave preferred to return,” headded.
“Other passengers, on theother hand, given their old age,wanted to stay on board know-ing that the boat was safe andsecure.” French authorities hadrebuffed a request by Costa forpermission to disembark sever-al hundred passengers fromFrance and nearby countries atMarseilles. “The health situationon board the ships doesn’t pre-sent any problem for publichealth and no case of COVID-19,” Costa’s statement said. AP
Bamako: Mali was votingSunday in the final round of alegislative election that aims torevive public faith in the coun-try’s embattled institutionsdespite a bloody jihadist conflictand looming viral pandemic.
The election has beenrepeatedly delayed, and the firstround on March 29 was dis-rupted by jihadist attacks andintimidation, including the kid-napping of opposition leaderSoumaila Cisse.
“I voted. It is importantdespite the economic situation.We need new MPs to consoli-date our democracy,” MoussaDiakite, a 23-year-old student,told AFP after polls opened.Voters in the West Africannation of 19 million people arecasting their ballots in the runoff
for 147 seats in the NationalAssembly.
The country is strugglingwith an Islamist revolt that hasclaimed thousands of lives andforced hundreds of thousandsfrom their homes.
Polling stations opened at0800 GMT in the capitalBamako and also in otherprovinces hard hit by the insur-gency, and will go on until 1800GMT. The first provisionalresults will be announced at thestart of the week.
It is the country’s first par-liamentary poll since 2013 whenPresident Ibrahim BoubacarKeita’s Rally for Mali party wona big majority. Turnout in thefirst round averaged over 35 per-cent nationwide but was less than13 per cent in Bamako. AFP
Kathmandu: A 65-year-oldman in Nepal who was stayingat a mosque, where 12 Indianswere tested positive forCOVID-19, has contracted thedisease, taking the total num-ber of coronavirus cases in theHimalayan nation to 31, healthofficials said on Sunday.
Twelve Indians wereamong the 14 new coronaviruscases reported in Nepal onFriday. The Indian nationalswere staying at a mosque inTriyuga area of Udaypur dis-trict. They were quarantined ina school building after residentsinformed authorities aboutthem.
Basudev Pandey, head ofthe Epidemiology and DiseaseControl Division of the healthministry, said the man was test-ed COVID-19 positive onSaturday evening. PTI
Rome: Italians debated Sundaytheir first cautious steps out ofa coronavirus lockdown that hasleft an estimated half of theworking population seekingGovernment support.
The Mediterranean countryhas been filled with rumoursand speculation about whenpeople will finally be allowed towalk the streets freely for thefirst time since early March.
The balmy weather is nothelping government efforts tokeep everyone inside in the faceof a disease that has officiallykilled 23,227 in Italy — secondonly to the United States.
The number of daily finesfor illegal outdoor activity is ris-ing and police are setting upbarricades along roads leading
to the beaches on the westernoutskirts of Rome.
The growing sense thatweeks of confinement wereending forced an unnamedsource in Prime MinisterGiuseppe Conte’s office to tellmedia that “nothing willchange”.
But some officials seem tothink that extending the strictestlockdown measures beyondtheir May 3 deadline might sim-ply not work.
The daily death rate has fall-en to half of what it was at thepeak of the crisis and people —feeling less frightened but morestir crazy — may simply startgoing out.
“We must give citizensgreater freedom of movement,”
Deputy Health MinisterPierpaolo Sileri said onSaturday.
Conte gave little of thegame away in one of his char-acteristic late-night Facebookposts on Saturday.
He said some activities willbe allowed to resume “accord-ing to a well-structured pro-gramme that balances the needto protect people’s health withthe need to resume production”.
Conte is expected to hearon Monday the conclusions ofa re-opening taskforce headedby former Vodafone chief exec-utive Vittorio Colao.
The pressure on Contefrom the leaders of Italy’s north-ern industrial heartland is alsogrowing intense. AFP
Madrid: Spain has reported itslowest daily death total for con-firmed coronavirus victims innearly a month as the countrycontains a savage outbreak thathas killed more than 20,000people there.
Spanish health officials saidSunday another 410 peoplehave died in the last 24 hours.That is the lowest daily death tollsince March 22. It takes the total
to 20,453 virus-related deathssince the start of the pandem-ic. Spain also reported 4,218confirmed new cases, pushingthe total to 195,944 — secondonly to the United States.
Top health officialFernando Simón said the latestdata gives Spain hope, addingthat it shows “the rate of conta-gion has fallen and that we areon the correct path.” AP
London: British PrimeMinister Boris Johnson hasbegun taking charge of theGovernment even as he con-valesces at Chequers in south-east England, following hishospitalisation after testingpositive for coronavirus.
‘The Sunday Telegraph’reports that Johnson begangiving directions to his Cabinet,including to his deputy UKForeign Secretary DominicRaab, from his prime ministe-rial countryside retreat as heprepares to resume full chargein the coming days.
The 55-year-old issuedsome directives to Raab aswell as senior aides in a seriesof calls last week, followed bya three-hour meeting with hisdeputy and staff on Friday.
“He [Johnson] has hadsome contact with ministers,but mostly with his privateoffice here at Downing Street,”Robert Jenrick, UKCommunities Minister, hadtold reporters at the dailyDowning Street briefing onSaturday. PTI
Beijing: A premier Chinesevirology laboratory in Wuhan,which is in the eye of the stormfor allegedly being the source ofthe novel coronavirus, has forthe first time refuted the charge,including those of US PresidentDonald Trump, that the deadlyvirus originated from his labbefore it spread across the worldand wreaked havoc.
China has come underincreasing global pressure overlack of transparency in its han-dling of the coronavirus pan-demic, which has so far infect-ed over 2,333,160 people andclaimed more than 160,790 livesacross the world.
President Trump onSaturday said his administrationwas looking into reports that thenovel coronavirus “escaped”
from a Wuhan laboratory beforeit spread to the world.
“We’re looking at it, a lot ofpeople are looking at it. It seemsto make sense,” Trump told themedia when asked if there wasan investigation into whether thecoronavirus disease escaped
from a lab in China’s COVID-19 ground-zero city of Wuhan.
Ever since the virus came tolight in Wuhan in December lastyear, speculation has been rife onwhether the viral strain origi-nated from the Wuhan Instituteof Virology (WIV). PTI
London: Virus related deathswithin the UK’s care homes forthe elderly and vulnerable dou-bled within just one week,according to data collected andanalysed by a leading represen-tative body for the not-for-prof-it adult social care sector.
The National Care Forum(NCF) report, released onSaturday, demonstrates 2,500deaths within care homes with-in seven days, figures which itsays highlights significant flawsin the current national report-ing of coronavirus related deathtoll in the UK.
“It is hoped that this analy-sis will provide insight andimpetus for the government tobetter address the needs of thecare sector,” the NCF said.
The group’s research came
as pressure mounts on theBritish government to startcounting deaths within thewider community and carehomes to its daily hospital tollfigures, which hit 15,464 on thisweek.
Amid concerns that thenational statistics presented bythe government for coronavirusrelated mortality rates were notincorporating figures of deathswithin residential and nursinghomes, the NCF said it led anindependent benchmarkingexercise. As many as 47 of itscare provider members con-tributed to the audit, represent-ing 1,169 care services that col-lectively support 30,217 peopleacross the UK — 7.4 per cent ofthe overall residential care sec-tor population. PTI
Athens: A fire ripped throughone of Greece’s largest migrantcamps leaving widespreaddamage and many peoplehomeless after the death of anIraqi woman sparked unrest,officials said on Sunday.
The blaze late Saturday atVial camp on Chios islanddestroyed the facilities of theEuropean asylum service, acamp canteen, warehouse tentsand many housing containers,Migration Ministry SecretaryManos Logothetis told AFP.
“A large part of the camp’sadministrative services wasdestroyed,” said Logothetis,adding that no injuries werereported. The UN refugeeagency’s spokesperson inAthens Boris Cheshirkov saidthe damage is still being eval-
uated but that many camp res-idents have likely been lefthomeless.
“Authorities are still assess-ing the damages but a few hun-dred people are likely affectedbecause their shelters haveburned down. We have donat-ed tents to the authoritieswhich can quickly be put intouse and we will assist in replac-
ing the warehouse tents,” hetold AFP.
At least three vehicles out-side the camp were also gutted.
A police source in Athenssaid two Afghans and an Iraqihad been arrested in relation tothe unrest, which erupted aftera 47-year-old asylum seekerfrom Iraq died in the camp onSaturday. AFP
Washington: US PresidentDonald Trump has warnedChina that it should face con-sequences if it was “knowing-ly responsible” for the spread ofthe novel coronavirus, uppingthe ante on Beijing over its han-dling of the COVID-19 pan-demic.
Trump, who has expresseddisappointment over China’shandling of the coronavirusdisease, alleged non-trans-parency and initial non-coop-eration from Beijing withWashington on dealing withthe crisis.
“If they were knowinglyresponsible, yeah, then thereshould be consequences. You’retalking about, you know, poten-tially lives like nobody’s seensince 1917,” he told reporters ata White House news confer-ence on Saturday.
