T he Congress Government in Rajasthan is on the brink just three months after the party lost Madhya Pradesh in a similar rebellion. Rebel leader Sachin Pilot was sacked as Deputy Chief Minister and removed as State party chief after he skipped a second meet- ing of MLAs despite the lead- ership reaching out to him several times. Two Ministers who have joined him in his revolt were also dropped. Congress said Pilot was “ensnared” by the BJP to bring down the Ashok Gehlot Government. The BJP has demanded Gehlot to face floor test and senior BJP leader Om Mathur reached Jaipur to con- duct a meeting of party leaders on Wednesday at 11 am in Jaipur. Former Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje Scindia will be present. While sources indicated that Pilot may announce to launch a new political party on Wednesday, Om Mathur said he is welcome in the BJP mak- ing it first public invitation to Sachin Pilot amid the ongoing crisis in the Rajasthan Government. The BJP leader also said that if Ashok Gehlot is claim- ing that he has the support of MLAs, he should go through the floor test and prove major- ity in the Rajasthan Assembly. “Our doors are open for Sachin Pilot. Anyone who wishes to join the party and embrace its ideology, they are welcome. The BJP has become such a large party because people from different walks of life have joined us and believed in our ideology,” Mathur said. On being asked about Sachin Pilot’s wishes to become the Rajasthan Chief Minister himself, Mathur said the Chief Minister is chosen by the party legislature. He also said that the dis- pute between Sachin Pilot and Ashok Gehlot is an internal matter of the Congress and went on to add that the party has not done right with a leader like Sachin Pilot. The remarks by the top leader of Rajasthan BJP comes even as Congress decides to take disciplinary action against Sachin Pilot and his camp of MLAs who skipped the second Congress Legislature Party (CLP) meeting on Tuesday despite repeated calls by top leaders of the party. Sources said Sachin Pilot has the support of 16 Congress MLAs and three independent legislators while Ashok Gehlot has the support of 102 MLAs. Gehlot, whose tally has slipped into the breakeven point held a Cabinet meeting late in the evening which saw the Congress left with 100 MLAs, the half-way mark in the 200-member Assembly, after three MLAs left his camp this morning. Before Sachin Pilot’s rebel- lion, the Congress had 107 MLAs besides the support of 13 independents and five mem- bers from smaller parties. That number has now come down to 90 Congress MLAs, seven inde- pendent members and three to five from smaller parties. Sachin Pilot has at least 20 MLAs on his side — 17 Congress and three indepen- dent legislators. The BJP, which has 73 MLAs, needs the sup- port of another 35 to take power in Rajasthan. One Congress ally, Bhartiya Tribal Party (BTP), which has two MLAs in the Rajasthan Assembly, has with- drawn support to the Congress. One of its MLAs, Rajkumar Roat, posted a video alleging that the police had stopped him from leaving Jaipur and had taken his car keys thus he felt humiliation. AICC sources said now Gehlot is banking on Sachin Pilot and other rebels being dis- qualified, which will bring down the half-way mark and fortify his numbers if he has to face a test of strength. The Congress during the last two days made several attempt to reach out to Pilot but a decision to sack him from party posts was taken after a meeting between Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and party general secretary Priyanka Gandhi with no signs of any overture by former party chief Rahul Gandhi. Rahul did not made any attempts to even stop Jyotiraditya Scindia from leav- ing the Congress who was instrumental in toppling the Congress Government in Madhya Pradesh where the Congress had come to power after 15 years. Pilot has denied that he is headed to the BJP though Congress sources asserted he was always in touch with the party. The party accused the BJP of setting up the Rajasthan Government crisis with help from rebel Pilot. I n a major loss of face for New Delhi, Iran has decided to move ahead with the con- struction of a railway line from Chabahar port to Zahedan without any assistance from India due to a delay in funding. India has been dropped from the strategic infrastruc- ture project along the Iran- Afghanistan border four years after the project was finalised as part of a broader trilateral agreement. The move comes as a major economic intelligence failure after the agencies here flawed in generating inputs on biological intelligence (Tabligh Jamaat congregations in Malaysia defying Covid guide- lines) besides political intelli- gence (lack of inputs on the introduction of six bills by European Parliament against CAA) and diplomatic intelli- gence negligence (introduc- tion of a bill amending the map and including Indian territories and subsequent passage by Nepalese Parliament). The now aborted deal between India and Iran was inked in May 2016. The development comes against the backdrop of China finalising a 25-year strategic partnership deal with Iran worth $400 billion. The aggres- sive Chinese deal with Iran is also important as tension between New Delhi and Beijing is at an all-time time high due to border stand-off between the two countries in Eastern Ladakh. India has invested $ 500 million in the Chabahar project in Iran, which will connect the country with Afghanistan and Central Asia, bypassing Pakistan. The first phase of the strategic project was inaugu- rated in December 2017. Reports said the entire railway project would be com- pleted by March 2022 and that Iranian railways will go ahead without India’s assistance. Iran will now use about $ 400 mil- lion from the Iranian National Development Fund. D etermined to topple the Ashok Gehlot Government on a day when majority of Congress MLAs backed the incumbent Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot, the camp led rebel Congress leader Sachin Pilot has claimed to have support of 20 MLAs and is in touch with the BJP. Pilot will address a press con- ference on Wednesday. A 10-second video has surfaced showing 16 MLAs sit- ting together in a circle. Pilot was not seen in the video tweeted by Rajasthan Tourism Minister Vishvendra Singh with the caption “Family”. Sources close to the rebel leader say at least 20 MLAs are with him — 17 Congress and three independent legislators. Two of the Congress MLAs backing him are sacked Rajasthan Ministers. The BJP, which has 73 MLAs, needs the support of another 35 to form a Government in Rajasthan. While Pilot has been denying through his close aides that he has no plans to join the BJP, sources con- firmed that he has been in touch with BJP leaders for quite sometime now and is likely to share his future course of action on Wednesday when he will for the first time address the media after remaining incommunicado except for taking to Twitter to express his feelings on Tuesday by an one liner “truth can be disturbed but not defeated.” Pilot also tweeted, “heart- felt thanks and gratitude to all those who have come out in my support today”. In his first reaction to his sacking, he said in a tweet, “Truth can be rattled but not defeated.” Pilot dropped his desig- nations from his Twitter bio soon after he was sacked as Deputy Chief Minister of Rajasthan and Congress pres- ident in the State. New Delhi: Congress leader and former spokesperson Sanjay Jha has been suspend- ed for “anti-party activities and breach of discipline”, Maharashtra Congress chief Balasaheb Thorat declared in a statement on Tuesday. The entrepreneur-turned- politician’s suspension from the Congress comes weeks after he wrote a newspaper article critical of the country’s oldest political party. Soon after the article, he was sus- pended as party spokesperson. BHUBANESWAR: The coro- navirus fatalities in the State rose to 74 on Tuesday follow- ing the death of four more patients. While three of the deceased were men, one was a woman. The deceased were identi- fied as a 71-year-old man of Cuttack district who was also suffering from oral cancer, a 71-year-old man of Bhubaneswar who was also suffering from blood cancer, an 80-year-old man of Ganjam district who was also suffering from diabetes and heart disease and a 40-year-old woman of Khordha district, the Health and Family Welfare Department said. The State also reported the death of a patient due to other health complications, taking the number of such toll to 22. “Regret to inform that a one-year three months old baby of Sundargarh district who was also Covid positive, passed away due to GM 1 Gangliosidosis,” the depart- ment tweeted. Meanwhile, 543 more per- sons tested positive for the virus on the day, increasing the total tally to 14,280. While 354 cases were reported from quarantine centres, 184 were local contacts. The day’s maximum 188 cases were again reported in Ganjam district, followed by 87 in Khordha, 52 in Sundargarh, 39 in Cuttack, 29 in Gajapati, 24 in Rayagada, 22 each in Mayurbhanj and Keonjhar, 15 in Jagatsinghpur, 11 in Malkangiri, 10 in Kendrapada, eight in Baleswar, seven each in Boudh and Puri, six in Jharsuguda, five in Balangir, three in Bargarh, two each in Dhenkanal and Sambalpur and one each in Angul, Bhadrak, Jajpur and Nayagarh. However, a record 609 patients recovered from the disease on Tuesday, taking the total recoveries to 9,864 in the State. The highest 268 recoveries were reported from Ganjam, followed by 135 in Sundargarh, 37 in Khordha, 32 in Cuttack, 25 in Baleswar, 23 in Keonjhar, 18 in Mayurbhanj, 12 each in Bhadrak and Puri, eight in Sambalpur and seven each in Bargarh and Jagatsinghpur, six in Jajpur, four each in Jharsuguda and Kendrapada, three in Balangir, two each in Koraput, Nabarangpur and Rayagada and one each in Gajapati and Nayagarh. PNS A nother MLA from Baleswar district tested pos- itive for Covid-19 on Tuesday. Remuna BJD MLA Sudhanshu Shekhar Parida was under home quarantine after coming in contact with the district’s Niligiri BJP MLA Sukanta Kumar Nayak, who had earlier tested posi- tive for the virus. “I was under home quar- antine after my fellow MLA tested positive for Covid-19. My swab samples were col- lected on July 11,” said Parida. Official source said Parida would be admitted to a Covid Hospital and his contact trac- ing has already begun along with an active surveillance. Notably, Parida is the third legislator of the State to have contracted the virus. Earlier, Nilagiri MLA Nayak and BJD MLA of Salepur in Cuttack dis- trict Prasanta Behera have test- ed positive for the virus. T he Government on Tuesday announced that plasma therapy would be introduced in the State from Wednesday for treatment of Covid-19 patients. The service would begin at the SUM Hospital and the KIMS in Bhubaneswar and the Ashwini Hospital in Cuttack. The SCB Medical College Hospital in Cuttack would be designated as the nodal centre for treatment. The decision was taken at a Covid-19 review meeting held under the chairmanship of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik. At the meeting, Patnaik direct- ed the officials concerned to strengthen monitoring of the situation in five districts, Ganjam, Cuttack, Khordha, Jajpur and Sundargarh. He also advised the district observers to constantly remain in contact with corona warriors to encourage them. Stating that around 7,000 samples are being tested per day in the State, Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy said the number would be increased to 9,000 in a week. Private hospitals would also be allowed to conduct the test in coming days. Health Department Additional Chief Secretary PK Mohapatra said that though there is no inadequacy in the number of ICUs and beds at the Covid Hospitals in Cuttack, Bhubaneswar and Ganjam, steps have been taken to add 200 more ICUs and addition- al beds in these places in next seven days. W ith rapid antigen tests starting at the Acharya Harihar Regional Cancer Centre here from Tuesday, the hospital that was closed for over a week is now all set to resume patient admission from Thursday. Hospital Director Dr Lalatendu Sarangi informed that the day-care for radio- therapy and chemotherapy would begin from Wednesday after 20 patients were enlist- ed on the day following their rapid antigen tests for Covid- 19. “Only the negative Covid- 19 cancer patients will be admitted henceforth and each patient will be allowed to have only one attendant, who will also undergo Covid test and will be issued with a non-transferable attendant pass,” the Director said, adding that in the meantime, the entire hospital has been thoroughly sanitised and is in Covid status as per the Government guidelines. The hospital turned into a corona hotspot over the past fortnight; and so far, 140 can- cer patients, their attendants and some staffs of the hospi- tal have tested positive. At least 20 more patients and their attendants tested positive during the past 24 hours, sources said. The hospital turned into a corona hotbed after a patient from Ganjam, who was undergoing treat- ment here, tested positive on June 24. T he State Government on Tuesday effected a major reshuffle at the IPS officer level which included the appointment of new DCPs in Bhubaneswar and Cuttack. Dr Umashankar Dash, who was serving as Puri SP, was appointed as the Bhubaneswar DCP and Kandhamal SP Prateek Singh was named as the Cuttack DCP. Among the other appoint- ments, Director Intelligence Satyajit Mohanty was trans- ferred as DG, FS, CG, HG while RK Sharma was appoint- ed as Director, Intelligence. Bhubaneswar DCP Anup Kumar Sahoo was posted as DIG, Intelligence and Cuttack DCP Akhilesvar Singh as SP, Puri. Praveen Kumar was appointed as IG, Law and Order while SK Priyadarshi was transferred as ADGP, CID CB. Soumya Mishra was appointed as the DCP, Traffic (Bhubaneswar-Cuttack) while Sagarika Nath was posted as SP, Sundargarh, replacing Sarah Sharma, who was transferred as SP, Vigilance. M Akhaya, who has returned from Central depu- tation, was appointed as CMD, POH and WC. Dr Sarthak Sarangi was given the charge of SP, CID CB. Vinit Agarwala was appointed as SP, Kandhamal; Rahul Jain as SP, Nuapada; SC Jamadar as SP, Deogarh; and Tapan Kumar Patnaik as SP, Gajapati.
The Congress Governmentin Rajasthan is on the brink
just three months after theparty lost Madhya Pradesh ina similar rebellion. Rebel leaderSachin Pilot was sacked asDeputy Chief Minister andremoved as State party chiefafter he skipped a second meet-ing of MLAs despite the lead-ership reaching out to himseveral times. Two Ministerswho have joined him in hisrevolt were also dropped.
Congress said Pilot was“ensnared” by the BJP to bringdown the Ashok GehlotGovernment. The BJP hasdemanded Gehlot to face floortest and senior BJP leader OmMathur reached Jaipur to con-duct a meeting of party leaderson Wednesday at 11 am inJaipur. Former Chief MinisterVasundhara Raje Scindia willbe present.
While sources indicatedthat Pilot may announce tolaunch a new political party onWednesday, Om Mathur saidhe is welcome in the BJP mak-ing it first public invitation toSachin Pilot amid the ongoingcrisis in the RajasthanGovernment.
The BJP leader also saidthat if Ashok Gehlot is claim-ing that he has the support ofMLAs, he should go throughthe floor test and prove major-ity in the Rajasthan Assembly.
“Our doors are open forSachin Pilot. Anyone whowishes to join the party andembrace its ideology, they arewelcome. The BJP has becomesuch a large party becausepeople from different walks oflife have joined us and believedin our ideology,” Mathur said.
On being asked aboutSachin Pilot’s wishes to becomethe Rajasthan Chief Ministerhimself, Mathur said the ChiefMinister is chosen by the partylegislature.
He also said that the dis-pute between Sachin Pilot andAshok Gehlot is an internal
matter of the Congress andwent on to add that the partyhas not done right with aleader like Sachin Pilot.
The remarks by the topleader of Rajasthan BJP comeseven as Congress decides totake disciplinary action againstSachin Pilot and his camp ofMLAs who skipped the secondCongress Legislature Party(CLP) meeting on Tuesdaydespite repeated calls by topleaders of the party.
Sources said Sachin Pilothas the support of 16 CongressMLAs and three independentlegislators while Ashok Gehlot
has the support of 102 MLAs.
Gehlot, whose tally hasslipped into the breakevenpoint held a Cabinet meetinglate in the evening which sawthe Congress left with 100MLAs, the half-way mark inthe 200-member Assembly,after three MLAs left his campthis morning.
Before Sachin Pilot’s rebel-lion, the Congress had 107MLAs besides the support of 13independents and five mem-bers from smaller parties. Thatnumber has now come down to90 Congress MLAs, seven inde-
pendent members and three tofive from smaller parties.
Sachin Pilot has at least 20MLAs on his side — 17Congress and three indepen-dent legislators. The BJP, whichhas 73 MLAs, needs the sup-port of another 35 to takepower in Rajasthan.
One Congress ally,Bhartiya Tribal Party (BTP),which has two MLAs in theRajasthan Assembly, has with-drawn support to the Congress.One of its MLAs, RajkumarRoat, posted a video allegingthat the police had stopped himfrom leaving Jaipur and hadtaken his car keys thus he felthumiliation.
AICC sources said nowGehlot is banking on SachinPilot and other rebels being dis-qualified, which will bringdown the half-way mark andfortify his numbers if he has toface a test of strength.
The Congress during thelast two days made severalattempt to reach out to Pilot buta decision to sack him fromparty posts was taken after ameeting between Congresschief Sonia Gandhi and partygeneral secretary PriyankaGandhi with no signs of anyoverture by former party chiefRahul Gandhi.
Rahul did not made anyattempts to even stopJyotiraditya Scindia from leav-ing the Congress who wasinstrumental in toppling the
Congress Government inMadhya Pradesh where theCongress had come to powerafter 15 years.
Pilot has denied that he isheaded to the BJP thoughCongress sources asserted hewas always in touch with theparty. The party accused theBJP of setting up the RajasthanGovernment crisis with helpfrom rebel Pilot.
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In a major loss of face for NewDelhi, Iran has decided to
move ahead with the con-struction of a railway line fromChabahar port to Zahedanwithout any assistance fromIndia due to a delay in funding.
India has been droppedfrom the strategic infrastruc-ture project along the Iran-Afghanistan border four yearsafter the project was finalisedas part of a broader trilateralagreement.
The move comes as amajor economic intelligencefailure after the agencies hereflawed in generating inputs onbiological intelligence (TablighJamaat congregations inMalaysia defying Covid guide-lines) besides political intelli-gence (lack of inputs on theintroduction of six bills byEuropean Parliament againstCAA) and diplomatic intelli-gence negligence (introduc-tion of a bill amending the map
and including Indian territoriesand subsequent passage byNepalese Parliament).
The now aborted dealbetween India and Iran wasinked in May 2016.
The development comesagainst the backdrop of Chinafinalising a 25-year strategicpartnership deal with Iranworth $400 billion. The aggres-sive Chinese deal with Iran isalso important as tensionbetween New Delhi and Beijingis at an all-time time high dueto border stand-off between thetwo countries in Eastern
Ladakh. India has invested $ 500
million in the Chabahar projectin Iran, which will connect thecountry with Afghanistan andCentral Asia, bypassingPakistan. The first phase of thestrategic project was inaugu-rated in December 2017.
Reports said the entirerailway project would be com-pleted by March 2022 and thatIranian railways will go aheadwithout India’s assistance. Iranwill now use about $ 400 mil-lion from the Iranian NationalDevelopment Fund.
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Determined to topple theAshok Gehlot
Government on a day whenmajority of Congress MLAsbacked the incumbent ChiefMinister Ashok Gehlot, thecamp led rebel Congressleader Sachin Pilot has claimedto have support of 20 MLAsand is in touch with the BJP.Pilot will address a press con-ference on Wednesday.
A 10-second video hassurfaced showing 16 MLAs sit-ting together in a circle. Pilotwas not seen in the videotweeted by Rajasthan TourismMinister Vishvendra Singhwith the caption “Family”.
Sources close to the rebelleader say at least 20 MLAs arewith him — 17 Congress andthree independent legislators.Two of the Congress MLAsbacking him are sackedRajasthan Ministers. The BJP,
which has 73 MLAs, needs thesupport of another 35 to forma Government in Rajasthan.
While Pilot has beendenying through his closeaides that he has no plans tojoin the BJP, sources con-firmed that he has been intouch with BJP leaders for
quite sometime now and islikely to share his future courseof action on Wednesday whenhe will for the first timeaddress the media afterremaining incommunicadoexcept for taking to Twitter toexpress his feelings on Tuesdayby an one liner “truth can bedisturbed but not defeated.”
Pilot also tweeted, “heart-felt thanks and gratitude to allthose who have come out inmy support today”.
In his first reaction to hissacking, he said in a tweet,“Truth can be rattled but notdefeated.”
Pilot dropped his desig-nations from his Twitter biosoon after he was sacked asDeputy Chief Minister ofRajasthan and Congress pres-ident in the State.
