ˆ!˚ ˙ · south Mumbai office, Water ... booking flight tickets to Bihar ... Delhi-Ludhiana...

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M aharashtra may be show- ing signs of stabilising in the range of 2,000-2,200 new cases in a day, but the situa- tion is fast taking a turn for the worse elsewhere in the country. On Wednesday, India saw the biggest single day spike of 7,270 new cases and 187 deaths, due to alarming spurt in Tamil Nadu, Delhi, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, and States which had so far been able to contain the fury of the coronavirus. Maharashtra reported 2,190 new cases and 105 death, which is on the very high side but far better than the 3,000- plus number it reported five days ago. The State has a total 56,948 cases and 1,897 deaths. The death figure of 105 is highest single day count so far. Engaged in a fierce battle against coronavirus, Maharashtra is also witnessing a bitter political war between the ruling alliance and the BJP. On Wednesday, the Ministers belonging to the three con- stituents of the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) — Shiv Sena, NCP and Congress — ripped into the Opposition BJP, demanding to know if it was a friend or foe of Maharashtra and picking holes in the statistics provided by for- mer Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis about the Central assistance to the State. Addressing a joint news conference at the Shiv Sena’s south Mumbai office, Water Resources Minister Jayant Patil, Congress Minister Balarsaheb Thorat and Revenue Minister Balasaheb Thorat came down heavily on Fadnavis for trying to “malign” the Government. Continued on Page 2 A s tension simmers on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in Ladakh, China on Wednesday hinted that talks are the only way to defuse the four ongoing standoffs with India. While its envoy in New Delhi said the difference should be resolved through commu- nications, his Government in Beijing said both the countries have proper mechanisms to find solution through dialogue. It also said the situation on the border is “overall stable and controllable.” This indicated that diplo- matic and military level parleys between the two countries are now on in full swing to come at an amicable agreement enabling the two Armies to move back from each other thereby ending the eyeball to eyeball confrontation. At least six rounds of talks at the local level at the rank of Brigadiers were held so far between the two sides in the last 20 days but of no avail so far. Chinese Ambassador to India Sun Weidong said in New Delhi the two nations should never let their differ- ences shadow the overall bilat- eral ties and must enhance mutual trust. Without referring to the military standoff, Sun said both the sides should resolve their differences through com- munication and adhere to the basic premise that they pose no threat to each other. “We should correctly view our differences and never let them shadow the overall situ- ation of bilateral cooperation. At the same time, we should gradually seek understanding through communication and constantly resolve differences,” Sun said. He was speaking at an online interactive session organised by Confederation of Young Leaders (CYL). “We should adhere to the basic judgment that China and India are each other’s opportunities and pose no threat to each other. We need to see each other’s development in a cor- rect way and enhance strategic mutual trust,” he said. Continued on Page 2 W hile an innumerable number of migrant labourers, mostly hailing from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Madhya Pradesh, have set off on foot in the scorching heat to reach their homes hundreds of miles away after they were left in the lurch by their employers in the cities, a farmer in National Capital’s Tigipur vil- lage has set an example by booking flight tickets to Bihar for 10 labourers who have been working in his mushroom farm for the last 27 years. “They have always stood by us and now it is the time for us to stand by them in the time of their despair,” Pappan Singh Gahlot, the farmer, said, adding the flight is scheduled to leave on May 28 morning. “Every year some families hailing from Sripur Gahar vil- lage in Bihar’s Samastipur, come here to sow my field and thereafter they return to their homes. This time around 10 labourers had arrived here to sow my field but lockdown was announced and they got stuck here,” said Gahlot. Detailed report on P3 T he Supreme Court on Wednesday blasted private hospitals who set up their buildings on land given by the Government for free but failed to reciprocate by helping the Government in treating the poor Covid patients for free. “They have been given land either free of cost or at a very nominal cost. These pri- vate charitable hospitals should treat them for free,” a Bench headed by Chief Justice of India SA Bobde asked Solicitor General Tushar Mehta. The SC asked Mehta to identify such private hospitals, which have been allotted free land. M igrants remained the worst sufferers of corona pandemic with eight of them dying in tragic circumstances on Wednesday. Three women and a man came under the wheels of Sharamik Express in Chandauli district in Ballia, while four others were found dead on special trains in Varanasi. According to driver of Shramik Express, four persons were sleeping on tracks at Khobarwa hamlet of Hinauta Jagdishsarai under Sadar Kotwali police station of Chandauli late on Tuesday. Continued on Page 2 New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed that the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) be also made a party to the pleas alleg- ing that a section of the media has been fanning communal hatred by portraying Tablighi Jamaat congregation, held in March in Delhi, as being one of the main reasons for the spread of Covid-19. While issuing notices to the Centre and the Press Council of India (PCI), a Bench com- prising Chief Justice SA Bobde, AS Bopanna and Hrishikesh Roy said it takes all matters “seriously”, when a lawyer urged it to do so. Continued on Page 2 Washington: For the first time, Twitter put a warning label under two posts by Donald Trump, prompting the US President to accuse it of “inter- fering” in the presidential elec- tion and even threatened to close down the social media platforms. Twitter highlighted two of Trump’s tweets on Tuesday that falsely claimed mail-in ballots would lead to widespread voter fraud in the polls, appending a message Twitter introduced recently to fight misinformation or unverified claims. Detailed report on P8 Y ou don’t need to purchase a costly face mask such as N95 to keep the Covid-19 at bay. Cloth masks, particularly those with several layers of cot- ton cloth, are enough as they can reduce transmission of the deadly virus by blocking up to 99 per cent of infectious parti- cles, said researchers in their study published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine. Scientists, including those from McMaster University in Canada, said most virus trans- mission occurs via larger par- ticles in secretions like droplets, generated while speaking, coughing, or sneezing, and some are created when water evaporates from these droplets, turning them into aerosol- sized particles. “The point is not that some particles can penetrate the mask, but that some particles are stopped, particularly out- wardly, from the wearer,” said study first author Catherine Clase from McMaster University in Canada. “Ideally, we would want a mask to work in both direc- tions, protecting the wearer from the environment and reducing the contamination of the environment by the wear- er,” Clase added. The review suggests that cloth can block particles, even aerosol-sized particles, and this supports Canadian public health policy on the issue. Continued on Page 2 A fter migrant workers, air passengers have posed a serious threat amid coron- avirus pandemic across India as seven air travelers in four dif- ferent domestic flights have tested positive so far after the opening of domestic flights on May 25. Three air passengers who arrived in Jammu, one member of Air India security staff in Delhi-Ludhiana flight and one passenger of IndiGo Chennai to Coimbatore flight tested posi- tive. Besides, two crew mem- bers of Air India’s Toronto to Delhi flight (for bringing stranded Indians) have tested positive for Covid-19. The incident of coron- avirus patients undertaking air travel in domestic flights has led to serious concerns not only over the implementation of safety norms by airports, but on the entire decision of resuming flight operations. Three air passengers who had arrived in Jammu via air tested positive for coronavirus on Wednesday. Continued on Page 2 New Delhi: Two global health experts on Wednesday said novel coronavirus infection is here to stay for more than a year and called for aggressive testing to prevent its spread. While US health expert Professor Ashish Jha exuded confidence that a vaccine for the highly infectious disease will be available in a year’s time, Professor Johan Giesecke from Sweden said India should adopt a ‘soft’ lockdown as a severe one will ruin its economy. In an interaction with Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, the experts talked extensively about the Covid-19 pandemic as part of the series being aired on Congress social media channels. Detailed report on P4 U S President Donald Trump on Wednesday offered to play the role of mediator to diffuse the border standoff between India and China, saying he is “ready, willing and able to mediate” between the two sides. Trump said he had conveyed his offer to India and China. “We have informed both India and China that the US is ready, willing and able to mediate or arbitrate their now raging border dispute. Thank you!” he tweeted. India has repeatedly snubbed Trump’s similar attempts in the past to medi- ate between India and Pakistan on Kashmir. His offer comes at a time when the US is criticising China for the coronavirus pandemic. China has also hit back warning the US taking the world to brink of “new cold war” over the coronavirus. Incidentally, Trump’s will- ingness to mediate came a day after Chinese President President Xi Jinping ordered the military to scale up battle preparedness, visualising worst-case scenarios, and asked his troops to resolutely defend the country’s sovereignty. Continued on Page 2 N epal has delayed a discus- sion in Parliament to amend the Constitution for updating the country’s map showing Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura under its territory as Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli has decided to seek national consensus on the issue amid a border dispute with India, parliamentary sources said on Wednesday. The Constitution amend- ment proposal was to be tabled in Parliament on Tuesday but it could not be done after Oli said that he wanted to hold an all-party meeting to discuss the matter. Amid rising tensions, Oli is seeking other parties’ views on the issue and called the all-party meeting to forge national consensus before mov- ing the Constitution amend- ment proposal forward, the sources said. The ruling Nepal Communist Party (NCP) com- mands a two-thirds majority in the National Assembly, but it needs support from other par- ties to get the Constitution amendment proposal through the Lower House, as it falls short of around 10 seats. Ganesh Shah, the ruling NCP’s standing committee member, said that the Government has decided to hold the discussion on Constitution amendment for the time being as per the request of the main Opposition Nepali Congress (NC) and Samajwadi Janata Party (SJP), a key Madhesi party. The NC sought some time as the mat- ter should be discussed in its Central Committee Meeting, before being brought to Parliament for discussion. The SJP has demanded that their long-standing issues relating to the re-demarcation of the provinces and citizenship should also be incorporated while amending the Constitution amendment. The Government had reg- istered the amendment pro- posal in Parliament on May 22 after releasing the new politi- cal map of Nepal depicting Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limipiyadhura as its territories on May 18. Reacting to Nepal’s move, India on Wednesday bluntly asked it not to resort to any “artificial enlargement” of its territorial claim after the neigh- bouring country came up with a new political map showing Lipulekh, Limpiyadhura and Kalapani as its territory. Continued on Page 2 T he coronavirus death toll in Delhi climbed to 303, while 792 fresh cases of Covid- 19 were reported on Wednesday, the highest single- day spike here, taking the total number of cases in the city to over 15,000, authorities said. The previous highest spike in fresh cases — 660 — was recorded on May 22. This is the first time in Delhi that over 700 Covid-19 cases have been reported in a day. In a bulletin issued on Wednesday, the Delhi Health Department said the death toll from coronavirus infection has risen to 303 and the total num- ber of cases mounted to 15,257. However, officials of the 10 hospitals treating Covid-19 patients had said the number of people dead due to the virus was higher than what the Delhi Government’s bulletin reflected. “It has also been observed that despite repeated reminders, the death sum- maries of the deceased are not being provided to the death audit committee leading to submission of “incorrect or delayed reports,” the order had said. The Safdarjung Hospital has submitted reports to the Delhi Government’s death audit committee on 52 fatali- ties that took place at the facility in the last two months, official sources said on Wednesday. Continued on Page 2

Transcript of ˆ!˚ ˙ · south Mumbai office, Water ... booking flight tickets to Bihar ... Delhi-Ludhiana...

Page 1: ˆ!˚ ˙ · south Mumbai office, Water ... booking flight tickets to Bihar ... Delhi-Ludhiana flight and one passenger of IndiGo Chennai to Coimbatore flight tested posi-tive. Besides,

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Maharashtra may be show-ing signs of stabilising in

the range of 2,000-2,200 newcases in a day, but the situa-tion is fast taking a turn for theworse elsewhere in the country.On Wednesday, India saw thebiggest single day spike of7,270 new cases and 187deaths, due to alarming spurtin Tamil Nadu, Delhi, WestBengal, Uttar Pradesh, andStates which had so far beenable to contain the fury of thecoronavirus.

Maharashtra reported2,190 new cases and 105 death,which is on the very high sidebut far better than the 3,000-plus number it reported fivedays ago. The State has a total56,948 cases and 1,897 deaths.

The death figure of 105 ishighest single day count so far.

Engaged in a fierce battleagainst coronavirus,Maharashtra is also witnessinga bitter political war betweenthe ruling alliance and the BJP.On Wednesday, the Ministersbelonging to the three con-stituents of the ruling MahaVikas Aghadi (MVA) — ShivSena, NCP and Congress —

ripped into the OppositionBJP, demanding to know if itwas a friend or foe ofMaharashtra and picking holesin the statistics provided by for-mer Chief Minister DevendraFadnavis about the Centralassistance to the State.

Addressing a joint newsconference at the Shiv Sena’ssouth Mumbai office, WaterResources Minister Jayant Patil,Congress Minister BalarsahebThorat and Revenue MinisterBalasaheb Thorat came downheavily on Fadnavis for tryingto “malign” the Government.Continued on Page 2

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As tension simmers on theLine of Actual Control

(LAC) in Ladakh, China onWednesday hinted that talks arethe only way to defuse the fourongoing standoffs with India.

While its envoy in NewDelhi said the difference shouldbe resolved through commu-nications, his Government inBeijing said both the countrieshave proper mechanisms tofind solution through dialogue.It also said the situation on theborder is “overall stable andcontrollable.”

This indicated that diplo-matic and military level parleysbetween the two countries arenow on in full swing to comeat an amicable agreementenabling the two Armies tomove back from each otherthereby ending the eyeball toeyeball confrontation.

At least six rounds of talksat the local level at the rank ofBrigadiers were held so farbetween the two sides in the last20 days but of no avail so far.

Chinese Ambassador toIndia Sun Weidong said inNew Delhi the two nationsshould never let their differ-ences shadow the overall bilat-

eral ties and must enhancemutual trust.

Without referring to themilitary standoff, Sun saidboth the sides should resolvetheir differences through com-munication and adhere to thebasic premise that they pose nothreat to each other.

“We should correctly viewour differences and never letthem shadow the overall situ-ation of bilateral cooperation.

At the same time, we shouldgradually seek understandingthrough communication andconstantly resolve differences,”Sun said.

He was speaking at anonline interactive sessionorganised by Confederation ofYoung Leaders (CYL). “Weshould adhere to the basicjudgment that China and Indiaare each other’s opportunitiesand pose no threat to eachother. We need to see eachother’s development in a cor-rect way and enhance strategicmutual trust,” he said.

Continued on Page 2

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While an innumerablenumber of migrant

labourers, mostly hailing fromUttar Pradesh, Bihar andMadhya Pradesh, have set offon foot in the scorching heat toreach their homes hundreds ofmiles away after they were leftin the lurch by their employersin the cities, a farmer inNational Capital’s Tigipur vil-lage has set an example bybooking flight tickets to Biharfor 10 labourers who havebeen working in his mushroomfarm for the last 27 years.

“They have always stood byus and now it is the time for us

to stand by them in the time oftheir despair,” Pappan SinghGahlot, the farmer, said,adding the flight is scheduledto leave on May 28 morning.

“Every year some familieshailing from Sripur Gahar vil-lage in Bihar’s Samastipur,

come here to sow my field andthereafter they return to theirhomes. This time around 10labourers had arrived here tosow my field but lockdown wasannounced and they got stuckhere,” said Gahlot.

Detailed report on P3

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The Supreme Court onWednesday blasted private

hospitals who set up theirbuildings on land given by theGovernment for free but failedto reciprocate by helping theGovernment in treating thepoor Covid patients for free.

“They have been givenland either free of cost or at avery nominal cost. These pri-vate charitable hospitals shouldtreat them for free,” a Benchheaded by Chief Justice ofIndia SA Bobde asked SolicitorGeneral Tushar Mehta. The SCasked Mehta to identify suchprivate hospitals, which havebeen allotted free land.

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Migrants remained theworst sufferers of corona

pandemic with eight of themdying in tragic circumstanceson Wednesday. Three womenand a man came under thewheels of Sharamik Express inChandauli district in Ballia,while four others were founddead on special trains in Varanasi.

According to driver ofShramik Express, four personswere sleeping on tracks atKhobarwa hamlet of Hinauta

Jagdishsarai under SadarKotwali police station ofChandauli late on Tuesday.

Continued on Page 2

New Delhi: The SupremeCourt on Wednesday directedthat the News BroadcastersAssociation (NBA) be alsomade a party to the pleas alleg-ing that a section of the mediahas been fanning communalhatred by portraying TablighiJamaat congregation, held inMarch in Delhi, as being one ofthe main reasons for the spreadof Covid-19.

While issuing notices to theCentre and the Press Councilof India (PCI), a Bench com-prising Chief Justice SA Bobde,AS Bopanna and HrishikeshRoy said it takes all matters“seriously”, when a lawyerurged it to do so.

Continued on Page 2

Washington: For the first time,Twitter put a warning labelunder two posts by DonaldTrump, prompting the USPresident to accuse it of “inter-fering” in the presidential elec-tion and even threatened toclose down the social mediaplatforms.

Twitter highlighted two ofTrump’s tweets on Tuesday thatfalsely claimed mail-in ballotswould lead to widespread voterfraud in the polls, appending amessage Twitter introducedrecently to fight misinformationor unverified claims.

Detailed report on P8

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You don’t need to purchasea costly face mask such as

N95 to keep the Covid-19 atbay. Cloth masks, particularlythose with several layers of cot-ton cloth, are enough as theycan reduce transmission of thedeadly virus by blocking up to99 per cent of infectious parti-cles, said researchers in theirstudy published in the journalAnnals of Internal Medicine.

Scientists, including thosefrom McMaster University inCanada, said most virus trans-mission occurs via larger par-ticles in secretions like droplets,

generated while speaking,coughing, or sneezing, andsome are created when waterevaporates from these droplets,turning them into aerosol-sized particles.

“The point is not that someparticles can penetrate the

mask, but that some particlesare stopped, particularly out-wardly, from the wearer,” saidstudy first author CatherineClase from McMasterUniversity in Canada.

“Ideally, we would want amask to work in both direc-tions, protecting the wearerfrom the environment andreducing the contamination ofthe environment by the wear-er,” Clase added.

The review suggests thatcloth can block particles, evenaerosol-sized particles, and thissupports Canadian publichealth policy on the issue.

Continued on Page 2

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After migrant workers, airpassengers have posed a

serious threat amid coron-avirus pandemic across India asseven air travelers in four dif-ferent domestic flights havetested positive so far after theopening of domestic flightson May 25.

Three air passengers whoarrived in Jammu, one memberof Air India security staff inDelhi-Ludhiana flight and onepassenger of IndiGo Chennai toCoimbatore flight tested posi-tive. Besides, two crew mem-bers of Air India’s Toronto toDelhi flight (for bringing

stranded Indians) have testedpositive for Covid-19.

The incident of coron-avirus patients undertaking airtravel in domestic flights hasled to serious concerns not onlyover the implementation of

safety norms by airports, but onthe entire decision of resumingflight operations. Three airpassengers who had arrived inJammu via air tested positivefor coronavirus on Wednesday.

Continued on Page 2

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New Delhi: Two global healthexperts on Wednesday saidnovel coronavirus infection ishere to stay for more than ayear and called for aggressivetesting to prevent its spread.

While US health expertProfessor Ashish Jha exudedconfidence that a vaccine for thehighly infectious disease will beavailable in a year’s time,

Professor Johan Giesecke fromSweden said India should adopta ‘soft’ lockdown as a severe onewill ruin its economy. In aninteraction with Congress leaderRahul Gandhi, the expertstalked extensively about theCovid-19 pandemic as part ofthe series being aired onCongress social media channels.

Detailed report on P4

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US President DonaldTrump on Wednesday

offered to play the role ofmediator to diffuse the borderstandoff between India andChina, saying he is “ready,willing and able to mediate”between the two sides. Trumpsaid he had conveyed his offerto India and China.

“We have informed bothIndia and China that the USis ready, willing and able tomediate or arbitrate their nowraging border dispute. Thankyou!” he tweeted.

India has repeatedlysnubbed Trump’s similarattempts in the past to medi-

ate between India andPakistan on Kashmir.

His offer comes at a timewhen the US is criticisingChina for the coronaviruspandemic. China has also hitback warning the US takingthe world to brink of “new cold war” over the coronavirus.

Incidentally, Trump’s will-ingness to mediate came a dayafter Chinese PresidentPresident Xi Jinping orderedthe military to scale up battlepreparedness, visualisingworst-case scenarios, andasked his troops to resolutelydefend the country’s sovereignty.

Continued on Page 2

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Nepal has delayed a discus-sion in Parliament to

amend the Constitution forupdating the country’s mapshowing Lipulekh, Kalapaniand Limpiyadhura under itsterritory as Prime Minister KPSharma Oli has decided toseek national consensus onthe issue amid a border disputewith India, parliamentarysources said on Wednesday.

The Constitution amend-ment proposal was to be tabledin Parliament on Tuesday butit could not be done after Olisaid that he wanted to hold anall-party meeting to discuss thematter. Amid rising tensions,Oli is seeking other parties’views on the issue and calledthe all-party meeting to forge

national consensus before mov-ing the Constitution amend-ment proposal forward, thesources said.

The ruling NepalCommunist Party (NCP) com-mands a two-thirds majority inthe National Assembly, but itneeds support from other par-ties to get the Constitution

amendment proposal throughthe Lower House, as it fallsshort of around 10 seats.

Ganesh Shah, the rulingNCP’s standing committeemember, said that theGovernment has decided tohold the discussion onConstitution amendment forthe time being as per the

request of the main OppositionNepali Congress (NC) andSamajwadi Janata Party (SJP),a key Madhesi party. The NCsought some time as the mat-ter should be discussed in itsCentral Committee Meeting,before being brought toParliament for discussion. TheSJP has demanded that their

long-standing issues relating tothe re-demarcation of theprovinces and citizenshipshould also be incorporatedwhile amending theConstitution amendment.

The Government had reg-istered the amendment pro-posal in Parliament on May 22after releasing the new politi-cal map of Nepal depictingKalapani, Lipulekh andLimipiyadhura as its territorieson May 18.

Reacting to Nepal’s move,India on Wednesday bluntlyasked it not to resort to any“artificial enlargement” of itsterritorial claim after the neigh-bouring country came up witha new political map showingLipulekh, Limpiyadhura andKalapani as its territory.

Continued on Page 2

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The coronavirus death toll inDelhi climbed to 303,

while 792 fresh cases of Covid-19 were reported onWednesday, the highest single-day spike here, taking the totalnumber of cases in the city toover 15,000, authorities said.

The previous highest spikein fresh cases — 660 — wasrecorded on May 22. This isthe first time in Delhi that over700 Covid-19 cases have beenreported in a day.

In a bulletin issued onWednesday, the Delhi HealthDepartment said the death tollfrom coronavirus infection hasrisen to 303 and the total num-ber of cases mounted to 15,257.

However, officials of the 10hospitals treating Covid-19

patients had said the number ofpeople dead due to the virus washigher than what the DelhiGovernment’s bulletin reflected.

“It has also been observedthat despite repeatedreminders, the death sum-maries of the deceased are notbeing provided to the deathaudit committee leading tosubmission of “incorrect ordelayed reports,” the orderhad said.

The Safdarjung Hospitalhas submitted reports to theDelhi Government’s deathaudit committee on 52 fatali-ties that took place at thefacility in the last two months,official sources said onWednesday.

Continued on Page 2

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From Page 1On the same day, Prime Minister

Narendra Modi in New Delhi tookstock of the situation and India’soperational preparedness to tackleany challenge with the security topbrass including National SecurityAdvisor (NSA) Ajit Doval and Chiefof Defence Staff (CDS) GeneralBipin Rawat.