Trump said his relationshipwith China was very good tillthe time the deadly COVID-19swept across the world.
“The relationship wasgood when we were signingthat, but then, all of a sudden,you hear about this. So, it’s abig difference. You know, thequestion was asked would yoube angry at China. Well, theanswer very well might be avery resounding yes, but itdepends,” Trump said.
The president underlinedthat there was a big differencebetween a mistake that got outof control and something donedeliberately.
“In either event, theyshould have let us go in. Youknow, we asked to go in veryearly and they didn’t want us in.
I think they knew it was some-thing bad and I think they wereembarrassed,” Trump said.
He claimed that China waspitching for former vice pres-ident Joe Biden, who is the pre-sumptive nominee of theDemocratic Party for the pres-idential election. PTI
Sydney: Australia on Sundaycalled for an independent inves-tigation into the global responseto the coronavirus pandemic,including the World HealthOrganization’s handling of thecrisis. Foreign Minister MarisePayne said the country would“insist” on a review that wouldprobe, in part, China’s early
response to the outbreak inWuhan, the city where COVID-19 emerged late last year.
“We need to know the sortsof details that an independentreview would identify for usabout the genesis of the virus,about the approaches to dealingwith it (and) addressing theopenness with which informa-
tion was shared,” she told pub-lic broadcaster ABC.
Payne said Australia sharedsimilar concerns to the UnitedStates, whose President DonaldTrump has accused the WHOof “mismanaging” the crisis andcovering up the seriousness ofChina’s outbreak before itspread. AFP
Paris: The worldwide death tollfrom the novel coronaviruspandemic rose to 160,685 onSunday, according to a tallyfrom official sources compiledby AFP.
More than 2,334,130declared cases have been regis-tered in 193 countries and ter-ritories since the epidemic firstemerged in China in December.
Of these cases, at least518,900 are now consideredrecovered.
The tallies, using data col-lected by AFP from nationalauthorities and informationfrom the World HealthOrganization (WHO), probablyreflect only a fraction of theactual number of infections.
Many countries are testingonly the most serious cases.
In the United States, nowthe worst-hit country, the deathtoll stood at 39,090 with735,287 infections. At least66,819 patients have recovered.
Italy is the next most-affectedcountry with 23,227 deathsand 175,925 confirmed infec-tions.
It is followed by Spain with20,453 fatalities and 195,944confirmed infections, Francewith 19,323 deaths and 151,793infections and Britain with15,464 deaths and 114,217cases.
China — excluding HongKong and Macau — has to datedeclared 4,632 deaths and82,735 cases.
Europe has listed 1,153,148cases and 101,493 deaths todate, the US and Canadatogether have 768,670 caseswith 40,619 deaths, Asia162,256 cases with 6,951 deaths,the Middle East 122,819 caseswith 5,559 deaths, LatinAmerica and the Caribbean98,202 cases with 4,915 deaths,Africa 21,165 cases with 1,058deaths and Oceania 7,879 caseswith 90 deaths. AFP
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Washington: President DonaldTrump has cast doubt on theaccuracy of China’s officialcoronavirus death toll, termingit “unrealistic” and claimingthat the actual number was“way ahead” of the US’ whichis not the world’s “numberone” country in terms ofCOVID-19 fatalities.
Trump’s comments havecome two days after another1,300 fatalities were added tothe official count in theChinese city of Wuhan, wherethe outbreak started inNovember last year. The revi-sion puts China’s overall deathtoll to more than 4,600.
“We are not number one;China is number one just soyou understand,” Trump toldreporters at a White Housenews conference on Saturday.
“They are way ahead of usin terms of death. It’s not evenclose,” he asserted.
According to Trump, whenhighly-developed healthcaresystems of the UK, France,Belgium, Italy and Spain hadhigh fatality rates, it was 0.33 inChina.
The president asserted thatthe actual number was muchmore than the official Chinesedeath toll figures, which he saidwere “unrealistic”.
“You know it, I know it andthey know it, but you don’twant to report it. Why? You willhave to explain that. SomedayI will explain it,” he said.
He also highlighted that ona per-capita basis, the mortal-ity rate in the US was far lowerthan other nations of WesternEurope. PTI
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Beijing/Wuhan: China hasclassified the coronavirus epi-centre Wuhan as a low-riskarea, days after it revised thecity’s death toll by 50 per cent,even as 16 new COVID-19cases were reported in thecountry, health officials said onSunday.
According to the risk cri-teria defined in a guidelineissued by China’s State Council,
cities, counties and districtswith no newly confirmed casesin the last 14 days are cate-gorised as low-risk areas.
Those with fewer than 50cases or those with over 50 butwithout a concentrated out-break are classified as mid-riskareas, and those with over 50cases as well as a concentratedoutbreak are classified as high-risk areas. PTI
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Figures from France’s mili-tary leadership show more
than half the sailors aboard thecountry’s flagship aircraft car-rier contracted the new virusas the ship traveled throughthe Mediterranean Sea, theNorth Sea and the AtlanticOcean.
A navy official says 1,046of the 1,760 people aboard theCharles de Gaulle tested pos-itive for the virus.
Navy Chief of Staff Adm.Christophe Prazuck attributedthe quick spread to the “greatpopulation density aboard theship.” Speaking Saturdayevening to Europe-1 radio,Prazuck said virus protectionmeasures weren’t followedproperly, which “did not allow
us to detect the beginning ofthe epidemic, and therefore tocontain it .” The ship is undergoing a lengthy disin-fection process since returningto its home base in Toulon lastweek.
One person who servedaboard is in intensive careand more than 20 others arehospitalised. Among thoseinfected are two U.S. Sailorsserving as part of an exchangeprogram.
Investigations are under-way into what happened, andFrench military leaders havebeen questioned in parlia-ment.
A similar outbreak on theUSS Theodore Roosevelt ledto the firing of its captain andthe resignation of the actingU.S. Navy secretary.
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Islamabad: Pakistan on Sundayreported 869 new coronaviruscases in the last 24 hours, bring-ing the number of the COVID-19 patients to 8,348 in the coun-try, officials said.
According to officials,worst-hit Punjab provincereported 3,822 cases, Sindh2,537, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa1,137, Balochistan 376, Gilgit-Baltistan 257, Islamabad 171 andPakistan-occupied Kashmir 48,taking the overall tally to 8,348.
The death toll due to thecoronavirus has risen to 168,with Sindh recording its highestnumber of nine fatalities in asingle day, they said. Pakistanhas conducted 98,522 tests,including 7,847 during the last24 hours. So far 1,868 patientshave recovered. PTI
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Rome: Italy’s official daily tollfrom the novel coronavirusedged down to 433 on Sunday,the lowest figure in one week.
The total number of deathsreported by the civil protectionservices since the start of Italy’shealth crisis in February nowstands at 23,660 -- second onlyto the United States.
Sunday’s fatalities figurewas the second lowest in onemonth.
The 3,047 new virus infec-tions represented a rise of just1.7 percent.
The new infections rate isbeing watched close by Italiangovernment as it deliberates onhow to exit a lockdownimposed over the first half ofMarch.
The current restrictionsare due to be lifted on May 4,and the government is trying todetermine which businessesto allow to resume operations,and whether to let people outof their homes. AFP
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The Ministry of Agriculture onSunday claimed that 67 per
cent of wheat crop has been har-vested. The Ministry claimed thatthere was a minimal or no disrup-tion in the harvesting rabi crop andsowing of summer crop despite thenationwide lockdown due to coro-navirus.
On the other hand, farmersfrom several states have claimed thatthey are finding difficult to harvestwheat crops due to shortage oflabours and machinery stucked instates like Gujarat and MadhyaPradesh. According to farmers, theexemption given to farm sectors and
agri machineries by the HomeMinistry, have not reached the localauthorites that’s why they have notallowed the movement of farmmachineries.
According to agriculture min-istry, of the rabi crop harvesting, outof total wheat sown in 310 lakhhectares, 63-67 percent has alreadybeen harvested in the country.“State-wise harvesting has alsoincreased and reached 90-95% inMadhya Pradesh, 80-85% inRajasthan, 60-65% in Uttar Pradesh,30-35% in Haryana and 10-15% inPunjab. Harvesting is in peak inHaryana, Punjab and Uttar Pradeshand is likely to be completed by theend of April, the ministry said.
Punjab has deployed 18000 com-bines and Haryana has deployed5000 combines for harvesting andthreshing. Rabi rice sown in 28 lakhhectares in Andhra Pradesh, Assam,Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Karnataka,Kerala, Odisha, Tamil Nadu,Telangana, Tripura and West Bengalis in the initial stages of harvestingsince the grain is still in the fillingstage and harvesting times wouldvary, it said.
Of the pulses sown in 161 lakhhectare, harvesting has been com-pleted for gram, lentil, urad, moongand field pea. For sugarcane, out ofthe total sown in 54.29 lakh ha, har-vesting has been completed inMaharashtra, Karnataka, Gujarat,
Andhra Pradesh, Telangana andPunjab. For the states of TamilNadu, Bihar, Haryana andUttarakhand, 92-98 per cent har-vesting has been completed. InUttar Pradesh, 75-80 per cent hasbeen completed and this will con-tinue till mid May 2020.