New Delhi: Congress leaderand former spokespersonSanjay Jha has been suspend-ed for “anti-party activitiesand breach of discipline”,Maharashtra Congress chiefBalasaheb Thorat declared ina statement on Tuesday.
The entrepreneur-turned-politician’s suspension fromthe Congress comes weeksafter he wrote a newspaperarticle critical of the country’s oldest political party. Soonafter the article, he was sus-pended as party spokesperson.
BHUBANESWAR: The coro-navirus fatalities in the Staterose to 74 on Tuesday follow-ing the death of four morepatients. While three of thedeceased were men, one was awoman.
The deceased were identi-fied as a 71-year-old man ofCuttack district who was alsosuffering from oral cancer, a71-year-old man ofBhubaneswar who was alsosuffering from blood cancer, an80-year-old man of Ganjamdistrict who was also sufferingfrom diabetes and heart diseaseand a 40-year-old woman ofKhordha district, the Health
and Family WelfareDepartment said.
The State also reported thedeath of a patient due to otherhealth complications, takingthe number of such toll to 22.
“Regret to inform that aone-year three months oldbaby of Sundargarh districtwho was also Covid positive,passed away due to GM 1Gangliosidosis,” the depart-ment tweeted.
Meanwhile, 543 more per-sons tested positive for thevirus on the day, increasing thetotal tally to 14,280. While354 cases were reported fromquarantine centres, 184 werelocal contacts.
The day’s maximum 188cases were again reported inGanjam district, followed by 87in Khordha, 52 in Sundargarh,39 in Cuttack, 29 in Gajapati,24 in Rayagada, 22 each inMayurbhanj and Keonjhar, 15in Jagatsinghpur, 11 in
Malkangiri, 10 in Kendrapada,eight in Baleswar, seven each inBoudh and Puri, six inJharsuguda, five in Balangir,three in Bargarh, two each inDhenkanal and Sambalpur andone each in Angul, Bhadrak,Jajpur and Nayagarh.
However, a record 609patients recovered from thedisease on Tuesday, taking thetotal recoveries to 9,864 in theState.
The highest 268 recoverieswere reported from Ganjam,followed by 135 in Sundargarh,37 in Khordha, 32 in Cuttack,25 in Baleswar, 23 in Keonjhar,18 in Mayurbhanj, 12 each inBhadrak and Puri, eight inSambalpur and seven each inBargarh and Jagatsinghpur, sixin Jajpur, four each inJharsuguda and Kendrapada,three in Balangir, two each inKoraput, Nabarangpur andRayagada and one each inGajapati and Nayagarh. PNS
Remuna BJDMLA SudhanshuShekhar Paridawas under homequarantine aftercoming in contactwith the district’sNiligiri BJP MLASukanta KumarNayak, who hadearlier tested posi-tive for the virus.
“I was under home quar-antine after my fellow MLAtested positive for Covid-19.My swab samples were col-lected on July 11,” said Parida.
Official source said Paridawould be admitted to a CovidHospital and his contact trac-
ing has already begun alongwith an active surveillance.
Notably, Parida is the thirdlegislator of the State to havecontracted the virus. Earlier,Nilagiri MLA Nayak and BJDMLA of Salepur in Cuttack dis-trict Prasanta Behera have test-ed positive for the virus.
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The Government on Tuesdayannounced that plasma
therapy would be introduced inthe State from Wednesday fortreatment of Covid-19 patients.
The service would begin atthe SUM Hospital and theKIMS in Bhubaneswar and theAshwini Hospital in Cuttack.The SCB Medical CollegeHospital in Cuttack would bedesignated as the nodal centrefor treatment.
The decision was taken ata Covid-19 review meetingheld under the chairmanship ofChief Minister Naveen Patnaik.At the meeting, Patnaik direct-ed the officials concerned tostrengthen monitoring of thesituation in five districts,Ganjam, Cuttack, Khordha,Jajpur and Sundargarh. He alsoadvised the district observers toconstantly remain in contactwith corona warriors to
encourage them.Stating that around 7,000
samples are being tested perday in the State, Chief SecretaryAsit Tripathy said the numberwould be increased to 9,000 ina week. Private hospitals wouldalso be allowed to conduct thetest in coming days.
Health Department
Additional Chief Secretary PKMohapatra said that thoughthere is no inadequacy in thenumber of ICUs and beds atthe Covid Hospitals in Cuttack,Bhubaneswar and Ganjam,steps have been taken to add200 more ICUs and addition-al beds in these places in nextseven days.
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With rapid antigen testsstarting at the Acharya
Harihar Regional CancerCentre here from Tuesday,the hospital that was closedfor over a week is now all setto resume patient admissionfrom Thursday.
Hospital Director DrLalatendu Sarangi informedthat the day-care for radio-therapy and chemotherapywould begin from Wednesdayafter 20 patients were enlist-ed on the day following theirrapid antigen tests for Covid-19.
“Only the negative Covid-19 cancer patients will beadmitted henceforth and eachpatient will be allowed tohave only one attendant, who
will also undergo Covid testand will be issued with anon-transferable attendantpass,” the Director said,adding that in the meantime,the entire hospital has beenthoroughly sanitised and is inCovid status as per theGovernment guidelines.
The hospital turned into acorona hotspot over the pastfortnight; and so far, 140 can-cer patients, their attendantsand some staffs of the hospi-tal have tested positive. Atleast 20 more patients andtheir attendants tested positiveduring the past 24 hours,sources said. The hospitalturned into a corona hotbedafter a patient from Ganjam,who was undergoing treat-ment here, tested positive onJune 24.
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The State Government onTuesday effected a major
reshuffle at the IPS officerlevel which included theappointment of new DCPs inBhubaneswar and Cuttack.
Dr Umashankar Dash,who was serving as Puri SP, wasappointed as the BhubaneswarDCP and Kandhamal SPPrateek Singh was named asthe Cuttack DCP.
Among the other appoint-ments, Director IntelligenceSatyajit Mohanty was trans-ferred as DG, FS, CG, HGwhile RK Sharma was appoint-ed as Director, Intelligence.
Bhubaneswar DCP AnupKumar Sahoo was posted as
DIG, Intelligence and CuttackDCP Akhilesvar Singh as SP,Puri.
Praveen Kumar wasappointed as IG, Law andOrder while SK Priyadarshiwas transferred as ADGP, CIDCB. Soumya Mishra wasappointed as the DCP, Traffic(Bhubaneswar-Cuttack) whileSagarika Nath was posted as SP,Sundargarh, replacing SarahSharma, who was transferred asSP, Vigilance.
M Akhaya, who hasreturned from Central depu-tation, was appointed as CMD,POH and WC. Dr SarthakSarangi was given the charge ofSP, CID CB.
Vinit Agarwala wasappointed as SP, Kandhamal;Rahul Jain as SP, Nuapada; SCJamadar as SP, Deogarh; andTapan Kumar Patnaik as SP,Gajapati.
Of late, the Covid-19 casesare virtually galloping in
the capital city Bhubaneswar.On Tuesday, another 51 per-sons tested positive for thevirus in the city.
With this, the city’s num-ber of positive cases rose to 769with 397 active ones. Out of thenew cases, 35 were from homequarantine and 16 local con-tacts.
The home quarantine casesincluded a 10-year-old boy ofOld Town, near LingarajTemple, a 30-year-old man ofOld Town Mahaveer Nagar, a56-year-old man of KotatirthaLane, six cases of Laxmi Sagar
Uppar Sahi, a 54-year-old mannear Master Canteen, a 26-year-old man of BaramundaHB Colony with a travel histo-ry of Chennai, a 29-year-oldman of Nuagaon Jena Sahi, a30-year-old man and a 34--year-old man of RasulgarhAdmimata Colony, a 34-year-old man of Kalinga Nagar, a 55-year-old man of NageswarTangi, a 30-year-old man ofUnit-2 and a 22-year-oldwoman of Ghatikia.
Besides, a 31-year-old manof Nayapalli Gada Sahi, twocases of Patia Shree Vihar, a 25-year-old woman of NayapalliN-5, a 56-year-old man ofNayapalli Sabar Sahi, a 25year-old man of Jharpada , two casesof Dumduma, a 42-year-oldman of Saheed Nagar, a 33-year-old man of Unit-6, a 14-year-old girl of DumdumaSubash Nagar, two women ofRasulgarh Pala Mandap, onecase of Gajapati Nagar and a25-year-old man of Bomikhalwith travel history of Bengalurualso tested positive in quaran-
tine,The local contact cases
included two employees of aGovernment hospital, a 39-year-old man of Laxmisagar,two cases ofChandrasekharour, two casesof Kalinga Nagar, a 21-year-oldwoman of Bharatpur, a 28-year-old woman of Kharavel Nagar,a 21-year-old man and a 23-year-old man of Ganganagar, a34-year-old woman of ShashtriNagar, a 27-year-old man ofJharpada Jagannath Nagar, a28-year-old woman ofNayapalli N-3 and a 29-year-old man of Nayapalli N-5.
In Cuttack city, 27 personstested positive on the day. Withthis, the city’s total positivecases rose to 291 with 150active ones.
The new cases included 17patients and their attendants ofthe Acharya Harihar RegionalCancer Centre, who were senton institutional quarantineafter coming in contact withprevious positive cases at thehospital.
directing the concerned offi-cials to begin online admis-sion of children with disabil-ities to different classes ofspecial schools with imme-diate effect.
In a letter, theDepartment of Socia lSecurity and Empowermentof Persons with Disabilitiesasked the Social SecurityOfficers of various districts toenrol children with disabili-
ties for the academic year2020-21.
A portal has been devel-oped for processing admis-sion to all the 103 specialschools running under theGrant in Aid (GIA) fold ofthe department.
“It is requested that allconcerned, particularly staffsof special schools, may pleasebe instructed to adopt theabove system meticulouslyand facilitate the admissionprocess,” said a notificationissued by the department.
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While a large number ofinternship requirements
for Covid-19-related activitiesare required by Urban LocalBodies (ULBs) of the State, theUnion Government hasrequested to utilise resourcesfrom TULIP.
The Urban LearningInternship Programme(TULIP) was launched by theMinistry of Housing and UrbanAffairs on June 4, which allowsfresh graduates to apply forinternship in ULBs and SmartCities.
Any graduates who havecompleted BTech, B Arch,BPlan, BSc etc. can applywithin 18 months from date ofits graduation.
Union Secretary Housingand Urban Affairs DurgaShankar Mishra has brought tothe notice of the StateGovernment in this regard,
while asking to utilize TULIPin the Covid-19 Management.
TULIP would helpenhance the value-to-market ofIndia’s graduates and help cre-ate a potential talent pool indiverse fields like urban plan-ning, transport engineering,environment, municipalfinance etc, thus not only cat-alyzing creation of prospectivecity managers but also talent-ed private and non-Government sector profes-sionals.
The Smart Cities havesought interns in different areassuch as health, town planning,finance, electrical, civil, infor-mation technology, waterresources and environmentalengineering.
In order to boost and coor-dinate such an ambitious pro-gramme, the UnionGovernment has requested theState administration to appointa Nodal Officer as soon as pos-sible.
The TULIP launch is alsoan important stepping stone forfulfillment of MHRD andAICTE’s goal of one crore suc-cessful internships by the year2025.
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Lockdown as a strategy tocontain the spread of the
Corona pandemic is ques-tioned by many. More partic-ularly looking at the high rateof transmission of the diseaseincluding rise in mortality ratesince the opening of the econ-omy ( with lockdown contin-uing at State/regional level)foreconomic activities from June1, opinion is gaining groundagainst the potentiality of lock-down as a measure to control
the spread of the virus.Hence focus has gradu-
ally shifted from this behav-ioural intervention to pro-viding health facilities to curbthe disease. However, Indiabeing a large populous coun-try with underdevelopedpublic healthcare system,there is a need for strength-ening the public health tomeet the eventualities if therehappens to be communityspread of the virus.
Realizing the crucial roleof public health in the present
context , the Prime Ministerhas recently announced Rs15,000 crore towards buildingthe health infrastructure. Butas it is largely viewed, the pub-lic healthcare suffers from longpolicy neglect and there is aneed for a structural reform tomake this system contributequality service to the peoplealong with fighting Covid-19.
On this issue let me explainhow health- a basic element fora better human living,remained neglected in thedevelopment policy all through
the post-independent India.With the country getting
independence, contrary to theexpectation that health be treat-ed as a basic human right, theframers of the constitutionplaced health under theDirective Principles of StatePolicy with the provision ofhealthcare the responsibilityof the State Governments.Accordingly, the States werealso made responsible for rais-ing the level of nutrition andstandard of living of their peo-ple and improvement in pub-lic health remained their pri-mary duty. By this way healthas a basic human right wascompromised from the begin-ning.
Besides, over the plannedperiod of development, empha-sis was laid on accumulation ofcapital through large-scaleinvestment in capital goodsindustries, infrastructure etc.Industrial growth was the key-word of development. Thesocial sectors like health andeducation were considered aslow priority areas. The Statescould not mobilize adequateresources since agricultureincome was exempted fromtaxation. This led the States toreduce expenditure and it felllargely on social sectors likehealth and education. Allalong public expenditure onhealth ( Centre + States) con-tinued to remain at around 1per cent of GDP. In recent yearsthere has been marginalincrease in expenditure onhealthcare at 1.3 per cent ofGDP between 2008 and 2015which has further increased to1.4 per cent in 2016-17.However, this is less than worldaverage of 6 per cent. TheNational Health Policy, 2017has proposed to raise it to 2.5
per cent of GDP by 2025.Since the beginning of
1980s, the Indian economywitnessed a higher pace ofeconomic development leadingto better living standards of thepeople , particularly thoseresiding in urban areas. Assuch, under the influence ofmiddle class urban elite, theGovernment ’s policy focusedon establishing hi-tech andsuper speciality hospitals in thecountry under private sector.This led to rapid growth ofuncontrolled and unregulatedprivate health sector in thecountry. In the 1990s with theadoption of economic reform,a major shift in Government ’shealthcare policy towardsdeveloping tertiary care result-ing massive investment in cor-porate hospitals, diagnosticcentres etc, was noticed. As aresult whatever little control theGovernment had on privatehealthcare sector was doneaway with and the Governmentbecame facilitator to privatehealth sector, rather thanprovider of healthcare in the
country. Taking the availabledata, today private healthcarecaters to 70 per cent house-holds in urban areas and 63 percent in rural areas.
A weak public health sys-tem which does not functionwell in a normal situation can-not suddenly generate surgecapacity when challenged by ahealth emergency. This sug-gests adequate investment increating a public health systemthat can withstand any kind ofhealth emergency. Besides, asstudies reveal the privatehealthcare sector suffers fromexcess capacity and this needsto be strategically used by theGovernment. There is robustevidence that investment in pri-mary healthcare pays rich eco-nomic dividends. A re-think-ing on the development policyof the healthcare is the need ofthe hour.
(Dr Panda is a formerProfessor of Economics, PGDept of Analytical & AppliedEconomics, Utkal University,Bhubaneswar)
BHUBANESWAR: With hugescope lying in steel scrap recy-cling sector, the StateGovernment has been request-ed to provide industry status tothe nascent activities and helpout the small and mediumenterprises (SME)
In order to facilitate thesector, the State Governmenthas also been urged to set upspecial recycling zone and pro-vide free land as one timeincentive to the entrepreneurs.
Ministry of Steel SecretaryBinoy Kumar has approachedthe Odisha Government asthe State is producing hugequantity of steel scrap and theentire industry is in unorgan-ised sector.
It came to the fore that the
current generation of scrapfrom domestic unorganisedsector is 25 Million Tons perannum and around 7 MillionTons of scrap is being import-ed to meet domestic require-ment.
Odisha, being a mineralrich State and all set to be newfirst steel hub of the country,the Ministry of Steel has urgedthe State Government toaccord ‘Priority Sector’ statusto the recycling and sustain-ability focused industries.
According to experts, useof every ton of scrap for steelmaking saves 1.1 ton of ironore, 630 kg of cocking coal and55 kg of lime stone. This wouldresult in energy saving of 16-17 percent, reduction in waterconsumption by 40 percentand CHG emission by 58 per-cent.
The Ministry of Steel has
decided to work as Hub andSpoke Model of the proposedcollection and dismantlingcenters. Kabadiwalas, aggre-gators and scrap dealers willact as Spokes and CollectionCenters will be Hub. And theseHubs will act as feeders forscrap processing and recyclingcenters.
In order to make India selfsufficient in steel scrap, 7Million Tons of scrap is need-ed to be produced domesti-cally. It is expected that thecountry requires 70 ScrapProcessing Centers of 1 lakhton capacity.
When India’s steel pro-duction reaches 250 MillionTon(MT), the requirement ofscrap will be about 70-80 MT.
In order to produce 70MT of additional scrap, thecountry needs 700 scrap pro-cessing and shredding cen-
ters, which would be fed by2,800-3,000 collection and dis-mantling centers. While theMinistry of Steel is looking atthe scenario, a Steel ScrapRecycling Policy was formu-lated which has evoked posi-tive response among the tradeand industry and the automo-bile manufacturers who arekeen to establish scarping andrecycling facilities.
Under the backdrop, theState Government is needed toconsider the changed envi-ronment and investment sen-timent to include scrap aggre-gation, processing and recy-cling as an industrial activityand accord industry status tothe sector.
This will ensure raw mate-rial security to steel manufac-turers in SME Sector, who usescrap as raw material, said asenior official.
The BJP on Tuesday allegedthat the State Government
and the Ganjam district admin-istration have failed in con-taining the spread of coron-avirus in Ganjam.
“Quarantine centers areunhygienic and have no drink-ing water facility. Inmates arebeing served low-quality foods.Due to mismanagement, thenumber of Covid cases inGanjam district has increasedalarmingly,” alleged BJP Statevice-president Brugu Baxipatraat a Press meet here.
He demanded that mini-mum 5,000 swab tests shouldbe conducted in Ganjam dis-trict daily and three full-fledgedCovid hospitals established atthree subdivision headquar-ters, Chhatrapur, Brahmpurand Bhanjanagar.
Baxipatra also demandedthat the Government providemobile healthcare facility atdoorsteps as OPDs of the mostof the hospitals have been closedin view of detection of Covidcases. He said PPE kits shouldbe provided to all health work-ers moving households to collectdate and their swab tests tested.
He demanded that assis-tances, as announced by theGovernment, should be paid tothe families of deceased Covidwarriors forthwith.
“The district administra-tion should involve social,political and voluntary organ-
isations and disaster manage-ment experts in Covid combatand management,” he said.
He demanded that the
Government appoint anAdditional Chief Secretary levelofficer for Covid managementin the district.
were arrested on Monday fororganising a marriage in vio-lation of Covid-19 norms atJhunia village under the Alipolice limits in Kendrapadadistrict on June 25, informedIIC Salil Kumar Pradhan onTuesday.
The arrested were idenfiedas bridegroom HarekrushnaDhal (bridegroom) PravakarSamal, Satyajit Mallick,Ramachandra Rout andRabindra Sahoo of Juania vil-lage of Juania village.
Though Dhal had takenpermission police for con-ducting marriage with partic-ipation of maximum of 50
people, yet the norm was vio-lated during both weddingprocession and marriage feast.
Besides, he organised ameeting over assault on thelocal Sarpanch’s husbandwhere more than 50 villagersgathered. Videos of these inci-dents went viral on the socialmedia.
Following this,Pattamundai SDPO RanjanKumar Dey and IIC Pradhanconducted an inquiry andfound the five persons respon-sible.
Notably, Pattamundaipolice had nabbed four per-sons for organising anidolinstallation programme and acommunity feast two daysback.