Sources said the main outcomeof the high-profile meeting wasthat India will continue to improveits infrastructure on the LAC despiteChinese protests. In fact, one of thestandoffs in the Galwan valley is onas the Chinese do not want India toconstruct a bridge on the strategi-cally important 250-km long roadthere. New Delhi says the road iswell within the Indian territory.

Incidentally, last week, the out-going head of the State Department’sSouth and Central Asia bureauAlice Wells supported Indian posi-tion in the border dispute withChina and said such disputes are a“reminder of the threat posed byChina”.

Wells said like-minded nationssuch as the US, India, Australia andAsean states have rallied together inthe face of China’s “provocations anddisturbing behaviour”.

“The flare-ups on the border, Ithink, are a reminder that Chineseaggression is not always just rhetor-ical. And so whether it’s in the SouthChina Sea or whether it’s along theborder with India, we continue to seeprovocations and disturbing behav-iour by China that raises questionsabout how China seeks to use itsgrowing power,” she said.

From Page 1“China and India should be good neigh-

bours of harmonious coexistence and goodpartners to move forward hand in hand. Therealisation of “Dragon and Elephant danc-ing together” is the only right choice forChina and India, which serves the funda-mental interests of our two countries and twopeoples,” he added.

In Beijing, the Chinese Foreign Ministrysaid the situation at the border with Indiais “overall stable and controllable,” and boththe countries have proper mechanisms andcommunication channels to resolve theissues through dialogue and consultation.

“We are committed to safeguarding ourterritorial sovereignty and security andsafeguarding peace and stability in the bor-der areas. Now the China-India border areasituation is overall stable and controllable.Between the two countries, we have goodborder related mechanism and communi-cation channels” the Chinese ForeignMinistry spokesperson Zhao Lijian said dur-ing a media briefing.

He also said the two countries are capa-ble of resolving the issues “properly thoughdialogue and consultation.”

“We have been following the importantconsensus reached by the two leaders andstrictly observing the agreements betweenthe two countries,” he said, apparentlyreferring to the directions of ChinesePresident Xi Jinping and Prime MinisterNarendra Modi after their two informalsummits, asking the militaries of the twocountries to take more confidence buildingmeasures. On being asked if talks are beingheld through diplomatic channels, Zhao said,“I think we have established border relatedmechanisms and diplomatic channels. Thisincludes the communication between bor-der troops, and between our diplomatic mis-sions.”

From Page 1It asked the authorities to

respond within two weeks tothe pleas seeking actionagainst some media houses forallegedly spreading communalhatred over the congregationand also apprise it of theactions taken with regard toalleged violation of the CableTelevision (Regulation) Act bythem.

“The petitioners (JamiatUlema-e-Hind and others)are directed to implead theNBA as party respondent inthe array of parties. Issuenotice to all the respondentsas also the newly addedrespondent(s),” the Bench said

in the order, passed in thehearing conducted throughvideo conferencing.

It said the copies of thepetitions be served to theCentre and others during theday and fixed the matters forhearing on June 15.

Senior advocate DushyantDave, appearing for Jamiat,alleged that fake news was“galore” in relation to TablighiJamaat issue and such reportshave damaged the secular fab-ric of the nation.

Circulation of such fakenews constituted an offenceand strict actions were need-ed, he added.

The top court had on

April 13 said it would “not gagthe press” and had askedJamiat Ulema-e-Hind toimplead the PCI as a party tothe case.

It had said it would notpass any interim order in thematter at this stage.

Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind hassought directions to theCentre to stop disseminationof “fake news” and take strictaction against those responsi-ble for it.

The plea has alleged thatunfortunate incident ofTablighi Jamaat was beingused to “demonise” and blamethe entire Muslim communi-ty.

As per the media reports,at least 9,000 people had par-ticipated in the religious gath-ering at Tablighi Jamaat’sheadquarters in NizamuddinWest and the congregationbecame a key source for thespread of Covid-19 in India asmany of the participants hadtravelled to various parts ofthe country for missionaryworks.

The plea has sought direc-tions to the Centre to stop dis-semination of fake news andtake strict action against thesection of the media spread-ing bigotry and communalhatred in relation to theNizamuddin Markaz issue.

“It is submitted that suchreporting has triggered com-munal antagonism and hasalso perpetrated hatred, result-

ing in fissiparous tendenciesgaining foothold, undermin-ing and affecting communalharmony,” the plea has said.

The petition further stat-ed that this “demonisation” ofthe community has led toserious “threat to life and lib-erty of Muslims”, and has thusled to the violation of their“right to life under Article 21”of the Constitution.

It has also sought direc-tion to all sections of media tostrictly comply with theSupreme Court directions ask-ing them to maintain strongsense of responsibility andensure that unverified news isnot disseminated.

Later, three more similarpetitions were filed whichwere heard together onWednesday.

From Page 1Whether cloth masks pro-

tect others from the wearer wasstudied in the 1960s and 1970s,the researchers said.

According to the study, amask made of three layers(musl in-f lannel-musl in)reduced surface contaminationby 99 per cent, total airbornemicroorganisms by 99 per cent,and bacteria recovered from thesmaller particles, aerosols by 88per cent to 99 per cent. A com-mercial mask made of four-layer cotton muslin was shownto reduce all particles by 99 percent, compared with 96 per centto 99 per cent for contemporarydisposable medical masks.

Even for aerosols, the clothmask was comparable with themedical masks of the day, theresearchers said. The filtrationof cloth is quite variable andsingle layers of the scarf, sweat-shirt and T-shirt may be in the10 to 40 per cent range. Butmultiple layers increase effi-ciency, and modern studieshave confirmed that some com-binations of cloth, for example,cotton-flannel, block more than90 per cent of particles.

“Our work is just one partof a complex puzzle. In termsof making masks, it is impor-tant to realise that more layerswill give more protection, bothinward and outward, but willmake it harder to breathe,”Clase said.

The researchers note thatmore research is also neededinto the best materials anddesign of cloth masks, to helpthe many people who aresewing masks to protect peoplein their community.

Another study, publishedlast month in the journal ACSNano, revealed that a combi-nation of cotton with naturalsilk or chiffon can effectively fil-ter out aerosol particles.

From Page 1The Ministry of External

Affairs said the revised map ofNepal included parts of theIndian territory and askedKathmandu to refrain fromsuch “unjustified cartographicassertion”.

India’s angry reaction camehours after the NepalGovernment released therevised political and adminis-trative map, laying claim overthe strategically key areas alongthe border between the twocountries.

According to Nepal’s law, aconstitutional amendmentrequires a two-thirds majorityvote. As per the business sched-ule made public on Tuesday,Law, Justice and ParliamentaryAffairs Minister ShivamayaTumbahangphe was supposedto table the bill for discussionat Parliament on Wednesdaybut at the request of the Oli-ledGovernment, the discussionwas removed from the businessschedule at the last minute, thesources said.

During the all-party meet-ing on Tuesday, Prime MinisterOli sought support from thetop leaders on the Constitutionamendment bill that recognis-es Kalapani, Lipulekh andLimpiyadhura as the Nepali

territory. Ruling party chairsOli and Pushpa Kamal Dahalurged the leaders not to mix theagenda of national territorywith their political demands,The Kathmandu Post reported.

The ties between the twocountries came under strainafter Defence Minister RajnathSingh inaugurated a 80-KM-long strategically crucial roadconnecting the Lipulekh passwith Dharchula in Uttarakhandon May 8. Nepal reactedsharply to the inauguration ofthe road claiming that it passedthrough the Nepalese territory.India rejected the claim assert-ing that the road lies completelywithin its territory.

Nepalese Foreign MinisterPradeep Kumar Gyawali earli-er this month summonedIndian Ambassador VinayMohan Kwatra and handedover a diplomatic note toprotest against India inaugu-rating the key road.

The Lipulekh pass is a farwestern point near Kalapani, adisputed border area betweenNepal and India. Both Indiaand Nepal claim Kalapani as anintegral part of their territory— India as part ofUttarakhand’s Pithoragarh dis-trict and Nepal as part ofDharchula district.

From Page 1Dr Balvinder Singh, the

medical superintendent ofSafdarjung Hospital, told PTIthat officials of the Delhi gov-ernment are constantly chang-ing their Covid-19 death datacollection teams because ofwhich there has been a “mis-communication” among itsown staffers. Singh said thehospital has been reportingdeaths on a daily basis and theaccumulative data of Covid-19 deaths from February 1 toMay 16 was misconstrued asa single day death which isvery erroneous. “On Tuesdayevening, the SafdarjungHospital submitted reportson 52 fatalities that have takenplace at the facility in the lasttwo months. The reports havebeen submitted to the Delhideath audit committee.

“Until now, the hospitalhad sent reports on fourdeaths caused by Covid-19”an official source told.

From Page 1A passenger onboard Air

India’s Delhi-Ludhiana flighttested positive for coronaviruson Tuesday, following which allthose in the flight were placedunder State quarantine. Theman is a permanent resident ofDelhi. Air India has said a totalof 36 passengers on the flightalong with 4 crew membershave been put in institutionalquarantine following thePunjab Government rules.

According to Air India,the passenger who works in thesecurity department of AllianceAir was traveling on a paid tick-et. The passenger flew on AI9I837 Delhi-Ludhiana flighton the second day of flightoperations in India in the lock-down.

The incident of Delhi-Ludhiana flight comes just aday after a 24-year-old passen-ger who took the Chennai-Coimbatore IndiGo flight test-

ed positive for the coronavirusafter which the airline hasgrounded the flight’s crew for 14days.

The test reports of severalpassengers are being awaited.According to people aware ofthe flight details, 93 passengershad travelled in the flight. TheAirlines released a statement,which read: “We received con-firmation from the Coimbatoreairport doctor that a passengerwho travelled on 6E 381 fromChennai to Coimbatore on25th May evening, has testedpositive for Covid-19.”

The tested patient has beenplaced under quarantine at anESI State medical facility inCoimbatore.

In another instance ofonboard coronavirus case, oninternational front, two crewmembers of Air India plane car-rying Indian nationals fromCanada’s Toronto to New Delhihave also tested positive. Theywere onboard the May 21 flightunder Vande Bharat mission tobring stranded Indian nation-

als back to the country.According to Union Civil

Aviation Minister HardeepSingh Puri, the Indian airportshandled 62,641 flyers on thesecond day of resumption ofdomestic passenger flights afterthe Covid-19 halt. There were445 departures and 447 arrivalsbesides the 6 departures thatwere rescheduled. Earlier onTuesday, Puri informed thatover 58,318 passengers flew totheir destination on the first dayof the passenger flight resump-tion and there were around 832flights that operated onMonday. Several States hadasked the Centre to defer itsdecision to allow domesticflights amid rising coronaviruscases. In the phase 2 VandeBharat Mission which is cur-rently underway, will bringback nearly 58,750 Indians onas many as 311 flights fromMiddle East, CIS, Europe, EastEurope, SE Asia, South Asia,East Asia, Africa, & UK, Russia,Australia, New Zealand, US andCanada till 17th June 2020.

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Shimla: Himachal Pradesh BJPpresident Rajeev Bindalresigned from his post onWednesday within four-and-a-half months of his appoint-ment, saying he was doing soto ensure a proper investigationinto the case of alleged cor-ruption by a HealthDepartment official.

In a resignation letter sentto BJP president JP Nadda,Bindal stated that he was ten-dering his resignation on highmoral grounds as some peoplewere dragging the party's namein the alleged corruption case.

Health Services DirectorAjay Kumar Gupta was arrest-ed on May 20 by the StateVigilance and Anti CorruptionBureau after a 43-second audio

recording went viral, in whichhe purportedly asks the otherperson for a bribe of �5 lakh.

Gupta was placed undersuspension by the StateGovernment after his arrest, anofficial said.

Bindal, who became stateBJP president on January 18after resigning from the post ofassembly Speaker, said heresigned so that the case mightbe thoroughly investigatedwithout any pressure.

The resignation has beenaccepted by the BJP president,the party said. Bindal said thatBJP had nothing to do with thealleged corruption, adding thatthe state government had actedpromptly and took actionagainst the health official.

Without naming anyone,he said dragging the BJP'sname in the case was "injusticeto social service" done by theparty during the coronaviruslockdown by distributing overfive lakh food packets, 1.10lakh ration kits and over 30lakh face masks.

Reacting to the resignation,the Congress said that BJPcannot get rid of the "sin of cor-ruption" in the HealthDepartment amid the novelcoronavirus pandemic.

The state Congressdemanded that the probe intothe scam should be entrustedto a sitting high court judge asit had no faith in the probebeing conducted by the vigi-lance bureau. PTI

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Chandigarh: The Punjab Governmentwill decide on the future course ofaction with respect to the lockdown inthe State on May 30.

Chief Minister Captain AmarinderSingh will chair a review meeting withthe concerned departments on the over-all Covid situation in the state on May30, and announce the Government’sdecision on lifting or further extensionof lockdown thereafter.

Disclosing this on Wednesday afterthe Cabinet meeting, an officialspokesperson said the Cabinet decidedthat the decision should be taken afteron-ground assessment of the situation acouple of days before the current lock-down is due to end. Any decision onextension, with our without relaxations,will be taken after the review meeting.

Meanwhile, the Cabinet compli-mented the Food & Civil Suppliesdepartment for ensuring seamless pro-curement of wheat during RabiMarketing Season 2020-21 especiallyamid the trying Covid-19 and lockdownsituation.

Chandigarh: Former Haryana Chief Minister andCongress leader Bhupinder Singh Hooda onWednesday threatened to launch a statewide agitationfrom next month if the Government did not lift restric-tions on paddy cultivation in parts of the state.

Hooda's warning has come a day after HaryanaChief Minister ML Khattar defended the recentlylaunched Mera Pani, Meri Virasat scheme, aimed atcrop diversification.

Hooda, who is the leader of the Opposition in thestate assembly, gave the Government an ultimatum towithdraw its decision by June 1.

If the Government failed to do so, our party willtake the issue to every farmer in the state and a detailedprogramme of agitation will be announced inKurukshetra, he said.

The Congress recently slammed the crop diver-sification scheme, saying the Government wants farm-ers in 19 blocks to stop cultivating paddy and pun-ish them by denying MSP for it in case they chooseto grow the crop.

The Congress has alleged that the Governmentwants to deny farmers in 26 other blocks the right togrow paddy on the panchayati land.

Hooda accused the Government of being stubbornon the issue, saying it remained adamant despiterepeated pleas. PTI

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FromPage 1He claimed to have raised

an alert but unfortunately allfour of them were crushed todeath under the wheels.

Soon after learning of theincident, divisional railwaymanager, Pankaj Saksena alongwith senior police officersreached the spot. They foundno belongings which couldhelp them to maintain theiridentity.

A broken mobile phonewas, however, found lying onthe spot so the cops took outthe SIM card and were takingits help for identification. Thetrain was later sent to Majhwarrailway station in Chandauliand the tracks were cleared tore-start the operation. Localpolice also registered a case andsent the bodies for post-mortem.

Meanwhile, in the SpecialShramik train, which camefrom Mumbai to Madhwadeeh

in Varanasi on Wednesdaymorning, two migrants werefound dead in separate coach-es. One of the victims was iden-tified as Dashrath Prajapati(30).

His brother, Lalmani, hail-ing from Lalpura in Badlapurarea of Jaunpur, who was alsotravelling in the same trainclaimed that as the train leftPrayagraj, condition of hisbrother started deterioratingand he collapsed when theyreach Varanasi. Dashrath wasalso physically challenged.

The other passenger whowas also found dead in anoth-er coach of the same train wasidentified as Ram Ratan Gaud(63), a resident of Raunapar inAzamgarh. The cops of RailwayProtection Force (RPF) usedPPE kit to seal the bodies andsent them for postmortem. AtBallia railway station also, twomigrants were found dead.Bhushan Singh (48), a residentof Ekmacharan in Hazipur dis-trict of Bihar was returningfrom Surat on Shramik Expressand was found dead when thetrain halted at Ballia railwaystation on Tuesday night.

From Page 1After Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu

has emerged as the worst affected State.On Wednesday, TN reported 817 newcases and 6 deaths. The overall countfor the State stands at 18,545 and 136deaths.

The Government release said thatout of the 817 persons tested positiveon Wednesday, 138 were fromMaharashtra. A total number of4,42,970 samples have been tested inTamil Nadu till date and there are 70laboratories working round the clockto test the samples. On Wednesdayalone 11, 231 samples were tested in theState.

Delhi recorded 792 new cases and16 deaths, Gujarat reported 376 freshcases and 26 deaths, and Rajasthanlogged 144 new cases and 2 fatalities

while Madhya Pradesh tracked 237new patients and 8 deaths.

Jammu & Kashmir saw massivespike of 162 cases from a base ofaround 1,830 cases while West Bengalreported 183 cases to take its tally to4,192. Bihar, which has seen a mani-fold increase in number of cases in thelast 25 days, reported 44 cases to 3,000mark.

Assam which has just around 650cases till Tuesday reported a 10 per centspike in day reporting 92 new cases,while Kerala, which had contained thevirus, traced 40 new cases onWednesday, taking its overall tally to1,004.

Odisha reported 76 new case whileUttarakhand reported 69 new cases,which is 15 per cent hike in day froma base of 400.

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Guwahati: The flood situation inAssam worsened on Wednesday withone person losing his life and nearlythree lakh people suffering in the del-uge across 11 districts.

According to the daily flood reportof the Assam State DisasterManagement Authority (ASDMA),one person was killed at Rongjuli inGoalpara district.

At present, around 2.72 lakh per-sons are affected due to flood inDhemaji, Lakhimpur, Nagaon, Hojai,Darrang, Barpeta, Nalbari, Goalpara,West Karbi Anglong, Dibrugarh and

Tinsukia districts, it said.Goalpara is the worst-hit district

with 2.15 lakh people affected, followedby Nalbari with over 22,000 people hitand Nagaon with nearly 11,000 per-sons.

Till Tuesday, around 1.95 lakh peo-ple were affected in seven districts.

The NDRF and SDRF have res-cued nine people in the last 24 hoursin Goalpara, while 172.53 quintals ofrice, dal, salt and 804.42 litres of mus-tard oil have been distributed alongwith tarpaulin and other essentialitems. PTI

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Delhi peak power demandclocked 5,464 MW, sea-

sons’ highest and expected totouch a record high of 7500MW in July.

A senior BSES official saidthat power demand recorded5,464 MW on Tuesday whichis marginally more than thepeak power demand (5236MW) recorded on May 26 lastyear.

Tata Power Delhi

Distribution (Tata Power-DDL)successfully met the peakpower demand of 1556 MW onTuesday Night, the hottest dayin 18 years without any net-work constraint and poweroutage as Delhi touched sea-son’s high of 5464 MW amidstthe ongoing heat wave.

Ganesh Srinivasan, CEO ofTata Power-DDL “We wit-nessed the hottest day since2002 on Tuesday in Delhi.This has resulted in anunprecedented increase in the

power demand as more andmore consumers switched ontheir air conditioners. However,we were successful in meetingthe peak demand without any

constraints,” he said.“Adequate arrangements

of power of up to 2500 MWalong with contingency plan,through long-term tie-ups,bilateral imports & powerbanking arrangements withother states and assure our con-sumers 24x7 power supply thisharsh summer season,” he said.

Meanwhile, a BSES officialsaid that on their part, BRPLand BYPL successfully met thepeak power demand of 2542MW and 1174 MW respec-

tively. Last year, peak powerdemand had clocked 7409 MWin the National Capital.

“Being in essential ser-vices, BSES is always geared-upto ensure quality and reliablepower supply to its consumers.We are closely watching theevolving Corona Virus situa-tion in the national Capital andtaking all appropriate mea-sures to ensure reliable powersupply to our consumers with-out compromising the safety ofour employees,” he said.

The official further saidthat arrangements have beenfirmed up by BSES discoms tosource adequate electricity tomeet the power demand ofover 44 lakhs consumers. Thesearrangements include longterm PPAs and bankingarrangements with other states.In case of unforeseen contin-gencies because of low gener-ation and outages in powerplants, the discoms will pur-chase short-term power fromthe exchange.

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Delhi Education MinisterManish Sisodia on

Wednesday directed all DelhiGovernment school principalsto prepare a micro-plan foropening the schools.

Interacting with over 1,000Delhi government school prin-cipals, Sisodia said “We cannothave one common plan for allschools to re-open them thisyear,” he said.

“The reason behind fol-lowing an elaborate planningprocess is because we need tokeep many factors in mindbefore taking a decision. It isnot just about maintainingsocial distancing or sanitizationalone or calling one set of

classes to school and not theothers,” he said.

Any decision will have farreaching implications on chil-dren and their families becauseschool is an integral part of oursocial life, he said, adding thatthe COVID-19 pandemic andthe lockdown has caused clo-sure of schools since March2020.

Sisodia, also the DeputyChief Minister, said the agen-da of his meeting was two-fold.“How should we stay connect-ed with our children and theirparents in this time when lock-down is impacting differentpeople differently? This willhelp us to directly understandtheir situation and prepare bet-ter and how do we plan the

reopening of schools whenev-er we get the go ahead,” he said.

The Deputy Chief Ministerasked the principals to reachout to all children through

phone to see if they are in Delhior has gone back to their nativeplace and to check if they wereable to use online classes, SMSand what is their feedback

about it.He also appealed principals

to lead an in-depth brain-storming at school level involv-ing all key stakeholders andcome up with a micro-plan on

how to lead the transitionwhen the time comes. “We can-not have a common plan to re-open for all schools this year asthe context of every school isdifferent,” he added.

Planning the reopening ofschool is a challenging taskbecause apart from academicwe have to keep many otherfactors in mind like health,safety, trust, emotional wellbeing, and so on, he said,adding that the other challengeis that all these have to be donewithout extra financialresources from the govern-ment.

A “Preparatory PlanningFramework for Heads ofSchools” has been issued by thedepartment of education on

Tuesday to help the schools for-mulate the strategy, he said.

As per this framework, allhead of schools will first meetin a cluster of about 10 to dis-cuss about the issues that theyneed to keep in mind whileplanning for their school, headded.

Sisodia further said thatprincipals have been asked tosubmit their school level planto DDE (zone) and DDE (dis-trict) should study it. DDE (dis-trict) shall present a districtwise plan to Deputy ChiefMinister after June 5.

Explaining the planningframework, the Deputy ChiefMinister said, it has three broadcomponents:

“What we need to keep in

mind before we reopen theschools. What we need to putin place before schools startsand what is the basis on whichschool makes its plan? Forexample strengths, limitations,overall context, etc,” he said.

Deputy Chief Minister alsoemphasized that school shouldfollow some points in mindwhile preparing their plan suchas how should we providesocial-emotional support to allour children, how should weensure that we stay in touchwith all our children and sup-port them so that they do notdrop out from school and jointhe work force and which class-es should come for daily teach-ing-learning when schoolreopens etc.

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The Delhi Police onWednesday filed 15 fresh

chargesheets against 294 for-eigners for attending a reli-gious congregation atNizamuddin Markaz in aDelhi local court following aviolation of visa conditionsand indulging in missionaryactivities amidst the Covid-19outbreak in the country.

According to police, onWednesday they have filed 15charge sheets against the for-eigners belonging to 14 dif-ferent countries, includingMalaysia, Thailand,Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lankaand several African nationsand Metropolitan MagistrateSaema Jamil has put up thematter for further hearing onJune 17.