Amongst the oilseed crops,Rapeseed Mustard sown in 69 lakhha has been harvested in the statesof Rajasthan, UP, MP, Haryana, WB,Jharkhand, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh,Bihar, Punjab, Assam, ArunachalPradesh and UT of J&K.
Groundnut sown in 4.7 lakh ha,has been harvested to the tune of 85-90 per cent.
While Rabi crops are being
harvested, farmers have startedsowing summer crops whichincludes pulses, coarse cereals,nutri-cereals and oilseeds.
“Summer crop sowing is 36 percent higher over correspondingperiod last year as on April 17. Thetotal summer crop area hasincreased to 52.78 lakh hectaresfrom 38.64 lakh hectares as com-pared to the the correspondingperiod a year ago. The area cover-age under pulses, coarse cereals,nutria-cereals and oilseeds hasincreased to 20.05 lakh hectarefrom 14.79 lakh hectare as com-pared to last year during the corresponding period,” theMinistry said.
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The government’s U-turn onhome delivery of non-
essential items will leave con-sumers disappointed, theworld’s largest online retailerAmazon said, but the decisionwas welcomed by local kiranastore body CAIT that called itthe “most pragmatic”.
Four days after allowing e-commerce firms to also deliv-er non-essential items such aselectronic goods and ready-made garments, the govern-ment on Sunday said non-essential items will continue tobe prohibited during the lock-down period.
Commenting on the deci-sion, Amazon India said thenew guidelines will disappointconsumers whose list of essen-tials has expanded to ‘workfrom home’ and ‘study from
home’ products, as well assmall businesses, sellers andmanufacturers.
The company said it willcontinue to follow the guide-lines and deliver essential prod-ucts and work with authoritiesfor expedited processes tomake safe deliveries of priori-ty products possible.
“The new guideline willdisappoint not only the con-sumers whose list of essentialshad expanded to work fromhome and study from homeproducts but also the thou-sands of small businesses, sell-ers and manufacturers acrossthe country, who had geared upin the last 48 hours to providemillions of people with safeaccess to products,” AmazonIndia spokesperson said.
Amazon India further saidthe company hopes that “thissituation is rectified soon so
that the urgent need of con-sumers is met and that there isrevival of economic activity”.
The Confederation of AllIndia Traders (CAIT), whichhad been campaigning hardagainst allowing e-commercefirms to also commence non-essential deliveries during thelockdown period, “laudedPrime Minister Narendra Modiand Home Minister Amit Shahfor the most pragmatic deci-sion” of “valuing the senti-ments of Indian traders andprotecting their business inter-ests”. Commerce MinisterPiyush Goyal on his part saidthe move will “help in creatinga level-playing field for smallretailers”.
Separately, the RetailersAssociation of India (RAI) saidthe government’s home deliv-ery permissions need to bebroad based and all types of
retailers, including neighbour-hood stores, should be allowedto operate.
The retailers’ body saidallowing neighbourhood storesand large essential products’chain retailers to do homedelivery will help fulfil con-sumer needs in these tryingtimes and play a part inenhancing social distancing.
Soon after the governmenthad on April 16 announcedgraded plan to lift the lock-down by allowing all e-com-merce deliveries and move-ment of trucks, some statessuch as Maharashtra, Odishaand Rajasthan issued notifica-tions allowing non-essentialdeliveries alongside essentialones. CAIT had resented themove and said that the stategovernments were againstIndian traders and “prefer todestroy the businesses of Indian
traders at the hands of foreigne-commerce players”.
“Multinational e-com-merce players have been tryingto disrupt the businesses ofsmall Indian traders by adopt-ing unfair business practicessuch as deep discounting andpredatory pricing by control-ling inventory. Even in thelockdown period, they wouldhave adopted their vitiatedbusiness model and promote allkinds of malpractices to dam-age the foundation of Indianretail,” CAIT said in a statementon Sunday.
The home ministry onSunday issued an order sayingthe following clause — “E-commerce companies. Vehiclesused by e-commerce operatorswill be allowed to ply with nec-essary permissions” — is excluded from the guidelinesissues.
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The Finance Ministry onSunday said that the
Central Board of Direct Taxes(CBDT) is revising the incometax return (ITR) forms for FY2019-20 (Assessment Year2020-21) which will be notifiedby the end of this month, inorder to enable income tax-payers to avail full benefits ofvarious timeline extensionsgranted due to coronaviruscrisis.
“CBDT today said that inorder to facilitate taxpayer toavail full benefits with varioustimeline extensions up to 30thJune 2020 granted by the gov-ernment, it has initiated nec-essary changes in the returnforms so that taxpayers couldtake benefits of their transac-tions carried out during theperiod from 1st April 2020 to30th June 2020 in the returnforms for FY 2019-20,” an offi-cial statement said.
The necessary modifica-tions in the return forms arebeing made to allow taxpayersto avail the benefits of theirinvestments and transactionsmade for the April-June 2020period. Once the revised formsare notified, it will furthernecessitate the consequential
changes in the software andreturn filing utility.
Thereby, the return filingutility after incorporating nec-essary changes shall be madeavailable by May 31, 2020 toavail benefits for FY 2019-20.
Due to outbreak of Covid-19, the government has extend-ed various timelines under theIncome-tax Act, 1961 videTaxation and Other Laws(Relaxation of certain provi-sions) Ordinance, 2020.
Accordingly, the time formaking investment and pay-ments for claiming deductionunder Chapter-VIA-B of IT Actwhich includes Section 80C(LIC, PPF, NSC and so on),80D (mediclaim), 80G (dona-tions), and others for FY 2019-20 has also been extended toJune 30 2020.
Further, the dates for mak-ing investment, construction orpurchase for claiming roll overbenefit in respect of capitalgains under sections 54 to sec-tion 54GB has also beenextended to June 30, 2020. So,return forms are being revisedto facilitate reporting of thetransactions of the relief peri-od, said the statement.
Generally the income-taxreturn forms are notified in thefirst week of April.
New Delhi: Protesting againstproposed resumption of toll onnational highways fromMonday, transporters’ apex bodyAIMTC on Sunday said it willadversely affect rabi crop pro-curement, adding that over 85per cent transporters are cash-starved small operators whoare not able to sustain toll fee.
The All India MotorTransport Congress (AIMTC),the apex body for transportersthat represents about 95 lakhtruckers and transport entities,sought suspension of toll till May3. After temporarily suspendingtoll collection on national high-ways across the country fromMarch 25 amid the coronaviruspandemic, the NHAI is set toresume toll collection fromMonday, a move that is beingopposed by transporters.
“As per inputs receivedfrom across the country, pro-curement of rabi crop will bedisturbed, as more than 85 percent, finance-starved smalloperators can’t sustain toll bur-den starting April 20,” All IndiaMotor Transport CongressPresident Kultaran Singh Atwalsaid seeking the PMO’s inter-vention. PTI
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Smartphone manufacturers who were takingbaby steps to adjust to the new normal were
left in lurch on Sunday after the government pro-hibited e-commerce platforms to sell non-essen-tial items from April 20. Chinese smartphone play-er Realme was all set to start online sales of itssmartphones from April 20, along with launch-ing Narzo smartphone series on April 21 throughe-commerce platforms, which was the firstlaunch post 21-day lockdown in the country.
The company told IANS that bearing in mindthe current order from the Ministry of Home Affairs
(MHA), they are further evaluating the situation.“The decision about the launch of the
much-awaited Narzo series and online sales ofour other smartphones will be made by tomor-row. People’s health comes first at realme and wewill follow the government’s directives issued inbest interests of the people,” informed a compa-ny spokesperson. The Centre allowed e-com-merce companies and the vehicles used by oper-ators of these units to supply only essential goodssubject to “necessary permission” during the lock-down period. The supply of non-essential goodsby e-commerce companies will remain prohib-ited during the 19-day lockdown ending May 3.
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The government is unlikelyto exempt GST on medical
items like ventilators, PPEs,masks, test kits and sanitisers,as it would lead to blockedinput tax credit (ITC), therebyincreasing the cost of manu-facturing and increase the pricefor consumers.
There have been demandsfrom certain sections to exemptGST on certain items like ven-tilators, personal protectiveequipment (PPEs), masks, testkits and sanitisers that areessential items for treatment ofCOVID-19 saying that GSTexemption on these itemswould lead to reduction in
prices. Currently, GST rate onventilator is 12 per cent; onmask, it is 5 per cent; on testkits, it is 12 per cent; on sani-tiser, it is 18 per cent; and onPPE, it is 5 per cent (costing upto Rs 1,000) and 12 per cent (ifthe cost is more that Rs 1,000per piece).
Sources said GST exemp-tion on such items would leadto blocked input tax credit(ITC), thereby increasing thecost of manufacturing and ahigher price for consumers.
GST exemption on suchitems would jeopardise theinterest of the industry andwould not result in any signif-icant gains to consumer, theysaid adding that in the past,
GST exemption on sanitarynapkin has led to similar situ-ation for the domestic manu-facturers.