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BHUBANESWAR: One moresenior journalist in the Statehas succumbed to Covid-19.The deceased SimanchalPanda (63) of Ganjam districtwas working with a weeklyO d i amagazine.
Notably, his 34-year-oldson Asit Panda had also diedof the virus on July 8. But evenafter his death, swab samplesof rest of the family memberswere not collected for the test.On July 12, Simanchal fellsick and was taken to a hospi-tal in Buguda and later shift-ed to the MKCG MedicalCollege Hospital. He alongwith all his family members,including his grandchildren,underwent Covid-19 test at the
hospital and all tested positive.While all of them were
shifted to the Aska CovidCare Centre, the journalistdied.
With this, total three jour-nalists have died of the diseasein the State.
Earlier on July 11,Priyadarshi Patnaik of TheSamaja died while undergoingtreatment at the KIMS CovidHospital in Bhubaneswar. Hewas a resident of Hinjili inGanjam district. Next day,another scribe, K CH Ratnam,from Gajapati district suc-cumbed to the virus at a Covidhospital in Bhubaneswar. The75-year-old journalist wasworking with Telugu newspa-per Eenadu. PNS
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The temporary restrictionon extending VISAs to
Indians by the Trump admin-istration has led to sufferingand anguish among Odisha'sNRI families.
Consider 5-year-old Aryanfrom New Jersey who hasn'tseen his mother for more than5 months. Aryan video calls hismother every day to inquireabout the date of her return tothe USA but keeps gettingheartbroken week after week.The child says, "Mama, whenwill you come here? Every dayyou say you would be in thestates within 2-3 days, but younever arrive. Papa also keepstelling lies. If you love me,promise me you would be heresoon." Aryan is son of NewJersey-based AnusuyaKanungo. Around mid-February Anusuya had learned
that her father was indeath bed. Since herhusband could notmanage to take a leaveon an urgent basis,she booked the nextavailable flight andr e a c h e dBhubaneshwar. Butdue to travel restric-tions imposed since,Anusuya couldn'tmanage to return.
After the lock-down was lifted inIndia, Anusuya hadhoped to return toher country and evenreached the Hyderabad con-sulate on March 24 to seek aVISA but by then the USadministration had imposedstrict travel restrictions due towhich many people likeAnusuya have been stuckacross borders with their lovedones in the US.
These restrictions have leftmany families worldwide shat-tered, consider Parul and her 3-year-old daughter, who areheld up in Jharsuguda,while
her husband is in the UnitedStates.
Parul says that the situationhas taken a toll on the mentalhealth of her 3 year old daugh-ter who has been away fromher father for months and isonly able to video call him. Inanother similar case, Chicagobased Priya is stuck with her 1-year-old daughter inDhenkanal while her husbandyearns to see his family but tono avail.
Children’s Villages ofBhubaneswar, have done thecity proud by scoring 87.2%and 84% marks, respectively, inthe CBSE Class XII Commerceexaminations, results of whichwere announced on Monday.
Geeta Kumari, a student ofSOS Children’s Village ofRourkela, has secured 73.4% inthe Commerce examinations.
Congratulating Pushpa,Adyasha and Geeta for theirachievements, SOS Children’sVillages secretary general
Sudarshan Suchi said, “It feelsreally good to see our childrendo well. We are proud ofPushpa and Adyasha for secur-ing more than 80% marks.”
Such also hailed tirelessefforts of SOS mothers for thestudent’s achievent. He alsocongratulated all the otherchildren for their successes.
Four other students of SOSChildren’s Villages,Bhubaneswar and tjee otherstudents from SOS Children’sVillages, Rourkela have securedmore than 70% and havepassed class XII boards withflying colours.
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Vigilance officers onMonday arrested
Sundargarh district Bonaiblock’s Badaguguna GPPanchayat Executive Officer(PEO) Gayatri Jayapuria on thecharge of demanding andaccepting bribe of Rs 6,000from Nitish Mishra ofKantajodi village to issue ‘nodue certificate’ in favour of hisfather Jatin Mishra, a formerPEO of the GP.
The PEO was caught red-handed while taking the bribe
amount from Mishra. A traphad been laid on the complaintof Mishra by the vigilance.The matter was still underinvestigation, informed an offi-cial release.
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Panic gripped the VIMSARat Burla following a PG stu-
dent on duty in the ICU test-ed corona positive on Monday.
“For the first time a doctorof the institute has tested pos-itive,” said VIMSARSuperintendent Dr JayashreeDora. The source of the doctorgetting infected is under inves-tigation, she added.
“We are trying to ascertainif he got infected from anypatient of ICU, or from anyother source,” Dr. Dorainformed. But the patients andtheir family members appre-
hend an ICU outbreak sincethe doctors has treated themall.
The concerned doctor wassuffering from cold and cough,but he was coming to duty.When his swab and blood testconfirmed that he was positive,he was sent to the dedicatedCovid Hospital at Sambalpur,VSSIMSAR sources said.
Following the incident, 30doctors and nurses were quar-antined as they come underhigh risk group, the superin-tendent said further.
At the same time, few otherdoctors and nurses were alsokept in isolation earlier as theycame in contact with some pos-itive patients while treatingthem. But they are in goodhealth now, Dr Dora added.
BRAHMAPUR: Even as theGanjam district administra-tion relaxed shutdown normsin all urban areas for three daysfrom Tuesday allowing peopleto purchase essential items,the Covid-19 cases in the dis-trict continued to rise with 188fresh cases being reported inthe last 24 hours.
Of the 543 new casesreported in the State onTuesday, Ganjam alone con-tributed 34.6% cases. The dis-trict also registered one moreCovid-19 death on the day asan 80-year-old male patient,who was also suffering fromdiabetes and heart disease, suc-cumbed to the deadly virus.
The fresh 188 cases includ-ed 12 corona warriors, five per-sons with travel history toother States and 171 personswith active contact with previ-ous positive cases. All the newcases were shifted to CovidHospitals, informed officials. PNS
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An 81-year-oldm a n ,
Gopinath Dakua,of Kandhamal dis-trict has tri-umphed overCovid-19 after a15-day ordeal.
Dakua, anative of TalaIndragada inRaikia block, wasinitially undergo-ing treatment atthe IndragadaPublic HealthCentre as he suffered frominfluenza. After he developedCovid-19symptoms, he wasshifted to the nearbyTemporary Medical Centre atRaikia on June 28 and finally tothe Covid Hospital at Phulbanion July 4.
His condition improvedgradually and he was dis-
charged from the hospital onJuly 13.
“During my treatment,doctors, nurses and other staffsattended sincerely and tookgood care of me. Good quali-ty food was also provided at thehospital,” said the octogenari-an.
On Tuesday, Chief Minister
Naveen Patnaik talked toDakua over phone and praisedhim for his strong willpower infighting the virus. Patnaik saidhis victory would boost others’courage to battle Covid.
Dakua thanked the CM forproviding appropriate health-care to him in the CovidHospital.
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PARALAKHEMUNDI: Asmany as 22 people fled from atemporary medical centre(TMC) and walked 7 km toreach their village in Gajapatidistrict on Monday night alleg-ing lack of basic amenities atthe TMC.
According to information,after two villagers tested posi-tive for Covid at Sara village ofKhandaba gram panchayatunder Kashinagar block, twopregnant woman and 22 otherswere sent to a quarantine cen-tre at Ulabhadra as they werefound having Covid symp-toms. However, the 22 vil-lagers refused to stay there,alleging that the centre had nobasic facilities. Then, they weresent to the Alada AdarshaVidyalay quarantine centre.They also made the same alle-gation here and escaped thecentre. Later, Government offi-cials convinced them andlodged them at the Khandabaquarantine centre. PNS
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BRAHMAPUR: Two patientsundergoing treatment at theTata Covid Hospital atSitalapali in Ganjam districthave escaped from the hospi-tal on Sunday last.
After finding them miss-ing, the hospital authoritieshave lodged a police complainton Monday morning. However,they are yet to be traced.
On July 3, ExciseIntelligence officials hadnabbed the two from the NewBus Stand here while they weresmuggling ganja and later sentthem to jail, where their swabsamples were collected forCovid-19 test. After theirreports came positive, theywere shifted to the CovidHospital on July 10.
Two days after beingadmitted to the hospital, theduo fled on July 12. They areresidents of Bhubaneswar, saidsources. PNS
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In a matter of great concern,frontline workers like doc-
tors, paramedics and police-men involved in the war againstcoronavirus are increasinglygetting infected.
On Tuesday, out of the 52new positive cases registered inSundargarh district, 36 arepolice personnel and one is adoctor. There is a DSP and an
inspector among the infectedpersonnel.
The remaining new casesinclude six returnees, sevencontacts of previous positivecases and 2 local contact cases.
All the infected personswere shifted to the RourkelaCovid Hospital Rourkela,Covid Health Centre, NTPCHospital, Sundargarh or homequarantined as per the newguidelines of the Government,said Sundargarh CollectorNikhil Pawan Kalyan in atweet.
“Out of the 37 home quar-antined Covid warriors, 15will be shifted to Covid healthcentre based on their healthcondition,” Kalyan added.
In view of the increasingCovid-19 cases in Athagarh
subdivision District Collectorof Cuttack, Bhabani ShankarChayani has declared the entirearea as a Containment Zonefrom Monday.
Inflow of persons fromother districts or States to thesubdivision comprisingAthagarh, Tigiria, Badambaand Narasinghapur blocks hasbeen restricted.
Any person coming fromoutside shall not be allowed toenter subdivision without priorpermission of the concernedTehsildars and PS IICs at the
NAKA point.“Those carrying essential
commodities and medicinesmay be allowed to enter thesubdivision. The health condi-tion of the persons comingfrom other districts/states toAthgarh will be screened by theSurveillance Team at theNAKA Point. The detailed his-tory of the persons shall berecorded in separate registerwith their address and contactnumber,” the Collector’s ordersaid.
“The Tehsildar and IICshall jointly finalise at the spoton the entry of the outsiderscoming to Athgarh subdivi-sion,” the order stated.
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A780-bed Covid CareCentre has been estab-
lished at the Biju PattnaikUniversity of Technology,Rourkela, by the RourkelaMunicipal Corporation lookinginto the soaring figure ofCorona positive cases inSundargarh district.
Besides, a dedicated regis-tration center has been estab-lished at the BPUT multipur-pose building.
The RMC on Mondayinformed that considering thestiff rise in Covid positivecases, it has increased its Covidcare facilities. According to a
release, apart from exiting 200bedded Covid Hospital at Hi-Tech Medical College,Rourkela, the RMC has estab-lished Covid care centres inthree buildings of BPUT,Rourkela, where as many as 780Covid positive patients can betreated.
"The center is wellequipped with various facilitiesof Covid treatment, besidesarrangement of sanitisation,food and drinking water for thepatients," the release said. "Adedicated Covid registrationcounter has also been openedat BPUT's multi purpose build-ing, where in the people com-ing from outside Rourkela willregister themselves," the releaseadded.
"Apart from this, at dif-ferent locations of Rourkelacity, temporary medical camps(TMC) have been established,where in as many as 550 per-sons can be accommodated, as
a part of institutional quaran-tine," the release said.
"Besides, efforts are on bythe RMC to establish severalTMCs, in a bid to accommo-date another six hundred per-sons," the release added.
RMC Commissioner DibyJyoti Parida appealed the pub-lic to consider the registrationa must
According to sources,while at least three areas of thecity has been declared as con-tainment zone, the RMC onSunday evening declaredTraffic gate area as the con-tainment zone. The areasincluded the vegetable market,Street starting from Gali-1 ,Gali-2, Traffic Gate basti. Thevehicular movement of publictransport and personal move-ment in the locality has beenstopped and all the residents ofthe containment zone havebeen advised to confine totheir homes.
Digambara Patra has urgedboth Central and StateGovernments for setting up ofa large technology center inKalahandi district by boostingthe Solar Charkha Mission inthe KBK region.
In his letter to PrimeMinister Narendra Modi andChief Minister Naveen Patnaik,Patra mentioned that most ofthe big initiatives and projectsof the Cetnral and StateGovernments are limited to thecoastal Odisha region and noneof them have been proposed inthe KBK region.
Odisha has about 4 lakhMSME units, which constitue0.6 % of MSMEs in the coun-try. This number is too smallwhen its population is 3.2 % ofIndia, remarked Patra.
About 60 per cent ofMSMEs render repairing ser-vice, suggesting Odisha haslimited contribution in manu-
facturing despite being knownfr its metal and mining.
Presently, Odisha generates474-MW solar power againstIndia’s 34.6 GW production,Thus, Odisha’s share is 1.4 percent. By 2022, when India aimsto have 100 GW solar power,Odisha’s target is 1.5 GW,which is again 1.5 per cent.
Compared to its popula-tion both in solar power andMSME, Odisha’s share mustgrow two-fold and five-fold,respectively. The KBK regioncan potentially be developedfor alumina, cotton, and agri-cultural-based MSME andsolar industries.
Unfortunately, most of thealuminum and textile parks inOdisha are being establishedoutside of the KBK districts,which play a major role in cot-ton production. Cotton culti-vated in Kalahandi, Nuapada,Rayagada, Koraput, andBalangir districts is well knownfor its quality internationally.District wise Kalahandi isamong the topmost districts for
cotton production. Similarly,Kalahandi, Sonepur, Bargarh,and Koraput region is knownfor handloom textiles. EvenKhadi products in theKalahandi region were knownin the old days.
Additionally, exploitationof bonded laborers from KBKdistricts, especially Kalahandi,Nuapada, and Balangir in var-ious cities of India have drawninternational and national con-demnation for human rightviolation.
Since the Ministry ofMSME has a special focus onKhadi through Solar CharkhaMission, both Centre and StateGovernmenta should encour-
age cotton growing farmers, vil-lagers and migrant labourers inKBK region by giving themtraining and help to establishMSMEs.
The Ministry of MSMEshas a proposal to make 20 largetechnology centers and 100small technology centers tofacilitate MSME. A large tech-nology centre for south-west-ern Odisha is essential.
Finally, cotton and textile-based MSME can lead to estab-lishing a “Textile and CottonPark” in Kalahandi regionunder the Ministry of Textile,which would create employ-ments in the KBK-Kandhamal-Gajapati-Bargarh region.
get rid of cold-related ailmentswas detected Covid positive.
The man of Kamarpur vil-lage working in Mumbairecently had returned to hishome. After returning, when heexperienced cold ailments, thefamily members suspectingthat he was afflicted by somebad spirit took help of a sor-
cerer in their area.While the sorcerer was
doing the procedure toremove the evil spirit of theman, the villagers after learn-ing such activities protestedand insisted him to go to theTMC and get his swab tested.They also informed the elect-ed representatives of the village.
During isolation in theTMC at Soro, his swab was col-lected and during the test, itwas found positive. The affect-ed was sent to the Covid hos-pital for treatment.
What is interesting is thatafter detection of a virus in hisclient, the sorcerer in abject fearis running here and there to gethim tested, informed localsources.
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Vedanta Lanjigarh-run DAVVedanta International
School has registered 100%results in the CBSE Class XIIexaminations with all 14 stu-dents securing 1st division.
Subhasmita Mohapatra ofBiswanathpur topped the batchsecuring 95.4% in the exams,followed by Ashish KumarSahu of Muniguda with 93.6%marks and Ashutosh Barik ofVedanta Staff Colony whoscored 90.6% marks.
11 students from the pass-ing out batch secured 80%+marks and the rest scored morethan 75%.
Chief Operating Officer,Vedanta Limited, Lanjigarhunit and Chairman, LocalManagement Committee, DAVVedanta International Schoolsaid Rakesh Mohan congratu-lated the students.
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The administration hasdeclared a shutdown in
Rajadang gram panchayat inPallahara subdivision to con-tain spread of Covid-19 after aman of the neighbouringSaradhapur village tested pos-itive of the virus three days agoand shifted to a Bhubaneswar-based Covid-19 Hospital.
The affected person hascome in contact with two otherpersons of the gram panchay-at whose families consist of 13members.
On Pallahara Sub-Collector Ajit Pradhan’sinstruction to the local BDO,the Sarpanch brought the con-cerned persons to an isolationcentre. Later, six of them wentto home quarantine due to can-cer.
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The Jajpur district adminis-tration on Tuesday
imposed restrictions on busservices between Jajpur andKolkata in West Bengal andRourkela with immediateeffect.
The decision was takenduring a meeting at the districtCollector’s residential officeon Tuesday in wake of increas-ing cases of Covid 19 in the dis-trict.
The plying of buses toKolkata and Rourkela has beensuspended after both the citieshave turned into Covid-19hotspots, the officials said.
“In view of rapid spread ofCovid-19 pandemic and as perthe decision taken in the meet-ing held on July 14 in the res-idential office of the Collector,Jajpur, the plying of buses
(Stage Carnage) Jajpur toKolkata (to and fro) and Jajpurto Rourkela (to and fro) is here-by suspended until furtherorder,” said Jajpur CollectorRanjan Kumar Das in an offi-cial order.
Earlier, Bhadrak districtadministration also imposedrestrictions on the movementsof buses to and from Kolkata.
Notably, the Covid-19 tallyin Jajpur district rose to 914 ason Tuesday with 1 more persontesting positive for the virus inthe last 24 hours.
Most of the positive caseswhich were reported from thedistrict have travel history toWest Bengal.
As many as 2,956 migrantsfrom West Bengal havereturned to Jajpur since out-break of the Covid 19 pan-demic.
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Demanding return of hiswife to him, a youth on
Monday staged a dharna infront of his in-laws’ house atBaro village under the Nikiraipolice station.
Asit Das had a love affairwith neighbourly girl,Sraddhanjali Parida, daughterof Kulamani Parida. Later, Asitand Sraddhanjali had theirregistered marriage last year.But Sraddhanjali's parents slylytook her to their house byassuring Asit that they wouldorganise Sraddhanjali's mar-riage with him, after the mar-riage of Sraddhanjali's elderwould be completed.
But for last three months,the family members ofSraddhanjali allegedly weredelaying the marriage and alsoforced Sraddhanjali to termi-nate her relation with Asit.
However, when Asit cameto know that the family mem-
bers of Sraddhanjali were slylyplanning to marry her off else-where, Asit on Monday stagedthe dharana demanding thathis wife be handed over to him.
He also threatened to com-mit suicide by consuming poi-
son if Sraddhanjali's familydid not concede.
When contacted, Nikiraipolice station IIC Kabuli Barikinformed that the police wereyet to receive a complaint inthis regard.
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The Lakshmipat SinghaniaPublic School has set a
benchmark as it’s studentssecured outstanding result inthe recently declared CBSEboard examination.
Total 37 students of theschool appeared in class- XIIboard examination held inMarch. All the students of theschools have passed with firstclass. Out of 37 students eighthave secured more than 90 per-cent, 12 have secured morethan 80 per cent and remain-ing 17 have secured more than60 percent.
Master Mohammed Anassecured highest percentagewith 94.6 percent and stoodfirst in the school. MasterSomesh Panda secured secondposition with 94.2 per cent andSimhadri Naveen secured 3rdposition with 94 percent.
For this outstanding resultsof the school, the top executivesof JK Paper Mills manage-ment Vinay Dwivedi, ExecutiveVice President(Works),Biswajeet Dwivedi, VicePresident(Comm) and schoolprincipal Pradipta KishorePanigrahy congratulated allthe students, parents and theteachers.
�� ������The headmas-ter of Baradanga-basedJagamohan Nodal HighSchool under Mahakalapadablock was placed under sus-pension by the DistrictEducation(DEO) officer onTuesday for violating Covidguidelines.