Earlier on Tuesday, thepolice had filed 20 chargesheetagainst 85 foreigners from 20countries in the case.

"The foreign nationalshave been booked for violat-ing visa rules, violating gov-ernment guidelines issued inthe wake of Covid-19 pan-demic and regulations regard-ing Epidemic diseases Act,Disaster Management Act and

prohibitory orders under sec-tion 144 of Code of CriminalProcedure," police said in itschargsheet.

"They have also beenbooked for the offences undersections 188 (Disobedienceto order duly promulgated bypublic ser vant), 269(Negligent act likely to spreadinfection of disease dangerousto life), 270 (Malignant actlikely to spread infection ofdisease dangerous to life) and271 (Disobedience to quar-antine rule) of the IndianPenal Code," police stated inits chargesheet.

According to the chargesheet, four of the accused

were from Afghanistan, seveneach from Brazil and China,five from US, two fromAustralia, Kajahstan,Morocco, UK, one each fromUkraine, Egypt, Russia,Jordan, France, Tunisia,Belgium, eight from Algeria,10 from Saudi Arabia, 14from Fiji and six each fromSudan and Philippines.

Police said that the foreignnationals violated governmentguidelines issued in the wakeof Covid-19 pandemic andregulations regardingEpidemic diseases Act,Disaster Management Act andprohibitory orders under sec-tion 144 of Code of Criminal

Procedure.After being exposed to a

large gathering in March amidthe COVID-19 or coronaviruslockdown many members ofTablighi Jamaat from MarkazHazrat Nizamuddin weretaken out by the authoritiesand lodged in different quar-antine centres in Delhi. Someof them were sent to the cen-tres a few days later afterbeing detained from variousmosques.

The other members weredirectly taken to quarantinecentres to contain the spreadof COVID-19. At least 9,000people, including the foreignnationals participated in thereligious congregation inNizamuddin. Later, many ofthe attendees travelled to var-ious parts of the country.

According to police, theseforeign nationals had enteredIndia on tourist visa and hadparticipated in the gatheringat Markaz illegally.

Besides, violating the pro-visions of visa, these foreignnationals also led to a situa-tion where a highly infectiousdisease Covid-19 infectionspread and threatened thelives of the inmates and thegeneral public at large.

The police also said that

more than 900 foreign nation-als who are accused in the casebelong to 34 different coun-tries and charge sheets arebeing prepared country-wise,under sections of ForeignersAct, The Epidemic DiseasesAct, Disaster ManagementAct and section 188(Disobedience to order dulypromulgated by public ser-vant), 269 (Negligent act like-ly to spread infection of dis-ease dangerous to life), 270(Malignant act likely to spreadinfection of disease dangerousto life) and 271 (Disobedienceto quarantine rule) of theIndian Penal Code.

The punishment for var-ious offences under penalprovisions ranges from sixmonths to eight years ofimprisonment.

On March 31, DelhiPolice's Crime Branch lodgedan FIR against seven people,including Tablighi Jamaatleader Maulana SaadKandhalvi, on a complaint byStation House Off icerNizamuddin for holding areligious congregation hereallegedly in violation of thelockdown orders and notmaintaining social distanc-ing to contain the spread ofcoronavirus.

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Gurugram police have arrest-ed a woman for allegedly

threatening a constable and hisfriend after implicating him in arape case and demanding Rs 30lakh to let them off, the policesaid on Wednesday.

According to the police, theincident happened on Saturdayevening when Constable IshaanYadav called up the woman ataround 5.30 pm and allegedlyasked her to go for a long drive.

She joined the joy ride withtwo of Yadav's friends - Ashu andManoj aka Sarpanch - alsoaccompanying them.

Manoj allegedly drove thecar towards a banquet hall on theOld Delhi-Gurugram road nearthe Maruti plant.

The woman in her com-plaint had alleged that Ishaanand Manoj molested her whileAshu took her inside a room andraped her.

Later the woman had filedan FIR against the trio at thePalam Vihar police station.

"On May 26 the woman'sfriend called Manoj’s friend anddemanded Rs 30 lakh for can-cellation of the FIR,” said PreetPal Singh Sangwan, ACP

(crime).The same day Manoj’s friend

approached Palam Vihar policestation on Tuesday and informedthe cops about the phone call andalso handed over the call record-ing to police.

“The woman also made acall to EHC Yogesh who wasposted in Nathupur policeChowki and was known to con-stable Ishaan. “She knew that ifYogesh told Ishaan, he wouldhand over the money but Yogeshtoo recorded the phone call andhanded over to the police,”Sangwan said.

Based on the phone calls andother evidence the probe teamarrested the woman from HansEnclave and filed a case againsther.

During the police interro-gation, the woman told thepolice that Ishaan was a con-stable and Manoj was Sarpanch.

“She made a plan that byregistering a case against them,she can make a huge amount ofmoney. So as per the planIshaan and Manoj fell asleepafter drinking alcohol and laterdeveloped physical relation-ship with mutual consent withAshu and later filed a caseagainst the trio,” Sangwanadded.

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Afireman was injured whiletrying to douse a fire that

broke out in an office in WestDelhi''s Vikaspuri. The incidentwas reported on Tuesday night.

According to Delhi FireService (DFS) official, after a callregarding fire in Vikaspuri wasreceived on Tuesday night twofire tenders were rushed to thespot. "LPG cylinders kept in theoffice exploded during the fire-fighting operation and one of thefiremen got trapped and sufferedinjuries, said Atul Garg, Director,DFS.

The fireman identified asMurarilal was taken to a nearbyhospital from where he wasreferred to the Safdarjung hos-pital. The fire was later doused.

In other incident, the DFSrescued 20 people safely from abuilding in Gujatawala Townpart-2.

"On Wednesday at 5.10 pm,the fire department receivedinformation regarding a blaze inelecfric meter board at theground floor of a building inGujatawala Town part-2," saidGarg.

"Three fire tenders wererushed to the spot. The buildingwas comprises of ground plusthree floors. Total 20 people res-cued from first and third floor,"he added.

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New Delhi MunicipalCouncil (NDMC) on

Wednesday sealed its Accountsdepartment and commercialdepartment at Shaheed BhagatSingh Place after four of its stafftested Covid-19 positive.

Fourteen others staff whohad come in their contact, arealso suspected to have infect-ed with Coronavirus, a seniorNDMC official said, addingthat contact tracing is beingdone to identify persons camein contact of them.

According to an orderissued by director (coordina-tion) Virender Singh onWednesday, who is nodal offi-cer for Covid-19, directions areissued with the approval ofcompetent authority in NDMCto seal account departmentand commercial department atShaheed Bhagat Singh Place.

The employees working inthe accounts department (6thfloor) Palika Kendra and com-mercial department at ShaheedBhagat Singh Place are direct-ed to work from home duringthis period, according to theorder.

The civic body has also

approached the district author-ities to carry out contact trac-ing as per standard operatingprocedure.

“Staff members, who hadcome in contact of affected per-sons, have been directed toobserve home quarantine andto report to district authority incase they develop any symp-toms.

Public health and civildepartment have beeninstructed to carry out exten-sive sanitization drive for threetimes daily to disinfect thebuilding and surroundingareas, it said.

The order came after a let-ter written by Sukesh Aggarwal,AAO of ‘Computer BillingSection’ (CBS) informingNDMC authorities about cases.“One of our staff (peon) incomputer billing section testedpositive for Covid-19 onTuesday. He visited AyushmanHospital, Dwarka with feverwhere he was tested positiveand later shifted to Najafgarhquarantine Centre. He attend-ed office last on Friday andmany other staff came in hiscontact,” the letter stated.

A senior assistant ofaccounts branch has also test-ed positive for Covid-19, it said.

The other staffs of billingsection have also informedthat they have also developedsymptoms and not feeling well,”it stated, adding that some ofthem advised to rest after theyinformed that their familymembers have also shown sim-ilar symptoms.

However, other staff ofcomputer billing section con-tinue attending offices butscared of getting infected them-selves by working in such cir-cumstances, it said.

With this, the number ofstaff infected with life- threat-ening Coronavirus has reachedto seven till now. Earlier, thismonth one sanitation workerand an engineer of the civicbody had tested positive forCovid-19.

Last week, the NDMC hadsealed a dispensary at PalikaKendra after an allopathic doc-tor tested positive for Covid-19.

A senior NDMC officialsaid that the dispensary wassealed but now it is opened forpublic.

Twenty other staff includ-ing doctors and other medical staff deputed at the dis-pensary was placed underhome-quarantine and they alltested negative.

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Delhi Excise Departmenthas allowed seven more L

- 7 private shops to resumeoperations from Wednesday.

The fresh order is in con-tinuation to the previous orderof permitting 66 of 239 eligibleliquor shops.

These shops are allowed onalternative days between 9AMto 6:30 PM irrespective of theirshops having both odd andeven numbers and shall deposit70 percent of Corona fee.

The order read, “They (vendors ) shall deposit 70 per-cent Special corona fee on thetotal sales daily, which will be

deducted from their ledgeraccount linked with theirVend-ID. They should, there-fore, maintain the requisite

balance in their ledgeraccount.”

“In case, any L-7licences/ship allowed to oper-ate under the containmentzone in future the same shall beclose permanently,”

According to excise depart-ment data,Delhi governmenthas earned over Rs 110 crorefrom the cess and is expectingeven more in the coming dayswith the opening up of moreshops.

Delhi has more than 850liquor shops, of which around150 are located in malls not beallowed to operate, from May5, the government imposed aspecial corona fee on liquor.

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A57-year-old Indian RevenueServices(IRS) officer on

Wednesday allegedly committedsuicide by hanging from the ceil-ing fan in his house in upscale inChankyapuri area.

The victim has been identi-fied as Keshav Saxena, a residentof Bapu Dham, Chanakyapuri.

According to a senior policeofficial, police receivedInformation that the victim wastaken to Primus hospital by his

family where he was declaredbrought dead.

"A police team was dis-patched for the hospital. Duringinvestigation, it was revealedthat Saxena hanged himself fromthe ceiling fan in his study roomaround 7 am on Wednesday withthe help of a bed sheet," said thesenior police official.

Family said that the victimwas under depression. "A suicidenote has been recovered from thespot and further investigation inunderway," said police.

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The Delhi PoliceCommissioner, SN

Shrivastava, on Wednesdayawarded 230 police officers andpersonnel with 'Utkrisht SevaPadak' while 160 officers andpersonnel were awarded with 'AtiUtkrisht Seva Padak'.

Ministry of Home Affairshas instituted new medals,Utkrisht Seva Padak and AtiUtkrisht Seva Padak for thepolice personnel, who have com-pleted 15 years & 25 yearsrespectively of service, to pro-mote professionalism and excel-lence among police forces.

According to police, thisyear’s awardees for Utkrisht SevaPadak include Rajesh Khurana,Special CP, Intelligence, Devesh

Srivastava, Joint CP, Southernrange, Bhisham Singh, M ARizvi and Rajeev Ranjan, theDeputy Commissioners of Policeare among 230 officers and per-sonnel.

"Around 34 inspector, 16Dub-Inspector, 25 Assistant Sub-Inspector, 100 head constablesand 50 constables have beenselected Utkrisht Seva Padak,"said police.

Meanwhile, Dr Ajit Singla,the Additional CP and RajenderSingh, ACP Dwarka are among160 police personnel selected forAti Utkrisht Seva Padak.

"Personnel with service of 15years will be eligible for theUtkrisht Seva Padak, while thosewith clean record of 25 years ofservice will be eligible for AtiUtkrisht Seva Padak.

NEW DELHI: Raids are beingconducted in Bhagirath Palace,Delhi's biggest market for med-icines, against shops sellinginferior quality and fake handsanitisers. The Drug ControlDepartment of the DelhiGovernment on Wednesdaycollected samples of hand sani-tisers from several shops inBhagirath Palace and raidedseveral others.

Atul Kumar Nasa, head ofthe Drug Control Department,said about the action being

taken that "The team has beensent by the department toBhagirath Palace to raid theshops selling inferior handsanitisers. This team of drugcontrol department is raidingshops selling substandardproducts here," he said.

"Samples have also beencollected from many shopshere to know the quality ofsanitisers," he said.

In Bhagirath Palace, sani-tisers of unnamed and dubiousfirms are available in five-litre

cans at many shops. On askingshopkeepers about the price ofthese, IANS found that a five-litre can of sanitiser is availablefor just Rs 400. One such shop-keeper giving his name as A.K.Jain, said, "We are selling 5 litrecans of hand sanitiser for Rs400. When taken in bulk, weare selling for Rs 350 for 5litres."

Blue-coloured sanitiserfilled in white boxes is availableat many shops here. No infor-mation about manufacturer

address, batch number, licenceor formula is given on many ofthese sanitiser-filled cartons.

Many shopkeepers havecleverly placed such sanitisersin stalls or on the streets rightoutside the shops instead ofkeeping them inside theirshops.

When asked about thesanitiser manufacturing com-pany and the quality, a shop-keeper named Sanjay Sharmasaid, "This is a locally madehand sanitiser. It is made in fac-

tories in and around Delhi.However, we do not knowabout its quality and its effec-tiveness against coronavirus."

Many shopkeepers are sell-ing hand sanitiser in bulk foronly Rs 60 per litre.

"This information has nowcome to our notice. We are tak-ing immediate action on it. Theconcerned authorities havebeen asked to investigate such shops and products," Nasasaid.

IANS

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In a repeat attack againstRahul Gandhi in last 24

hours, the BJP on Wednesdaydenounced him for allegingthat lockdown was ineffective,BJP on Wednesday chargedhim with playing a “negative”role and weakening country’sresolve in its fight against thepandemic.

Addressing a press confer-ence, senior BJP leader andunion Minister RavishankarPrasad said since the break-outof the pandemic, Congressleader was telling “lies, dis-torting and misrepresentingfacts”.

Maintaining that lockdownwas very timely and manged torestrict death to 4,345 only incountry of 137 crore people.On the other hand, Prasadsaid barring China, 15 big-countries including the USA,Italy, Germany, UK, France,Russia and Iran, with totalpopulation of 142 crore had by

May 26 had casualties to thetune of three lakh forty threethousand and five hundredand sixty two.

This he said happenedunder the leadership of PrimeMinister Narendra Modi whohe claimed was “ Playing on thefront foot”. Rahul in his criti-cism of the government hadsaid that Modi was not playingon the backfoot while takingmeasures to contain pandem-ic.

Prasad accused Rahul ofspreading negativity, engagingin falsehood, fake news andincorrect representation of thefacts.

He said Rahul hadridiculed symbolic gesture ofringing bells, striking ‘thalis’,clapping and lightening of‘Diyas’ saying this will notdefeat coronavirus even thoughthese were aimed to boostmorale of Corona warriors, hesaid.

Taking a swipe at theCongress leader, Prasad said

while his Lok Sabha con-stituency Wayanad is declaredas “hot spot” by the health min-istry, Rahul was congratulatinghimself for ‘succeeding’ in con-taining pandemic in his LS seat.

Prasad also accused Rahulof taking credit for the successof Bhilwara model of lock-down in Rajasthan which effec-tively contained coronavirus inthe district in the early phase ofthe pandemic and levellingfalse charges against ICMR.

He also condemned Rahulfor congratulating threePulitzer prize winner who healleged were awarded for giving an insight into the so-called freedom struggle in thevalley.

Similarly, he said theCongress leader wantsGovernment to bring backNirav Modi , businessmenaccused of bank fraud, fromEngland, one of the Congressmember and former high court judge Abhay Thipsaywas backs Modi in the case and

gives the fugitive a clean chit.“ This is the difference betweenwhat he says and what hedoes”, said Prasad.

Union Minister saidCongress leader was running

away from his party’s respon-sibi l ity in running theShivSena-led- government inMaharashtra which has thehighest number of coron-avirus cases in the country

The BJP leader said Rahulhas been tweeting on theneed to provide trains for thestranded migrant workerseven though the Centre wasalready providing them for

taking them to their nativeplaces.

On Tuesday, anotherUnion Minister PrakashJavadekar had claimed thatthe lockdown had

effectively checked the dou-bling rate of Coronavirus inthe country and made light ofRahul’s charge of “shoddymanagement” of pandemicby the Modi-Governrment.

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Aday after he dubbedIndia’s lockdown a failure

citing increase in Covid-19cases during the period,Congress leader RahulGandhi on Wednesday con-tinued with his talk showswith experts from across theworld on issues related to thepandemic. Professor AshishJha of Harvard Universityand Professor Johan Gieseckeof Sweden’s KarolinskaInstitute told him that “lock-down is not a goal” but a timeto separate infected persons

from non-infected ones,when you can't test aggres-sively and that a severe lock-down can cause more deathsthan the illness.

“Lockdown buys you time,but lockdown is not the goalunto itself. You can use thattime to prepare a really fabu-lous testing, tracing, isolationinfrastructure. You want touse that time to communicatewith people," said Jha.

The Harvard Professor fur-ther said that vigorous testing,tracing and isolation is helpful,"but if you can’t do that, thenyou have to lock everything

down”. “Can you slow down thevirus from a lockdown? Ofcourse you can. But it has verysubstantial economic reper-cussions," he said. Leftunchecked, the virus will growexponentially, he stresed.

“And the way to stop it isto take infected people and sep-arate them from un-infectedones," advocated Jha adding lifewill be very different whenlockdown ends.

"This is not about goingback to what life was like lastMay or June. That life over thenext 6-12-18 months is goingto look very different," he said.

In his interaction with ProfGiesecke, Rahul said, "Mostplaces that are affected (by thepandemic) are nerve centres ofglobalisation. If people say9/11 is a chapter, coronavirusis a book."

Rahul began his series ofconversations via video con-ferences with experts lastmonth. Former RBI governorRaghuram Rajan and NobelPrize winner Abhijit Banerjeewere among his first few guests.

“India would ruin its econ-omy if it has a very severe lock-down”, Professor Giesecke saidadding that coronavirus, which

is a "very mild disease", willaffect "almost everyone in theworld".

“The disease is very mild.Most people who have it arenot even aware. While the oldand vulnerable need to be pro-tected from the disease, youmay cause more deaths due toa severe lockdown than the ill-ness," he added as Rahul spokeabout the plight of themigrants.

As the Gandhi scion ques-tioned both the experts on anexit strategy for the lockdown,he was told that a "stepwiseexit" is more advisable.

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It’s in Lockdown 4.0 that theUnion Health Ministry has

finally focussed its attention onthe health services related toreproductive, maternal, new-born, child and adolescents, orRMNCAH+N, saying thatthese should be continued in arestricted manner in areasdefined as containment andbuffer zones and that coron-avirus testing is not mandato-ry in such cases.

There have been severalreports of people facing prob-lems in availing such servicesat their doorsteps. TheGuidelines have come amidstUNICEF report that an esti-mated 20 million mothers andnewborns will receive preg-nancy and newborn care inIndia in the nine-month-peri-od following declaration of theCOVID-19 pandemic. It advo-cated high priority to maternaland child health services ascountries respond to the dis-ease.

The Ministry guidelinessaid that home delivery of folicacid, calcium and zinc tablets,oral rehydration solutionsachets and contraceptives canalso be arranged in the con-tainment zones.

Areas where multiple coro-navirus cases are reported havebeen classified as containmentzones and its surrounding areasare called buffer zones.

“In India, with the second-largest global population, thegrowing epidemic of coron-avirus requires that specialefforts have to be made to con-tinue the essential routineRMNCAH+N services,” theMinistry said in its guidelines.“Covid testing is not manda-tory for RMNCAH+N service.ICMR testing guidelines needto be followed.”

The Ministry added that itis important to ensure thatessential health services forvulnerable population are con-tinued during the pandemic.“Critical services for women,children and adolescent shouldbe provided irrespective oftheir Covid status,” it said.“Under no circumstancesshould there be a denial ofessential services.”

In its guidelines, theMinistry said that a motherand her newborn should benursed together as far as pos-sible and breastfeeding must beinitiated within one hour ofdelivery, irrespective of thecoronavirus status. However,the mother must wear a face

mask and practice handhygiene before feeding thechild, it added.

The advisory noted thatservices such as antenatal andnewborn care, immunisation,family planning and adolescenthealth, among others, are to beprovided at different levels inaccordance with the zonal cat-egorisation of containmentzones, buffer zones and beyondthese zones. “Any area exitinga “containment/ buffer zone”can start RMNCAH+N activ-ities as listed in “areas beyondbuffer zone” after a minimumgap of 14 days following delist-ing,” it added.

The health ministry alsosaid private sector hospitalscan be involved in non-coro-navirus essential services ifthe public sector needs to besupported. “Practices of phys-ical distancing, handwashing,and respiratory hygiene needto be maintained at all serviceareas by all beneficiaries andservice providers.”

As per the UNICEF, Indiawill see 20.1 million childbirths in the nine monthssince the pandemic declara-tion, followed by China at13.5 million, Nigeria at 6.4 mil-lion, Pakistan (5 million) andIndonesia (4 million)

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The Union Health Ministryhas asked the frontline

health workers to not to dumpeye protection goggles withthe Personal ProtectiveEquipment (PPE) Kits, butreuse them at least five timeseach, whereby one pair of gog-gles will be sufficient for 6 daysafter proper disinfection.

This is likely to upset thefrontline workers as they feelthat it would leave them vul-nerable to the contaminants ofthe gadget.

In its standard operatingprocedure, the Governmentsaid that aim is to enable indi-viduals to reuse goggles used bythem thus allowing an extend-ed use without risk of con-tracting infection.

“The kitting of the PPEswith goggles will be done awaywith while all goggles thatconform to prescribed EN/BISspecifications will be re-usedafter disinfection,” said theSOP.

Also, reprocessing andreuse of goggles must be doneonly when it is dedicated toeach individual to be writtenover the band while manufac-turer's instructions for cleaningand disinfection of goggles hasto be adhered strictly.

The Ministry has on itspart given details on theprocess of cleaning and disin-

fecting the goggles such ascleaning the gadget.

The Ministry said that eyeprotection must be discarded ifdamaged/rendered opticallynon-clear on repeated usage.

“Goggles may be issued toeach health care worker, whowill decontaminate them afterevery use. Goggles to be disin-fected by users and re-used atleast five times each, wherebyone pair of goggles will suflicefor 6 days. They may use themrationally till their transparen-cy decreases or they get dam-aged. The ratio of issue of gog-gles to coverall is recommend-ed at 1:6,” said the Ministry.

In another but relatedstatement issued here, theMinistry said that it has pro-vided 113.58 lakh N95 masks

and 89.84 lakh PersonalProtective Equipment (PPEs)to the States/ UTs / CentralInstitutions.

“The testing capacity hasincreased in the countrythrough 435 Government lab-oratories and 189 private lab-oratories (total of 624 labs).Cumulatively, 32,42,160 sam-ples have been tested so far forCOVID-19, whereas, 1,16,041samples were tested onTuesday.”

A total of 1,51,767 caseshave been reported from thecountry in which 64,426 per-sons have been cured and therecovery rate is pegged at 42.4per cent. The fatality rate is2.86% whereas the world aver-age is 6.36 per cent, said theMinistry.

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To take up maintenance andrepair work of national high-

ways on a priority basis beforemonsoon, NHAI has issuedpolicy guidelines to fast-tracksuch work, the Governmentsaid on Wednesday.

All regional officers ofNHAI have been delegatedsufficient financial powers totake quick decisions regardingmaintenance activities.