The sources said that whileconsumers do not gain fromGST exemption on these items,the compliance burden wouldincrease for manufacturers asthey would be required tomaintain separate account ofinputs, input services and cap-ital goods used for manufactureof these items. In case, they arenot in a position to maintainseparate account, they shall berequired to reverse the inputtax credit on all inputs inputservices used in manufacture ofexempted PPE after applyingdetailed calculations.
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Insurance regulator IRDAI hasdirected insurers to take deci-
sion on health insurance claimswithin two hours, a move aimedat alleviating pressure on thecountry’s healthcare infrastruc-ture currently facing the heat of
the coronavirus outbreak. Inlight of prevailing conditionsowing to COVID-19 as also tak-ing into consideration the needfor alleviating the pressure onthe healthcare infrastructure,all the insurers shall decidehealth insurance claims expedi-tiously, it said in a circular.
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Speaker of the US House ofRepresentatives Nancy
Pelosi said on Sunday that shedoes not pay much attention tothe tweets being posted byPresident Donald Trump andaccused him of being a “poorleader.”
“Frankly, I don’t pay thatmuch attention to the presi-dent’s tweets against me. As I’vesaid, he’s a poor leader. He’salways trying to avoid respon-sibility and assign blame,”Pelosi told ABC’s This Weekduring an interview.
She was responding to aquestion about a series oftweets against her by Trump inthe last 48 hours.
In his tweets, Trump lev-elled a series of allegationsagainst the powerfulCongresswoman calling herweak and crazy, away on vaca-tion during the coronaviruscrisis. He also accused her of
costing Americans jobs byblocking new funds for thePaycheck Protection Program.
The TrumpAdministration, Pelosi alleged,has failed in the handling thecoronavirus crisis.
“If he continues to predi-cate the action that we take ona false premise, then we’re infurther danger and his earlierdelay and denial caused deaths.So it’s very important that wewalk the line that is close toevidence, data, science, as wego forward and not whimsy,magic hoax allegations andplacing blame instead of tak-ing responsibility,” she assert-ed.
“We’ll go over all of that.Except he was drawingstrength in his own view ofwhat his falsehoods were gain-ing him and we cannot — wecannot fight a pandemic. Wecannot open up to our econo-my based on falsehoods,”Pelosi said.
Appearing on “State of theUnion” on Sunday talk showon CNN, Senate MinorityLeader Chuck Schumer saidthat the economy might notopen unless there is more test-ing. “We will not be able to getthe economy going full-fledgedunless we have testing,” hesaid. “We have examples:South Korea, I think they hada case, one day, the first casewas within a day of each otherin the US and South Korea, thefirst case. But they did justwhat we’re calling for. They dida massive increase in the num-ber of tests. They did contacttracing. And now South Koreais way over the hump. We mustdo the same thing for thegood of the health of Americaand the good of the economy,”Schumer said.
The number of the coron-avirus cases in the US crossed700,000 on Friday, while over39,000 people have died fromthe disease.
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US Treasury SecretarySteven Mnuchin on
Sunday said that it will bemonths not years for the USeconomy, which has been bat-tered by the coronavirus pan-demic, to be back on track.
The country’s economyhas been ravaged by the chal-lenges posed by the coron-avirus crisis. More than 22million people have lost theirjobs, as the heavy job creatingsectors like travel and tourismhas come to a standstill.
Over 95 per cent of thecountry’s 330 million population are under a stay-at-home order.
The deadly virus has killedmore than 39,000 people andinfected over 740,000 in theUS, which has the highestnumber of COVID-19 casual-
ties in the world.The Trump
Administration has brought ina stimulus package worth USD2 trillion to boost the econo-my.
However, the InternationalMonetary Fund and WorldBank say that the Americaneconomy is in a recession.
Mnuchin exuded confi-dence that the economy wouldsoon be back on track in amatter of months.
“I think it will be months.I definitely don’t think it willbe years,” Mnuchin said onasked if it will be months oryears before the economy is back to the strongposition it was before the pan-demic.
Mnuchin made theremarks during his appearanceat the CNN’s State of theUnion talk show.
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US Vice President MikePence on Sunday said
President Donald Trump is“not happy” with China over itsfailure to communicate toAmerica about the beginningof the coronavirus outbreak inWuhan and his administrationwill take a closer look at thematter. Pence vowed that thecoronavirus testing in the USwill increase substantially,allowing the country toprogress according to theTrump administration’s plan togradually reopen the economy.
“It is clear to us that notonly was there a failure by theWorld Health Organization(WHO) to communicate toAmerica and the world whatwas happening in China, butalso that China was not asforthcoming as they shouldhave been with America or theworld about what was hap-pening,” he said.
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North Korea on Sunday dis-missed as “ungrounded”
President Donald Trump’s com-ment that he recently received “anice note” from the North’sleader, Kim Jong Un.
Trump said during a pressbriefing on the coronavirus pan-demic Saturday that “I receiveda nice note from him recently. Itwas a nice note. I think we’redoing fine.” Trump also defend-ed now-stalled nuclear diplo-macy with Kim, saying the USwould have been at war withNorth Korea if he had not beenelected.
The North’s ForeignMinistry said there was no let-ter addressed to Trump recent-ly by “the supreme leadership,”a reference to Kim. It said itwould examine why the USleadership released “the
ungrounded story” to the media.“The relations between the
top leaders of (North Korea) andthe US are not an issue to betaken up just for diversion norit should be misused for meet-ing selfish purposes,” the state-ment said.
Kim and Trump have metthree times and exchanged let-ters and envoys on many occa-sions since 2018, when theybegan talks on how to addressthe North Korean nuclear cri-sis. The two leaders have builtsome personal relationships,and Trump once said he andKim “fell in love.” Their nucleardiplomacy has made littleheadway since the breakdownof their second summit inVietnam in early 2019, whenTrump rebuffed Kim’s calls forsweeping sanctions relief inreturn for a partial denu-clearization step.
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Private sector lender Kotak Mahindra Bank on Sunday saidits board will deliberate on a fundraising plan later this week,
which can possibly help promoter group led by Uday Kotak cutits stake.
The Mumbai-headquartered bank’s board will meet onWednesday to consider capital raising either through a follow-on public offer, private placement, qualified institutional place-ment (QIP) of shares or a combination of the routes, it said ina regulatory filing to the bourses.
As part of a bank’s plan approved by the Reserve Bank ofIndia, the lender is required to reduce the promoters’ stake to26 per cent from the over 30 per cent held as of December 2019.The lender’s total market capitalisation as of Friday’s close stoodat nearly Rs 2.27 lakh crore.
The intimation to the exchanges, which comes amid the wor-ries over the economic climate due to the COVID-19 pandem-ic, did not specify the total amount that the bank is looking toraise.
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Potentially dangerousCoronavirus misinformation
has spread from continent to con-tinent like the pandemic itself,forcing the world’s largest techcompanies to take unprecedentedaction to protect public health.
Facebook, Google and othershave begun using algorithms, newrules and factual warnings to knockdown harmful Coronavirus con-spiracy theories, questionable adsand unproven remedies that regu-larly crop up on their services —and which could jeopardise lives.
Health officials, critics and oth-ers who have long implored the techcompanies to step up their responseto viral falsehoods have welcomedthe new effort, saying the platformsare now working faster than ever toscrub their sites of Coronavirus mis-information. “It was definitely, with-in the companies, a shift,” said AndyPattison, manager of digital solu-tions for the World HealthOrganisation, who for nearly twoyears has urged companies likeFacebook to take more aggressiveaction against anti-vaccination mis-information. Pattison said he and histeam now directly flag misleadingCoronavirus information and, attimes, lobby for it to be removedfrom Facebook, Google andGoogle’s YouTube service.
Last month, Iranian mediareported more than 300 people haddied and 1,000 were sickened in thecountry after ingesting methanol, atoxic alcohol rumoured to be a rem-edy on social media. An Arizonaman also died after taking chloro-quine phosphate — a product thatsome mistake for the anti-malariadrug chloroquine, which PresidentDonald Trump and conservativepundits have touted as a treatmentfor COVID-19. Health officialshave warned the drug hasn’t beenproven safe or effective as a virustherapy. Days later, Twitter andFacebook began cracking down inunprecedented ways on posts pro-moting unverified treatments.
Twitter deleted a post byTrump’s personal attorney RudyGiuliani that described hydroxy-chloroqine, a cousin to chloro-quine, as “100 percent effective”against Coronavirus. The companyalso removed a tweet from FoxNews personality Laura Ingrahamtouting what she called the drug’s
“promising results.” Other widelyshared claims that hydroxychloro-quine cures COVID-19 live on. Aconservative radio host’s tweetclaiming that “All hospitals andhealth care workers are using it withtotal success” has been shared morethan 12,000 times. In what may bea first, Facebook removed a postfrom Brazilian President JairBolsanaro, who promoted hydrox-ychloroquine as “working in everyplace” to treat coronavirus. Twitteralso removed an associated video.