Notably, While the stateGovernment has closed downall the educational institutionsand private tuitions/coachingclasses across the State due toongoing Covid-19 pandemic,headmaster Giridhari Routgave private tuition by congre-gating more than 60 students.To the surprise, neither the stu-dents wore masks nor did theyfollow social distancing. Even,when it has been restricted fora Government teacher toindulge in private tuition, Routwas indulged in it.
District Collector SamarthVerma came across a viralvideo in this regard. Taking thematter seriously, he directed theDEO of Kendrapada to con-duct an inquiry and take sternaction. PNS
RAYAGADA: A youth arrest-ed on the charge of betraying ayoung woman was run over bya container truck while tryingto escape from police custodyin Rayagada town on Monday.
Santosh Kumar Pandu hadbeen arrested from BisamaCuttack of Rayagada districtand was to be forwarded tocourt. At the Rayagada policestation, he told police person-nel accompanying him that hewas feeling nauseous and want-ed to vomit. He came outside;and while running towardsthe main road, he was hit by thetruck and killed.
Santosh had establishedsexual relationship with theyoung woman from Tikiri inthe district on the pretext ofmarrying her. But he later triedto evade the marriage propos-al. On July 9, the woman metSantosh in Rayagada town.Santosh took her to a temple,where he attacked her with alathi and then left her in anunconscious in the custody ofone of her relatives. PNS
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As the number of coron-avirus cases around the
world increased by a millionin just five days, the WorldHealth Organisation (WHO)warned that the pandemic isworsening globally and that“there will be no return to theold normal for the foreseeablefuture as COVID-19 casesglobally going past the 13million figure. Without takingany names, WHO said “toomany countries are headed inthe wrong direction” with thepandemic and some were nottaking the proper steps tocurb infections. The UnitedStates, Brazil and India remainthe worst-affected of virusinfections. WHO, in its latestbriefing also said that it won’tbe wise to expect a vaccine tosolve our problems.
Speaking at a virtual brief-ing in Geneva, WHO directorgeneral Tedros AdhanomGhebreyesus said, “Let me beblunt, too many countries areheaded in the wrong direc-
tion, the virus remains publicenemy number one”. “If basicsare not followed, the onlyway this pandemic is going togo,” Tedros said. “It is going toget worse and worse andworse. But it does not have tobe this way,” he warned assert-ing “there will be no return tothe old normal for the fore-seeable future… There is a lotto be concerned about”.
Meanwhile, two WHOexperts were in China for amission to trace the origin ofthe pandemic. In a relateddevelopment, representativesof 10 Tibetan associationsmet with the WHO and theUnited Nations (UN) offi-cials in Delhi and submitted amemorandum, demanding atransparent investigation intothe source of the infection.The Tibetan representativesdemanded that China shouldmake a public announcementthat the scientists are studyingthe virus to comply with aWHO resolution to identifythe zoonotic source of thevirus and not so, at the invi-
tation of the ChineseGovernment.
The virus was first detect-ed in central China’s city ofWuhan late last year. Beijinghad been reluctant to allow aprobe but relented after scoresof countries called on theWHO to conduct a thorough
investigation.Deaths from the virus
have been rising in the U.S.,especially in the South andWest, though they are still wellbelow the numbers reached inApril, according to a recentAssociated Press analysis ofdata from Johns Hopkins
University.As per WHO data, there
are 12,929,306 confirmedcases of COVID-19, including569,738 deaths across world.USA has 67.80 lakh coron-avirus infection cases, fol-lowed by Brazil 18.64 lakh andIndia 9.30 lakh cases so far.
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The Rajya Sabha on Tuesdaylaunched its “Employee
Welfare Scheme”, named afterformer Finance Minister andBJP stalwart late Arun Jaitley.
Jaitley’s wife, SangeetaJaitley, has donated the familypension for the betterment ofthe Group C employees of theRajya Sabha Secretariat. Thescheme will be called ‘ArunJaitley Financial Assistance forGroup C employees’ scheme’.
Children of the Group Cemployees will be rewardedwith this welfare scheme, pro-
viding them three scholarshipsfor higher technical/profes-sional education in the fields ofEngineering, Medicine andMCA/MBA/LLB. Along withthis, families of Group Cemployees will be supportedwith a financial cover in case ofdeath and medical emergency.
The family pension of ArunJaitley at the present rates comesto over �3 lakh annually and hiswife, Sangeeta Jaitley hasalready transferred the amountto the Rajya Sabha Secretariatfor the period after Jaitley’sdeath last year.
The family had refused to
accept the former finance min-ister’s due pension last year onthe grounds of Jaitley’s “phil-anthropist past”.
In a letter written to thechairman of the Rajya Sabhaand also marked to PrimeMinister Narendra Modi, fol-lowing the death of ArunJaitley, Sangeeta Jaitley hadasked that the pension due beoffered to Class IV Rajya Sabhastaff.
According to the Salaryand Allowances of Members ofParliament Act, a former MP isentitled to a minimum pensionof �20,000 per month and anadditional pension of �1,500per month for every year servedas member of either House fora period exceeding five years.
Jaitley has been a RajyaSabha member since 1999which qualified him to receivean additional �22,500 permonth. The total monthly pen-sion entitled to Arun Jaitleywould have been around�47,500.
However, Family pensionto spouse or dependent of amember or ex-MP is equal to50 per cent of the pension oth-erwise sanctioned to suchdeparted member/ex-MP. Thus,Arun Jaitley’s family was eligi-ble to get about �25,000 permonth or �3 lakh per annum aspension.
The BJP stalwart breathedhis last on August 24, 2019, atAIIMS after suffering from aprolonged illness.
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With concerns being raisedby parents about schools
conducting online classes likein normal times, the UnionHRD Ministry on Tuesday rec-ommended a cap on the dura-tion and the number of sessionsin a day for students, extend-ing not beyond a total of 180minutes and not more thanfour sessions a day.
As per the guidelines, forclasses 1 to 8, the HRDMinistry has recommendedtwo online sessions of up to 45minutes each and for classes 9to 12, it is four sessions of 30-45 minutes duration. And theduration for online classes forpre-primary students shouldnot be for more than 30 min-utes.
The HRD Ministry hasmade the recommendationsin the guidelines called“Pragyata”.
Parents have been com-plaining about schools resort-ing to increase in children’sscreen time after the COVID-19 pandemic forced a shiftfrom classroom teaching toonline learning as schools con-tinue to remain shut for overfour months.
“The COVID-19 pandem-ic has led to closure of schoolsand has impacted over 240 mil-lion children of the countrywho are enrolled in schools. Extended school closures maycause loss of learning. To mit-igate the impact of the pan-demic, schools will not onlyhave to remodel and reimaginethe way teaching and learning
have happened so far, but willalso need to introduce a suit-able method of delivering qual-ity education through a healthy mix of schooling athome and schooling at school,”HRD Minister RameshPokhriyal ‘Nishank’ said.
He said that the guidelineshave been made with a focuson online education for stu-dents who are at home. “Theguidelines have been developedfrom the perspective of learn-ers, with a focus on online,blended, digital education forstudents who are presently athome due to the lockdown.
These guidelines on digital education provide aroadmap or pointers for car-rying forward online educationto enhance the quality of edu-cation,” Nishank added.
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The Uttar PradeshGovernment told the
Supreme Court Tuesday itwould file a status report detail-ing the steps taken by theauthorities on encounter killingsof gangster Vikas Dubey and hisassociates.
A bench headed by ChiefJustice S A Bobde said it mayconsider appointing a commit-tee headed by a former judge toprobe the encounters of Dubeyand his aides as also the killingof eight Uttar Pradesh police-men by the gangster.
Solicitor General TusharMehta, appearing for UttarPradesh, told the bench that hewould file the status report by
July 16.The apex court said it
would hear on July 20 the pleasseeking court-monitored probeinto the encounters of Dubeyand his associates.
Eight policemen, includ-ing DSP Devendra Mishra, wereambushed in Bikru village inChaubeypur area of Kanpurwhen they were going to arrestDubey and fell to bullets firedfrom rooftops shortly after mid-night on July 3.
Dubey was killed in anencounter on the morning ofJuly 10 when a police vehiclecarrying him from Ujjain toKanpur met with an accidentand he tried to escape from thespot in Bhauti area, the policehad said.
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In the wake of Covid-19 pan-demic which has infected
over nine lakh people acrossthe country, the Union HealthMinistry has revised its fundrequirements to �6.04 lakhcrore during 2021-2026 as itidentified new areas for sup-port which include urbanhealth, essential medicines,Diplomate of National Board(DNB) courses and post-Coronavirus health sector.
The Ministry has submit-ted a revised proposal for fundrequirement to the FinanceCommission from the earlierdemand of �4.99-lakh crore.
After a meeting with the15th Finance Commission, theMinistry in a statement said itwill require �6.04 lakh crore tofund healthcare during thefive-year award period 2022-2026, to support new areasincluding post-Covid healthsector reforms. The estimateincreased by �1.05 lakh crorefrom the earlier requirement of�4.99 lakh crore.
The Commission held ameeting with Union HealthMinister Harsh Vardhan and
senior officials of the ministryon revising the State-specificproposals of the ministry inlight of the Covid-19 experi-ence. “Looking at the peculiarstate of the pandemic, thecommission’s final report willhave a separate chapter onhealth,” said Chairman of theCommission, NK Singh.
The ministry pointed outthat currently 35 percent of thepublic health expenditure isdone by the Centre and 65 per-cent by the state governments.
“The pandemic has estab-lished the importance of theneed to strengthen the publichealth sector, surveillance andpublic health management,preventive and promotivehealth care with special focuson urban health. “The ministryalso felt that there was a needto increase the allocation of theMinistry of Health and FamilyWelfare on a year to year basis,”the statement said.
The meeting was held todiscuss the specific issues ofrevising the State-specific pro-posals of the ministry in lightof the Covid-19 experience,exploring the possibility ofbackloading in the light of fis-
cal strain and consideration ofthe suggestions of the High-Level Group of the 15thFinance Commission onhealth, the statement said.
The National Health Policy(NHP) 2017 targets includeincreasing public health expen-diture to 2.5 percent of theGDP in a progressive mannerby 2025, Primary HealthExpenditure to be 2/3rd of thetotal health expenditure andincrease state sector healthspending to more than 8 per-cent of their budget by 2020.
The Commission agreedthat there was a need toincrease public sector healthoutlay and also to develop aprofessional cadre of healthworkers, the statement added.
For performance basedincentives, the Ministry hasproposed a composite healthindex to encourage States toimprove performance on ayear-on-year basis. It shouldhave a weightage of 20 per centin the performance linkedpool.
It also sought State specif-ic funds for setting up medicalcolleges attached with districthospitals.
Disruption in health ser-vices due to deadly Covid-
19 pandemic will have a rippleeffect causing a surge in HIV,tuberculosis (TB), and malariadeaths over the next five yearsin some low-and middle-income countries (LMICs), astudy published in the LancetGlobal Health journal haswarned.
Some LMICs could seeHIV, TB, and malaria deathsincrease by as much as 10 percent, 20 per cent, and 36 percent respectively over the nextfive years due to services diver-sion to the ongoing outbreakand its response.
Modelling the public healthimpact of virus infection onHIV, TB, and malaria in LMICsover the next 5 years,researchers estimate the sub-stantial disruptions by over-whelming already fragile healthsystems, or through responsemeasures limiting routine pro-gramme activities and care-seeking, and interrupting med-ical supply chains.
“But maintaining core ser-vices for HIV, TB, and malar-ia--specifically access to anti-retroviral therapy (ART), time-ly TB diagnosis and treatment,and early resumption of the dis-tribution of long-lasting insec-ticide-treated nets (LLINs) andantimalarial treatment-couldlargely mitigate the broaderhealth impact of the COVID-19pandemic,” researchers said.
However, the authors cau-tion that predicting the trueimpact of the ongoing pan-
demic and its response on otherdiseases is fraught with diffi-culty, especially when so muchremains unknown about thevirus and the extent to whichother disease programmes maybe disrupted, and how thismight impact populationhealth.
Malaria deaths worldwidehave reduced by half since2000, but progress has stalled asmosquitoes and parasites gainresistance to treatment. Around
“The pandemic and actionstaken in response to it couldundo the some of the advancesmade against major diseasessuch as HIV, TB, and malariaover the past two decades,compounding the burdencaused by the pandemic direct-ly”, said Professor TimothyHallett from Imperial CollegeLondon, UK, who co-led theresearch. “In countries with ahigh malaria burden and largeHIV and TB epidemics, evenshort-term disruptions couldhave devastating consequencesfor the millions of people whodepend on programmes to con-trol and treat these diseases.However, the knock-on impactof the pandemic could be large-ly avoided by maintaining coreservices and continuing pre-ventative measures.”
He said, “Our findingsunderscore the extraordinar-ily difficult decisions facingpolicy makers. Well man-aged, long-term suppressionmeasures could avert the mostCOVID-19 deaths. But ifthese interventions are notwell managed, they couldcause people to stay away
from hospitals and clinicsand force public health pro-grammes to be cancelled,leading to a large spike indeaths from other majorinfectious diseases that hadbeen coming under control.”
The greatest impact onHIV is projected to be frominterruption to the supplyand administering of ART,which may occur duringtimes of high health systemdemand. The researchers sug-gest that offering individualsreceiving ART multi-monthprescriptions or home deliv-ery could ensure they canaccess treatment even in peri-ods of highest health systemdemand.
For TB, the greatestimpact is predicted to befrom reductions in timelydiagnosis and treatment ofnew cases, which could resultfrom long periods of COVID-19 containment measureslimiting access to services.
The model predicts thatthe greatest impact on malar-ia burden could result frominterruption of planned netcampaigns, which usually takeplace every 3 years. In theworst case, with COVID-19disruptions coinciding withthe malaria transmission sea-son and planned LLIN distri-bution, malaria deaths couldincrease by 36% over the next5 years-equivalent to 474additional malaria deaths permillion population in 2020-2024”, said co-lead author DrAlexandra Hogan fromImperial College London,UK.
The National InvestigationAgency (NIA) has arrested
a PLFI Terror Funding caseaccused from Jharkhand. ThePeople’s Liberation Front ofIndia (PLFI) is a banned Naxaloutfit.
On Monday, the NIAarrested the accused FuleshwarGope, 44, a resident of villagePalkot Road, Shanti Nagar,District Gumla, Jharkhand.
This case arose out ofCrime No.67/2016 of PoliceStation Bero, Ranchi that wasregistered under relevant sec-tions of the Unlawful Activities(Prevention) Act and varioussections of the Indian PenalCode besides provisions ofCriminal Law Amendment Actand pertains to seizure of �25.38 lacs, belonging to DineshGope, Chief of PLFI. Themoney was seized by the police
just before being deposited inSBI, Branch Bero, Ranchi onNovember 10,.2016 by theassociates of Dinesh Gope.
The State police had arrest-ed four accused persons onNovember 10, 2016 and thechargesheet was filed January 9,2017.
After taking up the probe ofthe case on January 19, 2018,NIA arrested six more accusedpersons involved in the case,conducted searches and seizedproperties worth �90 lacs andother incriminating documents.
The bail of four accusedpersons was also cancelled andthe first supplementarychargesheet in the case wasfiled on October 21, 2019against ten arrested accusedpersons and one abscondingaccused person Dinesh Gope.
During further investiga-tion, Hira Devi and SakuntalaKumari, both wives of Dinesh
Gope were arrested on January30, 2020 and two associates ofDinesh Gope-Jaiprakash SinghBhuiya and Amit Deswal werearrested on March 2, 2020.
Investigation also revealedthat Fuleshwar Gope had con-spired with accused DineshGope and formed a dubiouscompany namely, ShivShaktisamridhhi Infra Pvt. Ltd,in partnership with Hira Devi(first wife of Dinesh Gope), forchannelizing the extorted levyamount into legitimate meansby depositing it in the bankaccount of the said dubiouscompany, the agency said.
Shiv Shaktisamridhhi InfraPvt. Ltd., became a frontal com-pany to legitimise levy amountscollected by Dinesh Gope andto invest the same in properties.The profit earned by the saidcompany was intended to beused for furtherance of terror-ist activities of PLFI.
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ATwitter row eruptedbetween Congress general
secretary Priyanka GandhiVadra and Union Housing andUrban Affairs (MoHUA)Minister Hardeep Singh Puri onTuesday over the Lodhi Estatebungalow. Dismissing claimsthat she had requested for anextension of the tenure beyondAugust 1 to vacate her govern-ment bungalow, Priyanka clar-ified that she would be vacatingher government accommoda-tion by August 1. This prompt-ed the union minister HardeepSingh Puri to counter her bystating that a “powerfulCongress leader, a political advi-sor, had indeed made such arequest on her behalf.
In a response to a newsreport, Priyanka tagged thenews report and tweeted, “Thisis FAKE NEWS. I have notmade any such request to thegovernment. As per the evictionletter handed to me on the 1stof July, I will be vacating thegovernment accommodation at35 Lodhi Estate by the 1st ofAugust”. The news reportclaimed that Prime MinisterNarendra Modi has agreed to arequest to allow PriyankaGandhi Vadra to retain the 35,Lodhi Estate Bungalow for sometime. The report also claimedthat “when the matter [ofPriyanka’s bungalow] wasbrought to Modi’s notice, he said
that her request most certainlybe accepted”.
The MoHUA had served aneviction notice to Priyanka tovacate her 35 Lodhi Estate bun-galow she had been staying insince 1997 on the grounds thatshe was no longer eligible for abungalow after her securitycover was downgraded last year.
Puri retorted: “Facts speakfor themselves! A powerfulCongress leader with muchclout in the Party called me on4 July 2020 at 12:05 pm torequest that 35, Lodhi Estate be allotted to anotherINC MP so that Priyanka Vadracan stay on. Let’s notsensationalise everythingplease.”
Reacting to the Puri’stweet, Priyanka replied:“If someone called youMr Puri, I thank them fortheir concern, and thankyou for your considera-tion as well but it stilldoes not change the facts:I have made no suchrequest, and I am making
no such request. As I said, I willbe vacating the house by the 1stof August.. as required in theeviction letter.”
Puri’s reply came shortlyafterwards and he left little toimagination as he describedthe so-called powerful Congressleader who he claimed hadcalled him.
“The leader who calledme, & many others, is at thevery top of the Congress hier-archy...the same political advi-sor who speaks and acts onyour family’s behalf. It waswhen he requested that wedecided to give a two month
extension in good faith”, hetweeted. “Would only requestyou to first sort out theseissues within your own partybefore venting in public. Streakof entitlement and playing vic-tim don’t go well together,” theminister further added.
The Minister’s tweet didnot go unchallenged. Priyanka’shusband Robert Vadra alsotweeted, “ This is completelyincorrect !! We have not askedfor any extension of stay. Wewere sent a notice on the 1st ofJuly to leave in 30days. We ata time of “Covid” have packedour entire household, and willleave a week before time”.
Congress leader RandeepSurjewala tweeted: “Priyankajifights for the cause of peopleand needs no favours fromyour ilk. So stop braggingunwarrantedly. The issue isclosed. And so that all know,did you allot 35, Lodhi Estateto a Congress MP or BJPSpokesperson? So please stopsensationaling your lies.”
under control only by the year-end and the situation in theState is really grievous, accord-ing to Chief Minister PinarayiVijayan. Kerala saw 608 newcases of Covid-19 on Tuesday,the highest number of positivecases tested on a single daywhich made Vijayan repeatthroughout his interaction withthe media that communitytransmission could set in anytime from now.