“In order to keep thenational highways in patchlessand traffic worthy condition,National Highway Authority ofIndia (NHAI) has directed itsRegional Officers (ROs) andProject Directors (PDs) toundertake maintenance of theNational Highways on top pri-ority-basis considering ensuingmonsoon season," Ministry ofRoad Transport and Highwayssaid in a statement.

The aim is to facilitatetimely action and keep thehighway stretches traffic-wor-thy ahead of the monsoon sea-son i.e. latest by June 30, 2020,it added.

“NHAI has issued newpolicy guidelines to help itsROs/PDs plan and prioritizebetter; and then expedite theprocess of highway mainte-

nance in the desired manner.The target is to ensure thor-ough planning of the requisiteactivities and the implementa-tion of the same in a timebound manner," the statementsaid.

It said ROs of NHAI havebeen delegated sufficient finan-cial powers to take quick deci-sions regarding maintenanceactivities, while PDs have beenadvised to make assessment ofthe condition of highways sup-ported by technology driventools through car mountedcamera/ drone/ NetworkSurvey Vehicle (NSV) etc foridentification of various high-way distress (like depression,rutting, cracking etc.) and planrectification measures.

All field officers have beendirected to adhere to the time-lines, regularly monitor theprogress of maintenance workand keep reporting the same tothe authority at regular inter-vals.

The Government said theNHAI headquarters will bemonitoring the progress close-ly through its project manage-ment software – Data Lakewhere pictures of before andafter repair works would beuploaded, apart from otherrepair related information.

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BJP leader SubramanianSwamy on Wednesday

urged Prime MinisterNarendra Modi to directUttarakhand Chief Ministerto withdraw the recent Act,which took over 51 templesincluding Badrinath andKedarnath temples. Termingthe takeover of temples is ille-gal, Swamy in a letter, toldModi that the 51 temples takenover by the State Governmentis an embarrassment to BJP andits policy. Swamy has alreadychallenged the controversialChar Dham DevasthanamManagement Act of 2019 inHigh Court and the Court hasissued notice to the StateGovernment on February 25.The State Government has notyet responded to the HighCourt Notice.

“The Uttarakhand BJPGovernment has brought alegislation to take over almostall the temples of the State and

also appointed the ChiefMinister as Chairman of theBoard of Trustees. This moveis not only against the policy ofour party and ideology ofHindutva, but also illegal andagainst the Judgment of theSupreme Court (now widelyknown case as SubramanianSwamy Vs State of Tamil Nadujudgment by the SupremeCourt in 2014). In this theSupreme Court has laid downclearly that the Governmentunder Article 25 of theConstitution, cannot take overthe administration of any tem-ple, except for the brief periodwhen there is a documentedmisappropriation of funds ofthe temple,” pointed outSwamy, adding that there wasno misappropriation found intemples of Uttarakhand.

The controversial Actpassed by the BJP-ruled StateGovernment in 2019, intend-ing to take control of morethan 51 temples related to theChar Dham circuit has already

invited severe criticism fromthe Sangh Parivar organiza-tions. This Act enables theGovernment to take control ofthe temples currently bypriests, local trusts and the newAct say MPs, MLAs, and rep-resentatives appointed by theState Government will run thetemples. As per the Act, thehead of the DevasthanamBoard will be the State ChiefMinister and manyGovernment officials areplaced in the administration.The Act says, if the ChiefMinister is not a Hindu,senior-most Hindu Ministerwill be the head of the Board.

“Rather than waiting forthe Court to deliver Judgmentagainst the takeover, it wouldbe in the interest of our Partyif you as Prime Minister givesa direction to the ChiefMinister to restore the positionwhich has existing before thetakeover of the temples. It isalso politically sensitive to doso,” said Swamy.

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With rampant complaints-from quarantined per-

sons, the Union HomeMinistry on Tuesday directedall States to ensure that thehotels are charging only forseven days of quarantine fromthe foreign returnees and thatthey refund the remainingamount in case they havecharged in advance for 14 daysof quarantine.

In a letter issued to theChief Secretaries, Union HomeSecretary Ajay Bhalla notedthat as per the guidelines issuedby the Health Ministry forinternational arrivals, protocolfor institutional quarantine hasbeen revised to seven days fol-lowed by seven days of homequarantine after medical assess-ment.

“It has been brought to thenotice of this ministry thatIndian nationals who werequarantined in hotels aftertheir return from abroad weremade to pay advance for 14days. Since they can now leavefor home quarantine afterseven days, the amount paid bythem for the remaining sevendays needs to be refunded tothem, which some hotels arerefusing to refund,” the state-ment said.

The MHA asked the statesto ensure that the foreignreturnees who paid advanceamount for 14 days are refund-ed their balance amount with-out any delay. There are manycomplaints that hotels werenot returning the money thecollected when 14 days quar-antine was mandated and latercut short to seven days onlyhotel quarantine.

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The CBI has bookedKarnal-based Shakti

Basmati Rice Pvt Ltd and itsthree directors in a case ofcheating and forgery for caus-ing loss to the public sectorState Bank of India (SBI) tothe tune of over �100 crore.

The Central Bureau ofInvestigation has registeredthe case on a complaint fromSBI against the private ricecompany based at Karnal(Haryana) and its threeDirectors and unknown others including unknownpublic servants.

“It was alleged that theaccused, engaged in the man-ufacturing of grain mill prod-ucts (rice), obtained creditfaci l it ies f rom commercial branch of StateBank of India, Karnal(Haryana), by misrepresenta-tion of facts,” the CBI said ina statement.

It was further alleged thatthe accused had cheated theBank by diverting the loan

amount for introduction ofshare capital, inflating thesale and purchase figures anddevaluation/decrease ofstocks to show losses.

The “losses” were cited fordiverting the funds by sellingthe stocks out of the books.

It was also alleged that theaccused failed to repay theloan amount resulting in theloss of about �100.46 crore) tothe Bank.

Besides the firm, thedirectors named as accusedare Shyam Lal, Par veenKumar and Suresh Kumar.

In its complaint, the SBIalleged that the fraud came tolight when a forensic auditwas conducted by a firm andreport was submitted onMarch 7 last year.

The alleged fraud wascommitted at CommercialBranch of SBI at Karnal.

The accused persons arealleged to have siphoned thefunds by diversion of creditlimits for introduction ofshare capital and round-trip-ping of funds.

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ARajya Sabha Parliamentarycommittee is all set to scru-

tinise the over two months coro-na lockdown when the HomeSecretary Ajay Bhalla will briefthe panel headed by Congressleader and former UnionMinister Anand Sharma nextweek.

Sources in Parliament saidthat a notice for the meeting onJune 3 has been sent. For twomonths, parliamentary com-mittees were not given permis-sion to hold virtual meetings andtheir activities have been on holdsince the lockdown wasannounced on March 25.

This will be the first meet-ing of a parliamentary commit-tee, which acts as a mini parlia-ment. It will closely scrutinise thehome ministry, its various noti-fications and steps taken duringthe entire lockdown period, saidthe source.

The migrant labour issuesare also expected to be reflected.

For two months, despite hiswritten requests, Congress'sAnand Sharma -- who is thechairman of the standing com-mittee on home affairs -- did notget any official response from thechairman of the Rajya Sabha tohold these meetings.

Sources indicated that theUnion Home ministry led byAmit Shah was not keen on hav-ing any legislative scrutiny dur-ing the lockdown period. TheMinistry of ParliamentaryAffairs, which is under PralhadJoshi, had also refused to allowany virtual meetings, citing rulesand procedures.

Officially, the SecretaryGenerals of both houses met lastmonth to find a way to holdthese meetings.

Cutting across party lines,various committee chiefs havewanted meetings to be con-vened and have argued that 34countries are holding sessionsand meetings. Prime MinisterNarendra Modi has also beenholding online cabinet meetings,they pointed out. Twenty-twoopposition parties had jointlyissued a statement, demandingparliamentary committees bereconvened to allow legislativeoversight over various aspects ofthe lockdown, which, they said,has had a negative impact acrossall sections of society on social,economic and health fronts.

According to AnandSharma, he had written to theRajya Sabha Chairman VenkaiahNaidu to allow members whocan't be physically present to jointhrough video conferencing bya secured network.

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In a major boon to studentsliving in rural areas who are

preparing for IIT JEEentrance exams amidst theCOVID 19 lockdown, theCentre on Wednesday tied upwith Prof Anand Kumar ofthe Super 30 fame to impartcoaching to IIT JEE aspirants in association withCommon Service Centre(CSC) for a fee of just �1

With the help of CSCwhich has now countrywidereach, the online study mate-rial for children living inrural areas who cannot affordexpensive coaching will be

shared through innovativeteaching modules.

The study materials willensure rural students' interestin Mathematics and Sciencesubjects at an early age.

To begin with, ProfAnand Kumar on Wednesdayinteracted with poor studentsfrom rural areas on varioussocial media platforms ofCSC through video conferencing at lakhs of CSCcentres across India.

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With 817 persons testing positivefor coronavirus on Wednesday,

18, 545 persons have been tested pos-itive in Tamil Nadu till date, said thepress release issued by theGovernment of Tamil Nadu.

But the number of active Covid-19 cases including those in isolationstood at 8,500 said the release. TheState also saw 567 fully cured personsgetting discharged from various hos-pitals taking the total number ofpatients who were cured to 9,909.

The State also saw six persons suc-cumbing to the pandemic onWednesday, taking the total numberof fatalities to 133.

The Government release said thatout of the 817 persons tested positiveon Wednesday, 138 were fromMaharashtra. A total number of 4,42,970 samples have been tested inTamil Nadu till date and there are 70laboratories working round the clockto test the samples. On Wednesdayalone 11, 231 samples were tested inthe State.

Chennai alone tested 12, 203 pos-itive cases till date and the capital city

continued to top the table with max-imum number of coronavirus cases.Chengalpattu (888), Thiruvallur (825),Cuddalore (439), Ariyalur (362),Kancheepuram (330) are the otherproblematic districts in Tamil Nadu.

Meanwhile a press release issuedby the Chief Minister’s Office said thata high level meeting of top bureau-crats and medical experts would beheld on May 30 to take a final call onwhether to extend the lockdownwhich ends on May 31. TheGovernment has stated that schoolswould reopen after the mid-summervacation in the first week of June.Various universities in the State havestarted issuing memos to teachingstaff to be present on June 1 itself.

SRM University , the largest pri-vate university in the State has issuedletters asking all teaching staff to bepresent in the campus on June 1. Withthe declaration of lockdown most ofthe teaching staff drawn from outsidethe State have gone back to theirrespective native places. With TamilNadu government saying no to trainand bus services from other States, theteaching community find themselvesin a quandary.

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Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayansaid on Wednesday that coron-

avirus situation in Kerala is alarmingand asked the people in the State tobe warriors in the fight against pan-demic. “The South West Monsoonmay hit the Kerala coast anytime andit would hasten the possibilities ofdiseases caused by rain,” said theChief Minister while briefing themedia about the status of the State visa vis coronavirus.

“On Wednesday 40 more personstested positive for covid-19 pan-demic. Out of this 16 were those whoreturned to the State fromMaharashtra while nine were fromforeign countries. As on today, thereare 1,004 covid-19 patients in theState. 445 persons have been hospi-talised for treatment. On Wednesday,

229 persons with signs of pandemichave been admitted to hospitals,” saidVijayan.

The Chief Minister also dis-closed that 173 Keralites who wereworking abroad succumbed to thepandemic in the countries where theywere residing. “The day also saw thenumber of hotspots in the Stateincreasing to 81. On Wednesdayitself, 13 hotspots were newly addedto the existing list,” he said.

Vijayan reiterated that it waswith the return of the expatriates theState saw the number of coronaviruspatients shooting up after it was flat-tened. “It is a matter of big concernand we are going ahead with stringentregulations,” said the Chief Minister.The Health Department has tested 58,686 samples till date and it wasfound that 56,558 were negative.

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At the time of Covid -19 pandemic, ahealth survey conducted by the

Karnataka Health Department revealsaround13,341 households have peoplewith Influenza Like Illness(ILI), SevereAcute Respiratory Syndrome (SARI) andother Covid-19 symptoms. The surveyresults have been uploaded to a websitebeing maintained by the state Corona warroom and Karnataka State RemoteSensing Applications Centre (KSRSAC).

According to officials, out of 1.68crore households in the state, survey workis completed with 1.13 crore households.“We are identifying households who arevulnerable so as to give them more sup-port and keep a track of them throughASHA and Auxiliary Nurse Midwives,”Munish Moudgil, DPAR secretary and in-charge officer of the war room, said.

As per the data shared by the statecorona war room, the estimated house-

holds are 1.68 crore, while 67.16 per centof them have been surveyed so far.

The highest number of SARI/ILIand Covid symptom households are fromKalaburagi at 1,902, followed byBengaluru Urban with 1,703 andShivamogga with 1,217. As for vulnera-ble households that need follow-up, themaximum are in Bengaluru at 3.33 lakh.

It has also identified 1.37 lakh peoplewith co-morbidities and 48.35 lakh seniorcitizens, considered as vulnerable groupsto keep a tab on their health.

“The survey is being done to assessthe number of people with ILI and SARIsymptoms and comorbidities. Not all ofthem are tested for Covid. ILI cases fromcontainment zones, and those with a trav-el history to other countries and high-prevalence states are tested as per the test-ing protocol,” said Ravikumar Surpur,Commissioner of Health, BruhatBengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP).

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Tamil Nadu Government’splans to acquire Veda

Nilayam, the residence of late JJayalalithaa, former ChiefMinister, and convert it into anational memorial hit the road-block on Wednesday as theMadras High Court ruled thatthe Government has no right todo the same.

The Court also ruled that JDeepa and J Deepak, thenephew and niece of the lateleader as the second line legalheirs and were entitled to a por-tion of the imposing buildingfrom where Jayalalithaa presidedover the State and national pol-itics for years.

A Division bench consistingof justices N Kirubakaran andAbdul Quddhose asked theState Government to considerconverting a portion of Veda

Nilayam, situated in Chennai’s Poes Garden area intothe Chief Minister’s Office whileconverting another portion into a memorial forJayalalithaa.

Tamil Nadu has been giveneight weeks to reply to the Courtabout its decision. It was lastweek Tamil Nadu Governmentpromulgated an ordinance tak-ing over the entire Veda Nilayamas part of its move to convert itinto as JayalalithaaMemorial.

The Government said thebuilding and all the movableproperties at Veda Nilayam --furniture, jewels, books andothers are in a State of disuse.Hence all the immovable andmovable properties are trans-ferred to the Government forproper upkeep until the acqui-sition process is fully completed.

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Kolkata: Even as parts of southBengal was hit by a secondstorm a westerly on Wednesdayevening uprooting some moretrees and sending down a chilldown the people’s spines ChiefMinister Mamata Banerjee saidthat super cyclone Amphanthat hit Bengal on May 20 hadaffected about 60 percent of theState population.

Putting out a detailed listof losses she said Amphan hasleft a massive impact on theagricultural sector where about10.5 lakh hectares of land hasbeen damaged.

Most of these lands havebeen filled with salt water thatburst in from the maze of rivesin the Sunderbans delta. Inmany cases the standing cropshave been affected jacking upthe price of vegetable and otheragricultural products.

Apart from this 58,000fisheries have been damaged inaddition to several hundredboats, she said. Fishing is thesecond biggest bread earnerafter agriculture for the 3 crorepeople living in the three dis-tricts of North and South 24Parganas and East Midnapore.

Apart from fisheries about21 jetties have been lost to thesuper cyclone she said remind-ing that river transportation isa life line for the people livingin the coastal parts of Bengal. PNS

Lucknow: Uttar PradeshChief Minister YogiAdityanath has taken a U-turn, two days after hedeclared that permissionwould be needed if otherStates employ workersfrom UP.

The issue sparked amajor controversy and anofficial spokesman hasnow said that theGovernment would not includethis clause of ''prior permission''in the by-laws of the MigrationCommission.

The governmentspokesman also said it wasworking on modalities to set upthe commission to providejobs and social security tomigrant workers returning tothe state. It has named themigration commission as the

“Shramik Kalyan Aayog(Workers welfare commission).

About 26 lakh migrantshave already returned to thestate and an exercise to maptheir skills is being carried outto help them get jobs.

Yogi Adityanath has dis-cussed the modalities for set-ting up the commission andtold his officers to complete theskill mapping exercise in 15

days.A senior official of

Team 11, said, “The chiefminister discussed themodalities for setting upthe commission, as well.There will be no provisionrequiring other states toseek UP Government''sprior permission foremploying our manpower.The commission is being

set up to provide jobs andsocial security to the workers.We will also link the migrantsto the government schemes toprovide them houses and loansetc.”

Yogi Adityanath said a let-ter should be sent to all stategovernments to find out aboutmigrant workers wanting tocome back to UttarPradesh. IANS

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With the Railways sending41 trains packed with

migrant workers to Bengal,Chief Minister MamataBanerjee has questioned theCentre’s “true intentions”behind pushing back lakhs ofpeople “many of whom areinfected with the coronavirus ...particularly in the aftermath ofsuper cyclone Amphan,” andsaid she would request PrimeMinister Narendra Modi’sintervention into the matter.

A visibly miffed ChiefMinister on Wednesday saidthat the “Centre is pushingBengal into a catastrophic sit-uation by pushing back lakhs ofmigrant workers many of whoare corona infected” particu-larly at a time when the State’sinfrastructure is bursting at itsseams in the wake of Amphan.

“Already a few lakhmigrant workers have comeback to Bengal. And now about28 trains are ferrying back

thousands of workers more …many of them are coronainfected,” the Chief Ministersaid blaming the Railways fortaking a one-sided decision.

“We were kept in the darkbefore planning the workers’return,” she said adding “in abid to empty Mumbai you arecreating problem in Bengal.Corona cases are rising pro-portionately to the rolling in oftrains from infected states.”

An angry Chief Ministersaid “who will take responsi-bility if the number of coronacases shoots up in the wake ofmass repatriation of themigrant workers. Already wehave seen that many such peo-ple are infected… Is this a timeto do politics by public healthat risk.”

Claiming that there was a“politics behind this wholeaffair so that the BengalGovernment can be maligned,”the Chief Minister said that shehad even asked Home Minister

Amit Shah to dismiss ourGovernment in Bengal andtake things into his hands if hereally thought that herGovernment was unable tocontrol the situation.

“When I asked him to takethings into his own hands bytoppling our Government hereplied in the negative saying itwould be unfair to bring downan elected Government,” shesaid adding “the Railways couldhave planned the things outtaking our Government intoconfidence.They could havefollowed the lockdown normsand jointly we could have taken15 days’ time to arrange foradequate number of quarantinecentres” she said.

In the wake of mass returnof the migrant workers theBengal Government has decid-ed to keep them in governmentquarantine centres. “Workersreturning from five most coro-na affected states (Maharashtra,Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthanand Delhi) would be kept in

compulsory quarantine at gov-ernment facilities,” a seniorState bureaucrat said adding

the schools and colleges would be used for quarantiningthe migrant workers.”

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Kolkata: Rejecting the ChiefMinister’s allegations thatCentre was playing politics tomalign the BengalGovernment the State BJP onWednesday brought a nine-point chargesheet against theMamata BanerjeeGovernment.

Claiming that the ChiefMinister was trying to hidebehind the excuses and blam-ing the Centre for her lapsesState BJP president said “weare being a nine-point chargesheet against her Governmentwhich are as follows:

“First of all her failure tohandle the corona crisis, sec-ondly her government’s poor

response to the post Amphansituation despite the fact thatthe weather office had given anaccurate prediction, thirdlylarge-scale corruption in dis-tribution of ration after thecorona crisis pushing lakhs ofpoor people to abject hunger.

The fourth charge-sheetrelates falling law and orderproblem. Then you have adwindling economic scenarioand flight of capital compris-ing the fifth charge-sheet. Thesixth allegation is the large-scale mismanagement in state’seducation system. The seventhcharge-sheet relates to theanti-Hindu stance of the StateGovernment. PNS

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The jawans of BorderSecurity Force (BSF) have

come to the rescue of farmersin the rice bowl of RS Pura andArnia in Jammu by way of com-pleting the long pending desilt-ing work of Ranbir canal, run-ning parallel to theInternational border withPakistan.

Ranbir canal, constructedin 1905, is the major source ofirrigation for farmers and isconsidered lifeline of Jammuregion.

For a long time, farmers inthe region were demanding tocarry out desilting works inareas falling close to theInternational border.

Due to accumulation ofsilt in the 59.55 km long canalthe farmers were not able tofully tap the irrigation capaci-

ty of the canal. At many places,farmers failed to utilise thecanal water due to huge blocksin canal system and flow ofwater was restricted.

Following repeated pleas bythe farmers, the local author-ities of Irrigation and Floodcontrol department approachedthe BSF officers demandingtheir assistance in desiltingwork in the canal ahead ofBorder and in close vicinity of

border.Initially, the BSF authorities

apprehended objections bytheir counterparts from acrossthe border but they went aheadwith the decision to bail out thefarmers, growing world classbasmati in the region.

BSF spokesman in Jammusaid, “The desilting work wastaken up in the Arnia and R SPura Sector under the supervi-sion of senior officers withfoolproof security cover to civilstaff working ahead of fence “.

He said, despite provoca-tions from across the border thework was completed in recordtime.

BSF spokesman said, “ PakRangers objected to the workand also adopted aggressiveposture but the deft and tacti-cal handling of situation led tosuccessful completion of workon ground zero”.

Jammu: The Union Territory of Jammu& Kashmir on Wednesday recorded itshighest ever tally of 162 positive casesin the last 24 hours, taking the totalnumber of coronavirus cases to 1,921.With two more deaths, reported fromKashmir valley, the total death toll dueto Covid-19 touched 26.

The active cases of coronavirus sur-passed mark of 1,000. Out of 1,041, 288cases are active positive in Jammu and753 in Kashmir division.

According to the media bulletin,“Kulgam and Kupwara districts ofKashmir valley recorded 27 and 26 pos-

itive cases while Pulwama reported 21cases on Wednesday out of a total num-ber of 124 cases from Kashmir valley”.

Out of 38 fresh cases from Jammudivision, Udhampur and Poonchrecorded 11 cases each while Jammudistrict reported only 4 cases. Threeamong them were air travelers and werealready under administrative quaran-tine.

According to official sources, major-ity of returnees, who were tested posi-tive across Jammu division, were alreadyaccommodated in different quaran-tine centres. PNS

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The Ministers belonging to the threeconstituents of the ruling Maha Vikas

Aghadi (MVA) – Shiv Sena, NCP andCongress – on Wednesday ripped into theOpposition BJP, demanding to know if itwas a friend of foe of Maharashtra andpicking holes in the statistics provided byformer Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavisabout the Central assistance to the State.

Addressing a joint news conference atthe Shiv Sena’s south Mumbai office,senior NCP’s Water Resources MinisterJayant Patil, Congress minister BalarsahebThorat and Revenue Minister BalasahebThorat came down heavily on Fadnavis fortrying to “malign” the MVA Governmentand its Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray.

“The manner in which the BJP lead-ers from Maharashtra have gone aboutmaking baseless allegations against theMVA is surprising. Not even a single BJPleader from the BJP has shown the gen-erosity of contributing even one rupee tothe Chief Minister’s Relief Fund. They havedonated money only PM Cares fund. Iwould like to know whether the BJP is afriend of a foe of Maharashtra,” Jayant Patilasked.