It has long resisted calls to factcheck or remove false claims direct-ly made by politicians, arguing thepublic should be able to see whattheir elected officials say. In thispandemic, however, the platformshave no choice but to rethink theirrules around misinformation, saidDipayan Ghosh, co-director of thePlatform Accountability Project atHarvard Kennedy School. “Thedamage to society is clear cut: it’sdeath,” Ghosh said. “They don’twant to be held responsible in anyway for perpetuating rumors thatcould lead directly to death.”
YouTube began removingvideos that claimed coronavirus
was caused by 5G wireless networkslast week. Some of the videos hadracked up hundreds of thousandsof views. Google searches for “5G”and “coronavirus” now redirectusers news videos debunking thetheory. Facebook-owned privatemessaging service WhatsApp haslimited how many chats users canforward messages to in an effort tolimit the spread of COVID-19misinformation. Since WhatsAppencrypts all messages, it can’t readthem to determine if they containmisinformation.
The pandemic has thrown upnew challenges to content moder-ation. Early on, health considera-tions forced the contractors thatemploy human moderators to sendmost of them home, where for pri-vacy reasons they couldn’t do theirjobs. Facebook eventually shiftedsome of that work to in-houseemployees and leaned more heav-ily on artificial-intelligence pro-grammes. More recently, it hasmade new arrangements for con-tract moderators to do their jobsremotely.
Meanwhile, bogus ads formasks, hand sanitiser and unregu-
lated blood tests for COVID-19 stillappear on Facebook and Google.And one North Carolina man with44,000 YouTube subscribers whocomplained that his videos promot-ing the 5G and Coronavirus theo-ry were removed is now using theplatform to hawk $99 subscriptionsto view his videos.
The tech platforms point outthey are putting facts about thevirus from news outlets, fact check-ers, and health officials in front oftheir users when their safeguardsfail.
Google “Coronavirus” andyou’ll be directed to your localhealth department. Search onTwitter for “Coronavirus hoax”and you’ll get a link to the USCenters for Disease Control andPrevention. Watch a Coronavirusconspiracy theory video onYouTube and you’ll see a label pro-moting legitimate news outlets andCOVID-19 information from theCDC hovering over it. “There’s a lotof misinformation when there is alack of good information,” saidPattison. “People will fill the voidout of fear.”
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How difficult is it to sit idle? Well,this is something that every indi-vidual in the world must have
found the answer to during lockdownsamid the Coronavirus scare. And with thenew extension order in India, people arelooking for ways to engage themselves.Since children are now involved in remotelearning, they are also looking forward toexciting and entertaining ways to keepthemselves busy. So, why not music?
In today’s digital world, distractionscome easy. Help them break free from thetentacles of boredom by encouragingthem to learn music. Lift off that clothfrom your piano or the old keyboard, askthem to play those guitar strings and handthem those drumsticks, for music will not
only keep them engrossed but will havenumerous benefits.
Even if your child doesn’t know howto play an instrument, there are numer-ous apps to assist them online. There aretutorial videos, games, and apps that willtake you from holding your instrument forthe first time to playing your favorite songs.Chordana Play, a music application sup-ported by android smartphones, is onesuch app that aids children to take three-step lessons either using the app’s keyboardor a USB-connected musical instrumentkeyboard. There is also a scoring systemthat lets one keep track of his/her progress.With such facilities at hand, it becomeseasier for you to support your child inlearning new music.
Learning music helps youngsters inseveral ways which a lot of parents mightbe unaware of. Here are a few reasons thatwould motivate both parents and childrento imbibe the benefits of this beautiful artform:
�,�$��$2$�-#�$It can be a driving force in uniting
people. Examples abound — the NationalAnthem keeps the people of a nation unit-ed while having the ability to promoteideals like peace and solidarity. It can moti-vate the the Army to face the challengesin a battlefield. A lullaby between a par-ent and child not just builds an emotion-al connect but also creates the ‘soundtrack’of life for the child. While dancers groove
to the beat of a song, rebels might have ananthem to voice their concerns.Connecting to a musical instrument leadsto lasting friendships and memories. It canbe a social glue, too, said researchers fromTokyo University of the Arts in a study.
($�"���#�:$��$��($���,��Music sensitises our brain in a way
that it breathes life in its less-active areas.It helps to improve memory, keeps themind sharp, alert and engaged. Rhythmand pitch can be expressed as mathemat-ical formulae, and musicians know thetechniques through which they producea certain sound. This not only makes themind think deeper but also empowers theability to differentiate between variousthings and sounds.
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The creativity involved in learning anart strengthens critical thinking skills inkids. Visual learning through drawing,sculpting, and painting develops visual-spatial skills. This, in turn, teaches themhow to interpret and use visual informa-tion. Additionally, sound and silence canimprove concentration, fostering betteranalytical skills in children. For instance,some digital pianos have high tone qual-ity and rhythm for the child to soak in thedifferent tune.
Effects of enhanced creativity extendto many aspects of a child’s life. Childrendevelop innovation skills when they’reencouraged to express themselves. Musicis a form of self-expression which not onlyunfolds a child’s creative side but alsoimbues him/her with the ability to takecalculated risks. Owning a creative hobbyacts as an emotional modulator thatrestores a sense of balance in our lives.
(#%$�����B,$�-���"����$��The effect of music on human stress
is spectacular, as various studies haveshown. For centuries, sound therapies havelong been popular as a way of relaxing andrestoring one’s health. Music is an easy wayto take some of the pressure off from allthe daily hassles that spike your stress leveland leave you feeling drained and anxious.Learning it early will help the child to growwith a sense of accomplishment. Playingmusic, like daily meditation or hitting thegym, increases focus and attention span.
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Fortunately, there is no shortcut toplaying a musical instrument. It takes alot of time, effort, attention and determi-nation to become competent. The processitself teaches patience and disciplinewith or without the learner realising it.
Research has shown that music offersenormous benefits to our body, mind andoverall health. At this stage of life, whereeverything has come to a standstill, it istime to take baby steps in brighteningyour child’s future and well-being byinculcating a habit of practicing music inthem.
As Plato said, “Music gives soul to theuniverse, wings to the mind, flight to theimagination.”
(The author is the head, Marketing,Casio India.)
��������A hardened mercenary’s mission becomes a soul-
searching race to survive when he’s hired to rescue a druglord’s kidnapped son in Bangladesh. Starring ChrisHemsworth, Rudhraksh Jaiswal, Randeep Hooda, thethriller releases on Netflix on April 24.
������ � ����For decades, a Jewish couple ran ‘Circus of Books,’ a
porn shop and epicenter for gay LA. Their directordaughter captures their life and times. Produced by RyanMurphy, the documentary features interviews with LarryFlynt and Jeff Stryker. It releases on Netflix on April 22.
������ ������A cast of quirky critters and Mother Nature herself narrate
this funny sci-fi series, which peeks into the lives of Earth’s mostincredible creatures. Starring Afi Ekulona, the series, inspiredby Wired magazine’s Absurd Creature of the Week, releases onNetflix on April 22.
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We have come across several situationswhere we have to make a choice between
toleration and retaliation. For example, if wecome across a person who has no control overhis words, is uncultured, impolite, short-tem-pered and talks in an offensive manner, then whatwould we do? Well, under such a situation, a cul-tured and spiritual person would choose to tol-erate because he knows well that when toleranceis lost, temper is also lost and this means a dis-turbance of mental balance.
Hence, under such a situation, one should notfeel hurt or injured and think of taking revenge.Instead, one should pity that person and givehim/her positive vibrations of peace so thathe/she learns control their temper. This approachwould enable one to remain calm, composed anddignified. Tolerance, in such provocative situa-tions saves life. And when you add humility, ithas great value, even as a matter of policy, strat-egy or tactic. Therefore, if one loses tolerance inintense situations even for a moment, it mightcost l ives orother grave con-sequences andunpredictablerepercussions.Tolerance is notonly a high-class virtue andmoral value buta non-violentstrategy for self-defence and sur-vival and aweapon for vic-tory too.
One mustalways remem-ber that toler-ance and humil-ity can softenthe hearts of ourbitter critics and opponents while ensuringpeace of mind for us. It creates harmony and eventhe most arrogant person, at some point of time,expresses appreciation for tolerance in the faceof grave aggravation. Along with this, we shouldalso learn to forget and forgive lapses and short-comings of others in the spirit of friendliness andbrotherhood, or else we cannot have goodwill,co-operation and peace.
However, most people question as to howlong should they allow their tormentor to con-tinue with cruel acts, nefarious designs and dirtyways? Should they tolerate injustice? If they doso, wouldn’t it mean a silent consent to their acts?Wouldn’t it deprive them of justice? Also, it wouldmean their connivance in his/her acts of cruel-ty? Isn’t it a kind of self-imposed servitude, ser-vility and slavery? The answer is that we mustput forth our moral resistance and show our dis-approval through non-cooperation. Better still,we must use our skill of persuasion at appropri-ate time. We must make efforts to show the tor-mentor the real nature of his act, the evils andthe consequences that follow.
We must have the spiritual power to changehis/her heart and transform him/her into a bet-ter human being. We must try a healing touchto the mentally and morally sick person. Onemust pity him rather than lose our own moralsense and react with a feeling of rancor andvengeance. That would be our tolerance. But thequestion that ultimately comes up is whether wehave that spiritual power to transform a sinnerinto a saint? For that we must check up our spir-ituality and fill ourselves with power throughyoga and mediation. With our high spiritualpower, we can use tolerance as a tool of socialtransformation and can be god’s instruments foruplifting a man who has fallen from his seat ofmorality.