While the number of per-sons diagnosed with the pan-demic recorded the highestnumber, there was equally wor-rying information the chiefminister shared with the pub-lic. Tuesday saw 720 personsafflicted with the pandemic get-
ting admitted to hospitals. Thisincludes the persons who weretested positive during yesterdayand last week.
The Chief Minister saidthat he was equally worriedover the number of personsafflicted with coronavirusthrough social contacts. Theday saw 396 persons gettinginfected through social con-tacts, he said.
“It is almost sure that thedisease could be brought undercontrol by the year-end. So allwe can do is to observe themandatory guidelines and takeenough precautions,” he said.
According to Vijayan, asense of ennui has set in amonghealth workers and officialsbecause of the prolonged workand the repetitiveness of thejob. “This is further aggravat-ed by the complacency shown
by the general public,” said theChief Minister.
“The situation is very seri-ous. We are tightening therules and the police have beentod to take stringent actionagainst those who violatecovid-19 rules. They arealready registering cases againstthose who fail to wear facemasks and violate social dis-tancing norms,” he said.
Vijayan also came downstrongly on the local body gov-ernments and councillors fortheir lethargic attitude. “Thesituation could be controlledonly with the cooperation ofthe general public,” said theChief Minister.
Thiruvananthapuram(201) and Ernakulam (70) ledthe table of districts with high-est number of covid patients inthe State on Tuesday.
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Gold Smuggling throughdiplomatic channel busted
by the Customs officials atThiruvananthapuram Airporttook a new turn on Tuesday asM Sivsankar, the former prin-cipal secretary to ChiefMinister Pinarayi Vijayan, wasquestioned by Customs offi-cials. A team of officials fromthe Customs Departmentcalled on Sivasankar at his res-idence in the capital city andwas issued a notice asking himto present himself for ques-tioning in their office at the AirCargo Complex.
The Customs officialssummoned Sivasankar forquestioning amidst reportsaired by TV news channels thatthe latter had telephonic con-versations with the accused inthe gold smuggling case Sarithand Swapna Sures, who are inNIA custody now.
The questioning was con-tinuing at the Customs Officeat the time of going to Press.This is the first time in the his-tory of Kerala, a senior officialin the CMO is questioned in agold smuggling case by theCustoms, pointed out politicalcommentators.
In another development,news channels aired that K TJaleel, Minister for HigherEducation and a leader of thebanned SIMI, had telephonicconversations with SwapnaSuresh many times.
But Jaleel told reportersthat he spoke to Swapna as perthe directive of the UAE ConsulGeneral in connection with the
distribution of Ramzaan reliefmaterials. Though Swapnawas working as an executive ofthe Kerala Government ownedSpace Park, the Minister said hespoke to her in her capacity asthe executive secretary at theUAE Consulate.
Jaleel said he was unawareof the phone calls between hisstaff member and Swapna.
The Minister also avoidedthe question why should he, asa Minister, speak to the exec-utive secretary of the ConsulGeneral when a staff membersin his office could have attend-ed to the disbursement ofRamzaan relief materials.
PC George MLA andleader of Jana Paksham , saidwhatever has been reported asgold smuggling through diplo-matic channel was just the tipof the ice berg.
“This issue will lead to theresignation of Chief MinisterPinarayi Vijayan who has beenliterally caught with his pantsdown. Vijayan should quitimmediately owning up theresponsibility for the immoralactivities of his principal sec-retary,” said George.
But Chief Minister Vijayanscoffed at these allegations andsaid let the investigating agen-cies come out with concreteproof of the involvement ofofficials in this scam.
“A team of officials led byChief Secretary is looking intoallegations that Sivsankar washaving liaison with personsassociated with gold smug-gling. Let them come out withthe report and we will see whatshould be done,” said the CM.
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Several senior BharatiyaJanata Party (BJP) leaders,
including national general sec-retary Ram Madhav and MoSPMO Dr Jitendra Singh, wereadvised to stay in home quar-antine immediately afterJammu & Kashmir unit chiefRavinder Raina tested positivefor coronavirus on Tuesday.
These senior BJP leadershad visited Bandipora on July12 to meet the family membersof the slain BJP leader SheikhWasim Bari to offer their con-dolences.
MoS PMO Dr JitendraSingh himself tweeted, “Havegone into Self-Quarantine withimmediate effect from 4 PM
today, after receiving the newsabout #Corona positive test ofJ&K BJP President RavinderRaina who had accompaniedus from Srinagar to Bandiporaon 12th July”.
Wishing speedy recoveryto Ravinder Raina, RamMadhav also took to twitterand posted a message, “Amquarantining myself for a fewdays since my colleague n BJPJ&K President Ravinder Rainatested +ve for Corona todayand I was with him 48 hrs agoin Srinagar. I tested -ve forCorona 4 times during travel inthe last 2 weeks. Yet taking pre-cautions to ensure safety of meand others”.
In Jammu, soon after thetest reports confirmed the
results Ravinder Raina alsoposted a message on his twit-ter handle saying, “I spent fivedays in Bandipora/Kashmirafter the killing of BJP leaderSheikh Wasim Bari. I was feel-ing feverish and went for Covidscreening. Tested positive.
There were no other symp-toms”.
Raina was shifted to a ded-icated Covid-19 facility atShri Mata Vaishno DeviNarayana Superspeciality hos-pital, Kakryal near Katra.
Senior BJP Vice President
Avinash Rai Khanna, organi-sation secretary Ashok Kaul,former MLC Vibodh Gupta,former MLC Sofi Yousaf wereamong others who accompa-nied these leaders and partic-ipated in different events dur-ing their stay in Kashmir val-ley. Raina stayed in Kashmir fora period of five days andreturned to Jammu onMonday.
BJP, National GeneralSecretary, Ram Madhav hadalso addressed a separate con-dolence meeting in an audito-rium while MoS PMO hadchaired a high level reviewmeeting with senior officers totake stock of the measuresadopted to contain coronavirusin Jammu and Kashmir.Several
party workers and media per-sons had come in close contactwith these leaders and inter-acted with them to record theircomments.
According to officialsources, on their arrival inJammu senior BJP leaderswere subjected to mandatoryscreening at the Jammu Airporton Monday.
The test results of AvinashRai Khanna and Vibodh Guptatested negative while RavinderRaina tested positive.
Official sources in Jammutold The Pioneer, “ efforts wereon to shortlist all the contactpersons who may have come inclose contact with these lead-ers in the last couple of days”.
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Come Thursday and for the next 32 daysthe Hindu homes in Kerala would rever-
berate every mornings and evenings withstanzas from the great epic Ramayana.
The family head, preferably grandma orthe lady of the house would sit in front of alighted traditional oil lamp and recite/readRamayana starting from Bal kaand.
This Thursday marks the beginning ofKarkkadaka (the last of Malayalam month)and the month itself is known in the State asRamayana Month, a unique distinction.
The Ramayana Month would concludeon the 32nd day when the readers last windup the book by reading Yudha Khanda, thatmarks the return of Lord Rama to Ayodhyawith Sita after killing the demon kingRavana and installing Vibheeshana as theKing of Lanka.
Though literary world is agog about thethousands of Ramayana in vogue, Hindus inKerala read Adhyatma Ramayana, authoredby Thunchathu Ramanujan Ezhuthachan,rated as the Father of Malayalam and thePrimal Poet of Malayalam. It is not knownwhen was the Ramayana Month came intobeing but Prof C I Issac, member of IndianCouncil of Historical Research is of the viewthat it has been in practice in the State formore than thousands of years.
“Karkkadaka is the month of uninter-rupted rain as the South West Monsoonwould be in full flow. That was the scenariomuch before the dense rainy forests weredestroyed under the pretext of building damsand extending cultivation of cash crops,” saidProf Issac.
He said the rains forced the people toconfine to their homes as no farming oper-ations could be done during this period andthey turned to God to ward off hunger anddiseases that always accompanied the down-
pour.“Ramayana authored by Thunhathu
Ezhuthachan came in handy because the poethad used Bhakthi (devotion to God) as thebasic theme in this work,” said Issac.
Swami Chidanandapuri, head ofKulathoor Advaithashram, who is the spir-itual guru of Hindus in the State, says therecitation of Ramayana in Kerala was theresince time immemorial.
The monk said there are no other booksin Malayalam which had influenced readerslike the Adhyatma Ramayanam authored byThunchath Ezhuthachan. “It is in pureMalayalam and an average reader does notrequire any interpreter to explain the mes-sage. That is the secret behind the success andpopularity of Ezhuthachan’s Ramayanam inwhich Lord Rama is portrayed as incarna-tion of God,” he said.
It is interesting to note that how a workbecame an obsession in a State where theProgressive Writers under the auspices ofCPI(M) had given a call to burn Ramayamaterming it a literary work of Fascists.
“The Virat Hindu Meeting held at Kochiin 1982 was the turning point and since thenRamayana became a part and parcel of theHindus, cutting across caste barriers,” said RSanjayan, director, Bharatiya Vichar Kendra,a national level think-tank.
Even as the sloka “Sree Rama RamaRama, Sree Ramachandra Jaya..” reverberatesacross Kerala, the person who wrote the bookis yet to get recognition in his birth place orin Kerala. “There are no statues of ThunchathEzhuthachan anywhere in Tirur, his place ofbirth. We Muslims who are a majority hereare against statues because it is un-Islamic toinstall statues,” said Ali Akbar, noted moviemaker and writer.
Adhyatma Ramayanam remains as thetop seller Malayalam book in Kerala evenafter 500 years after it was written!
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Amid intensified protests bythe BJP against what it
called a “cold-blooded” murderof its party MLA fromHemtabad in North Dinajpurdistrict postmortem reports —made public by the StateGovernment a day after theLegislator’s unnatural death —indicated at his having com-mitted suicide.
Suggesting suicide as themost probable cause of the BJPleader’s death Bengal HomeSecretary Alapan Banerjee onTuesday said, “other than the lig-ature mark around thedeceased’s neck and one pressureabrasion encircling his left hand,no other injury mark was foundon the body. Preliminary find-ings and evidences have sug-gested Roy’s death was an act ofsuicide.”
Roy, a CPI(M) MLA whohad defected to the BJP post2019 general election was on
Monday morning found hang-ing from a bar outside a shopabout a mile away from his vil-lage house. His family membersand the new party claimed thathe had been murdered possiblyby his political rivals even as BJPpresident JP Nadda slammed theTrinamool CongressGovernment for perpetrating“Gunda Raj” in the State.
A senior officer from thedistrict said “prima facie itseems a matter of suicidebecause had it been a murder bystrangulation with a rope thenthe ligature mark would havebeen continuous around theneck … but here the autopsysurgeon’s report says that it wasnon-continuous ligature markwhich indicates that the MLAcommitted suicide by hanging.”However, he said that the chem-ical reports and other support-ing evidences were being wait-ed for.
Meanwhile, stray violencemarred the dawn-to-dusk North
Bengal bandh called by the BJPto protest against the alleged“murder” of the MLA. Angryprotesters pelted stones at busesat Coochbehar, and torchedmotorcycles at Toofanganj. Anearby TMC party office wasalso torched, sources said.
The bandh had a partialimpact in Malda, NorthDinajpur, Jalpaiguri, Alipurduarand Coochbehar districts whilein South Dinajpur its impact wasnot felt, sources said.
Meanwhile, one person wasarrested from English Bazararea of Malda in connectionwith Roy’s suicide sources saidadding the deceased MLA hadnamed two person’s in his sui-cide note holding them respon-sible for his taking the extremestep. The second person wasbeing looked for, police said.
Sources said the MLA whohad recently sold a few bighas ofhis land to fight financial crisisin his family might have beenduped by these two persons.
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On Tuesday, Tamil Nadu Health departmentdiagnosed 4, 526 new patients with Covid-
19 pandemic while 67 persons succumbed to thedisease during the last 24 hours.
Except for a small fall in the number of pos-itive cases diagnosed in Chennai, rest of the Stategave an impression that things are going out ofcontrol.
Alarmed over the continued increase in thenumber of cases, Tamil Nadu Government hasresorted to Yoga and Naturopathy to cure Covid-19 patients, according to Health Minister Dr CVijaya Basker.
“Yoga and Naturopathy treatment is beingprovided in all Government Medical Collegesin the State and more than 61,000 persons havebeen benefited by this treatment,” the ministersaid in a statement.
Chennai, where the coronavirus cases werehovering in the 1200-1100 marks for the last oneweek saw the numbers coming down to 1,078on Tuesday. But the information from the prob-
lematic three neighbours of the capital city was a cause of concern for medical profession-als.
Chengalpet (264), Kancheepuram (117)and Thiruvallur (360) recorded higher numberof covid-19 cases on Tuesday.
Adding more concern was the report fromthe other districts in the State. Madurai tested450 positive patients on a single day whileVirudhunagar had 328 covid-19 cases.Sivaganga, the home district of Congressstrongman P Chidambaram tested 113 positivecases.
Chief Secretary K Shanmugam has sent adirective to the district collectors to replicatefever camps experiment which was found to besuccessful in Chennai. Out of the 67 deathsreported on Tuesday, 65 has co-morbidityproblems.
There is no let up in Tamil Nadu in testingthe population as 106 laboratories across theState tested 39, 776 persons on Tuesday. Thistook the total number of persons tested till dateto 1.6 million.
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95�����(�(��������A���%�%����1��7-��&�,�6�����(�����New Delhi: Demanding dis-missal of the TrinamoolCongress Government in WestBengal because of the “politi-cal killings” there, a BJP dele-gation met President Ram NathKovind on Tuesday and alsosought a CBI probe into themysterious death of partyleader Debendra Nath Ray.
The delegation, whichincluded BJP general secretaryKailash Vijayvargiya, Unionminister Babul Supriyo, partyMP Raju Bista and nominatedRajya Sabha member SwapanDasgupta among others, toldPresident Kovind that Ray's“murder” is another one in thelong series of “political killings”in the state.
The delegation later metHome Minister Amit Shahand presented him with simi-
lar demands. The body ofHemtabad MLA Ray wasfound hanging from the ceilingof a verandah outside a shut-tered shop near his home inBindal village in NorthDinajpur district on Monday.
“Democracy has beenhanged in West Bengal.Political workers were beingkilled so far, and now electedleaders are being murdered andshown to have committed sui-cide. Anarchy prevails in thestate, and its government hasno right to be in power... Wehave demanded that the assem-bly be dissolved,” Vijayvargiyasaid after meeting thePresident.
He claimed that over 105people associated with the BJPhave been killed in the state inlast three years.
Bista alleged that the statepolice and other agencies werebeing used by the MamataBanerjee government to“harass” her political rivals, andthat a CBI probe was necessaryto bring out the truth.
Dasgupta said “politicalmurders” in the state have justgone on for too long, andRay's alleged killing was not anisolated incident. “We haveseen a series of them... There isalso harassment of politicalrivals in violation of all demo-cratic norms,” he said.
Supriyo said the memo-randum submitted to thePresident contained details ofthe “murder of Hemtabad BJPMLA Debendranath Roy andalso 105 BJP workers & sup-porters who were killed in thelast 3 years”. Agencies
In a heartening developmentthat came a day ahead of his
turning 100 years, a retiredteacher was discharged from theBrihanmumbai MunicipalCorporation (BMC)-run HinduHriday Samrat BalasahebThackeray Hospital atJogeshwari in north Mumbai onTuesday afternoon, after he fullyrecovered from Covid-19.
Shortly before he was dis-charged, Arjun GovindNaringrekar -- a retired ashramschool -- had a pleasant surprisewhen he was wheeled to thehospital’s reception area wherenurses and other staff memberscelebrated his birth centenary inadvance and in their own way.
The hospital staffers helpedthe to-be centurion cut the cakeand placed a piece of it into his
mouth. Born in Naringre villageof Sindhudurg in coastalKonkan region on July 15, 1920,Naringrekar had been admittedto the HHSB ThackerayHospital on July 1, after he wasdiagnosed with Coronavirus afew days earlier.
Naringrekar had initiallydeveloped pneumonia, aftersome of his family memberstested positive for Covid-19.Later on, he himself had testedpositive for the pandemic – adevelopment that had shatteredhis children, grandchildren andgreat-grandchildren who werepreparing to celebrate his birthcentenary at home.
At the hospital, Naringrekar– who was the senior-mostpatient -- was treated withutmost care by doctors, nursesand other staffers during his twoweeks’ stay there.
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As the locust menace con-tinues, the Centre on
Tuesday said control measuresto stop the spread of the crop-threatening pest have so farbeen carried out in about threelakh hectare area across nineStates, including Rajasthan,Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Indiahas been battling with thelocust problem since April.
In its latest update, theAgriculture Ministry saidswarms of immature pinklocusts and adult yellow locusts
were active in Barmer,Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, Bikaner,Jhunjhunu, Sriganganagar,Alwar and Churu districts ofRajasthan.
They were also active inBhiwani and Mahendragarhdistricts of Haryana, while inSitapur and Gonda districts ofUttar Pradesh, it said.
The control measures arestill continuing and were car-ried out in 33 places in threestates -- Rajasthan, UttarPradesh and Haryana -- in thepast two days, it added.
From April 11 to July 12,
the ministry said the controlmeasures were taken in about3 lakh hectare, which includesthose in 1.60 lakh hectare acrossnine states -- Rajasthan,Madhya Pradesh, Punjab,Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh andHaryana -- by locust circleoffices (LCOs).
The control operations inthe rest of the 1.36 lakh hectarearea in Rajasthan, MadhyaPradesh, Punjab, Gujarat, UttarPradesh, Maharashtra,Chhattisgarh, Haryana andBihar were carried by stategovernments, it added.
In not so significant fluctuation in the Covid-19 graph, Maharashtra on Tuesday witnessed
6,741 fresh infections and 213 new deaths in var-ious parts of the State.
With the new positive cases and fatalities,the total number of positive cases in the statemounted to 2,67,665, while the total number ofdeaths rose to 10,695.
Of the total 213 deaths, Mumbai aloneaccounted for 70 deaths, while neighbouringThane recorded 64 deaths.
With the new deaths, the total number ofdeaths in Mumbai went up from 5,335 to 5,405,while the number of infected cases in themetropolis rose by 954 cases to touch 95,100..
With 65,324 infected cases and 1769 deaths,Thane continued to be the second worst hit dis-
trict in Maharashtra.Pune, which has emerged as the third worst
affected district in terms of spread of the pan-demic, has recorded 42,092 infections and 1152deaths till now.
Meanwhile, the total number of patientsdischarged from various hospitals after fullrecovery since the second week of March thisyear touched 1,49,007. The recovery rate in thestate stood at 55.67 per cent. The mortality ratein the state is 4 per cent. The state health author-ities pegged the number of “active cases” in thestate at 1,07,665.
Out of 13,72,939 samples sent to laborato-ries, 2,67,665 have tested positive (19.49 per cent)for Covid-19 until Tuesday.
Currently, 6,98,854 people are in home quar-antine while 42,350 people are in institutionalquarantine.
With the arrest of one key per-son, the Crime Branch
sleuths of the Mumbai Police onTuesday ripped the lid off an inter-national racket involving creationof fake profiles on social media andfraudulent activities in social mediamarketing business.
Acting on a complaint made byBollywood playback singer BhoomiTrivedi that a person had created afake profile of Instagram, the crimebranch officials used analyticalTechint and also through sources toarrest one Gauri Shankar fromKurrla in north-central Mumbai.
Shankar was produced beforea city court which remanded in thecrime branch’s custody till July 17.