“Compared with other States, theMaharashtra Government is combatingthe Coronavirus in a much better way. Thesituation is under control. The healthexperts had predicted that there would be1.5 lakh cases in Maharashtra by the endof May, but the number of positive casesin the state is around 60,000 now. Justbecause we have maximum number ofcases does not mean that the situation is

bad in the state. Our government isworking effectively against Coronavirus.Just As a result we are seeing positiveresults in the State”.

Slamming Fadnavis for projecting anexaggerated picture of the assistancereceived from the Centre, Parab said:“Maharashtra has not received food grainsworth �1,750 crore as claimed by Fadnavisnor it received �122 crore meant formigrant workers as claimed by him. TheMaharashtra government has paid �68towards train fare for migrant workers togo their states. We asked 80 trains but theCentre has made available 30 trains”.

“Fadnavis says that the MaharashtraGovernment has received 19,000 crorefrom the Centre. But the fact remains: theCentre has yet to clear this state’s GST duesof over �18,279 crore for 2019-2020. Wehave not other money that Fadnavis hasclaimed we have received. Whatevermoney that has come is for ongoingschemes… Where is the money thatFadnavis is talking about?,

Fadnavis had among other thingsclaimed on Tuesday that the NarendraModi government had given �25,104crore to the Uddhav Thackeray during thelast three months, it also gave �4,592 croreto the state government towards provid-ing food grains to migrant workers in theState and that it had given an assistance of�438 crore to the MVA dispensationtowards purchase of drugs, PPE kits andN95 masks. Fadnavis had also claimed thatthe Maharashtra Government would getto the tune of �2,71, 500 crore becauseof the various packages announced by theModi Government.

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Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari has noti-fied changes in the Scheduled Tribes and Other

Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights)Act, 2006, which now provides for appealing against the dis-trict-level committee orders in the scheduled areas of thestate.

The notification is aimed at justice to the tribals whoseIndividual Forest Right or Community Forest Right havebeen rejected by the District Level Committee constitutedunder FRA.In a notification issued on May 18 in exerciseof the powers conferred on him by Schedule V of theConstitution, the Governor has modified Section 6 of theScheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers(Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, in its applicationto Scheduled Area of the State of Maharashtra.

This notification applies in the case of the Provisionsof the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act(PESA) areas in the State of Maharashtra and allows appealprovision against the decisions of the District LevelCommittee. According to the modification a provision hasbeen incorporated enabling rightful claimants of the for-est rights to appeal against the Order of the District LevelCommittee.

The notification states that Divisional Level Committeesunder the chairmanship of Divisional Commissioners havebeen constituted to hear the appeals against the decisionof the District Level Committee.

The notification specifies that, in case of order passedby District Level Committee before the commencement ofthe notification, the application for appeal shall be madewithin six months from the date of issue of notification.

As per the notification, in case of order passed by theDistrict Level Committee after the commencement of thenotification, application of appeal shall be made within aperiod of ninety days from the date of communication oforder of the District Level Committee. It was observed bythe Governor that, a large number of applications underthe above mentioned Act relating to record of rights is reject-ed by the District Level Committees under the said Act.

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Page 6: ˆ!˚ ˙ · south Mumbai office, Water ... booking flight tickets to Bihar ... Delhi-Ludhiana flight and one passenger of IndiGo Chennai to Coimbatore flight tested posi-tive. Besides,

With a stimulus pack-age of �8.4 lakhcrore for the agri-culture sector, theFinance Minister

sought to usher in an economic“green revolution” based on provid-ing credit guarantee to MSMEs,stocking up capacity at the farm gateand opening this sector for business.In short, the Government aims tostrengthen rural banking networks,provide additional loans and expe-dite the goal of doubling farmers’incomes. A report by the Niti Aayogappears to be the lodestar for theFinance Minster’s presentation. Itincluded suggestions on improvingfarm gate infrastructure, dismantlingof APMC and even linking farmersto agri-business directly or throughcontract farming, among others.

Niti Aayog Vice Chairman RajivKumar even said that “the EssentialCommodities Act” is a hindrance toagri-exports and had called for itsremoval way back in 2017. With sev-eral States regulating the stock andsupply and various food items beingremoved from purview, the said Actis vestigial. Even with the spread ofthe Coronavirus, this sector is func-tioning with a pre-Corona agenda.New steps though include the grantof additional funds to galvanise NitiAayog’s vision of reforming the agrisector and Prime Minister NarendraModi’s announcement of a NewProperty Card, which would stand ascollateral for loans or advances frombanks and financial institutions.

The Government was swift tolink farmers’ lands to banking insti-tutions in a bid to allow more cred-it flow into rural India. The IndianGovernment is unsure about farmstatistics. Does it know how manydestitute farmers are connected to therural banking system? Even if incen-tives are there, can loan subversionhelp them? Can a boost in infrastruc-ture or market liberalisation uplift ourrural sector?

Maybe the US has an answer.Agriculture was a major industry inAmerica in the era before WorldWar-II. Overwhelmingly, small andmedium family farms dominated thecountry. After a slight spike post-war,farms in America soon boomerangedto overproduction. Farm incomeswere “low” compared to the “costs.”Sounds familiar?

With liberalisation, the US wasquick to enact the Farmers HomeAdministration (FmHA) Act and theDisaster Loan Act of 1949 to ensure“loans” to farmers. Direct farm own-ership loans were being provided to

secure farmlands. Emergencycrop and the “feed loan pro-gramme”, too, were launched tohelp the farmers with interimfinancing. Investments in ruralinfrastructure and easy loanswere encouraged. All such mea-sures are very much similar tothe economic policy adopted bythe Indian Government to tack-le the ill effects of the Coronapandemic.

Given the extra flow ofcash, stressed farmers were quickto buy more land, farm equip-ment and modernise infrastruc-ture. In fact, for some years, theyearly land inflation price over-took bank investments. Overall,the business was running goodbut this ascent was artificiallysustained by way of fiscal manip-ulation. Speculation was highand credit was being used to re-finance other mortgages. Thiscaused a financial crash.Between 1950 and 1971, realfarm income decreased from$18 billion to $13 billion. Thenumber of farms, too, decreasedby 50 per cent. But income perfarm rose by 46 per cent asagainst a national average of 76per cent. Meanwhile, the totalmortgage debt on US farms rosefrom $8 billion in 1950 to $24billion in 1971.

In former US AgricultureSecretary Earl Butz’s style,either “you got big” and dou-bled your income or “got out”of farming. Is India, too, aim-

ing at doubling farm incomesthe same way? Well, one spar-row does not make a summer.Consider this: The Committeeon Economic Development(CED), in its “An AdaptiveProgramme for Agricultureof 1962 and Doubling FarmersIncomes” report of 2017 hadpresented an ably and careful-ly-prepared design, leading tothe abandonment of all farmprogrammes at the end of fiveyears. It proposed to “shift cul-tivators out of the farm to non-farm activities” as too manyfarmers were a problem.

Post the implementation ofan adaptive land managementprogramme, over one millionsmall-medium family-size farmswere lost. Farmer suicides alongwith small and medium farmforeclosures sky-rocketed asmost farmers were unable to payback their loans. The agrariancrisis worsened depressionamong farmers. They have vocif-erously been asking for loanwaivers. A NABARD studypointed out that 52.5 per cent ofthe rural households had a debtof $1,470 (over �1.11 lakh) eachin 2018. Compare this to theaverage monthly rural house-hold surplus of �1,413.

Providing more credit (yes,more loan schemes are to follow)will put additional burden on thefarmers and the entire ruraleconomy will be in a spiral ofhuge debt. With contract farm-

ing, agri-commodity tradingand agri-business among others,Indian farmers will have noother option than to be hired intheir own farms as was seen inthe US. History has a strangeway of repeating itself.

The Government’s decisionto open the farm gate and dis-mantle regulated APMC man-dis will open the doors of agri-business to Indian farms.Farmers in the US are at the endof the tunnel. This is where theIndian Government aspires tobe. In his book, Merchants ofGrain, Dan Morgan describesthe journey of how “marketaccess for farmers” led to theconsolidation of elevator shaftsand storage by giant companies.This was followed by thetakeover of farmers’ co-opera-tives. All of this culminated intoa new grain monopoly in theUS, which now controls 70 percent of the world’s supply chain.Farmers in America have nomarket left, just the corporatemarkets of Cargill and the likes.

In 2006, the BiharGovernment rescinded theAPMC Act to attract privateinvestment. What followed nextis shocking. Farmers receivedeven lower prices for their pro-duce. Meanwhile, “traders” cart-ed truckloads of produce toAPMC mandis all the way toPunjab and Haryana to sell atMinimum Support Price (MSP).Private investment never came.

The human cost of “liberal-isation” of farm gate has beenhuge. Violence, drug abuse andinsanity encircle the Americanrural towns all along the “dustbowl.” Joel Dyer’s book, HarvestOf Rage: Why Oklahoma City IsOnly The Beginning, acts as thedot-connector between the post-World War-II reforms and thecurrent dismal state of Americanfarmers. Home-grown militiamovements had led to theOklahoma City bombing in1995. The US farm debt this yearstood at $425 billion. Yet, most-ly large and company farms getthe benefits of relief packages.

Meanwhile, thousands ofAmerican farmers are waiting tobe goaded out of farming again.What started out in the post-World War as a liberal reform,has completely changedAmerican agriculture to becomea farming system with minimalfarmers.

Currently, India is trying totread the same path. As anAmerican playbook is applied tothe Indian crisis, how soonbefore artificial fiscal measuresfail, debt quadruples and foreclo-sures become the norm? As wecome out of the war againstCorona, the Government is onlyrepackaging its agenda and opt-ing for Cargillisation for a fewagri-dollars more.

(The writer is Director, Policyand Outreach, National SeedAssociation of India)

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Sir — This refers to the editor-ial, “Up in the sky” (May 28).Domestic airlines resumed ser-vices after two months but boththe flyers and airlines had to tideover significant barriers alongthe way. The passengers were hithard by unstable schedules andabrupt cancellation of flights.

Complications in the wakeof doubts and ambivalence har-boured by States over allowinginbound flights have hamperedtravel operations. The cappingof the number of flights tooperate in some of the busiestairports like Mumbai, Chennai,Hyderabad and Kolkata, withvarying quarantine protocolsadopted by various States, isproving to be a dampener.

Fear of imported cases isgenuine but walling off com-pletely can’t be an option if theeconomy is to restart. Statesconsistently complain about thetanking of revenues during lock-down and then contradict it byworrying over the risk of reopen-ing the economy. Transport andunhindered movement of peo-ple, commodities and servicesare the lifeline of the economy.

A new normal isn’t possiblewithout reasonable compromis-es in these areas. Fear psychosis,stemming from unpreparedness,can’t be an excuse.

N Sadhasiva ReddyBengaluru

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Sir — This refers to the editori-al, “Up in the sky” (May 28). Itwas expected that with theresumption of domestic flights,

there would be an eventual returnto normality. On the contrary, thesudden cancellation of somedomestic flights led to utterchaos at the airports. Improperhandling of the situation on thepart of the Central and State

Governments as well as the air-lines cannot be denied.Ultimately, the passengers hadto bear the brunt for no fault oftheirs. Most States were reluc-tant to accept the Centre’s deci-sion. Before opening the skiesfor air travel, the AviationMinistry should have consultedvarious States to formulate stan-dard operating procedures.

Katuru Durga Prasad RaoHyderabad

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Sir — With India registering1,51,876 confirmed Coronaviruscases, we are yet to flatten thecurve. Patchy implementation oflockdown guidelines in someStates may have led to a suddenspike in the number of cases.The exodus of migrant labour-ers from metro cities to their vil-lages was avoidable. Insufficientaid led to this situation. Hadthey come at the right time, pre-cious lives would have beensaved.

ShambhaviVia email

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In the ongoing battle for supremacy between theUS and China, the latter let loose its “wolf-war-riors”, signifying Beijing’s new and aggressive

diplomatic response to countries blaming it for theCoronavirus pandemic. “Wolf-warrior diploma-cy,” named after two Chinese movies, describesoffensives by its diplomats to defend China’s nation-al interests, often in confrontational ways. However,the global anger against Beijing was so much thatanti-China sentiments gained momentum and the“wolf-warrior diplomacy” failed to make animpact. Saner voices at home began to call forrestraint but they went unheeded as China todayis ruled by the all-powerful Xi Jinping and his dik-tat prevails.

So China displayed its aggressiveness inSouth China Sea (SCS) by sinking a Vietnamesefishing trawler near the Paracel Islands in earlyApril. In mid-April, the Chinese Ministry ofNatural Resources and Ministry of Civil Affairsjointly announced the naming of 80 islands, reefs,seamounts, shoals and ridges in the SCS, trigger-ing angry protests from other claimants. China wasusing the global fight against the Corona to pur-sue its territorial ambitions as part of its tradition-al expansionist policy.

The Chinese actions in SCS were checkmat-ed by US intervention as India continued to pur-sue its strategy of balance. But was the Chinese bel-ligerence in the SCS a warning to India which itfailed to read? India’s change in FDI rules to stemChinese predatory trade practices didn’t go downwell with Beijing. Neither was China happy withIndia joining the comity of nations backing a draftresolution at the World Health Organisation(WHO), nor was it happy with the likely shift ofglobal companies from China to India. The finalstraw for China was the chairmanship of the exec-utive board of the World Health Assembly by wayof which India could take to task both Beijing andthe WHO. China felt threatened by India thoughNew Delhi made it clear that it wants to avoidpower politics.

So China soon made India the target of its“wolf warrior-diplomacy” too. First through Pressstatements, harsh articles and accusations ofunfair trade practices. Then it decided to shift thescene to the Sino-Indian border.

Two of the three incursion points chosen hadtraditionally been undisputed in the past. Chinaonce again dared India but knew very well that itwas not the same India of 1962. It was trying itsusual technique of messaging and signalling tocoerce New Delhi, least realising that India hadlearnt its lessons well at Doklam. China’s recentprovocations on the Line of Actual Control(LAC) have strategic messaging rather than tac-tical. These are not the usual summer time intru-sions and are almost simultaneous. Naku La inNorth Sikkim, Galwan Valley in Sub-Sector North(SSN) and Pangong Tso (PTSO) in the MiddleSector of Eastern Ladakh.

The scuffles had very little to do with borderdisputes because both Naku La and Galwan werenever disputed by the Chinese earlier. It wantedto send signals to India that it wants negotiations,maybe to get out of the global mess it finds itselfin, a leverage against the global pandemic inquiry.China is scared of losing its status as the “globalfactory.” China has also tried to provoke Nepal byasking it to raise a boundary dispute with India inthe Lipulekh and Kalapani sectors. China isusing Nepal as a pressure point as part of its coer-cive strategy.

While the incursion in North Sikkim wasresolved using the existing border managementprotocols, the same failed to resolve the tension inEastern Ladakh. In fact, China is reported to be

strengthening its positions and alsosome movement has been reportedopposite Demchock in Sub-Sector South(SSS). The tactical dimension of thesemoves revolves around China’s assertiveand coercive policies to maintain dom-inance over adversaries in the areas ofconflict.

As part of its War Zone Campaign(WZC) doctrine, China has rapidlydeveloped infrastructure right up to theforward posts, to create military asym-metry to gain advantage over the adver-sary in a short or localised conflict.However, it objects strongly and reactswith force to India’s attempts to do thesame on its side of the LAC. In the cur-rent scenario, too, the bone of contentionis the newly-constructed Leh-Shyok-DBO Highway, which has not onlyremoved the asymmetry but placedIndian troops at an advantage.

Coupled with this is the activation ofa number of Advanced Landing Grounds(ALGs) by the Indian Air Force (IAF).The Chinese sensitivities in the area liein Aksai Chin and Karakoram Pass, bothof which have become easily accessibleto Indian troops.

That is the reason the Chinese sideis focussing on the Galwan stand-off,painting India as the aggressor. In an arti-cle, its official Global Times newspaperaccused Indian troops of crossing overinto Chinese territory. In typical Chinesestyle, they predicted India would regretits actions. “The Galwan Valley is not likeDoklam because it is in the Aksai Chinregion in southern Xinjiang of China,where the Chinese military has anadvantage and mature infrastructure. So,if India escalates the friction, the Indianmilitary force could pay a heavy price”,it says.

To understand the Chinese belliger-ence, one needs to understand thePeople’s Liberation Army (PLA). Unlikethe Indian Army, the PLA is not a nation-al army. It is the military wing of theChinese Communist Party (CCP) withthe primary role of ensuring supremacyof the CCP. Unlike a national army ded-icated to the defence of a State and its

people, the Chinese military’s purpose isto create political power for the party. ThePLA is guided by the “political warfare”doctrine of the CCP which includes“Three Warfares” or “3Ws” encompass-ing, public opinion warfare, psycholog-ical warfare and legal warfare.

The first of the “3Ws,” media or pub-lic opinion warfare, attempts to shapepublic opinion both domestically andinternationally. If the domestic elementsounds odd, it is because the PLAbelieves that energising or mobilising theChinese public is useful for signallingresolve and deterring foreign incursionson Chinese interests. The second warfareattempts to influence foreign decision-makers and how they approach Chinapolicy. The third seeks to shape the legalcontext for Chinese actions, includingbuilding the legal justification for Beijing’sactions and using domestic laws to sig-nal Chinese intentions. All of these fallunder the broader umbrella of politicalwarfare. The party leads and the PLA fol-lows.

It would be of interest to note thatboth Doklam and the current stand-offwere synchronised with the importantpolitical meetings of the CCP, which areheld periodically to critically examine theefficacy of the Government, Xi Jinpingin the instant case.

The military strategy of the PLA isbased on the famous concept of “winningwithout fighting.” Even today CCPbelieves in the famous quote of Sun Tzu,“To win hundred victories in one hun-dred battles is not the acme of skill. Tosubdue the enemy without fighting is theacme of skill.” Coercion remains the basicphilosophy for resolving political differ-ences. In military terms it’s called “shi”,calibrated power display with limitedforces on the borders in order to seekSino-centric solutions. China believes incoercing the adversaries to submit to itswill or face consequences. Psychologicalwarfare is an important component ofChinese war fighting doctrine. It alsobelieves in creating adverse politicalpressure through a disturbed neigh-bourhood. Nepal’s recent hostile attitude

and Pakistan are the two examples of thesame. Another terminology often usedto explain Chinese warfare doctrine is“Unrestricted Warfare.” The ultimateaim of all these is to secure victory overthe adversary through aggression andcoercion without the need to fight a war.Exaggerated figures of troop deployment,pitching of dummy tents, deployment ofheavy machinery, verbal aggression,propaganda, a no holds barred hate cam-paign, threatening statements throughState-controlled media, cyber-attacks,misquoting laws and interpreting themto its own advantage are all the tricks ofthe trade employed by China.

India understands the Chinesebrinkmanship very well. India’s stand tillnow has been not only politically andmilitarily correct but aggressive as well.China also understands that its interna-tional image is at the lowest in the con-temporary era. It would not be able tobrowbeat India so easily. China is scaredthat with changed military equations inthe sector, India may become aggressiveabout Aksai Chin like it has done in thecase of Gilgit-Baltistan. In geo-strategicterms China today has many vulnerabil-ities like Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet,Xinjiang and the SCS to name a few.

India has strengthened its positionnot only militarily but strategically as well.Therefore, India needs to stand firm andretain its control over the LAC. The drag-on has made a mistake this time by dar-ing the tiger. India’s dominant locationin the Indo-Pacific bestows upon it astrategic advantage which it must notlose. The fact remains that both sidesneed to negotiate an exit strategy and abeleaguered China — if thinking to usethis as a bargaining strategy to strength-en the geopolitical image of the CCP athome — may have to concede more thanIndia.

The best way to face the dragon is totame it. That is exactly what India isdoing. The proverbial Chinese dragon issupposed to be peaceful unlike its fire-spitting version.

(The author is a Jammu-based veter-an and political commentator)

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Even as the Centre and StateGovernments are fullyimmersed in reviving the econ-

omy that got derailed by theCoronavirus outbreak, a new contro-versy has erupted, with trade unionleaders being up in arms against thechanges in the country’s labour laws.

What angered the trade unionbosses was the move by the ShivrajSingh Chouhan Government torelease some of the industries from theMadhya Pradesh Industrial Relations

Act, 1961 and the Uttar Pradesh(UP) Government’s decision to givefreedom to industrial and businessestablishments from the MinimumWages Act, for a period of three years.

As a result of this, all trade unionbosses, cutting across party affiliations,have joined hands and declared waragainst the Centre and the StateGovernments which were boldenough to modify the Labour Lawsand Acts that govern employer-employee relations in the country.

Every 10 years, India witnesses theappointment of the Pay Commissionby the Union Government to revisethe salaries and perks of CentralGovernment employees. Subsequently,the State exchequer spends a big for-tune to implement the panel’s recom-mendations. This is followed by theState Government employees askingfor matching hikes in their pays andperks. The question being asked is

whether our Government employees(both in Central and State services) areworth the pay which they collect everymonth. Having been a Governmentemployee for nearly 15 years, I feel thatour babus get more than what theydeserve. The corporate sector is nodifferent. The management of our pri-vate sector firms is too consideratewhen it comes to the interests of theworkers. And sadly, our employees liveby the dictum “minimum work andmaximum pay.”

I remember the day I joinedGovernment service as a Class Threeemployee. The first person to welcomeme after I submitted the joiningreport was MN Unni, a seasonedGovernment employee. He intro-duced me to the four “golden rules”of Government service. “Come to theoffice on time; leave after officehours; never say no to anybody anddon’t do any work,” was his advice. He

said the first two rules had to do withpunctuality and played a major role inconvincing the department headabout a worker’s sincerity and dedi-cation. “If the boss is convinced thatyou reach office on time and stay backtill the working hours are over, youhave won half the war”, said Unni.

The last two rules, “never say noto anybody and don’t do any work”reflect the mindset of our bureaucra-cy. “Nobody will ask whether you havecompleted the assignment you havebeen entrusted with as long as younever say no to them for anything”,was Unni’s mantra to survive the“hardship” of Government service.

Well, coming back to the present,launching a business or industrialenterprise and running it smoothly tothe satisfaction of all have to be an artin today’s world. An author has thefreedom to write whatever he feels likepenning down, an artist has the inde-

pendence to draw a painting of hischoice (as long as it does not hurt any-one’s religious sentiments) and a his-torian is at liberty to push his conclu-sions even without proper validation.But an industrialist or entrepreneurhas no such freedom and he is at themercy of his employees.

A worker employed by a compa-ny has the freedom to move to green-er pastures while his employer is notthat fortunate, because he does nothave the freedom to get rid of a per-son who is unfit, unskilled or unwill-ing to work. How unfair is that?

Many times I have asked US-based entrepreneurs why they are hes-itant to set up shop in India. Theiranswer is nearly always the same. Ourarchaic labour laws and the outdatedindustrial Act prevent them frommaking any investment in the coun-try.

“Once you open a business enter-

prise in India, you are in for majortrouble. We cannot lock it down if theventure is a failure. We are bound byrules to pay salaries to workers irre-spective of the fact whether we areworking or not. It is impossible towind up the operations in the coun-try,” says a highly-successful SiliconValley-based entrepreneur.