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The entire world has beenfacing an unprecedented and
difficult times due to COVID-19.Majority of the countries haveimplemented either complete orpartial lockdowns. In India, theinitial 21-day lockdown has beenextended by the government tillMay 3, keeping the safety of peo-ple in mind.
The situation isn’t new for amajority of Indian women, bothrural and urban, who are notallowed to work by their familiesor have left their careers midwayafter getting married or becom-ing mothers. However, men, inboth rural and urban settings, arefor the first time forced to stay athome for such an extended peri-od. This unusual situation wheremen are at home, has given riseto two kinds of incidences. Onone hand, increase in cases ofabuse against women and chil-dren are being reported and onthe contrary, there are othernarratives of men sharing thehousehold chores.
Men are breaking many‘patriarchal traditions’. A few areentering the kitchen and learn-ing how to cook, some are help-ing in taking care of children andelderly while others are helpingin maintaining a clean house.This lockdown has reconfirmedthe fact that the gender-based,socially constructed roles can besmashed and that too, for good.
Fathers are not meant tocontribute to the development oftheir children only financially.They must learn co-parentingand participate in the holisticdevelopment of children along
with their partners. In March, when the Corona
scare had just started rearing itshead, parents were trickling in topick up food packets for theafternoon from the Milin NagarAnganwadi Centre in Pimpri-Chinchwad, Pune. Children wereat home, safe and sound. RohiniChittaranjan Joshi, who has beenan anganwadi sevika for the last30 years, was elated to see fathersin the queue. According to her,
men have started being activelyinvolved in their child’s develop-ment. She has seen this changein the last two years.
“It’s actually funny becausesome of these men used to cometo this same anganwadi centre aschildren themselves,” Rohinishares. “Now that they’ve grownup into capable men, I don’t needto convince them about theimportance of nutrition andchildcare as much as I had to, 30
years ago.” Integrated Child
Development Services (ICDS) isa government programme inIndia, which provides food,preschool education, primaryhealthcare, immunisation, healthcheck-up and referral services tochildren under six years of ageand their mothers. Even thoughthe programme used to targetmothers as parents, in the lasttwo years, active efforts havebeen made to ensure that malecaretakers are involved too. ThePoshan Pakhwada’s key messagethis year was ‘Men for Nutrition— Increasing Male Involvementin Poshan Abhiyaan to ImproveNutrition Indicators’.
Through public meetings,home visits and the PoshanPakhwada celebrations, angan-wadi workers all overMaharashtra have been equip-ping fathers to interact withtheir children, break gender bar-riers and share more responsibil-ities around the household. “Idemonstrate how fathers canbanter with their child whilebathing them, washing theirhands and feeding them. These
instructions are especially wel-come by migrant families wherethe family consists of only par-ents and children. Men have totake up responsibilities,” sharesRohini.
All the anganwadi sevikas Iinteracted with mentioned thatboth fathers and grandfathers arekeen to know more about thechildren. But there are still cer-tain barriers that keep themfrom being fully involved intheir child’s formative years.Kiran Shivsharan, anotheranganwadi worker from GautamNagar, Pimpri, shares, “In mycommunity, male involvement inmeetings often deterred mothersfrom joining in. As women our-selves, we did face some hesita-tion and perhaps shyness ininteracting with men. Moreover,as my anganwadi is quite small,unlike other anganwadis inMaharashtra, both parents can-not fit in every meeting.”
It is not just women who areconstrained by the gender normsbut men are also restrained bythem and are mocked upon ifthey try to become an exception.“Men from my community start-ed getting involved by perform-ing outdoor chores like register-ing their pregnant wife with usor getting them for vaccinationand periodic visit. With regularcounselling provided by angan-wadi workers, many fathers havestarted breaking the barriers byundertaking household chores.This has become an inspirationfor many more,” says MeeraPandirkar, an anganwadi work-er in Mandangad, Ratnagiri.
Anganwadi workers all overMaharashtra have been takinginnovative steps to ensure fathers,who often come from workingclass families, are reached out tocreatively and as per their avail-ability. “I always schedule myhome visits on Thursdays. Withweekly power cuts on the sameday, it becomes easier to talk tothem,” says Kiran Shivsharan.
As fishermen in coastalMaharashtra return from seaonly in the afternoon, SunainaSotekar, anganwadi worker forValmiki Nagar, Mandangadschedules all the PoshanPakhwada events during thattime to ensure that these men getto attend the community pro-grammes. “I ensure that I keepreiterating the progress of theirchild every time a father comesto pick up. This ensures thatfathers feel more invested intheir child’s progress,” sharesMeera Pandirkar adding thatgrandfathers are also slightlyeasier target group to work with.
Meanwhile, Rohini findstechnology helpful to engagefathers. “At the end of everyPoshan Pakhwada event, whetherit is haat bazaars or palakmelawas, I send WhatsApp pho-tos to fathers’ numbers.”
With the COVID-19 pan-demic, fathers are getting moretime with their families.Hopefully, they will learn to putthese measures into practice andthus engage in co-parenting dur-ing the lockdown and will con-tinue doing so once the worldbecomes free of this virus.
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Almost for a decade I’ve dis-cussed health and yoga withsenior mainstream doctors in
India, USA and Germany. All of themagree that inner peace is essential fora healthy immune system. It is essen-tially the balance within us whichprotects and heals us. Of course, med-icines are also required when things gotoo far. Perhaps, that is why theChitrasutra (the oldest-known treatiseon art-making) says that art is the mostvaluable treasure of mankind. In thistime of COVID-19, Ajanta presents themost beautiful image of inner harmo-ny and the peace of spirit within us.This is Bodhisattava Padmapani, theBearer of the Lotus (5th century).
In the ancient tradition, suchimages were created for us to look uponthem and to awaken those qualitieswithin us. I’ve recently completed theshooting of the film Yoga for Health &
Global Harmony in India, USA,Japan, Germany,
China, Bahamas,Costa Rica,
B r a z i l ,
Colombia and Argentina. During thistime of extreme stress because of thepandemic, these are some excerpts fromthe commentary and interviews of thefilm which can be helpful for our gen-eral well-being.
It was the dawn of civilisation whenyoga was conceived 5,000 years ago inthe Indian sub-continent. By the 8th or9th centuries BCE, a collection ofbeautiful verses called the Upanishadswere composed. These verses crys-tallised deep philosophical ideas, which
would last forever. Yoga wasfundamental in
the vision of life contained in these.The three-thousand-year-old Katha
Upanishad says, “He… whose sensesare uncontrolled, who is not tranquil,whose mind is not at rest, he can neverhope to attain the true self, not eventhrough knowledge.” It also says, “Thesupreme being is formless and cannotbe discerned by the senses, hence, allknowledge of the eternal must beacquired by the more subtle faculties.These are developed only through thepurifying practice of meditation.”
In an interview in the film, DrAnanda Balayogi from Puducherry,
who is a yoga expert as well as a med-ical doctor shares, “The biggest ques-tion that is asked by the research sci-entists today is how does it happen?However, ancient rishis, who were thegreat scientists of that time, asked whoam I? Modern science has its eyes out-ward. It is always looking at someoneelse, something else or some place else.
The yoga dhristi, the yogic perspec-tive has always been inward. Lookingat one’s own self, understanding whowe are, knowing the answer to thequestion, kaun hain hum (who arewe)? If you want to go in everythinghas to be still, right from your body,emotions, mind. That is why theyoga rishis adopted still postures tostabilize the mind and went on tofinding oneself. In recent times, sci-ence and spirituality have been sepa-rated. This was not so in that era.Yoga is the challenging study of con-sciousness itself, understanding one’sbody, emotions, mind and beyond thatunderstanding one’s true self .Conquering the fretful disturbances ofthe world around, great thinkersresearched deep into the self. This wasan epic project spread over many cen-turies. A science of life was developedto help us to know ourselves better. Tohelp us attain peace and joy, which canbe found within.”
In another interview yoga expert,Minakshi Devi Bhavnani says, “Unlessone’s sole purpose of taking up scienceis to achieve liberation, to evolve one’sconsciousness to grow in spirit, I don’tthink one should use the word yoga.They can use any other name.”
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Former Australian pacerJason Gillespie was veryimpressed with Ishant
Sharma’s “thirst for knowledge”when he played English countyunder his coaching, despite beingan established international crick-eter.
Ishant, who has so far picked297 wickets from 97 Tests, playedfor Sussex in 2018 with Gillespieas the coach.
“You know what really struckme about Ishant was his thirst forknowledge, his willingness to lis-ten, ask questions, try new things,because sometimes you can getsenior players, experienced play-ers who will just go about and dotheir thing,” Gillespie said on achat-show Cow Corner Chronicles.
In fact, during the last first-class season, Ishant acknowl-edged that every one spoke abouthis problems but it was Gillespiewho provided solutions.