The investigations haverevealed that Shankar was alleged-ly a part of a larger internationalfraud racket. “The racket involvescreation crores of fake identities onvarious social media platforms.The fraudsters create fake perfor-mance statistics such as fake fol-lowers, fake comments and fakeviews in order to inflate influencers’performance statistics,” a seniorcrime branch official said.
Shankar had allegedly created“5 lakh fake followers for total of176 profiles in Instagram, Tiktok,Facebook and other social mediaplatforms” in order to fraudulent-ly project them as influencers
The investigations haverevealed that the fake followers werecreated either manually or by cer-
tain illegal softwares (mostly calledas bots).
By manipulating the existingsystem of respective social net-works, these racketeers post suchfake followers etc. “There are esti-mated more than 100 such portalsinvolved in such rackets acrossIndia. The arrested accused wasworking for one of such portals viz.www.followerskart.com,” the crimebranch officer said.
This is for the first time thatsuch a racket which has interna-tional ramifications, been busted inIndia.
The investigators have foundthat these types of fake profiles andfollowers are being used to createrumours and panic amongst thesociety.
The perpetrators behind theracket are found operating throughIndian as well as foreign internetnetworks and servers. 54 suchIndian portals have been dulyidentified by the Crime Branch andefforts are on to bring the culpritsto justice.
The Crime Branch sleuths areworking in tandem with almost allthe social media platforms in orderto curb the menace of such fakeinfluencers’ fraud racket.
Realising the scale of such ille-gal business growing exponential-ly, an Special Investigation Teach(SIT) of CIU and Cyber Cell hasbeen set up under the supervisionof DCP Detection NandkumarThakur to investigate and curb themalpractices.
Deciphering the state-ments made by Indiaand China after theWorking Mechanismfor Consultation and
Coordination (WMCC) meeting(July 10) is instructive. In theIndian statement, there is no ref-erence about restoring status quoante as on end of April/May 5.Instead, it calls for full restorationof peace and tranquility in accor-dance with border protocols, “urg-ing both sides to honour andrespect the Line of Actual Control(LAC).” It does not reiterate claimover the Galwan River Valley orblame China for the clash. On theother hand, the Chinese statementemphasises: “Disengagement andde-escalation” be done in a time-ly manner, leading to peace andtranquility (which is a historicalChinese formulation first made inthe 1993 Peace and TranquilityAgreement). China has not usedthe word LAC but “border area.”It justified its stand during theGalwan clash by indirectly blam-ing India while pontificating onthe rights and wrongs of theclash.
Chinese Foreign MinisterWang Yi told National SecurityAdvisor Ajit Doval on July 5 thatboth India and China have strate-gic interests and do not pose athreat to each other (another his-toric formulation after Indianamed China as the reason for itsnuclear tests). ChineseAmbassador in India, SunWeidong, posted a video sayingthat China is not a war-like Stateand that both should meet eachother halfway and not fall into theconflict trap. He stressed on therisks of decoupling India-Chinatrade from bilateral relations.Chinese statements have to betaken with a pinch of salt as theycan only be judged by deeds, nottheir words.
On the ground, except for onecategoric report of breakdown intalks between local military com-manders on mutual disengage-ment in Galwan (PP14), HotSprings (PP 15) and GograHeights (PP17 A), all othersources have called the first phaseof disengagement a success andaccording to Foreign Minister SJaishankar, “a work in progress.”The dissenting report confirmsdisengagement only from Galwanbut to India’s disadvantage, whereconcessions have been made onthe alignment of LAC. Indian
troops have withdrawn fromtheir own territory. Militarycommanders met this week todeal with Pangong Tso (Fingersarea), where some thinning outhas taken place and Depsang,where troops are confrontingeach other dangerously. ThePeople’s Liberation Army(PLA) is trying to shift theLAC westwards towards theShyok River to provide strate-gic depth to the G219 Highwayfrom Xingjiang to Tibet via theAksai Chin.
The Government of Indiais not making any assertions ofthe actual situation along LACbut using sources to dissemi-nate information. For example,the use of DMZ/buffer zone,suspension of patrolling andother disengagement detailsare coming from journalists,who are attributing the infor-mation to “sources,” who areArmy officers leaking informa-tion. Independent journalistsare crediting “my sources” forinformation. They are also pre-sumably Army officers. Lasttime even Army Chief GenNaravane got it wrong when hereported disengagement fromGalwan when the PLA waswaiting in ambush.
The Government is con-strained because it is not sureabout the PLA’s sincerity. Theactual situation along the LACis by no means what is beingdepicted by “sources.” This iswhere the battle of narratives is
either compromised or lostwhen we should be calling theshots.
This is, therefore, neither acase of breakdown nor break-through but muddling throughtowards some disengagement.Galwan, which was deemed tobe the tough nut, appears tohave been frozen. The Fingersarea is very complex and hasbeen the bone of contention foryears where the PLA has madecreeping territorial gains.Depsang is not a new intrusionsite. Still, Government sup-porters are attributing theimplementation of disengage-ment to Prime MinisterNarendra Modi’s muscularmessage in Ladakh (“Modicalls China’s bluff”) and Doval’sconversation with his counter-part Yi.
Facts are different: Thefirst phase of disengagementhad been worked out by mili-tary commanders on June 30and was to be completed byJuly 4 and verified by July 5,much before the claimed polit-ical intervention. DefenceMinister Rajnath Singh alreadyknew on the morning of July 5that the troops had startedwithdrawing from Galwan,much before Doval spoke to Yi.
Lt Gen SL Narasimhan ofthe National Security AdvisoryBoard (NSAB) has categorical-ly stated in an interview to TheWire that claims of Chinesebuild-up, incursions and forti-
fications are “exaggerated andnone is true.” He even said thatduring the clash on June 15,some Indian soldiers may havecrossed over to the Chineseside and when the clash ended,no Chinese troops were on theIndian side of the LAC. Thislent weight to Modi’s statementto the all-party meeting on June19 that Indian land was safeand not violated. Overall, hesquarely blamed the journalistsfor inaccurate reportage due toimpatience and competitionto report first. By creating anillusion of strength, theGovernment is misleading thenation.
Assuming it is indeed theGovernment’s coercive diplo-macy that led to the PLA start-ing a faithful disengagementfrom LAC, why did Modi blinkfirst? Reason: He neither wantsa limited conflict nor anotherskirmish like Galwan, given themilitary’s operational unpre-paredness. Modi has notnamed China anywhere andapparently not wished the DalaiLama on his 85th birthdaythis month. His thunderingfrom Leh served another pur-pose: Boosting the morale ofthe Indian soldiers, who areperiodically driven into firebrigade actions along the LACin Ladakh and Bhutan becauseIndia has not developed ausable conventional deterrent.
As for Government failuresfor enabling multiple intrusions
along LAC in Ladakh, 144 vet-erans have appealed to thePresident to hold the peopleaccountable. These intrusionsare happening on a regularbasis where the Army andITBP are being caught offguard. Let us not forget thelessons from the 73-day standoff at Doklam. After disengage-ment (India was made to pullback first) from Doklam, thePLA returned after threemonths in this area, wherethey had built enormous mil-itary fortifications and contin-ued building the road toJampheri Ridge through a cir-cuitous route but across terri-tory disputed by India andBhutan. India did not invokeArticle 2 of the India-BhutanTreaty of 2007 to intervene asit had done earlier and letChina have its way.Unfortunately, we are repeatingthe mistake of Sumdorong chu,too. In 1995, when our postsoverwhelmingly dominated thePLA intrusion at Wangdungalong Sumdorong Chu, theywere ordered to pull back.Question was then asked: Whyare we quitting our own terri-tory? We are doing the samenow when the intruder shouldbe pulling back.
(The writer, a retired MajorGeneral, was Commander IPKFSouth, Sri Lanka and foundermember of the Defence PlanningStaff, currently the IntegratedDefence Staff.)
Sir — This refers to the editor-ial, “Piloting a revolt” (July 14).It is unprecedented in Indianpolitical history that a ChiefMinister has sent a seditionnotice to his own party col-league. Though the relation-ship between Sachin Pilot andAshok Gehlot was frosty sincethe party formed theGovernment, Pilot’s sackingfrom his party post was the finalnail in the coffin. He had workedhard to ensure the Congress’ vic-tory in the 2018 Assembly polls.The Gandhi family’s ostrich-likeapproach never helped the partyin the past nor will it in thefuture. The Congress-ledGovernment in Rajasthan maysurvive for now but if the partyleadership does not learn lessons,it will have no one else to blame.
Bal GovindNoida
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Sir — The shortage of game-changing drugs Remdesivir andTocilizumab is resulting in chaosat private hospitals. With hugedemand and less supply, these
injections are being sold at 10times their actual cost. Blackmarketing in this pandemic sit-uation is unfortunate. Familiesof COVID-19 patients are facingmany hurdles in getting thesedrugs. Some private hospitals areleaving it to the patients to getthe injections. It is imperativethat the Government becomes
more vigilant and makes surethat the drugs are available to thepatients who need them. Itshould also check whether pri-vate hospitals are prescribing thedrug to the right patients oradministering it merely to makemoney.
Ravi Teja KathuripalliHyderabad
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Sir — This refers to the editor-ial, “Piloting a revolt” (July 14).Sachin Pilot’s defiance is anoth-er wake-up call for Congresspresident Sonia Gandhi afterJyotiraditya Scindia’s exit fromthe party. This shows there is
something wrong with the party.Entrenched nepotism, leader-ship vacuum, lack of effortsaimed at democratisation of therank and file are now puttingpaid to the hopes of an earlyresurgence of the Congress.Unless the central leadershipissue is resolved, there can be nohopes for revival for the party.
RashmiVia email
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Sir — RBI GovernorShaktikanta Das has outlinedhow the Corona pandemic hasseverely affected the supply ofgoods and services and move-ment of capital and labouracross the world. Das has madeit clear that growing the econ-omy is his priority. The RBI’smeasures such as a reduction ininterest rates and the supply ofcash have brought relief to thegeneral public. Thanks to this,the financial stability in thecountry has been maintained.
To shield millions of poor from the devas-tation caused by the COVID-19, FinanceMinister Nirmala Sitharaman had
announced that the Government would give fivekg of rice or wheat per person per month for“free” to around 80 crore people through thePublic Distribution System (PDS) for threemonths. It would also give for “free” one kg ofpulses per household for three months. This wasin addition to five kg of cereals per person permonth that 80 crore beneficiaries are already get-ting at a heavily-subsidised price of �3 per kgrice, �2 per kg wheat and �1 per kg under theNational Food Security Act (NFSA).
As the deadline for the free supplies endedon June 30, the same day the Prime Ministerannounced extension of the scheme for fivemonths till November 30. This time, theGovernment will also provide one kg grams freeto each family per month.
Enumerating a spate of festivals during theextended period, when the demand normallyincreases, Narendra Modi exhorted that it wasnecessary to continue with additional supply(albeit for free) to ensure that people are nothard-pressed. He also thanked farmers for pro-ducing the required quantity of food and the tax-payers for helping the Centre garner resourcesto facilitate supplies to the poor, free of cost.
But what Modi didn’t say is that collectionsfrom tax are far from adequate to pay for freeor subsidised food supplies and that theGovernment is borrowing heavily to make upfor the shortfall, thereby imposing an unsustain-able burden on the future generation of taxpay-ers. Let us check out some facts.
Under the NFSA, the supply of wheat, riceand coarse cereals to the beneficiaries/consumersat �2/3/1 per kg is a fraction of the cost of pro-curement, handling and distribution (e.g. 1/12thin case of wheat). The supplies are made by theFood Corporation of India (FCI) and other Stateagencies on behalf of the Centre who reimburs-es to them an amount equal to “the differencebetween the cost and the sale price multipliedby the quantity sold.” This reimbursementamount is known as food subsidy.
In recent years, food subsidy has increasedto frightening levels. During 2019-20, against analready high Budget Estimate (BE) of �1,84,000crore, the actual spend during the year was�2,19,000 crore. Of this, the Revised Estimate(RE) was �1,09,000 crore even as the balance�1,10,000 crore was borrowed by the FCI fromthe National Small Savings Fund (NSSF). For2020-21, the expenditure was estimated to be�2,53,000 crore, including �1,16,000 crore as BEand likely borrowings of about �1,37,000 croreby the FCI.
That was before the COVID-19 crisis. It doesnot include the impact of free food given dur-ing April-June, (�60,000 crore) and promised byModi for July-November (�90,000 crore). Withthis additional expenditure of �1,50,000 crore,the total spend on food subsidy during the cur-rent year will cross the �4,00,000-crore mark (incase, the scheme is extended beyond November,that will further inflate the bill).
Given the highly-fragile resource position(due to a steep fall in tax collections on the onehand and COVID-19-related hike in expenseson the other), the Government is unlikely to pro-vide any extra amount over and above the Budget
allocation of �1,16,000 crore. Thismeans that all of the incrementalamount, �1,50,000 crore, will be bor-rowed by the FCI. Together with the�1,37,000 crore initially budgeted, thetotal borrowings by the FCI during2020-21 will be �2,87,000 crore.
Add to this figure the cumulativeborrowings of �2,00,000 crore as onMarch 31, 2019 plus �1,10,000 croreborrowed during 2019-20. The totalamount owed by the FCI to the NSSFwould be close to �6,00,000 crore by theend of the current fiscal. Though stay-ing on the balance sheet of the FCI, thefact remains that this mammoth debt isentirely the liability of the UnionGovernment and will need to be ser-viced from the latter’s tax collections inthe future.
In the past, thanks to inadequateallocation in the Budget, theGovernment had been making shortpayments to the FCI, forcing the latterto borrow from banks to sustain oper-ations. When the FCI started takingloans from the NSSF in 2016-17, theCentre had committed to release thesubsidy arrears to enable it to pay backin subsequent years. But that was not tobe. The subsidy arrears kept mountingand the FCI kept on borrowing moreand more from the NSSF.
The Indian food subsidy regimeremains fundamentally vulnerable. TheCOVID-19 crisis has only aggravatedthis vulnerability. The irony is thatdespite spending mammoth sums, eventhe poor are not getting full justice. Thesupplies under the NFSA at five kg perperson per month barely cover 50 percent of the requirement of a personwhich is 10 kg per month, as estimat-ed by the National Sample SurveyOrganisation (NSSO).
This forces him/her to buy the bal-
ance quantity from the market at amuch higher price, which in the case ofrice, is at least �35 per kg, being linkedto the cost of supply. For buying 10 kg,the poor have to spend a total of �190(five kg at �3 per kg plus five kg at �35per kg). Thus, the effective price worksout to �19 per kg instead of �3 per kgthat s/he should be paying. Unless thesubsidy imbroglio is addressed and pay-ments are brought down to sustainablelevels, India runs the risk of falling intoa debt trap. Broadly, there are threemajor factors behind high and ever-increasing food subsidy viz. high costof supply, low issue price and an oceanof beneficiaries.
The cost of supply includes theMinimum Support Price (MSP) paid tofarmers besides the handling and dis-tribution cost. While the former is com-puted as cost of cultivation plus 50 percent of this as profit, the latter is reim-bursed to handling agencies on “actu-al” basis. This system of paying on“actuals” devoid of any norm withregard to efficiency in operations liesat the root of both the MSP and han-dling and distribution cost being on arising trajectory at all times.
The price at which foodgrains areissued to beneficiaries, i.e. �2/3 per kgfor wheat and rice, are almost close to“zero.” This means that almost theentire cost of supply is subsidised. Incase of rice, with �35 per kg being thecost, �32 comes from the Governmentas subsidy. In such a scenario, rampantmisuse of subsidy is inevitable.
Finally, the beneficiaries gettingfood at near zero price are over 80 croreor nearly two-third of the population.Is India home to that many poor? Thereis something seriously amiss as the offi-cial word on the number of poor is nomore than 25-30 per cent. Yet, if over
80 crore people are eligible for food vir-tually for free, the subsidy bill is boundto become unsustainable.
In early 2015, a committee underDr Shanta Kumar, a senior BJP leader,had examined these issues. It recom-mended a cut in beneficiaries from 67per cent to 40 per cent. It also proposedrestricting the benefit of �1/2/3 per kgonly to the poorest of poor peopleunder the Antyodaya Anna Yojanawhile increasing the supply to seven kgper person and making the rest pay 50per cent of the MSP paid to farmers.That report is lying in cold storage.
The above recommendations canhelp in saving a good amount ofmoney. But this is far from making adent in the problem of a ballooningfood subsidy. A sustainable solutionwon’t emerge so long as theGovernment remains involved in pro-curement, handling and distribution offoodgrains; as then, all stakeholders willexpect it to do all that keeps the sub-sidy bill rising all the time. Thus, farm-ers would want it to pay higher MSP;handling agencies won’t rein in costsand more and more people would wishto come under the NFSA.
The Government should withdrawfrom buying and selling of food.Instead it should restrict its role onlyto giving subsidy directly to the poorusing the Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT)option. This will also be in sync withits big bang reforms (announced onMay 15) giving an unfettered role to theprivate sector in agri-marketing. TheState agencies may continue but as acommercial entity at par with privateplayers. Then only will we have realfood security in the country withoutmortgaging the future.
The economic stimulus schemefor Micro, Small and MediumEnterprises (MSMEs),
announced by the Centre on June 1,has still not been satisfactorily imple-mented, thanks to the ineffectual sta-tus quo process of credit approval anddisbursement by commercial banksand specialised financial institutionssuch as the Small IndustriesDevelopment Bank of India (SIDBI).Unfortunately, even a crisis of thisscale has not been able to reformcommercial lending practices, whichcontinue to operate in the same man-ner, both in terms of how bankersassess and select MSMEs to disburse
loans. The data on credit offtake pro-vided by the Finance Minister’s officeon June 18, almost a month after thestimulus announcement, clearlyshows that out of the �3 lakh croreallocated for the collateral-freeEmergency Credit Line GuaranteeScheme (ECLGS), only about six percent or approximately �52,000 crorehas been disbursed.
Apart from the big Public SectorBanks (PSBs), namely the State Bankof India, Bank of Baroda, CanaraBank and Punjab National Bank, therest of the PSBs have fallen woefullyshort of both the sanctioned amountand disbursement target.
Private banks and small financebanks are yet to even participate inthe ECLGS scheme. In the meantime,the cash flow situation of the major-ity of the over six crore registeredMSMEs, including sole proprietor-ships, is already extremely dire, withseveral small businesses in shut-down mode and their owners on the
verge of personal bankruptcy.The drastic decline in demand
and the prolonged absence of work-ers have made it nearly impossible forthe MSMEs to pass the regular cred-it checklist of lenders. As a matter offact, those with existing debt on theirbooks or having stressed balancesheets are struggling to stay solventuntil credit approvals are processedand funds disbursed to their accounts.
In the face of fast-disappearingequity, most MSMEs now face alooming threat of existing creditorsinvoking the Securitisation andReconstruction of Financial Assetsand Enforcement of SecuritiesInterest Act, 2002 and forcing themto declare bankruptcy.
The gravity of the situation thatMSMEs find themselves in wasrecently brought to public knowledgeby the Federation of Indian Microand Small and Medium Enterprises,when its president, Animesh Saxena,sounded an alarm in an interview that
MSMEs were in the ICU and if notgiven working capital, they would notsurvive after another three to fourmonths. The 2019 report of the RBICommittee on MSMEs estimated thedifference between demand and sup-ply of credit for them to be in therange of �20-25 trillion. The ongoingpandemic has increased this gap,making it harder for MSMEs to accesscredit than ever before.
Despite the CentralGovernment’s intention and the RBI’sendorsement of the MSME rescuepackage, bankers still remainextremely wary of disbursing loans tothose who need it the most. Theground reality is that lenders nowview every MSME utilising the loanmoratorium as a potential Non-Performing Asset with impairedrepayment ability or inherent disabil-ity to service even short-term debt.