For the good of the country,there should be a law which makes itmandatory for trade union bosses tohave worked in a factory/firm/farmand that too for a certain number ofyears. This is because only people whohave worked somewhere know thetrue value of work.

Trade union leaders should neverengage in union trade because thismeans they are dealing in somethingthat is outside the purview of theirunderstanding, experience and exper-tise.

(The writer is a senior journalist)

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Beni (Congo): Rebels havekilled at least 40 people in sev-eral attacks in Congo’s easternIrumu territory, a local civilrights group says.

Members of the AlliedDemocratic Forces and anIslamic State-linked groupknown as MTM staged theattacks Tuesday in Samboko,Bandavilemba and Walese-Vukutu in Ituri province, theCentre for the Promotion ofPeace, Democracy and HumanRights said in a statementWednesday.

The rebels, who recentlybegan carrying out attackstogether, used machetes andlooted food and other valu-ables, the group said. CEPAD-HO said at least 627 civilianshave been killed by ADF forcessince Oct. 30.

Most attacks have occurredin response to large-scale offen-sives by Congolese armedforces in the region. AP

Geneva: Human Rights Watchis calling on the UN’s tophuman rights body to launch anindependent investigation intothe Philippine Government’sdrug war that has left thousandsdead, pointing in particular toits harmful effects on children.

The advocacy group madethe call alongside Wednesday’slaunch of a report timed for theUN-backed Human RightsCouncil session next month.The report highlights the dis-tress and economic troublesfaced by many children whosefamily breadwinners were killedin the violence over nearly thelast four years.

The 48-page report is basedon nearly 50 interviews andexamines the impact of about

two dozen killings underPresident Rodrigo Duterte’sdrug war.

Some children have beenforced to drop out of school, togo to work, and even live in thestreets as the government does-n’t offer a program to supportchildren left behind by suchkillings, the rights group said.

“Filipino children have suf-fered horribly from PresidentDuterte’s decision to unleashthe police and their hit menagainst suspected drug users,”the group’s Philippinesresearcher Carlos Conde said.

“The government needs tostop this endless violence thatis upending children’s lives anddirect assistance to the childrenharmed.”

Duterte and Philippinepolice officials did not imme-diately comment on the reportbut they have insisted in thepast that suspects were gunneddown after they fought backduring arrests or raids. ThePhilippine government main-tains it has no policy condon-ing extrajudicial killings.

Duterte, however, hasopenly threatened drug traf-fickers with death and encour-aged suspects to be shot whenthey threaten the lives of lawenforcers. The Philippines’record is expected to come upat the June Human RightsCouncil session in Geneva — ifcoronavirus conditions permit,based on an assessment bySwiss authorities. AP

Canberra: Australian policeannounced on Wednesday thatthey had decided againstcharging a journalist over anewspaper article she wrotemore than two years ago fol-lowing a high-profile investi-gation that triggered a nation-al storm over press freedom.

Australian Federal PoliceDeputy Commissioner IanMcCartney said he had decid-ed that no one would becharged following an investi-gation that spanned 25 monthsbecause of a “lack of evidence.”

Annika Smethurst’s article,citing “top secret letters”between the heads of theDefense and Home Affairsdepartments, reported plans tocreate new espionage powersthat would allow an intelli-gence agency to spy onAustralian citizens for the firsttime. It was published in NewsCorp. Australia’s Sundaypapers on April 29, 2018.

Australian Federal Policeresponded with raids on

Smethurt’s Canberra home onJune 4 last year with warrantsto search her computer, phoneand home. The next day, policeraided Australian BroadcastingCorp.’s Sydney headquartersover unrelated leaked govern-ment documents.

ABC journalists DanOakes and Sam Clark — whoreported in 2017 thatAustralian troops had killedunarmed men and children inAfghanistan in a potentialwar crime — are still under“active investigation,”McCartney said.

The raids brought rivalAustralian media organiza-tions together to demandmore press freedom and guar-antees that reporters wouldnot risk jail over public inter-est journalism.

Media organizations arguethat press freedoms have beeneroded by more than 70 coun-terterrorism and security lawspassed by Parliament since the9/11 attacks in the US. AP

Minneapolis (US): FourMinneapolis officers involvedin the arrest of a black manwho died in police custodyhave been fired, hours after abystander’s video showed anofficer kneeling on the hand-cuffed man’s neck, even after hepleaded that he could notbreathe and stopped moving.

Mayor Jacob Freyannounced the firings onTwitter on Tuesday, saying“This is the right call.”

The man’s death Mondaynight was under investigationby the FBI and state lawenforcement authorities. Itimmediately drew compar-isons to the case of Eric Garner,an unarmed black man whodied in 2014 in New York afterhe was placed in a chokeholdby police and pleaded for hislife, saying he could notbreathe.

In a post on his Facebookpage, Frey apologized Tuesdayto the black community for the

officer’s treatment of the man,who was later identified as 46-year-old George Floyd, whoworked security at a restaurant.

“Being Black in Americashould not be a death sentence.For five minutes, we watched awhite officer press his knee intoa Black man’s neck. Five min-utes. When you hear someonecalling for help, you’re sup-posed to help. This officerfailed in the most basic, humansense,” Frey posted.

Police said the manmatched the description of asuspect in a forgery case at agrocery store, and that heresisted arrest.

The video starts with theshirtless man on the ground,and does not show what hap-pened in the moments prior.The unidentified officer iskneeling on his neck, ignoringhis pleas. “Please, please, please,I can’t breathe. Please, man,”said Floyd, who has his faceagainst the pavement.

Floyd also moans. One ofthe officers tells him to “relax.”The man calls for his motherand says: “My stomach hurts,my neck hurts, everythinghurts ... I can’t breathe.”

As bystanders shout theirconcern, one officer says, “He’stalking, so he’s breathing.” ButFloyd stops talking and slowlybecomes motionless under theofficer’s restraint. The officerdoes not remove his knee untilthe man is loaded onto a gur-ney by paramedics.

Several witnesses had gath-ered on a nearby sidewalk,some recording the scene ontheir phones. The bystandersbecome increasingly agitated.One man yells repeatedly.

“He’s not responsive rightnow!” Two witnesses, includ-ing one woman who said shewas a Minneapolis firefighter,yell at the officers to check theman’s pulse. “Check his pulseright now and tell me what itis!” she said. AP

Washington: For the first time,Twitter put a warning labelunder two posts by DonaldTrump, prompting the US pres-ident to accuse the popularsocial media platform of “inter-fering” in the presidential elec-tion scheduled in November.

Twitter highlighted two ofTrump’s tweets on Tuesday thatfalsely claimed mail-in ballotswould lead to widespread voterfraud in the elections, append-ing a message the social mediagiant has introduced recently tofight misinformation or unver-ified claims.

“There is NO WAY(ZERO!) that Main-in Ballotswill be anything less than sub-stantially fraudulent. Mail boxeswill be robbed, ballots will beforged & even illegally printedout & fraudulently signed. TheGovernor of California is send-ing Ballots to millions of people,

anyone.....,” Trump tweeted. Twitter’s notification dis-

plays a blue exclamation markunderneath the two tweets, sug-gesting readers “get the factsabout mail-in ballots”.

Trump, who has some 80million followers on Twitter,responded by tweeting again,saying the social media com-pany “is completely stifling freespeech”. “Twitter is now inter-fering in the 2020 PresidentialElection. They are saying mystatement on Mail-In Ballots,which will lead to massive cor-ruption and fraud, is incorrect,based on fact-checking by FakeNews CNN and the AmazonWashington Post....,” a visiblyupset Trump tweeted.

“Twitter is completely sti-fling FREE SPEECH, and I, asPresident, will not allow it tohappen!” he said in anothertweet. PTI

Brussels: The EU’s executive isproposing a 750 billion-euro($825 billion) recovery fund tohelp the bloc’s economythrough the deep recessioninduced by the coronaviruspandemic, commissioner PaoloGentiloni said on Wednesday.

Gentiloni, who is in chargeof economic affairs at the com-mission, wrote in a tweet thatthe move is “a European turn-ing point to face an unprece-dented crisis.” However, the 27nation EU remains deeplydivided over what conditionsshould be attached to thefunds, and Wednesday’s pro-posal from the EU’s executivearm is likely to set off weeks ofwrangling.

The move comes with the

world’s biggest trading blocset to enter its deepest-everrecession as the impact fromthe coronavirus ravageseconomies. Virtually everycountry has broken the EU’sdeficit limit as they’ve spent tokeep health care systems, busi-nesses and jobs alive.

Earlier this month, theleaders of Germany and France— historically, the two maindrivers of EU integration —agreed on a one-time 500 bil-lion-euro ($543 billion) fund,a proposal that would add fur-ther cash to an arsenal offinancial measures the bloc isdeploying to cope with the eco-nomic fallout.

That plan would involvethe EU borrowing money in

financial markets to help sec-tors and countries that areparticularly affected by thepandemic. The EuropeanCommission’s blueprint is like-ly to resemble the Franco-German plan in many wayswhile attaching the fund to theEU’s next long-term budget.

The big question will behow much money will take theform of grants and how muchwould be loans.

Austria, Denmark, theNetherlands and Sweden — agroup of countries dubbed the“Frugal Four” for their bud-getary rectitude — are reluctantto see money given away with-out any strings attached, andtheir opposition to grants couldhold up the project. AP

Washington: US PresidentDonald Trump is “displeased”with China’s new nationalsecurity law for Hong Kong,the White House has said,amid rising tensions betweenWashington and Beijing inthe wake of the coronaviruspandemic.

China on Friday intro-duced the draft of a contro-versial national security law inHong Kong in its parliament totighten Beijing’s control overthe former British colony, inwhat could be the biggest blowto the territory’s autonomyand personal freedoms since1997 when it came underChinese rule.

Hong Kong, an economicpowerhouse, is a SpecialAdministrative Region (SAR)of China. It has observed a“one country, two systems”policy since Britain returnedsovereignty to China on July 1,1997, which has allowed it cer-tain freedoms the rest of Chinadoes not have.

The US over the last fewdays has expressed concernsover the new Chinese law onHong Kong and has indicatedof taking steps against it.

“He (Trump) is displeasedwith China’s efforts and that it’shard to see how Hong Kongcan remain a financial hub ifChina takes over,” WhiteHouse Press Secretary

Kayleigh McEnany toldreporters at a news conferenceon Tuesday.

As many as 16Congressmen have introduceda resolution in the Congress tocondemn the ChineseCommunist Party’s proposednational security law in HongKong. The proposed law banssecession, subversion, and for-eign interference, and wouldradically upend the “one party,two systems” structure.

In addition to denouncingthe proposal, the resolutioncalls for the world to stand withHong Kong and statesunequivocally the proposalputs Beijing in direct violationof the 1984 Sino-British JointDeclaration and the HongKong Basic Law.

“The Chinese CommunistParty’s so-called ‘national secu-rity’ law is not only a violationof their previous agreements,it’s also a direct attack onHong Kong’s freedoms,” saidCongressman MarkwayneMullin.

“We cannot let the CCPget away with this power grab.I am proud to cosponsor thisresolution with my colleaguesand stand with Hong Kong intheir fight against tyranny,”he added.

“Hong Kong has flourishedas a bastion of liberty,” Secretaryof State Mike Pompeo said ear-

lier in a statement.“The United States strong-

ly urges Beijing to reconsiderits disastrous proposal, abideby its international obliga-tions, and respect Hong Kong’shigh degree of autonomy,democratic institutions, andcivil liberties, which are key topreserving its special statusunder US law,” he said.

Congressman Chris Smith,author of the House-passedHong Kong Human Rightsand Democracy Act, con-demned Beijing’s efforts todestroy Hong Kong’s freedomsof press, speech and assembly.

“We are witnessing thedeath knell of the ‘high degreeof autonomy’ that China’scommunist rulers hadpromised and are guaranteedunder both the Basic Law andthe Sino-British JointDeclaration,” he said.

“Should Hong Kong ChiefExecutive Carrie Lam contin-ue to follow the dictates ofChinese Communist PartyGeneral Secretary Xi Jinpingand fail to protect the rights ofthe people of Hong Kong, shewill have presided over thedeath of ‘One Country, TwoSystems,’ and the United Stateswill be forced, by statute, toreassess the status of the HongKong Special AdministrativeRegion and our relationshipwith it,” Smith said. PTI

������6���������7��� �������7������������ ��������2�Hong Kong: Police in HongKong fired pepper pellets andmade 300 arrests as thousandsof people took to the streets onWednesday to voice anger overnational security legislation pro-posed by China, that has raisedinternational alarm over free-doms in the city.

In the heart of the financialdistrict, riot police fired pepperpellets to disperse a crowd, andelsewhere in the city policerounded up groups of dozens ofsuspected protesters, makingthem sit on sidewalks beforesearching their belongings.

A heavy police presencearound the Legislative Councildeterred protesters planning todisrupt the debate of a bill thatwould criminalise disrespect ofthe Chinese national anthem.The bill is expected to becomelaw next month.

Angry over perceivedthreats to the semi-autonomouscity’s freedoms, people of all agestook to the streets, some dressedin black, some wearing officeclothes or school uniforms andsome hiding their faces beneathopen umbrellas in scenes rem-iniscent of the unrest that shookHong Kong last year.

“Although you’re afraidinside your heart, you need to

speak out,” said Chang, 29, aclerk and protester dressed inblack with a helmet respiratorand goggles in her backpack.

Many shops, banks andoffices closed early.

The latest protests follow the

Chinese government’s proposalfor national security legislationaimed at tackling secession,subversion and terrorism inHong Kong.

The planned laws could seeChinese intelligence agencies

set up bases in Hong Kong.The proposal, unveiled in

Beijing last week, triggered thefirst big street unrest in HongKong in months on Sunday, withpolice firing tear gas and watercannon to disperse protesters.

The United States, Britain,the European Union and othershave expressed concern about thelegislation, widely seen as a pos-sible turning point for China’sfreest city and one of the world’smain financial hubs. Agency

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Washington: US PresidentDonald Trump on Wednesdaythreatened to close down socialmedia platforms after Twitterlabelled two of his tweets“unsubstantiated” and accusedhim of making false claims.

“Republicans feel that SocialMedia Platforms totally silenceconservatives voices. We willstrongly regulate, or close themdown, before we can ever allowthis to happen,” Trump tweeted.

Twitter targeted two tweetsthe president posted onTuesday in which he contend-ed without evidence that mail-in voting would lead to fraudand a “Rigged Election.”

Under the tweets, Twitterposted a link which read “Get

the facts about mail-in ballots”— a first for the social networkwhich has long resisted calls tocensure the US president overtruth-defying posts.

Trump pushed back againon Wednesday saying “we can’tlet large scale Mail-In Ballotstake root in our Country. Itwould be a free for all oncheating, forgery and the theftof Ballots.

“Whoever cheated themost would win. Likewise,Social Media. Clean up youract, NOW!!!!” The presidentalso accused social media plat-forms of interfering in the lastelection, saying “we saw whatthey attempted to do, andfailed, in 2016.” AFP

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Beijing: A Chinese surveyteam on Wednesday reachedMount Everest through Tibet toremeasure the exact height ofthe world’s tallest mountain.

According to China’s mea-surement, the height of MountEverest is 8,844.43 meterswhich is four meters less thanNepal’s calculations. On May 1,China, which differs with Nepalover the height of Everest,began a new survey to measurethe altitude of the world’s high-est peak. The event marked acrucial step in China’s missionto remeasure the height of theworld’s highest peak, whichscientists believe will enhancehuman knowledge of natureand help boost scientific devel-opment, state-run Xinhua newsagency reported. PTI

Rio De Janeiro: Brazil’s FederalPolice on Wednesday executedmore than two dozen searchesand seizure warrants in sixstates as part of an investigationinto a network that allegedlyspread defamatory fake newsand threats against SupremeCourt justices.

The judicial orders targetedallies and supporters of PresidentJair Bolsonaro, and the presi-dent’s son Carlos Bolsonarocriticized the operations on hisofficial Twitter account, callingthe investigation “unconstitu-tional, political and ideological.”A lawmaker closely allied withBolsonaro, Carla Zambelli, alsodenounced the searches.

The Federal Police did notname the subjects of its inves-tigation. The case involvessocial media posts that alleged-

ly spread libelous claims andthreats about Supreme Courtjustices or jeopardize the court’sability to operate. Bolsonaro’sbackers have often expressedfrustration at court rulings lim-iting the president’s power anddenunciations of the justices arecommon among the smallgroup of pro-Bolsonarodemonstrators who have gath-ered each weekend in the cap-ital, Brasilia. Bolsonaro himselfhas joined the demonstrations.

The president has pushedfor Brazil’s economy to reopeneven as the COVID-19 deathtoll rises and criticized thosewho have frustrated his wish-es. The Supreme Court ruled inApril that governors and may-ors have jurisdiction to imposerestrictions in spite ofBolsonaro’s wishes. AP

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Beijing: In what seems to be anabsolutely new theory, Chinesescientists have said that thenovel coronavirus may not haveits origin in the Wuhan seafoodmarket, which allegedly causedthe dreaded Covid-19 pan-demic. People’s Daily, the offi-cial newspaper of the ChineseCommunist Party, revealed onWednesday that new evidencesuggests ‘multiple origins of thetransmission of the virus’.

The leading newspaper ofChina wrote on Wednesday,“Chinese scientists have dis-covered a novel coronavirusclade that is different from thatshared among patients con-nected to the Huanan seafoodmarket in Wuhan, which pro-vides new evidence that themarket may not be the origin of

the virus that caused the pan-demic.”

On the new theory of thevirus origin, the paper says,“Scientists collected viralgenome samples from 326patients in Shanghai betweenJanuary 20 and February 25.They identified two majorclades, both of which includedcases diagnosed in earlyDecember 2019. The scientistsnoticed that genomes of sixpatients with contact historyrelated to the Huanan seafoodmarket fell into one kind ofclade while those of three otherpatients diagnosed in the sameperiod but without exposure tothe market clustered into theother clade, suggesting multipleorigins of transmission inShanghai.” IANS

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Police in Belgium andFrance on Wednesday

announced the arrests of 26people suspected of humantrafficking in the deaths of 39Vietnamese migrants whowere found in a refrigeratedtruck in Britain last year.

Judicial authorities said aseries of early morning raidstook place simultaneously inBelgium and France onTuesday as part of two legalinvestigations.

One inquiry was launchedfollowing the investigation intothe deaths of the 39 migrantsfound in October inside atruck’s refrigerated containerthat had been hauled toEngland. Police investigatingthe case found the 31 male andeight female victims were allfrom Vietnam and ranged inage from 15 to 44, includingthree minors.

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The Sensex rallied 996 pointswhile the Nifty surged past

the 9,300-mark on Wednesdayas investors piled into banking,finance and IT counters aheadof the expiry of monthly deriv-atives contracts.

Firm global cues and for-eign capital inflows added tothe buying momentum, traderssaid. After hitting a high of31,660.60 during the day, the30-share BSE Sensex settled995.92 points or 3.25 per centhigher at 31,605.22.

Similarly, the broader NSENifty surged 285.90 points or3.17 per cent to 9,314.95. AxisBank was the top gainer in theSensex pack, climbing 13.46per cent, followed by ICICIBank, HDFC Bank, IndusIndBank and Bajaj Finance.

On the other hand, SunPharma, UltraTech Cement,Titan and Asian Paints wereamong the laggards, sheddingup to 1.85 per cent. Despiteconcerns over COVID-19,

market participants preferredto accumulate stocks ahead ofthe expiry of May futures andoptions contracts on Thursday,propelling benchmark indices,experts said. “The benchmarkindices staged an intra-dayrally in sync with global cues,as some pockets of value buy-ing emerged. Inspite of risingnumber of infections, marketsexpect slow return to normal-cy, when lockdown 4.0 endsthis week.

“...Institutional buying inbanking stocks helped the bankindex gain by over 7 per cent.The volatility is expected tocontinue, ahead of tomorrow’sF&O expiry,” said Vinod Nair,Head of Research at GeojitFinancial Services. BSEbankex rallied 7.31 per cent,followed by finance, IT, metal,teck and energy indices. BSEhealthcare was the sole loser,dropping 0.84 per cent.

Broader BSE midcap and

smallcap indices closed up to0.54 per cent higher.

Foreign portfolio investorspurchased equities worth a net�4,716.13 crore on Tuesday,provisional exchange datashowed. Global equities weremostly higher as the gradualreopening of economiesenthused investors, thoughsimmering US-China tensionsand protests in Hong Kongcapped the gains.

Bourses in Tokyo andSeoul ended with gains, whileShanghai and Hong Kongclosed in the red. Stockexchanges in Europe were trad-ing with significant gains inearly deals. International oilbenchmark Brent crude futuresslipped 0.91 per cent to USD35.84 per barrel.

On the currency front, therupee depreciated 5 paise toprovisionally settle at 75.71against the US dollar.Meanwhile, the number ofcoronavirus cases in Indiaclimbed to 1,51,767 and thedeath toll touched 4,337, as perhealth ministry data. Globally,the number of cases linked tothe disease has crossed 55.89lakh, with the death tally ataround 3.50 lakh.

New Delhi/Mumbai: Theglobal economy has suffered adevastating blow courtesy theCovid-19 pandemic. Althoughstatistics show that some coun-tries are worse hit by the virus,all nations have been affectedeconomically.

It is quite a rarity to still bemaking profits despite the pan-

demic. One investor that seemsto be rising above the challengesis Latvian-born James Richman— known for his profitablemajor investments in Asia andexciting companies such as 3D-printed technologies.

Across the globe,Governments are scrambling tostimulate their economic

machinery. Several differentpackages have been implement-ed by various countries withsome gaining public approval.However, which countries arepoised to bounce back econom-ically? There are some, includingJames Richman, who believethat India is on its way to achiev-ing a comeback. IANS

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The telecom industry’s freshpush on floor tariffs not

withstanding, regulator Trai isunlikely to take up the matter,even via a virtual open house,for the next two months or so,given the COVID-19 crisisand the difficulties being facedby people, a source said.

This is not an “opportunemoment” to address the issue,and in any case, telecom oper-ators are free to take decisionson tariff matters, the senior Traiofficial said.

As things stand today, thereis no restriction on players totake independent calls on pric-ing issues, the official added.

When contacted, COAIDirector-General RajanMathews told PTI that theindustry is disappointed.

“Central and State Govtsare looking to move out ofCOVID-quarantine andprompt economic activities,revive economic opportuni-ties and jobs. While specificmeasures have beenannounced to simulate theeconomy, there has been norelief for the telecom industry.

“The absence of any otherrelief has prompted us toapproach the regulator for helpin stabilising our revenuestreams,” Mathews said.

Meanwhile, the Trai officialargued that many low-incomeusers who recharge for lesseramounts to make calls are fac-ing distress.

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More liquidity is needed toboost economic activity

following the coronavirus pan-demic and States should comeforward with �20 lakh crore,while another �10 lakh crorecan be harnessed from public-private investment to fight theCOVID-19 disruptions, UnionMinister Nitin Gadkari said onWednesday.

Gadkari said the econo-my is facing serious problems,businesses are being closedand unemployment is growing.All sections of the society,whether migrants, media, busi-ness persons or employees, are facing problems, but ulti-mately “we will win the eco-nomic war” and the “coronawar”, he said.