“They know what they needto do and that’s fine. But Ishantwas very much...He knew what heneeded to do to bowl well. He alsoknew he wanted to get better,”remarked Gillespie.
India toured England laterthat season in 2018 and Gillespiefelt Ishant was better for theexperience.
“Knowing that he had anopportunity at Sussex, knowingthat India were going to be play-ing in England, later on, I thinkhe saw it as a very good oppor-
tunity, to learn and bowl inEnglish conditions, and test him-self. Look he was fantastic with usat Sussex,” added Gillespie.
Gillespie also said that Ishantmade impact on Sussex players.
“The Sussex players were real-ly impressed with Ishant’s workethic. He fitted in really well in the
dressing room. His work ethic inthe nets, or on the track was phe-nomenal. It was really good for ouryoung seam bowlers at Sussex tosee, that this is what it takes for aTest bowler,” he added.
Gillespie, who worked withanother Test specialistCheteshwar Pujara, whom he
coached at other county sideYorkshire, also praised the latter.
“We had Pujara at Yorkshire,when I was head coach there. Weneeded a batsman in the top threewho could do a job for us insometimes challenging condi-tions, Someone with a very goodtemperament, someone whocould absorb some very goodbowling.
“Pujara fitted that bill perfect-ly. He found it a challenge, theearly season in county cricket withthe duke cricket ball movingaround in English conditions. Hefound that a challenge. I think that
was really a good test for him asa player. A good learning curvefor Cheteshwar,” said Gillespieabout Pujara’s first stint withYorkshire in 2015.
Gillespie feels the countystint helped Pujara, who hasamassed 5840 runs from 77 Tests,immensely.
“I think he grew as a player.He learnt more about his game.He adapted to conditions inEngland which can be quite chal-lenging for top three-top fourbatsmen at the best of times. So,I thought he did wonderfullywell,” Gillespie signed off.
�$%�"$(�,) Indian boxing’s High PerformanceDirector Santiago Nieva expects the nation-al camp to resume at least partially nextmonth and foresees no hiccups in fans rush-ing back to live sport in the age of social dis-tancing as he feels people always “look forrisks”.
The seasoned coach, who has been withthe Indian team since 2017, is quite optimisticof things improving by the beginning of nextmonth despite the rising COVID-19 cases.
“I think the camp will restart nextmonth. If not full strength, then at least thecore group,” he said.
The core group comprises the ones whohave already qualified for the Olympics andthose who are seen to be strong contendersto make the cut in future qualifiers.
Asked what gives him the belief thatcamps would be good to go if the nationallockdown ends, the Swede said, “That’s myhunch. Of course I can be wrong but I thinkwe will be able to restart early next month.”
“Humans have the ability to adapt to dif-ferent situations. And I think here, people arefacing up to the reality quite well even thoughit is an unprecedented crisis.”
Talking of the crisis and its impact onsports, Nieva said things would never be thesame again but asserted that people will notgive up on live sports either.
“In amateur boxing, we are used to fight-ing in empty halls, so no fan concerns for us,”he joked.
“But seriously speaking, yes, there will bemore restrictions on movement of people, thesecurity is going to be tighter, it won’t be thateasy to travel. But fans, they are going to rushback at the first opportunity,” he predicted.
“People don’t care. I think they should bemore careful but mostly they are not. Theywill come back easily because they have beenconfined at homes for too long. PTI
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Mahendra Singh Dhoni’sintelligent recruitment
policy of roping in interna-tional captains who can con-tribute stretagically, was one ofthe biggest reason for ChennaiSuper Kings’ stupendous suc-cess in IPL, feels former SouthAfrica captain Faf du Plessis.
CSK has been a part of 10out of 12 seasons of IPL andhave never finished lowerthan semi-finals or play-offs.
“A great thing that CSKhas done over the years, andthat’s credit to MS and(Stephen) Fleming the coach,is they have targeted captains— (Brendon) McCullum,myself, (Dwayne) Bravo, obvi-ously MS, (Suresh) Raina’scaptained a bit — becausethey want thinking crick-eters,” the 35-year-old toldCSK’s website.
“So, there’s a lot of leaderswithin group, that experienceof thinking cricketers is whatthey want and obviously it hasproven to be very successful,”he added.
“Chennai Super Kings isa great franchise to be a partof. MS has got such strongleadership. He leaves a mas-sive hole when he’s not on thefield,” the former SA skipperwaxed eloquent about Dhoni.
Du Plessis, who has beenpart of CSK, also spoke abouthis passion for fielding, addingthe team had a few very goodfielders.
“I love going to positionson the field where the ballgoes all the time. We arelucky at CSK that we got a fewvery good fielders. Jaddu(Ravindra Jadeja) is incredible,he has got the strongest armin world cricket. Jaddu wantsthem to try and run. He jogsto the ball because he knowsif you run, you are out,” headded.
(#�"#�)Brighton owner TonyBloom believes that relegationshould be scrapped if thePremier League season cannotbe completed, claiming itwould be “unfathomable” thata club could be doomed by “0.2points”.
Most teams in the topflight still have nine games toplay while June 30 has beenmentioned as a potential cut-off date for the season to end.
“I don’t foresee a situation,if the season’s not played out,that teams will get relegated ona points-per-game basis,”Bloom said.
“I just don’t think it’s fath-omable that a team which is notallowed to play out the seasonmay lose out on 0.2 pointsbased on this system, and alsoit does not take into account thestrength of the team you havenot played.”
If the season ended early,
Brighton would stay up as theysit two points above drop zone.
Bournemouth, Aston Villaand Norwich were in the rele-gation places when the leaguewas suspended.
“You may get a title win-ner, obviously Liverpooldeserve it, you may use thatcriteria for European qualifica-tion but I do not see how any-one can vote for that, certain-ly the per cent needed (70 percent), for teams to get relegat-ed. I really cannot foreseethat,” added Bloom. AFP
(#�"#�� E,���F)� Former ManchesterUnited and Real Madrid midfielderDavid Beckham rates Barcelona’s LionelMessi higher than Cristiano Ronaldo.
Ronaldo succeeded Beckham asManchester United’s No 7 before arriv-ing at Real Madrid two years after theEngland captain left the Spanish giants.
Beckham has also experience ofplaying against a young Lionel Messi inthe latter’s initial years with Barcelona andfaced him once while he was playing forParis Saint-Germain.
“He [Messi] is alone in his class as aplayer, it is impossible that there isanother like him,” Beckham told Telam.“He, like Cristiano Ronaldo, who is notat his level, are both above the rest.”
Beckham recalled his last matchagainst Barca in 2013 Champions Leaguequarters. PSG were ahead at one stage atCamp Nou when Messi came on as a sub-stitute. Eventually, Pedro scored andBarca went through on away goals rule.
“We were leading before Messi camein, and once he came in, Barca scored,”Beckham said. He was 37 years old bythen and ended his illustrious playingcareer at the end of season but Beckhamsaid that he did not enjoy losing that tie.
“Although I enjoyed playing at thatlevel at my age, I do not like to lose. Ourteam played well. In both matches, we didthings we should be proud of. We didn’tlose against Barcelona, and that is some-thing that should motivate us,” he said.
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Bayern Munich captain andgoalkeeper Manuel Neuer
told German media onSunday he has become “irri-tated” with negotiations toextend his contract, whichhave reportedly stalled inrecent weeks.
“All talks I have had sinceI have been here have beenconfidential... nothing hasever leaked,” the 34-year-oldtold Germany’s most populardaily Bild.
“But now, details aboutthe current talks are con-stantly appearing in the media,and are often untrue. That irri-
tates me. It’s not something Iam used to at Bayern.”
The veteran goalkeeper’sunusually candid commentscome amid widespreadreports that his current con-tract negotiations have hitthe rocks.
If the talks fail, club cap-tain Neuer could be free toleave Bayern in June andattract the interest of thePremier League clubs.
Bayern have recentlyextended the contracts of for-ward Thomas Mueller andhead coach Hansi Flick, bothuntil 2023.
Neuer hailed Flick as a“super coach” and said that the
55-year-old’s extension hadconvinced him too to stay onat Bayern.
“I want to have a contractwhich is a win-win situationfor me and Bayern. I want toperform, be there for theteam... and give 100 percent,”he said.
“The conditions have tobe right (for that),” he added.
Neuer, who helpedGermany win the 2014 WorldCup title, has been namedworld goalkeeper of the yearfour times.
He has kept 191 cleansheets in 373 appearances forBayern since joining fromSchalke in 2011.
�#��$2,"$#) Real Madrid’sUruguayan midfielderFederico Valverde has cred-ited manager ZinedineZidane for giving him theself-confidence to flourishwith the Spanish giants.
After playing 25 match-es in his first full season as aReal Madrid player in 2018-19, Valverde has alreadymade 32 appearances in thiscampaign, mostly as a starter.
“He gives you confidencein a way that few other coach-es do,” Valverde said anInstagram Live.
“Everyone has greatrespect for him because, apartfrom being the manager, he’sa legend on a world scale,”Valverde said. “You have tokeep what he tells you insideyour head. Sometimes in agame he’ll tell you to changesomething or give you a sug-
gestion. Or he might criticizeyou. If he says it, you have tolisten and try to get the mostout of it.”