As far as the immediately bor-rowable amount of up to 20 per centof outstanding debt is concerned, the
Credit Guarantee Funds Trust forMicro and Small Enterprises(CGTMSE) notwithstanding, thelevel of transparency and trust inlender-borrower relations has provedto be seriously inadequate to respondto the need for instant fund transfersto be implemented.
Based on an analysis of lastmonth’s reports in the Press, onlyPSBs have so far sanctioned emer-gency loans worth �8,320 crore toMSMEs in 12 States under theECLGS, of which, �599 crore havebeen disbursed to 17,904 accounts.This is barely a fraction of the totalnumber of MSMEs or of their totalcredit requirement.
Private bankers have alsoremained unwilling to increase cred-it exposure to their existing MSMEclients due to the unprecedenteduncertainty that has gripped thesupply chains and manufacturingprocesses because of the pandemic.While on the one hand, bankers seek
to increase their customer base anddiversify their loan portfolio, on theother, they are faced with the peren-nial risk of default and potential baddebts, which worsens the macroeco-nomic consequences of their confu-sion “to lend or not to lend” at sucha time of crisis.
Since bank loans to MSMEs areclassified as Priority Sector Lendingand the RBI has recently exemptedsuch loans from the statutory require-ment of maintaining a Cash ReserveRatio (CRR) under Section 42(1) ofthe RBI Act, 1934, more liquidity willbe available in the banking systemand the balance sheets of the bankswill not be under constant pressurethroughout the year.
Since the recent revised definitionof MSME removes the distinctionbetween manufacturing businessesand service businesses altogether, andclassifies them based on investmentand turnover, they must now be givennew financing options for growth and
expansion, separate from their day-to-day operational or working capi-tal requirement.
It is vital to implement theMSME loan package while balancingthe interests of businesses and bankssuch that the financial system andcredit cycle remain stable and sustain-able. Hence, the Government mustremember that on the one hand,while it must create more entrepre-neurs and employment, on the other,it must also take necessary steps tomitigate the risk to public depositsand the State’s own investment inbanks and financial institutions.
At the end of the day, the PrimeMinister’s clarion call for anAtmanirbhar Bharat and the AtmaNirbhar Bharat Abhiyan cannot berealised and become a successful pan-India model until and unless each andevery MSME is made solvent as wellas profitable in the long-term.
Washington: The Trumpadministration escalated itsactions against China onMonday by stepping squarelyinto one of the most sensitiveregional issues dividing themand rejecting outright nearly allof Beijing’s significant mar-itime claims in the SouthChina Sea.
The administration pre-sented the decision as anattempt to curb China’s increas-ing assertiveness in the regionwith a commitment to recog-nizing international law. But itwill almost certainly have themore immediate effect of fur-ther infuriating the Chinese,who are already retaliatingagainst numerous U.S. sanc-tions and other penalties onother matters.
It also comes as PresidentDonald Trump has come under
growing fire for his response tothe COVID-19 pandemic,stepped up criticism of Chinaahead of the 2020 election andsought to paint his expectedDemocratic challenger, formerVice President Joe Biden, asweak on China.
Previously, US policy hadbeen to insist that maritime dis-putes between China and itssmaller neighbors be resolvedpeacefully through UN-backedarbitration. But in a statementreleased Monday, Secretary ofState Mike Pompeo said the USnow regards virtually allChinese maritime claims out-side its internationally recog-nized waters to be illegitimate.The shift does not involve dis-putes over land features that areabove sea level, which are con-sidered to be “territorial” innature. AP
Beijing: Refuting US allegationsof building a “maritime empire”in the disputed South ChinaSea, China on Tuesday claimedits jurisdiction over the vastocean existed for more than1,000 years and accusedWashington of attempting tosow discord between Beijingand the Southeast Asian coun-tries.
In a major policy speech onMonday, US Secretary of StateMike Pompeo said the worldwill not allow China to treat thestrategically important SouthChina Sea (SCS) as its “mar-itime empire” and vowed tosupport worried SoutheastAsian countries against Beijing’s“campaign of bullying” to con-trol the resource-rich region.
Reacting to Pompeo’s state-ment, Chinese Foreign Ministry
spokesman Zhao Lijian told amedia briefing in Beijing thatthe secretary of state’s remarksneglected the history and factsabout the SCS.
His remarks also breachesthe US government’s opencommitment to not takingposition on sovereignty relatedissues of the SCS, Zhao said.
He disputed the US asser-tions that China has come up
with its nine-dashed line in theSCS in 2009 to beef up itsclaims.
“The US says Chinaannounced a dotted line in theSCS in 2009. It is not true.China’s rights and sovereigntyhas a long history. Our effectivejurisdiction over the relevantislands reefs and waters in theSCS has been there for over1,000 years,” Zhao claimed.
“As early as 1948 China hadofficially published the dottedline which is not questioned byany country in the region,” hesaid, adding that China’s rightshave legal and historical basis.
About the judgement of aninternational tribunal in TheHague in 2016 which hadrejected China’s claims in theSCS and delivered a sweepingrebuke on Beijing’s behaviour
including its construction ofartificial islands, Zhao said the“arbitral tribunal abused itsmandate, breached the princi-ple of consent.”
The tribunal said China hasno legal basis to claim “historicrights” to resources in the SCSand it has violated thePhilippines’ sovereign rights inthe disputed waters.
The tribunal sided square-ly with the Philippines, whichbrought the arbitration case “onalmost all claims,” Pompeosaid. Zhao said, “the awardwas based on flawed evidenceand unwarranted application oflaw. The US hyped up the arbi-tration to further its agenda,China will never accept that.”
Zhao said that China iscommitted to resolving theissue with the concerned coun-tries. The US is driving a wedgebetween China and the coun-tries in the region, he said.
Pompeo had said thatAmerica stands with itsSoutheast Asian allies and part-
ners in protecting their sover-eign rights to offshoreresources, consistent with theirrights and obligations underinternational law.
His comments came as twoUS aircraft carriers - USSNimitz and USS Ronald Reagan- drilled together in the SCS lastweek, amid China’s drillsaround Paracel islands of theSCS which Beijing claims asXisha Islands.
Beijing claims almost all ofthe 1.3 million square mileSouth China Sea as its sovereignterritory. China has been build-ing military bases on artificialislands in the region alsoclaimed by Brunei, Malaysia,the Philippines, Taiwan andVietnam.
Beijing has impeded com-mercial activity like fishing ormineral exploration by coun-tries like Vietnam and thePhilippines, claiming that theownership of territorybelonged to China for hun-dreds of years. PTI
Kathmandu: Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli’s controversialremarks that Lord Ram wasborn in Thori near Birgunj andthe real Ayodhya lies in Nepalon Tuesday invited sharp crit-icism, with a former premiersaying it has “crossed the limit.”
Several top Nepalese polit-ical leaders from different par-ties slammed Oli for making“senseless and irrelevant”remarks, and asked him towithdraw his controversialstatement on Ayodhya.
“PM Oli’s statements havecrossed the limit. Extremismonly creates trouble,” formerprime minister BaburamBhattarai tweeted.
In his sarcastic remark,Bhattarai said, “Now let’s hope
to hear the new Ramayan ofKaliyug from PM Oli.”
“Such silly, unconfirmedand unproven remarks by thePrime Minister was not desir-able. PM Oli’s attention seemsto have been drawn towardsdamaging Nepal’s relationswith India instead of improv-ing them, which is not appro-priate,” said Kamal Thapa, for-mer foreign minister and pres-ident of the pro-Hindu RastriyaPrajatantra Party.
Senior leader of the rulingCommunist Party of Nepal(NCP) Bam Dev Gautam saidthat Prime Minister Oli shouldwithdraw his controversialremarks on Ayodhya.
“The statement made byPrime Minister Oli was with-
out any evidence and it hasonly created controversy with-in and outside the country, sohe must withdraw the state-ment and apologize for that,”Gautam wrote on his face-book page.
“There are large numbersof devotees of Lord Ram bothin Nepal and India, and no oneshould hurt people’s religiousfaith,” Gautam said. “For arealistic communist it makesno difference whether LordRam was born here or there.”
“Such senseless and irrele-vant remarks made by a personof high position will damagethe country’s prestige,” saidBishnu Rijal, deputy chief of thePublicity Committee of theruling party. PTI
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Terre Haute (US): The USgovernment on Tuesday carriedout the first federal execution inalmost two decades, putting todeath a man who killed anArkansas family in a 1990s ina plot to build a whites-onlynation in the Pacific Northwest.
The execution came overthe objection of the victims’family.
Daniel Lewis Lee, 47, ofYukon, Oklahoma, died bylethal injection at the federalprison in Terre Haute, Indiana.The decision to move forwardwith the execution -- the first bythe Bureau of Prisons since2003 -- drew scrutiny from civilrights groups and the relativesof Lee’s victims, who had suedto try to halt it, citing concernsabout the coronavirus pan-
demic.The decision to move for-
ward with the execution -- andtwo others scheduled later inthe week -- during a globalhealth pandemic that has killedmore than 135,000 people inthe United States and is rav-aging prisons nationwide, drewscrutiny from civil rights groupsas well as family of Lee’s victims.
Critics argued that the gov-ernment was creating anunnecessary and manufacturedurgency for political gain.
“The government has beentrying to plow forward withthese executions despite manyunanswered questions aboutthe legality of its new executionprotocol,” said Shawn Nolan,one of the attorneys for the menfacing federal execution. AP
China is pushing harder tomake territorial claims in
the regional seas and evenusing the coronavirus pan-demic to expand its influenceand take strategic superiority,posing a greater threat to Japanand the region, Japan’s gov-ernment said.
The report highlightingthe government’s defence pri-orities was adopted by PrimeMinister Shinzo Abe’s Cabineton Tuesday, less than a day afterthe Trump administrationrejected outright nearly all ofBeijing’s significant maritimeclaims in the South China Seain a statement likely to deepenthe US-China rift.
The Abe Government’sDefense White Paper 2020highlights what are potentialChinese and North Koreanthreats as Japan tries to furtherincrease its defense capability.
Under Abe, Japan hassteadily increased its defensebudget and capability and purchased costly Americanarsenals.
Defence Minister Taro Kono recently scrappedthe deployment of a pair of costly US land-based missileintercepting systems due to technical issues, and Abe quickly announced hisintention to revise Japan’sdefense guidelines, possiblyallowing Japan to go beyond its conventional defense-only
role under the Japan-US secu-rity alliance, including dis-cussing a possibility of acquir-ing a preemptive strike capa-bility.
The White Paper accusedChina of using propaganda,including spreading disinfor-mation, about the spread of thecoronavirus.
“The COVID-19 pandem-ic may expose and intensify strategic competitionamong countries intending to create international andregional orders more preferableto themselves and to expandtheir influence,” the reportsaid. “We need to closely watchtheir move with serious con-cern affecting the nationalsecurity.” AP
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Tokyo: Japan’s defence ministersaid on Tuesday that officialshave discovered “a number ofproblems” with US military mea-sures to guard against the coron-avirus among service membersstationed in Japan after 95 Marinestested positive at several bases onthe southern island of Okinawa.
Okinawan officials on Sundaysaid most of the cases since earlyJuly were at Marine Corps AirStation Futenma, which is at thecenter of a relocation dispute.Others were at Camp Hansen,Camp Kinser and CampMcTureous.
On Tuesday, Kadena Air Basereported two positive cases.Combined with three cases atKadena in March, the total amongthe U.S. Service members onOkinawa is 100, officials said.
“We have discovered a num-
ber of problems,” DefenceMinister Taro Kono said.
“We need to more strictlyscrutinise the situation with theU.S. Military in Japan.”
Kono said the problems werediscovered after Japanese officialsrequested information from theUS Military. He refused to givedetails, but said the problems existat US Bases throughout Japan, notjust on Okinawa.
In a possible indication ofone of the problems, Kono saidJapanese officials are inspectinga hotel used by the US Militaryto house service members newlyassigned to Okinawa from the USWhile they undergo a 14-dayself-quarantine. Okinawan offi-cials and residents have raisedconcerns about whether ade-quate safety measures are inplace at the hotel. AP
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Scientists have identified a unique signature of immunesystem molecules in 50 critically ill COVID-19 patients,
which they say may provide a strategy for combined ther-apeutic approaches against the disease.
According to the researchers, including those from thePasteur Institute in France, severely ill COVID-19 patientsexperience a combination of deficiency in the response ofan immune system molecule called interferons, as well asan exacerbated inflammation.
The study, published in the journal Science, assessed bloodsamples from 50 COVID-19 patients with symptoms rang-ing from mild to critical, and found this signature may pro-vide a rationale for therapeutic approaches combining inter-feron supplementation, along with neutralisation of inflam-matory response in the body. The scientists said COVID-19is characterised by distinct patterns of disease progressiondepending on the patient, implying that patients exhibit dif-ferent immune responses to the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. Based on earlier studies, they said about five to 10 per centof patients progress to severe or critical disease.
Kathmandu: Nepal PrimeMinister KP Sharma Oli andco-chair of the ruling commu-nist party Pushpa Kamal DahalPrachanda on Tuesdayresumed talks after a six-dayhiatus in a bid to save the partyfrom a split in the wake ofgrowing differences betweenthe two factions led by them.
Prachanda’s press advisorsaid that the “two chairs (of theNepal Communist Party) haveresumed discussions,” TheKathmandu Post reported.
They last time held one-on-one talks on Wednesday.
The talks are taking placeahead of the crucial StandingCommittee meeting on Fridaywhich is expected to determinethe political future of the 68-year-old prime minister whohas previously alleged that hisdetractors were trying toremove him with India’s help.
The key meeting is takingplace days after NCP executivechairman Prachanda said he
will not allow the party to splitand any attempt from any-where to weaken its unitywould hurt the fight against thecoronavirus pandemic and nat-ural disasters.
Prachanda, addressing theNCP members in his hometownChitwan on Sunday, said he wasdetermined to keep the partyunity intact as it is “natural tohave differences of opinion, dis-pute and debate in a big party.”
Top party leaders, includ-ing ‘Prachanda’, have beendemanding Prime MinisterOli’s resignation, saying hisrecent anti-India remarks were“neither politically correct nordiplomatically appropriate.”
The differences grew fur-ther after Oli said that some ofthe ruling party leaders arealigning with the southernneighbour to remove him frompower after his governmentissued a new political mapincorporating three Indian ter-ritories. PTI
Unrealistic to have a ‘perfectvaccine’ ready, WHO issueswarningThere have been 13 millionconfirmed COVID-19 casesrecorded globally and sixmonths after, it is just as dead-ly and mysterious as before.There is no proper cure ortreatment identified yet andwork is in progress to developa vaccine which could garnerimmunity against the deadlyvirus. Russian researchers tooclaimed to have found successin its human trials and are quitehopeful of launching the vac-cine by August. Not only hasthe timeline been mooted byseveral epidemiologists andmedical experts, WHO, in itslatest briefing said that it won’tbe wise to expect a vaccine tosolve our problems.
Coronavirus crisis may get‘worse and worse and worse’In its latest briefing, the leadinghealth body said that the situ-ation has only been gettingworse and worse. Even thoughwe don’t know for sure whenwill a vaccine be readily avail-able, WHO mentioned thateven with a vaccine, achievingimmunity in the first go is a dis-tant dream. According to WHOdata, over seven groups haveproceeded to conduct advancedphase II and II stages of theirvaccine candidates, post which,regulatory checks can beexpected. India too is seeing thedevelopment of two candidates,COVAXIN and another byZydus Cadila.
Can a person be immunefrom COVID-19?The briefing follows a samplestudy done by King’s College,London, which found thatantibodies, in recoveredpatients, begin to wane away in3 months time and gettingimmunity is a far fetcheddream. The WHO, also takingnote of all developments saidthat while all of us continue tolive in a new normal, the virusis here to stay. A statementsaid: “Expecting that we willeradicate or eliminate thisvirus in the coming months isnot realistic.”
Can’t pin our hopes on a vac-cine alone, says WHOMike Ryan, executive directorof health emergencies, WHOwas also quick to admit that itwould be wrong to pin all of ourhopes on a vaccine alone: “Andalso, believing that magically wewill get a perfect vaccine thateveryone will have access to, isalso not realistic.” However, hedid attest to the fact that despiteeverything, it is not impossibleto develop a vaccine to combatCOVID-19: “We can and willdevelop a vaccine, the questionmark is: ‘how effective will thatvaccine be?’ And, more impor-tantly, and more worryingly:‘who will get that vaccine?’And: ‘will that distribution befair and equitable?’
What are the dangers we arefacing?After months of lockdown, sev-eral places have opened up withcurtailed measures. However,there still are places whereguidelines are not being fol-lowed. The US, for example, isrecording a sharp rise inCOVID-19 cases, which is nowthe worst affected nation by thepandemic. Following on the listare Brazil and India. Sharinglight on this, Mike Ryan con-tinued saying: “If people con-tinue to frequent crowded placeswithout taking the necessaryprecautions, if people aren’tpractising physical distancing, ifpeople aren’t practising hygiene,if people aren’t wearing masks inthe proper settings, then the dis-ease will continue to transmit.”
Are there lessons we can learn?Experts have long said thatwhile pharmaceutical inven-tions and healthcare could helpto an extent, in the nascentstage, simple measures likeavoiding crowding, exposure,maintaining good hygiene pro-tocols and most of all, wearinga mask could help curb the viralspread. It could also lessen theload on medical services andhelp them serve us better.TheWHO official also added thatgovernment officials andauthorities should use this pan-demic as a lesson in managingpublic healthcare.
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Huawei will be completely removedfrom the UK’s 5G networks by the
end of 2027, the UK governmentannounced on Tuesday after a reviewby the country’s National CyberSecurity Centre (NCSC) on the impactof US sanctions against the Chinesetelecommunications giant. In thelead up to this complete removal of allHuawei kit from UK networks, therewill be a total ban on the purchase of
any new 5G kit after December 31,2020.
The decision was taken at a meet-ing of the UK’s National SecurityCouncil (NSC) chaired by PrimeMinister Boris Johnson, in response tonew US sanctions against the telecommajor imposed in May which removedthe firm’s access to products which havebeen built based on US semiconduc-tor technology.
“5G will be transformative for ourcountry, but only if we have confidencein the security and resilience of theinfrastructure it is built upon,” saidOliver Dowden, UK Secretary of Statefor Digital, Culture, Media and Sport(DCMS).
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Declining for the ninthstraight quarter, passenger
vehicle sales in India plunged78.43 per cent in the April-Juneperiod this year hit by the coro-navirus pandemic, making itthe longest slowdown in 20years, auto industry body SIAMsaid on Tuesday.
The commercial vehiclessegment also saw a decline of84.81 per cent in sales duringthe period, the fifth quarter insuccession of decline, which isalso the longest period of slow-down the segment has wit-nessed in the last 15 years,according to the latest data bythe Society of IndianAutomobile Manufacturers(SIAM).
Passenger vehicle (PV)sales were at 1,53,734 units in April-June 2020 ascompared to 7,12,684 units inApril-June 2019.
In the past 20 years, theprevious longest streak ofdecline of five quarters in PVsales was witnessed between2013-14 and 2014-15 andbetween 2000-01 and 2001-02.
Similarly, commercial vehi-cles sales stood at 31,636 unitsin the period as against2,08,310 units in April-June2019. The previous longestperiod of decline in CV waswitnessed for eight quartersbetween 2013-14 and 2014-15,SIAM said.