“More liquidity needs to bepumped in the market to boostthe coronavirus-hit economyand states should come forwardwith �20 lakh crore, whileanother �10 lakh crore can beharnessed from public-privateinvestment,” Road Transport,Highways and MSME Minister

Gadkari told PTI. He furthernoted that ‘these funds togeth-er with the� 20 lakh

crore package alreadyannounced by Prime MinisterNarendra Modi would result in�50 lakh crore liquidity in the market to battle theadverse impact of the novelcoronavirus pandemic on theeconomy”.

Centre had announced �20lakh crore economic stimuluspackage, including �8.01 lakhcrore of liquidity measuresannounced by the ReserveBank since March. The five-part stimulus package com-prised �5.94 lakh crore in thefirst tranche that provided cred-it line to small businesses, andsupport to shadow banks andelectricity distribution compa-nies, while, the second trancheincluded free foodgrain to thestranded migrant workers fortwo months and credit to farm-ers, totalling �3.10 lakh crore.Spending on agriculture infra-structure and other measuresfor agriculture and allied sectorsin the third tranche totalled to�1.5 lakh crore.

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Ashutosh Karnatak, Director(Projects), GAIL will take

over as member in APTEL -the designated appellate bodythat hears appeals against theorders of central and state elec-tricity regulatory commissionand oil regulator PNGRB.Karnatak, who was in Februaryappointed Technical Member(Petroleum and Natural Gas) inthe Appellate Tribunal forElectricity(APTEL), will takeover his new assignment onFriday, sources said.

The Government appoint-ed Karnatak, who was to super-annuate from gas utility GAILnext month, for a three-yearterm in APTEL.He replaces BNTalukdar, who retired onDecember 31, 2019. An elec-trical engineer from HBTI,Kanpur, and post-graduatefrom IIT, Delhi.

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NHPC Limited, India’s pre-mier hydropower compa-

ny is observing SwachhataPakhwada across all it region-al offices, power stations andprojects from 16th to 31st May2020. During this Pakhwada,NHPC is also organising vari-ous activities.

New Delhi: In yet anotherstep to battle COVID-19 pan-demic, state-owned PowerFinance Corporation Ltd (PFC)has tied up with TajSats, one ofAsia’s largest food companies,to provide hygienic and nutri-tious food to frontline COVIDwarriors.

As part of this endeavor,PFC will provide packed lunchboxes to Doctors and other Health Medical Staff engaged in treatment ofCOVID-19 patients at Dr RamManohar Lohia Hospital, NewDelhi.

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On World MenstrualHygiene Day, Youth Ki

Awaaz in collaboration withWater, Supply & SanitationCollaborative Council(WSSCC) has published find-ings from an online survey itconducted on the issue ofmenstrual health and hygiene.The survey which waslaunched online in September2019 and conducted over aperiod of 12 weeks gatheredresponses from young Indiansin the categories of awarenesson menstrual hygiene, taboos,perceptions and attitudestowards periods in India.

It gathered preferences onissues of product usage, pro-ductivity at the workplace;cultural practises and beliefsand explored the intersectionsaround menstrual hygiene,health, gender, emotional andmental well-being.

The idea behind the surveywas to dig deeper into howyoung people perceive men-strual hygiene and gauge theirattitudes, which can help fur-ther inform decision makingprocess by policy makers.

Some of the findings fromthe survey are:

� Sustainable menstrualhygiene products: Almost 71per cent of those who respond-ed agreed to using non-biodegradable sanitary napkinsand almost 63 per cent recog-nised that it is harmful for theenvironment. But affordabili-ty and the issue of trust,remained a barrier in menstru-ators making a clear switch tobiodegradable alternatives.

� Young people are moreopen to conversation aroundmenstrual hygiene: More than28 percent respondents in theage group of 18-22 said theywere comfortable speaking

about menstruation while only27 percent agreed to that in theage group of 23-25 years.

� Negative emotions associ-ated with first periods: Fearand anxiety were the dominantnegative emotions for thewomen experiencing their firstperiod with more than 23 percent respondents opting forthat.

� Need for a relook at men-strual leave policy: Almost 41per cent of the respondentswere in favour of introducinga Bill in Parliament around themenstrual leave.

� Cultural taboos exist:Almost 49.2 per cent respon-dents admitted that they haveheard activities like “Praying”should be avoided duringPeriods. And 51.1 per centrespondents admitted theyhave been isolated or exclud-ed from an event because ofmenstruation.

� Lack of diversity aroundmenstrual hygiene in India:More than 47 per cent respon-dents felt that menstruation isa “women’s only issue”. Themajority were not aware thatperiods is also a non-binaryand Trans men issue. So muchso, that only 10 per cent

respondents felt that the needsof non-binary and trans pop-ulation are being met aroundmenstrual hygiene.

Dr Partap Chauhan, direc-tor, Jiva Ayurveda says that thefactors are responsible for thiscondition include theincreased intake of sour, salty,hot, pungent, heavy, and fer-mented food; meat of fatty anddomestic animals; alcoholicbeverages; indigestion; andeating before the previousmeal is digested. Conditionsthat also have a strong effectinclude repeated abortions,excessive sexual activity,increased physical exertion(walking, riding, weight lifting,etc.), emaciation, trauma, andday sleeping. Psychologicalconditions such as grief, anger,lust, and anxiety are alsoknown to play a key role inaggravating menstrual prob-lems.

He says: “According toAyurveda, poor diet and inef-ficient digestion are the maincausative factors for thesedisorders. Improperly digest-ed food leads to the produc-tion of toxins in the body.These toxins are circulated bythe blood to the deep tissuesand channels, where theycause blockages and stagna-tion. These conditions causeaggravation of Vata Dosha

(air) and the Rakta Dhatu(blood). The aggravated Vatabrings impaired blood intothe channels carrying themenstrual blood, leading toincrease menstrual bloodflow.

He recommends varioustypes of treatment to treatmenstrual problems. Theseinclude nourishing and ton-ing herbs as well as rejuvena-tive treatment in accordancewith the nature of the disor-der. Massage and the incorpo-ration of meditation and yogamay also be beneficial for per-manent elimination of theproblems. It is important toaddress these menstruationproblems because a womanexpels a large proportion ofher wastes and toxins throughthis process. If these toxinsremain in the body, theycause further stagnation andblockage within the body.

Dr Partap shares someAyurvedic tips to fight men-strual problems:

Take one crushed garlicclove with two cloves twice aday during your periods.

When suffering fromperiod cramps, take a tea-spoon of aloe vera gel mixedwith a pinch of black pepperor cinnamon powder.

Drinking ginger infusedherbal tea helps. You can alsomix one tsp of ginger powderin warm water and have that.

Take the following decoc-tion from the first day of yourperiods as it helps to alleviatethe symptoms: Boil one tsp ofcumin seeds with two glass-es of water over moderateheat until the mixture reducesto half. Sieve the seeds. Adda teaspoon of honey anddrink it warm.

Cooling showers andbathing with sandalwood andmint essence are helpful.

Collections that do not fit into thenotion of season, layering up ordown according to the weather,

styling garments so that they can be wornin a multiple ways and sustainable prac-tices — the fashion industry is looking atways to move forward in a pandemic-hitworld. So did you think that at a timewhen everything is succumbing to the newnormal, this industry would remainuntouched?

The first indication was a recent, vir-tual press conference which could havewide ramifications for the industry.Broadcast live from the Rome studio, ithad Gucci’s creative director, AlessandroMichele declaring the fashion week cal-endar obsolete. He said he was no longeradhering to a rota staked out byspring/summer, autumn/winter, cruiseand pre-fall shows. Instead,the brand will show “sea-sonless” collections twice ayear answering to the needfor fashion that is more insync with the requirementsof a planet that is totteringunder the onslaught ofexcess. There are no plansfor a show in September,when the Gucci collectionshowcased, as a key part ofMilan fashion week. Themove has created quite astir in the fashion worldwhich wonders about theway forward.

Designer Ashish NSoni says that there was anoverdose of fashion prior tothe pandemic. There were just too manyshows, too many collections and too muchfast fashion even at the luxury level. “Therewas over consumption and over indul-gence in fashion. A lot of brands are nowrefraining from this to find their brandsoul. What Gucci is suggesting was therea long time back but finally people are tak-ing note of it as it makes more sense inthe current times. Seasonless fashion is thefuture. I have been doing my show onlyonce a year. It’s a step in the right direc-tion. I am glad that even if we are learn-ing from the pandemic, it is in the inter-est of the people and the planet,” adds he.

Designer Payal Jain agrees withAlessandro and says that it makes a lot ofsense right now as we are living in verydynamic and uncertain times, with nosurety of what the following week ormonth holds. Payal asks: “In such a situ-ation, how can one plan fashion collectionsix to 10 months in advance?” Seasons willspill into one another and the boundarieswill merge. A slow transition towards thisdirection was already underway for someyears. Now is the time to combine season-al collections into a simple format, withcomfort, practicality, versatile usage andlong-term sustainability as prime concernsfor the future, be it for the creators of fash-

ion lines, or the consumers.Fashion designer Pooja Shroff

says that it’s a great idea and strong-ly believes in it as most of her piecesare non seasonal and can be wornall year round and layered/styled dif-ferently each time according to theweather.

But one wonders how feasiblewill it be in the Indian weather con-ditions. Ashish says that earlier it wasmindless consumption with see now,buy now being the driving forces. Itwon’t be season driven heavily anymore. “It helps us because, besidesNorth India, there is no Fall in the restof the country. We pretty much havea tropical climate and a warm weath-er throughout the year. We sell theSpring/Summer collection all acrossIndia though some places do not expe-rience summer. So in the same way, ifyou showcase the collection inSeptember or October that product willbe seasonless enough. There’s no win-ter in Kolkata, Mumbai and otherplaces so I’d rather sell a seasonless col-lection than doing several shows. Itmakes the functioning of the business

easier,” adds he.Payal feels that a collection that does

not adhere to seasons is very feasible aswe have long summers and a comparative-ly shorter winter, hence the former canremain the focus. “With experimentalthinking and reinvention of the conven-tional winter fabrics, weaves and silhou-ettes, we can create lines that workthrough the year and give enough varietyto the consumer, yet keep them up to datewith global fashion,” says she.

Nanki Papneja, creative direc-tor at Limerick, says that if the

number of collections arereduced, it will be imperativefor a designer to create sever-al options for major seasons ineach collection. This is whereclassics like a jacket and capecome into the picture. Pieces

that one can layer up or layerdown as per season will seeprominence in each collection.

Even in the pre-COVIDphase, all brands were

talking about sustain-ability, feels Ashish.It was the buzzw o r dthen.

“I don’t know how seriously they were tak-ing it but now it is a wake up call to fol-low sustainable practises and packagingso that you look like a responsible brand.Consumers will also respect that. Now isthe time to not just talk about it but dosomething substantial,” says he.

Fashion can be made more sustain-able and supportive for the environmentthrough the use of natural yarns, organ-ic textiles, natural dyes, recyclable trimsand accessories. It can change the way wehave been thinking about the industry.“We need to look at end-to-end sustain-able practices and processes to be imple-mented across the garment and textileindustry in our country. There is a direneed for a basic certification process, pos-sibly initiated by the government with ahandful of experts, to help our industryimplement and follow safety, health andsustainable concerns. There is also anurgent need to minimise wastage ofwater and power, recycling raw materialsand scrap, minimising plastic packagingand using other non bio-degradablematerials, all steps towards making gar-ment production process sustainable andfriendly for the environment. It needs tobe a conscious decision for all in the fash-

ion industry to do our bit for the envi-ronment,” says Payal.

The world has been locked downfor quite a few days during whichmost of us have taken to wearing t-shirts and shorts or pajamas. This has

paved the way for a new fashion phe-nomenon — slothwear where comfort

occupies a place of primary importancein people’s mind. Ashish says, “Now the

consumer is looking at more comfort-able and easy clothing which has tobe value driven and priced right.This is being said in almost everyreport and prediction. When the2008 financial crisis hit theworld, there was a revival ofminimalism. It is again going tobe a huge trend where peoplewould want to buy simple,comfortable and easy clothing,which is crafted well with sus-tainable practises, is easy totake care of and has a certainvalue attached to it. Thoughit might take six to eightmonths to bounce back butthere won’t be any drasticshift.”

According to Payal,the post-COVID fashionwill adhere to the parame-ters of comfort, versatility,ease of maintenance and aseasonless look. She says:“Trends will always dictatefashion but comfort will

overtake luxury and versa-tility will certainly get more marks thana startling statement. AW 2020-21 will bereinvented this time….”

Rani Mukerji is extremely nostal-gic on the 16th anniversary of

her film Hum Tum starring Saif AliKhan and Rishi Kapoor. She isfondly remembering her shootingexperience with the legendary actorwho recently passed away leaving ahuge and an irreparable void for theIndian cinema industry.

Rani says, “Hum Tum willalways be memorable for me becauseit was the film that Chintu uncle waspart of and I fondly remember ourshoot in Amsterdam. Recently, whenI met up with him before his untime-ly demise, we were chatting about thefilm’s shoot and were recalling thedays of how much fun we had dur-ing the Amsterdam schedule.” Sheadds, “I remember very clearly thatfor Chintu uncle, it was one of thefirst films in which he had startedplaying key character roles. He tooka leap of faith and he agreed to playSaif ’s dad because till then he wasalways the leading star. Somehow hedid this and he was just brilliant asusual and made our film truly spe-cial.”

Rani also reveals that she was ahuge fan of Rishi Ji, the actor and theperson that he was. She narrates hermemories of acting with him in HumTum saying, “Chintu uncle belongedto the era where actors never didsync sound and it was a sync-soundfilm. We were shooting in a housein Amsterdam which had woodenflooring and Dilip Subramaniam wasthe sound recordist. He kept tellingChintu uncle that each time hewould take a step in the house, thefloor would creak and the soundwould come. Chintu uncle invariablymoved and Dilip would say cut, wewill need one more!”She says, “Hewas just not used to one more takeand we used to all crack up becausehe used to fire him. He used to saywhat the hell is this, why is the takenot getting fine and why is the floorcreaking. He was hilarious. It wasquite a first for him because he hadto actually understand what this syncsound is all about because they usedto all dub for their films and thesethings never mattered. It was a first

and we used to have lots of chats andlaughs about this. I have always beena huge fan of him and his demise hasbeen a double loss for me, as some-body whom I knew very well andalso as a fan.”

Rani feels that the film was def-initely ahead of the curve by show-ing progressive portrayal of womenin cinema. She says, “It was a very,very special and modern subject. Itwas definitely ahead of its time. Theway my character Rhea reacts at theend and walks away from Saif ’s char-acter’s (Karan) life when he just ran-domly suggests to get marriedbecause they had physical intimacy,it was bold. I think that was wayahead of its time for a woman to dothis in a Hindi film. For a girl to actu-ally walk away from a man and breakstereotypes and notions of how awoman should react, it was new butit was also much needed to show incinema.” She adds, “Before HumTum, we hadn’t seen many roleswhere women were strong and self-reliant like that. They would hardlytake a stand like that. So, it kind ofspoke about the new emergingwoman. So, I think Rhea’s characterstood for the modern Indian womanat that time and I remember whenAdi offered me the film along withKunal, I had completely gone gungho and really, really loved the scriptand had said – this is great. Let’s dothis!”

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Out of the total 82.1 per cent respon-dents having no previous experi-ence of online teaching, 90.2 per

cent teachers said that they are takingonline classes for the first time. This wasrevealed in a survey, conducted by InternalQuality Assurance Cell (IQAC) of DevSamaj College of Education, Chandigarh,to study the challenges faced by teachersduring online classes besides seekingtheir recommendations to further improveit in a result oriented manner.

It comprises of a total sample size of3,550 teachers from different govern-ment, recognised private and govern-ment aided private schools of Chandigarhand Punjab. The sample survey consistedof 38.6 per cent primary teachers, 33.9 percent trained graduate teachers and 27.5 percent post graduate teachers. It was carriedout by Dr Anita Nangia and Dr SeemaSareen under the guidance of principal ofDev Samaj College of Education, DrAgnese Dhillon.

The responses entered by teachers dur-ing the online survey throw ample light onvarious challenges frequently faced bythem since the online teaching came intolight. The findings pointed out that 33.56per cent of the teachers do not face anyproblem due to the lack of appropriatematerials and resources, while 61.66 percent reported that they faced this challengeto some extent and 7.77 per cent to greatextent.

For 44.23 per cent teachers, lack of in-service training is not a real challenge.Approximately, 74 per cent teachers findit difficult to assemble all the students forthe class, whereas 26 per cent do not facethis challenge.

It was also found that 22.54 per centof the teachers did not find it difficult tofollow up the learning of students, where-as 56.45 per cent had this problem to someextent and 21.01 per cent to a great extent.However, lack of time and lack of confi-dence was not at all a problem for themajority of teachers.

The study has further revealed thatnearly 32.75 per cent use WhatApp to send

notes in PDF formats. Many teachers maketheir own videos of the lessons and sharethese with the students. This was followedby Cloud Meet apps like Zoom, Web Exand Team Link. Approximately 16.08 percent of the teachers use Google Apps likeGoogle Classrooms, Google Hangoutsand Google Meets for online teaching,while 19.20 per cent of the group use otherapps such as Next Learning Platform,SnapHW, Shisya, Deeksha, Extramarks andgive YouTube links to the students.

Notably, the survey was conductedduring the trying circumstances amid theCoronavirus pandemic when the schoolsand colleges across India have been shut

since mid-March. E-learning was anunplanned and rapid move, initiated by alleducational institutions, with no propertraining to teachers, insufficient bandwidthand little preparation. Undoubtedly, onlinemode of teaching is a good stopgaparrangement with no other option. Butapproximately two-third students in ruralareas are unable to access teaching mate-rial as they don’t have internet access andother relevant resources. The least bene-fited children of this online mode of teach-ing are poor students from rural areas andthose who took admissions in EWS quotain reputed private schools.

This shift from traditional classrooms

to online teaching was appreciated bymany. A respondent said, “During suchchaotic times, online classes are one of thebest ways to keep students engaged.”Another said, “I strongly promote e-learning mode in this technologicallyadvanced world. It’s a great initiativetaken by schools.” Likewise, one moreteacher added, “Online teaching emergedas a blessing in these times. We should con-tinue with this to ensure the safety of ourchildren. Digital is great way to impartgood knowledge to today’s gen. Initially,the process might look difficult but overtime with regular inputs, it’ll become moreeffective.”

Those were some of the pros of the e-learning mode. Well, here comes thecons: Teaching online automatically makesyou less visible than you’d be in a tradition-al teaching role. This can impact yourauthority and make students feel less con-nected with you. Some teachers said thatmany of the students didn’t have the kindof devices, laptops, smartphones or moneyto keep the connection going.” Moreover,there is no proper place for practical workin the subjects like Physics, Chemistry andMath. Psychological, social, emotional andphysical aspects of development are total-ly neglected and above all, parents coop-eration needs to be strengthened. “Theseare the real challenges that hinder theprocess of online teaching,” many respon-dents explained.

Some school teachers complainedthat they were themselves struggling to geta hang of the technology and wanted thatthey should be given proper training.Similarly, students too needed propertraining. Strong connection of Wi-fi andpower systems are required to make thisfar more result oriented and efficient.

More user friendly and effectiveapps should be developed to cope up withthe aforesaid problems. The training toteachers in managing technology andcounselling of parents regarding the ben-efits and challenges of online teaching isthe need of the hour. Students, parents andeven some teachers feel that this is a wasteof time as everything would be repeatedonce the schools open. They said that thereshould be proper enlightenment whetheronline or offline teaching both are equal-ly important and that the pace of the cur-riculum would adversely affect the stu-dents’ development. The future and theeducation system of the country can con-sequently suffer. Therefore, we should be

serious and come up with many innova-tive techniques so that interest and moti-vation to study among students can bedeveloped. Their mental, emotional andpsychological health must be taken care of.

CBSE should provide some uniformpattern of study material for all teachers.Government policy should give free highspeed internet for educational apps or soft-wares. As we know that all the studentsdon’t have resources to take online class-es — some have suffer due to financialproblems, while a few lack the knowledgeof tech gadgets. A teacher can’t provideresources. S/he can only impart valuableknowledge.

There is a huge difference between thetraditional method and online mode ofteaching. Face to face interaction has itsown value as there is human connect.Students understand the importance ofmaintaining discipline. They can’t leave theclassroom while the teacher is teaching,whereas here, students have the option ofleaving the conference, turning the audioand video off. Even though there areadvantages of e-learning, it can’t replace thetraditional method in any manner. Onlythose students who have resources —smartphone, laptops, good internet con-nectivity and are serious about learning getbenefitted through it. A few more educa-tional TV channels can be incorporatedthat would cover some topics for kids.

A Punjabi teacher and a Hindi teacherstated, “We find it difficult due to unavail-ability of the Punjabi font and less mate-rial in Hindi. It’s a real task for us. Us teach-ers are really putting their heart to theprocess. We expect students to be a littlemore serious towards this online teachingmethod. We have to find some moreappropriate ways by which we can evalu-ate students’ work or efforts.” “Parentsshould supervise their children so thatthere is no misuse of technology duringthis difficult phase. Student surveys shouldalso be conducted to understand theavailability of resources and the internet,”they added.

While underscoring the need of phys-ical activity, a teacher said, “Physical edu-cation can be taught only through tradi-tional teaching. You cannot teach a sportonline. It’s something which is done prac-tically.”

The global health crisis has for sureincreased the use of technology in educa-tion. However, it’s not a boon for every-body out there.

The state of Chhattisgarh isleading the entire nation in

terms of forest conservation today.During the lockdown period,when forest-based economicactivities were stalled throughoutthe country, Chhattisgarh regis-tered good number of achieve-ments under the leadership ofChief Minister Bhupesh Baghel.Amid lockdown, the state regis-tered maximum participation inforest produce collection. On thesame note, the revenue of forestdwellers is expected to be about�2,500 crore. According to thedata received from TRIFED, onelakh quintal forest produce hasbeen collected in the state so far.While the pandemic hasdestroyed the economy of thewhole world, the collection of trib-al forest produce in Chhattisgarhis keeping pace with the livelihoodof tribals and simultaneouslyboosting the economy of thestate.

The stay-at-home orders hasdeepened the issue of unemploy-ment in the country. However,forest dwellers in Chhattisgarh aregetting employment in gathering

forest produce and providing for-est cover. The new economicstrategy of the state governmentinvolves bringing a big change inthe life of the forest dwellersthrough forest produce. The statecollects 15 lakh standard sacks oftendu leaves every year, throughwhich 12 lakh 65 thousand collec-tor families get employment. Thevalue of tendu leaves have beenincreased to �4,000 per standardbag, giving them a direct benefitof �649 crore.

The state government hasincreased the number of forestproducts purchased through theminimum support price mecha-nism from seven to 25 now. Theforest produce is being procuredthrough 866 hot markets. Ten lakhman-days of employment arebeing created through wood artdevelopment, lac bangles manu-facturing, dona-pattal making,drug processing, honey process-ing, bell metal, terracotta handi-crafts work and much more. TheForest Development Corporationis giving 14,000 youngsters a jobopportunity through constructionof bamboo tree guards, bamboo

furniture manufacturing, planti-ng of medicinal plants throughVanaushadhi Board. Similarly,with the help of CFTRI Mysore,production of Mahua based ener-gy bar, chocolate, pickle, sanitis-er, amla-based dehydrated prod-ucts, tamarind candy, jamun juiceand bell marmalade, are beingplanned.