Valverde also praisedReal Madrid midfield col-leagues Luke Modric,Casemiro and Tony Kroos.He described Kroos as a ref-erence for all players, citingthe Germany World Cupwinner’s “admirable compo-sure” on the ball. IANS
�$�$2�)� European football’sgoverning body UEFA ismulling to continue theChampions League matches,suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic, on August 7-8.
According to a report onSky Sports Italia, the first of theremaining matches in theRound of 16 will be played onAugust 7 and 8 after whichthere will be matches everythree days until August 29when the final is scheduled tobe held.
The semi-final will be onAugust 18-18 and 21-22 beforethe final in Istanbul.
This would also result inthe group stage of the 2020/21season of the ChampionsLeague being postponed toOctober 20. It was initiallyrumoured that a deadline ofAugust 3 has been set for thefinal to be held but UEFA Prezdenied that. IANS
(#�"#�) Wayne Rooneymay be ManchesterUnited and England’srecord goalscorer but hestill believes he shouldhave found the back ofthe net more often dur-ing his career, eventhough he was not a nat-ural finisher.
Rooney, a teenagesensation at Everton,joined United in 2004and went on to score 253goals in 559 appearancesduring a 13-year spell forthe Old Trafford clubthat saw the Red Devilspile up the trophies.
Rooney surpassed1966 World Cup-win-ner Bobby Charlton asUnited’s all-time lead-ing scorer, just as he didfor England with a tallyof 53 goals.
Despite those fig-ures Rooney, writing inhis Sunday Times col-umn, insisted: “I’m goingto be honest — and thismight surprise you —but I’m not a naturalgoalscorer.”
The 34-year-old,now a player-coach atsecond-tier DerbyCounty, added: “I was
never a Gary Lineker or aRuud van Nistelrooy; I neverlooked at myself that way.
“I hold the goal records forManchester United andEngland and am very proudabout that — yet there havebeen better No 9s than me.
“How did I become arecord-breaker if I wasn’t a nat-ural scorer? Time,” Rooney
explained. “I played for Unitedfor 13 years, England for 15years. I had time to break thoserecords — and looking back Ishould have scored more.”
Rooney backed HarryKane to break his Englandrecord, although he would likethe Tottenham Hotspur strik-er “to stay high as that No 9”after seeing him drop deeperin during the past two seasons.
“I don’t think it will takelong for Harry Kane to claimmy England record and itwould be a proud moment forme,” Rooney said.
“I’ve never been a selfishplayer and it would be great forEngland for Harry to get there.Bobby Charlton had to wait 50years (for Rooney to break hisEngland record) — I hope it’snot so long for me.
“The United record mightlast longer simply becauseplayers don’t stay at clubs aslong as they used to. AFP
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Novak Djokovic on Saturdaysaid that he, Roger Federer
and Rafael Nadal are organising aidfor players struggling with theparalysis of the game due to thecoronavirus pandemic.
“I spoke to Roger and Rafa afew days ago,” Djokovic, the worldnumber one, said in an Instagramchat with friend and rival StanWawrinka on Saturday.
“We had a long conversationabout the near future of tennis,what is going to happen, how wecan contribute and how we canhelp especially lower-ranked play-ers, who are obviously strugglingthe most.”
“The majority of the playerswho are ranked between 200, 250in the world, and the 700th or1,000th do not have federationsupport, do not have sponsors.They are completely independentand left alone,” he said
“Guys who are ranked between200-250, especially to 700...arethinking of leaving tennis rightnow.”
He said players, the ATP and
the four Grand Slams “would allget together and will contribute toa player relief fund that ATP willdistribute.”
“It looks, hopefully, that therewill something between $3 million(2.75 million euros) and $4.5 mil-lion that is going to be distributed,”
he estimated.Djokovic said the cash could
come from the prize money for theseason-ending World Tour Finalsor the final bonus pools for topplayers.
�������������� “Maybe if we don’t have any
tournaments this season, we cantake a certain percentage from ourprize money form Australian Openin January,” he said.
“These guys are the grass rootsof tennis. The future of tennis. Weneed to show them they still canrely on support of the top guys.”
According to reports in tennismedia, Djokovic, as president ofthe ATP Players' Council, whichalso includes Federer and Nadal,proposed to members that playersin the top 100 for singles and thetop 20 in doubles contributeaccording to their rankings.
The proposed scale runs from$30,000 for a top-five player to$5,000 for those between 51 and100.
That would raise approximate-ly $1 million and the ATP wouldmake a similar contribution.
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World No 1 Novak Djokovic saidthat rival and Swiss great Roger
Federer’s ability to come up with serveand volley is somewhat underrated andnot talked about enough.
In an InstagramLive chat with for-mer world No 1 Andy Murray, Djokovicsaid that Federer is one of the most com-plete players to have ever played thegame.
“Roger. I mean he would definitelybe there. I mean he is one of the mostcomplete players ever to play the game,”said the Serb.
“We all know how great he is. I thinkit is a bit underrated. I don’t know if peo-ple really talk about his ability to comeup with serve and volley; accurate playat the most challenging times in thematch, against us (great returners).
“He was really not intimidated somuch by the return. He would place,especially on the quicker surfaces, hewould disrupt your rhythm.”
The pair have played a number ofmatches over the years that have decid-ed Grand Slam titles, the latest of whichincluded the 2020 Australian Opensemifinal and the epic 2019 Wimbledonfinal, both of which Djokovic won.
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Goa Sports MinisterManohar Ajgaonkar on
Sunday said the state govern-ment will seek clarification fromthe Indian Olympic Associationover the fate of the much-delayed 36th National Games inwake of COVID-19 pandemic.
The coronavirus outbreakhas brought all sporting activi-ties to a grinding halt worldwide.In India, major events like theIPL have been postponed indef-initely.
The pandemic has alsoraised doubts over the theNational Games, scheduled to beheld in the state from October20 to November 4.
Goa has reported a total ofseven positive cases, of which sixhave recovered.
“My department has writtento the Chief Minister onSaturday urging him to seekclarification from IOA over thefate of National Games,”Ajgaonkar said.
The minister said the stateis prepared to host the games,but need at least three monthsadvance notice.
“We were all set to host the
National Games in November2020. Now, with this kind of sit-uation, we are not sure what willhappen,” he said
“Our infrastructure for theGames is ready. Our grounds areready. We can host nationalgames any time. But we need tobe informed three months inadvance about the date. Somesmall time tenders needs to beadvertised.”
The minister added thatthe ongoing works on the infra-structure creation are in the finalphase and can be completedwithin a month.
Goa was earlier supposed tohost the 36th edition of theNational Games in November2018. However, the state later setaside dates for the event fromMarch 30 to April 14 last year,but then expressed its inabilityto host the Games during thatperiod owing to the general elec-tions.
Earlier this month, IOApresident Narinder Batraexpressed optimism that theNational Games will go ahead asper schedule and will provide aperfect preparatory platformfor the Tokyo Olympics-boundIndian athletes.
�"#� &8"�&#�)"&�/�)�9 �,-!%*!��(+)!""!%���--!"+�!9����������4����4���43���������:� �:�,)�It was difficult to getboth of them out, but SachinTendulkar was a bit harder todislodge than Brian Lara, saidformer Australia pacer JasonGillespie.
The Aussie ratedTendulkar along side Lara asthe toughest batsman to dis-miss in his career.
“Two different types ofplayers, two equally difficult toget out. I always felt, Sachin wasprobably a little bit harder todislodge, in terms of getting hiswicket, but I didn’t feel hewould take you apart, in quitethe same way as Brian.
“I always felt I was in with
more of a chance to get Brianout because he was a bit moreexpansive, with his game. ButI found Sachin’s defence wasvery hard to get through,”Gillespie said.
“Look two fine players, Iam just really glad that I don’thave to bowl to them anymore.They were just far too good.
“It’s quite an honour forme to be able to sit here andtalk to you and say that Ibowled against these guys.
“It was a wonderful time tobe a cricketer, got to bowlagainst the best in the world.For me that was very satisfy-ing,” added Gillespie. IANS
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�$%�"$(�,) It is common forany captain to have afavourite player and when itcame to Mahendra SinghDhoni, it was Suresh Raina,who enjoyed unstinted back-ing from the former Indiacaptain, feels Yuvraj Singh.
One of India’s greatestlimited-overs cricketers,Yuvraj remembered howDhoni faced selection dilem-ma when he had to choosetwo out of him, Yusuf Pathanand Raina in the playing XIduring the 2011 World Cup.
“Suresh Raina had a lotof support then, because MSused to back him. Everycaptain has a favourite play-
er and I think Mahi reallybacked Raina at that time,”Yuvraj told Sports Tak.
Ultimately all three play-ers made the playing XI(although Yusuf was droppedfrom playing XI later) withYuvraj playing a pivitol rolein winning the title.
“Yusuf Pathan was alsoperforming well at that timeand even I was doing welland was also picking wickets.And Raina was not in agood touch then,” he said.
“They did not have a left-arm spinner at that time andI was picking wickets so theydid not have any choice,” headded. PTI
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