The income of forest dwellersis increasing continuously due tothe collection of minor forestproduce. Tea plantations inJashpur and Surguja districtsdirectly benefit the beneficiaries.One thousand women have gotjobs of sewing 50 lakh masks. Inthe current year, about 12 thou-sand women have received anadditional income of three crore23 lakh from primary processingof tamarind. This year, the targetis of planting 70 lakh plants on theown land of the forest dwellers. Aspart of efforts to promote lac pro-duction, 36 thousand main farm-ers have been selected in 164 pro-duction areas. Apart from this,other forest-based activities havealso created large employmentopportunities.

They say: Where there is a will, there is a way.These words fit perfectly on the Yamuna

Expressway Industrial Development Authority asit has earned in crores during the lockdown itselfby promoting industrial activities. The authori-ty settled the applications for industrial plotsthrough video conferencing.

The CEO of the authority, Dr Arunvir Singh,said, “This is the first time industrial plots havebeen allocated through video conferencing. Eightindustrial units and six institutional plots wereallotted during the lockdown. A plot of 5,000 sqmhas been allotted to Messrs Ocean Carpet andFurnishing India Private Limited in Sector 33. M/sIntegrated Batteries has been allotted 5,000 Sqm,M/s Clifton Packaging: 5,000 Sqm, M/s PoojaProcessor: 5,000 Sqm, M/s SPS Fine Industries:5,000 Sqm, M/s Crescent Techno Solution:20,000 Sqm, M/s Basant Overseas: 5,000 Sqm andHuac Engineering India Private Limited: 40,000sqm. Thus, a total investment of �129.90 crore hasbeen done.”

Also, about 2,800 people will get employmentin these industrial units. Similarly, the authorityhas earned about 16 crores from six institution-al plots.

The Yamuna Authority is taking special careof the employment of the people. The authorityis giving 20 per cent reservation to such applicantsin the three ongoing schemes, so that people canget employment opportunities. Currently, theauthority is planning industrial plots for ApparelPark, MSME Park and Handicrafts-ODOP Park.Due to lockdown, the last date for the first appli-cation was May 15. But now, the last date of appli-cation has been extended to June 30.

Dr Arunvir said, “Only those who are regis-tered in DPIP are being considered in the cate-gory of a startup. Full care is being taken that theplot should be allotted to those who want to setup their units here because we are paying specialattention to the income of the authority as wellas the employment that people get. If the appli-cations in the reservation category are less, thenthe remaining plots will be put in the general cat-egory.”

Also, he added that 64 applications have beenreceived in the earlier scheme for readymade gar-ments. These applications will be disposed of onJune 2. The information has been given to theapplicants by the authority.

Indian Railways operationalise 3,060‘Shramik Special’ trains across the

country and transport more than 40 lakhpassengers to their home states.

These trains were originated fromvarious states. The top five are Gujarat(853 trains), Maharashtra (550 trains),Punjab (333 trains), Uttar Pradesh (221trains), Delhi (181 trains). The numberof trains that were terminated in variousstates across the country are Uttar Pradesh(1,245 trains), Bihar (846 trains),

Jharkhand (123 trains), Madhya Pradesh(112 trains), Odisha (73 trains).

The rail route congestion which wasbeing witnessed on May 23 and 24 is over.The congestion had occurred due to con-vergence of more than two third rail traf-fic on routes to Bihar and Uttar Pradeshand late clearance of the terminals due tohealth protocols that needed to be com-pleted by state authorities. The matter hasresolved through active consultation withstate governments.

Northern Railway is striving in every way tostrengthen the efforts being put in by government

to make the lives of people easier. Special trains arebeing run to help the stranded ones reach their des-tinations. Assets of Northern Railway are being utilisedoptimally and innovatively. Rail coaches have beenc o n v e r t e dinto mobilequ arant inec e n t r e s ,WHO stan-dard protec-tive gears(PPEs) arebeing pro-duced in themaintenancew o r k s h o p sand the ter-tiary medicalhospitals havebeen convert-ed intoC OV I D - 1 9care centres.

NorthernRailway CivilDefence vol-unteers arer e n d e r i n gi n v a l u a b l eservice to thesociety keep-ing up theirmotto — working for the benefit of all living beings.At New Delhi railway station, the Civil Defence vol-unteers ensure that all passengers strictly follow thenorms set for travelling. They help in the movementof the travellers in an orderly manner. They also dis-tribute face masks stitched by the volunteers them-selves to the passengers who need them. The volun-teers also help in sanitising the platforms and the traincoaches.

Manoj Joshi, GM of KolkataMetro, held a high level

meeting with senior officers. Hetook stock of the damage causedby cyclone Amphan. He instruct-ed all to make proper assessmentof the damaged Metro’s asset andimmediately start the repairingwork. He asked to continue inten-sive cleaning of rakes as well askeep Metro’s rolling stock andother assets ready for the resump-tion of services whenever ordersare received.

During the meeting, GeneralManager further stressed on main-

taining proper fitness of rollingstock, tunnels, signaling system,power supply machinery andother assets of Metro during thelockdown period.

Fortunately, no damage hasbeen detected in Noapara Carshed.In spite of wind speed reachingupto 133 km/hour, NoaparaCarshed remained unhurt due togreat pre-emptive measures takenby the Metro authorities.

Metro rakes were parked atthe safest place inside the carshedwith wedges to prevent it from freerolling during the cyclone.

Government-ownedPower Finance

Corporation (PFC) andNBFC entered into anagreement with NarmadaBasin Projects CompanyLtd. (NBPCL), a companyof Government of MadhyaPradesh. The agreementhas been signed to fundprojects worth ` 22,000crore for 225 MW hydro-electric and multipurposeprojects in Madhya

Pradesh. The MoU was signed

on a virtual platform byRajeev Sharma, CMD, PFCand ICP Keshari,Managing Director,NBPCL. The Governmentof Madhya Pradesh hasconducted the pre-feasibil-ity study of these projectsand has provided approvalfor their execution. Thedisbursal of the amountwill be linked to the execu-

tion of the projects.Some of the major

multipurpose projects thatwill be financed under theMoU are BasaniyaMultipurpose ProjectDindori, Chinki BorasMultipurpose ProjectNarsinghpur RaisenHoshangabad, SakkarPench Link NarsinghpurChhindwara and DudhiProject ChhindwaraHoshangabad.

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Serie A’s hopes of follow-ing Germany and

Spain back onto thepitch will be decided onThursday in a meetingwith the ItalianGovernment which willdetermine the fate of theseason in Italy.

Sports MinisterVincenzo Spadafora willtell representatives fromthe Italian football federa-tion and Lega Serie A if thehealth conditions are right toreturn to action after near-ly three months.

Clubs returned togroup training on May 19but competitive actionremains suspended untilmid-June.

The indications are thatSpadafora and theGovernment’s Scientific

Technical Committee willagree to bothimplementing ahealth protocoland to resumethe season.

If there is agreen light onThursday, Lega SerieA will meet onFriday to examine

“the different calendarhypotheses” for the

remaining Serie A andItalian Cup matches.

The league wants com-petition to resume on theweekend of June 13-14,starting with four postponedfixtures — Atalanta-Sassuolo,Verona-Cagliari, Inter

Milan-Sampdoria and Torino-Parma.

They hope the season willresume fully on June 20, with the

goal of awarding theleague title, defining pro-motions and relegations,before playing ItalianCup semi-finals, withthe final in early August.

The closing stages ofthe European club competi-tions could also be played inAugust. Three Italian clubs arestill in the Champions Leagueand two in the Europa League.

On Friday, the Plan B willalso be analysed at the Lega SerieA meeting, a format with shortplayoffs to determine the title,European places and relega-tion, if the season is again sus-pended, or all the matches notplayed.

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The postponement of this year’sT20 World Cup in Australia to2022, which might open up a

window for the lucrativeIPL in October, is expectedto be formalised when theInternational CricketCouncil’s all-powerful boardholds a tele-conference onThursday.

The decision, if it is for-malised, owing to the Covid-19 pandemic will give members achance to chalk out their bilateralblue-print in the coming months.

“There is a good chance that post-ponement of World T20 will be decid-ed during Thursday’s board meeting.Whether there will be a formalannouncement or not is the question,”an ICC board member said.

“There is very little chance ofWorld T20 going ahead in this situa-tion. I don’t think either CricketAustralia or the top boards will mind,”he added.

It was reported that ICC’s EventsCommittee — led by Chris Tetley —might present multiple options and oneof the options that members are likelyto seriously contemplate is shifting thetournament to October-November,2022 while India hosts its edition in2021. An ICC spokesperson said

reports stating that a decision to post-pone the World Cup has been taken are“inaccurate”.

However, the spokespersonacknowledged that a “number of con-tingency plans are being explored inlight of the rapidly changing publichealth situation caused by the Covid-19 virus.”

It can also be safely concluded thatIndia will be touring Australia at the endof the year as members are likely to givemore precedence to bilateral engage-ments to recover from the financial loss-

es incurred during the pandemic.The board member also said that

it’s not only about the countries but alsoabout broadcasters Star Sports, whichincidentally holds rights for both theICC events as well as BCCI’s IndiaCricket rights and the IPL rights.

“There are a few questions thatneed to be asked. The commercial via-bility of having a T20 World Cup inFebruary-March 2021. Before that, anIPL in October-November window andanother IPL in the March-May win-dow,” a BCCI insider privy to the broad-

cast deals said.“So we are looking at three big-tick-

et tournaments in six months. In thiscurrent economic scenario, that will bea very bad call,” he added.

He also listed the bilateral engage-ments that the BCCI will agree to.

“India is most certainly going toAustralia and England is coming for afive-match series in India. As far asSouth Africa T20 series is concerned,let Cricket South Africa decide wherethey stand as far as ICC policy mattersare concerned,” the source said.

“With Chris Nenzani, BCCI willonly believe when he puts pen to paper,”he added.

The organisation of the IndianPremier League will largely depend onIndia’s Covid-19 situation during that

time but with the central Governmenttrying to bring in normalcy, the cash-rich league could get a five-week con-densed window to go ahead.

Some of the issues that BCCI aswell as all other stakeholders will bedealing with include, limited or no spec-tators as per ICC regulations.

Limited number of venues andincrease of double-headers could be theway forward. Also the organisationshould be in such a manner that all for-eign players coming in might need togo for a mandatory 14-day quarantine.

In that case, when do they arrive?Also when India tour Australia, theymight also have to quarantine them-selves which means the team needs atleast three weeks before playing thefirst Test.

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Cricket Australia has lockedin four venues for the finan-

cially crucial Test series againstIndia and the first match is ten-tatively set for a December 3start in Brisbane, as per localmedia reports.

Two Australian media out-lets — 7news.com.cu and theSydney Morning Herald —reported that the schedule forthe four Tests has been finalised.According to reports, CA ChiefExecutive Kevin Roberts willmake it official on Friday and theplan does not include any quar-antine hub or bio bubble for thevisitors.

“Cricket Australia (CA) onWednesday ticked off on the Testseries beginning in Brisbane onDecember 3 before heading toAdelaide from December 11 andMelbourne andSydney for the tradi-tional Boxing Day(December 26)and New YearTests (January 3),”7news.Com.Aureported. It isexpected that thesecond Test inAdelaide will be

Day/Night affair as BCCI pres-ident Sourav Ganguly had com-mitted earlier.

The Sydney Morning Heraldreported: “Perth is scheduled tokick off the Australian Testsummer with a pink-ball matchagainst Afghanistan butBrisbane has won the right tohost world powerhouse India inthe season’s marquee series.”

According to the SydneyMorning Herald, “CA will onFriday announce the interna-tional schedule for the 2020-21season, which will feature asmany as five international men’ssides, though this will be subjectto change due to the globalhealth crisis.”

The 7news.Com.Au reportalso stated that there will be noquarantine hub or bio bubblerequired as of now.

“With Australia’s coron-avirus situation easing, the

series looks certain to goahead without the need for aquarantine hub. The entire

tour taking place in one cityhad been a possibility but thebiggest question now iswhether — or how many —fans will be allowed to attend

the matches,”the web-s i t e ’ sr e p o r tstated.

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Premier League clubs votedunanimously on

Wednesday to resumecontact training as theEnglish top-flight took asignificant step towards apossible restart in June.

Clubs returned totraining in small andsocially distanced groups lastweek but they have now movedto stage two of the “return totraining protocol”.

“Premier League sharehold-ers today (Wednesday) votedunanimously to resume contacttraining, marking another steptowards restarting the PremierLeague season, when safe to doso,” the league said in a state-ment.

“Squads are now able totrain as a group and engage intackling while minimising anyunnecessary close contact.”

It added: “Discussions areongoing as work continuestowards resuming the season,when conditions allow.”

The small number of posi-tive tests from the first tworounds of testing at PremierLeague clubs has raised hopes ofa return next month.

Eight cases of coronavirusamong players and staff havebeen detected from 1,744 testsin the Premier League.

����� -�)�.�/01�

The burning desire to succeed abroad acted as astimulus for India to consciously create a fear-

some pace battery, says former West Indies speed-ster Ian Bishop, who compared the current unit tointimidating Caribbean bowlers of the past.

Bishop said the trend started with the likes ofZaheer Khan, RP Singh, Munaf Patel following inthe foot steps of Javagal Srinath and Kapil Dev inthe 2000s.

“It is perhaps the best generation of talents offast bowling India have produced. And it started awhile ago,” Bishop said on Cricbuzz in Conversation.

“We can go back to Zaheer, RP Singh, MunafPatel and that little cluster that came through afterSrinath, who followed Kapil Dev. It’s great to see,”he added.

Led by Bumrah, India has one of the most fear-some pacers. Mohammed Shami, BhuvneshwarKumar and Ishant Sharma add variety to theattack.

“It seemed to me from the outside that there wasa deliberate attempt by India to recognise that ‘bats-men were good, but if have to win overseas, we haveto get players from the MRF Pace Foundation andthe NCA coming through, try to prepare pitches toencourage these faster bowlers rather than dustyturners’” the 52-year-old said.

Bishop, who took 161 wickets in 43 Tests forWest Indies, in a huge compliment, said the currentIndian bowling unit reminds him of the West Indianpace battery that included the likes of Andy Roberts,Michael Holding, Joel Garner Malcolm Marshal andColin Croft.

“And now when you have three fast bowlers,sometimes four and an excellent spinner, it takes mymind back to the West Indies pace quartet beforemy generation — the Marshalls, the Holdings, theGarners, the Roberts — I’ll stick Colin Croft in there,”he said.

“There is no release point, two come out, twocome on. There is no flow of runs, and there is alwaysa threat of penetration and physical harm to a less-er extent. That is one of the things that makes thisgroup of fast bowlers excellent,” he added.

�������� I���J� JoshuaKimmich described his winninggoal as “brutally important”after Bayern Munich took ahuge step towards an eighthstraight Bundesliga title onTuesday with a 1-0 win atBorussia Dortmund to leavethem seven points clear at thetop with just six games left.

Kimmich’s brilliant effortcame just before half-timebehind closed doors at SignalIduna Park as hosts Dortmundmissed the chance to turn up theheat on the Bavarians without

the backing of their huge sup-port.

“It was brutally important:I looked around to see if every-one understood howimportant it was,”Kimmich said of his deftchip. Kimmich’s captainManuel Neuer echoed thedefensive midfielder’s thoughts.

“That was a very importantsign,” said Neuer. Bayern won 4-0 when the teams met inMunich in November and they

kept up their excellent recentrecord against second-placedDortmund.

“Now only Bayern candecide what happens,” saidfrustrated Dortmund cap-tain Mats Hummels.

Dortmund’s starteenage striker, Erling

Braut Haaland, who had scoredten goals in as many leaguegames, failed to make an impactagainst Bayern’s watertightdefence before going off injured

in the second half.Jerome Boateng and David

Alaba gave him no room, whileKimmich and Leon Goretzka inmidfield made sure passesintended for him rarely mettheir mark. The Norway for-ward limped off with 20 min-utes left after a heavy tacklefrom Boateng.

Elsewhere, BayerLeverkusen dropped to fifthafter being routed 4-1 at homeby Wolfsburg, whose defenderMarin Pongracic claimed twogoals. It was a shock defeat athome for Peter Bosz-coachedLeverkusen who had won theirprevious 12 games.

M o e n c h e n g l a d b a c hclimbed over Leverkusen intofourth with a goalless draw atsecond-from-bottom WerderBremen, who are two pointsfrom safety.

Eintracht Frankfurt took apoint at home in a 3-3 drawwith Freiburg thanks to lategoals by Timothy Chandler andJapan striker Daichi Kamada.

���� �Paris Saint-Germain for-ward Kylian Mbappe has lav-ished praise on Premier Leaguegiants Liverpool and their man-ager Jurgen Klopp amidrumours that he wants a moveaway from Parc des Princes.

Mbappe feels Klopp hasconverted Liverpool into a ruth-less machine that keeps onchurning out positive results dayin day out.

“This season, Liverpoolhave been a machine in thePremier League. They havemade winning look easy but thetruth is that it is never easy,”Mbappe was quoted as saying bymirror.co.uk.

“Performances like theyhave been having don’t justhappen. To be as ruthless as theyhave been would come from lotsof hard work in training andfrom having a very good man-ager,” he added. IANS

����� -�)�.�/01

An extended qualification peri-od for the Tokyo Olympics will

be introduced next year and rank-ing points earned at tournamentsduring the original qualificationphase will be maintained, theBadminton World Federation(BWF) said on Wednesday.

With the Covid-19 pandemicdisrupting the international calen-der, the BWF was unable to com-plete the last six weeks of its one-year qualifying period, which endedon April 28.

But with the Tokyo Gamespostponed, the governing body ofbadminton has decided to extendthe Olympic qualification period tonext year.

“An extended Olympic qualifi-cation period will be introducedfrom Week 1-17 in 2021 andincludes the select number of tour-

naments that were postponed, can-celled or suspended due to Covid-19,” the BWF said in a release.

“These eligible tournaments

within the new qualifying periodmust be completed by Week 17 in2021.”

The BWF also said that thepostponed Olympic qualifiers islikely to be held in the same weeknext year as originally planned in2020.

“Such eligible tournamentswithin this new qualifying periodshould preferably take place in thesame corresponding week from2020 to 2021.

“If this is not possible, the BWFwill allow sanctioning another datewithin Week 1-17 in 2021 subjectto approval.”

The BWF also said that theranking points gathered by playersin the completed tournaments dur-ing the qualification phase whichwas between April 29, 2019 to April26, 2020 will be maintained.

The governing body had lastweek unveiled a revised calendar for

the remainder of 2020 to salvage thedisruption-hit season.

However, the BWF made itclear that those tournaments won’tbe included in the Olympic quali-fication.

“Tournaments rescheduled forthe end of 2020 outlined in therevamped BWF TournamentCalendar 2020 released last weekwill not count towards qualification.Only the 2021 editions of each tour-nament,” it said.

The BWF also said that “play-ers from China and Hong Kong willbe eligible to earn points from the2021 Badminton Asia TeamChampionships as they “were notable to participate in the 2020Badminton Asia TeamChampionships in Manila due toCovid-19 travel restrictionsimposed on athletes from thosenations and territories by theGovernment of the Philippines.”

��������� I���J� Aggressioncan’t be taught to bowlers as it’sa trait they ought to be born with,says West Indies legend CurtlyAmbrose, who tormented bats-men in his glorious career.

Ambrose said though hewas naturally aggressive, it wasfellow legendary Antiguanbowler Andy Roberts, whoencouraged him to embrace itwhile bowling.

“One of the things he men-tioned to me was to always beaggressive, to always get underthe skin of batsmen. That stuckin my mind coming from a greatman like him,” Ambrose said ona Sky Sports podcast.

“I don’t think you can teacha bowler to be aggressive — it hasto be something within you. Youcan try but if a bowler doesn’thave it inside of him, it probablywon’t work. For me it workedbecause I am naturally aggressivewhile I am competing. It natural-ly flowed for me.”

Ambrose, who took 405wickets in 98 Tests, said if one can

make the ball talk, there is hard-ly any need to sledge the bats-men. “...If you are good enoughat what you do, you let the fiveand a half ounces (the cricketball) do the talking for you.

“If you keep sledging, youprobably aren’t any good. Thatwasn’t the West Indian way. Fiveand half ounces coming at youat 90mph is more than enough!”

������� Split-coaching is the way forward forIndian cricket and rest of the world since it isbecoming increasingly difficult to balancework and family, reckons former Australia coachDarren Lehmann.

Lehmann said dividing responsibilitiesformat-wise should increase the longevity of thecoaches.

Talking alongside former England WorldCup-winning coach Trevor Bayliss on BBC’sTuffers and Vaughan Show, Lehmann said beingaway from the family for more than half a yearis too much pressure on a coach.

“I think split coaches is the way to go inIndia as well as here. You just can’t be away for200 days a year. It’s too much for the family andit’s too much pressure on a single coach,”Lehmann said.

“I think to get longevity out of your coach-es you have to have split roles,” he added.

The 50-year-old suggested divid-ing responsibilities on the basis offormats.

“It might be white ball orred ball cricket. You have to seehow that works. I see that evolv-ing and maybe the stage they starttalking to the players onthe ground but that’sprobably way off,”Lehmann said.

PTI

����� -�)�.�/01

In an unusual move, acelifter Mirabai Chanu has

been nominated for theArjuna award by the nation-al federation though the for-mer world champion isalready a recipient of KhelRatna, country’s highest sport-ing honour.

The Indian WeightliftingFederation (IWLF) has nom-inated Chanu along withRagala Venkat Rahul andPunam Yadav.

Chanu had receivedthe Khel Ratna along

with Indian cricket

team captain Virat Kohli in2018. She was also awardedthe Padma Shri — the coun-try’s fourth-highest civilianaward — the same year.

The 25-year-old, whoreceived the twin honour afterwinning the 2017 weightlift-ing world championship inUSA, says there is an honourattached with the Arjunaaward, so she won’t mind itgetting it after Khel Ratna.

“I know Khel Ratna is thehighest but I missed out on theArjuna award earlier and Iwant it too. Sometimes youwant all of it. Players like to getthe Arjuna award,” Mirabai

said. “I had also applied forArjuna award in 2018. We hadapplied for both the Arjunaaward and the Khel Ratnathen,” she said.

Asked if an athlete, whohas already been awarded theKhel Ratna, can be nominat-ed for an Arjuna Award,IWLF secretary generalSahadev Yadav said “it is pos-sible.” After recovering from aback injury, which marred herprogress in 2018, Chanuimproved her performance,further, in 2019.

She lifted 86kg in snatchand a personal best of 113kgin clean and jerk for a total of199kg at the AsianChampionships in April lastyear but missed the Bronzemedal by a whisker.

Her best performancecame at the World champi-onship in September, whenthe Manipuri breached themuch anticipated 200kg markby bettering her personal bestin all three sections. In snatch,she lifted 87kg, followed by114kg in clean and jerk for atotal of 201kg.

� ����������2�������������� �(��������8�� �4���� �WT20 stares at postponement to 2022

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“If that opens up a window Ithink the IPL would be a great fit,”Cummins, who was bought by

Kolkata Knight Riders for a whopping�15.5 crores, told reporters.

“You have millions and millionsof people watching that tournamentaround the world... Potentially evenmore after a long break off cricket.There’s a lot of reasons why I wouldwant it to go ahead but the main oneis it’s a great tournament.” PTI

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