“Currently, we are goingthrough a very difficult phasedue to coronavirus... We have
been suffering hugely on thedemand side since last year; butthis quarter, the degrowth isdue to COVID-19. It is goingto be very harsh on the autosector,” SIAM President RajanWadhera told reporters in avideo conference.
He said the outlook for theauto sector looks grim due todecline in sales expected torange in 26-45 per cent acrossvarious vehicle segments ofthe industry, and forecast oflower GDP growth comingfrom various quarters includ-ing the RBI Governor andministers of the Government.
“Therefore, there is a needfor a strong stimulus from theGovernment for the sector aswas done in the past when thesector was hit by slowdown,”Wadhera said.
He reiterated the autoindustry’s long-pendingdemand for 10 per cent reduc-tion in goods and services tax
(GST) across all vehicle cate-gories and introduction ofincentive-based scrappagescheme to generate demand.
“The incentive for thescrappage scheme could begenerated in the form of 50 percent rebate in GST, road taxand registration charges,”Wadhera said, adding the autoindustry with an expected prof-itability of just around 3-9 percent is not in a position to offerdiscounts anymore for scrap-page incentive.
During the quarter, two-wheeler sales were at 12,93,113units as compared to 50,13,067units in April-June 2019, downby 74.21 per cent. Similarly,three-wheeler sales were 12,760units as against 1,49,797 unitsin the year-ago period, adecline of 91.48 per cent, SIAM said.
Wadhera said SIAM mem-bers have resumed produc-tion, but it has not been smooth
due to supply chain issuesowing to the health crisis dueto continued restrictions insome places where supplierfactories are located, non-avail-ability of labour and delays inclearing of import consign-ments, besides COVID-19cases emerging in and aroundproduction sites of some mem-ber companies.
He also said, henceforth,SIAM — which has beenreleasing monthly sales dataacross all vehicle categories -will be doing it only for pas-senger vehicles, two-wheelersand three-wheelers as com-
mercial vehicle (CV) manu-facturers have expressed theirdiscomfort in sharing month-ly sales data.
CV sales data will be sharedon a quarterly basis along withgrand total of all categories,Wadhera added. In June, pas-senger vehicle sales in Indiadeclined by 49.59 per cent inJune at 1,05,617 units as against2,09,522 units in the samemonth last year, SIAM said.
During the month, marketleader Maruti Suzuki India sold51,274 units, down 49.61 percent from the same month lastyear. Hyundai Motor India post-
ed sales of 21,320 units, a declineof 49.25 per cent and Mahindra& Mahindra sold 8,075 units,down 54.54 per cent.
Two-wheeler sales werealso down 38.56 per cent at10,13,431 units as compared to16,49,475 units in the same
month last year. Motorcyclesales were at 7,02,970 units asagainst 10,84,596 units in June2019, down 35.19 per cent.
Scooter sales were alsodown 47.37 per cent at 2,69,811units as against 512,626 unitsin the same month last year.
New Delhi: DDA has launcheda Self Assessment Scheme onits portal for benefit of all dam-age assessees of 23 NazulEstates. Public can access theportal through“https://www.dda.org.in’.
Damage properties arethose properties which havebeen existing on Govt. Landplaced at the disposal of theerstwhile Delhi ImprovementTrust (DIT) through the “NazulAgreement” of March 1937, butoccupied unauthorisedly byprivate persons, being unau-thorised occupants ofGovernment land. Such occu-pants are liable to pay DamageCharges to DDA under ThePublic premises (Eviction ofUnauthorised Occupants) Act1958, now Public Premises(Eviction of UnauthorisedOccupants) Act, 1971.
. Through this Self-Assessment Scheme, all theassessees can fill up the detailsof their properties on the saidPortal viz., date of payment ofDamage Charges, Area anddate of transfer of occupancyrights and superstructureoccupied by them and canalso assess damage chargesthemselves through DamageCalculator in the Portal.
All the damage propertieswherein occupancy details varyfloor-wise, damage charges willbe calculated during the self-assessment.
New Delhi: The DelhiDevelopment Authority heldits meeting on 14.07.2020through video conferencingunder the chairmanship of AnilBaijal, Hon’ble Lt. Governor,Delhi/Chairman, DDA whichwas attended by Anurag Jain,IAS, Vice Chairman, DDA andother Members of theAuthority.The Authority placedon record its appreciation for thecontribution made by Hon’bleMembers Somnath Bharti, SKBagga and OP Sharma duringtheir tenure with DDA whichended on 11.02.2020. TheAuthority welcomed SomnathBharti, OP Sharma and DilipKumar Pandey Hon’bleMembers of LegislativeAssembly NCTD who havebeen declared elected unop-posed for representation inDDA as Authority Members.
As a relief measure in viewof ongoing pandemic DDAextends time for making pay-ment of additional FAR chargesand use conversion chargesfor residential properties/Coop.
New Delhi: In what can be termed as a landmarkevent, Airports Authority of India (AAI) enteredinto an MoU with Bharat Electronics Limited(BEL) that will provide a platform for collabora-tive development and support for both the orga-nizations to address the emerging airport busi-ness globally, including that of Asia Pacificregion.
ln furtherance of such cooperation, AAl, inthe role of development partner, will render assis-tance to BEL in its domain of expertise to enableexecution of the prestigious MEA projects out-side India by BEL. Both the organisations willwork in close cooperation with each other in thefield of civil aviation in present and in future pro-jects being handled by BEL.
The MoU was signed by Sanjai KumarSinghal, General Manager (BusinessDevelopment), AAI and Manoj Kumar, ExecutiveDirector (National Marketing), RO Delhi, BharatElectronics Limited at AAI CorporateHeadquarters on 14th July 2020 in the presenceof Shri Arvind Singh, Chairman, AAI, M VGowtama, CMD, BEL and senior management ofboth the organisations through video confer-encing. Chairman AAI, addressing the expertsfrom both sides exuded optimism that the part-nership between the two organisations will be agame-changer in Indian aviation sector in theyears to come. He also said that the manufacturingof Communication, Navigation & Surveillance(CNS) Equipment in India will reduce the costsubstantially and will save foreign exchange out-flow, making India Self-Reliant.
New Delhi: Minister of Commerce & Industry, Government of India, Piyush Goyalvisited Pragati Maidan to review ongoing project of International Exhibition-cum-Convention Centre (IECC).
He was accompanied by Hardeep Singh Puri, Minister of State for Commerce& Industry, Civil Aviation & Minister of Housing and Urban Affairs (Independentcharge), PK Sinha, Principal Adviser to Prime Minister, Dr Anup Wadhawan,Commerce Secretary, Government of India , LC Goyal, Chairman & ManagingDirector, India Trade Promotion Organisation (ITPO), Vikram Doraiswami,Additional Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs and Rajesh Agrawal, ED, ITPOalongwith other senior Government officials.
New Delhi: Rajiv Chaudhry,General Manager Northern &North Central Railways held aperformance review meetingwith the departmental heads ofNorthern Railway throughvideo conferencing fromBaroda House, NR headquar-ter office in New Delhi.
He discussed the zonalrailway’s accomplishments andthe issues during the covid-19lockdown and post lockdownperiod. As the train operationwas minimal during the peri-od, all Departments andDivisions used this windowperiod to focus on safety, main-tenance of Track, Electrical,S&T and Rolling stock hold-ings. Other infrastructuresenhancing activities were alsoundertaken in spite of staff andlabour crunch.
In total 36,440 Km railwaytrack over the zone wasinspected.
568 level crossings wereoverhauled or repaired and46Km track renewal was done.Sectional speed of 5 sectionstotaling 392 km has beenenhanced.
Mumbai: Equity benchmarksSensex and Nifty plunged over1.8% on Tuesday, the biggestsingle-day decline in nearlyfive weeks, mirroring massiveglobal selloffs amid simmeringUS-China tensions and mount-ing COVID-19 cases. The BSEgauge Sensex ended 660.63points or 1.80% lower at36,033.06; while the NSE Niftyclosed 195.35 points or 1.81%down at 10,607.35.
Banking stocks continuedto slump, crashing over 3 percent; while metals and autocounters emerged as othermajor sectoral laggards, endinglower by 2.5% each. Shares ofthe HDFC duo led the fall onthe indices, shedding up to2.94%, after HDFC Bank said ithas launched a probe into itsauto lending practices followingallegations against the conductof a long-time executive whoretired on March 31 this year.
IndusInd Bank, Axis Bank,Maruti, PowerGrid, BajajFinserv and SBI were amongthe other major laggards.
On the other hand, Titan,Bharti Airtel and Bajaj Autowere the gainers. Broader mid-cap and smallcap indices fin-ished 0.95 per cent lower.
“Key indices correctedclose to 2 per cent on weaknessin financial and metal stocks.We witnessed profit booking inkey auto stocks as their volumenumbers are already known tothe street for the first quarter,”said S Ranganathan, Head ofResearch at LKP Securities.
Negative cues from globalmarkets amid escalating US-China tensions and risingCOVID-19 cases dampenedinvestor sentiment here, traderssaid.”The markets exhibitedhigh correlation with the glob-al markets and with the virusinfections hitting day highs inIndia, the uncertainty caughtup with the markets. Globalmarkets were weak followingrising infections in US and US-China tensions being back inthe news,” Vinod Nair, Head ofResearch at Geojit FinancialServices, said.
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Carrying on with the trendof car launches taking place
in the virtual world, HyundaiIndia on Tuesday launched therefreshed version of their largeSports Utility Vehicle, theTucson. Available with a two-litre petrol engine producing152PS and a six-speed auto-matic gearbox as well as atwo-litre diesel engine with185PS and a eight-speed auto-matic gearbox.
The latter is also availablewith an all-wheel drive
option. Prices range from �22.3lakh to �23.52 lakh for thepetrol and �24.35 lakh to�27.03 lakh for the diesel.
Hyundai India Director,Sales and Marketing, TarunGarg also took the opportuni-ty to talk about how Hyundaihas been coping with the lock-down and expressed optimismabout the future.
He said that there hadbeen over 45,000 bookings forthe recently launched second-generation Hyundai Creta andover 56 per cent of them had
been for diesel variants, withconsumers who travelled longdistances and requiring fuelefficiency still choosing theheavier fuel. He added that heexpected the automotive mar-ket to recover even moresharply in July with salesexpected to reach 90 percent ofthe total for July 2019 as thecountry emerges from theCoronavirus lockdown.Another factoid also emergedthat customers are choosingautomatic variants of all vehi-cles in larger numbers, and toencourage that conversion,Hyundai India has come outwith an ‘intelligent’ ManualTransmission (iMT) variant ofthe Venue which retains thetraditional gear lever and elim-inates the clutch pedal.
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Prices in the wholesale mar-ket fell for the third straight
month, declining 1.81 per centin June, due to sharp decline in fuel and power itemseven as food articles remainedexpensive.
Inflation in May and Aprilwas (-) 3.21 per cent and (-)1.57 per cent, respectively. InMarch it was 0.42 per cent.
“The annual rate of infla-tion, based on monthlyWholesale Price Index (WPI),stood at (-1.81 per cent) (pro-visional) for the month of June,2020 as compared to 2.02 percent during the correspondingmonth of the previous year,” theindustry Ministry said in astatement on Tuesday.
However, prices of foodarticles hardened with inflationat 2.04 per cent, as against 1.13per cent in May.
While inflation in vegeta-bles and onion stood at (-) 9.21per cent and (-) 15.27 percent, respectively; potato saw aspike in prices with inflation at56.20 per cent. Pulses too sawrise in cost with inflation at10.10 per cent, while the samefor wheat was 5.17 per centduring June.
In the fuel and power bas-ket, inflation stood at (-) 13.60per cent in June, against 19.83per cent in the previous month.
Manufactured productswitnessed inflation of 0.08 percent in June, against (-) 0.42 percent in May.
Data released on Monday
showed retail inflation as mea-sured by consumer price index(CPI) increased to 6.09 per centin June, which is higher thanRBI’s tolerance level.
ICRA Principal EconomistAditi Nayar said the extent ofthe disinflation in the WPI nar-rowed sharply in June 2020,
with all the major sectorsexcept minerals displaying asequential uptick in their year-on-year inflation.
“The divergence betweenthe food inflation at the whole-sale and retail level narrowedconsiderably while remainingsubstantial in June 2020, point-ing to the continued varieddynamics driving food prices asthe country emerges from thelockdown,” Nayar said.
With vegetable prices ris-ing sharply in the recent weeks,she noted that the uptick inwholesale food inflation maycontinue in July 2020.
She said higher vegetableprices and a stabilisation ofcrude oil prices at moderatelevels are expected to con-tribute toward a further nar-rowing of the disinflation in theWPI in July 2020.
The Reserve Bank of India(RBI) takes into account retailinflation while formulatingmonetary policy.
The monetary policyframework of the RBI targets tokeep inflation at 4 per cent (+/-2 per cent).
To boost economic activ-ity, the RBI has cut interest ratesby 250 basis points sinceFebruary 2019.
COVID-19, and taking into accountthe safety concerns of students andparents, SRM Institute of Scienceand Technology — SRMIST, has can-celled the SRM Joint EngineeringEntrance Exam (SRMJEEE) for BTechadmissions 2020, that was planned in127 Indian cities and five overseas cen-tres in Dubai, Doha, Muscat, Bahrainand Kuwait.
The B.Tech admissions for 2020will now be based on +2/pre-uni-versity/equivalent marks in Physics,Chemistry and Mathematics/Biology.The new admission process willapply to all campuses of SRMIST-Kattankulathur, Ramapuram,
Vadapalani and NCR New Delhi;SRM University, AP — AndhraPradesh; SRM University Haryana,Sonepat; and SRM UniversitySikkim.
Those who scored in JEE Mainand SAT are encouraged to apply.
The forms for providing the +2/pre-university/equivalent marks andJEE (Main)/SAT Score are availableon the university website —www.srmist.edu.in.
Applicants can swiftly updateand complete their forms. In case theresults of the Class XII BoardExamination are not declared, themarks can be uploaded as soon as theresults are known.
COVID-19 pan-demic has chal-
lenged the academicoperations especiallythose aspiring forhigher education.Vellore Institute ofTechnology (VIT) hasbeen conducting VITEngineering EntranceE x a m i n a t i o n(VITEEE) for admis-sion to various engi-neering programmesoffered by VIT groupof Institutions.
C o n d u c t i n gVITEEE-2020 in var-ious cities with rising
infections has becomerisky and dangerous.To keep the studentand parent communi-ty safe, VITEEE-2020stands cancelled. Theadmission will bebased on Class XII/pre-university marksin Physics, Chemistryand Mathematics/Biology.
Those who scoredin JEE (Main) will begiven weightage. Theforms for providingthe marks are provid-ed in the VIT Websitewww.vit.ac.in.
Business transformation hasbecome a necessity in this fast
and fluid world. Engaging andempowering employees throughmultiway communication chan-nels has become an imperative.Over the past few years, we haveseen a sharp rise in adoption ofagile, design thinking, and otherdigitally oriented practices.
In the past, quantitative meth-ods were applied to assess financialand operational scorecards, but ithas always been difficult to employQualitative methods to evaluatepeople. Therefore, people analyticshas certainly been a game chang-er. It has helped to evaluate behav-ioural data on what employees areworking on, how behaviouralchanges can affect the financial per-formance of the company, what canaffect employee behaviour in theorganisation.
In their role as HumanResource Managers, MBA studentshave started learning the impor-tance of People Analytics in theircareer. Students have started tounderstand how this specificdomain in HR would help themtake data driven decisions whileunderstanding employee behav-iour. This premise comes with therapidly evolving field of people ana-
lytics that organisations are embrac-ing as they use data to evaluate thejourney of an employee in theorganisation.
Following are the ways how thiscourse is equipping the HR pro-fessionals for the industry:
Analyse employee behavioureffectively: One of the crucialaspects that an HR professionalneeds to ensure is to keep employ-ee behaviour at optimised levels.Recognising an employee’s effortswith fair compensation is directlyrelated to the happiness and satis-faction of an employee. Peopleanalytics help HR professionals to
come up with new techniques ofengaging with employees at alllevels.
Transparent recruitmentprocess: One of the most chal-lenging tasks for HR is finding theright pool of talent suiting the needsof a particular department andidentifying which department hasgaps in terms of the kind of skillsrequired. In such cases, PeopleAnalytics plays a key role in pro-viding insights on the skills need-ed among talent, sorting throughthe profiles, transparent profilingmetrics and talent development.When such data driven decisions
are taken it helps a company alignits goals with their pool of talent.
Forecast potential businessimpact: Current trends and historicdata are useful to gauge employeeperformance and the revenue gen-eration for a business. An organi-sation can understand the impacton business trends over time. It isalso possible to factor in the extra-neous impact. All this can help topredict the appropriate peoplepractises to be followed to ensurethat the business is impacted in apositive manner.
Increase diversity in theorganisation: Diversity is a pow-erful thing for any business. Acrossa company’s employee lifecycle,People Analytics plays a key role inanalysing the state of diversity.This also helps in identifying areasof unintentional bias and effectivelyaddressing the problem areas.
People Analytics has emergedas a key differentiator in the HRdomain and anyone who wants amore strategic work profile can cer-tainly go for a specialisation in thisfield. Apart from making you a spe-cialist, analytics will definitely helpyou in upskilling and make evi-dence-based decisions to improveand upscale organisations.
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With the rise of the pandemic,situations across the globehave changed drastically in
terms of academics, governance, cor-porate structures, supply chains, evento the extent of climatic conditions. Asthe saying goes, change is the only con-stant, and living up to that change iswhat humans need to be skilled at.Looking around we might wonder whatreally lies in the future? What can I lookforward to as a stable income? How willI ever get through with this current sit-uation? Hopefully by the end of thisarticle you must be able to find mostanswers for our budding generation.
Apart from career options such asDoctors, Engineers, Accountants,Bankers etc. individuals are showinginterest to make a career in other sec-tors, and thereby feel a need to accord-ingly upgrading their learnings to suitthe newer job roles in the market. Wenow have domains like Tourism, Music,Designing, Theatre and a list to go on,which have been up to date and con-temporary.
About a decade ago, seeing Musicand Arts as a career was seemedtaboo. Drawing was only seen up to theextent of becoming a painter and hav-ing paintings exhibited. The field of artsitself has boomed in a tremendous way,surrounding us with more colour,creativity and life. For instance, if yourchild has dance as their passion, apartfrom dance shows and competitions,there is place in theBollywood/Hollywood industries aschoreographers. There are universitieswhich certify you as a Professional
dancer, where performance is also stud-ied and practiced. Becoming a fitnesstrainer with dance and helping peoplelive a healthy lifestyle is also anotherpopular option. Similarly, for Music,apart from Music Directors andSingers, there are options of makingMusic for ads, for video game compa-nies and even other tech companies likeApple. If helping the society is what youare looking for, Music Therapy is alsoone way where you can do your bit.
If we take Communications, it isalso been a bridging gap for many roles.Highlighting Public speaking skills,where it becomes useful in beingHosts for events, Voice overs, auctions,etc. In these roles all it takes is to beconfident and communicate the mes-sage well. While talking about com-munications, language is one morecareer, where it was just for fun andonly for survival reasons in a foreigncountry. Whereas, now you canbecome a Translator, Journalist,Language Practitioner, evenInternational tour guides, in which thehobby of exploring places and the skills
of a Foreign language can help you earngood for a living.
Speech and Drama is one careerwhere from being Actors to Poets isseen as an option. Acting is popular forBollywood and Indie Soaps in India,but there is Theatre too, where you actin plays and stages, and not just onscreen. You may also become Director,that is being behind the cameras, yetshowing your piece of art through yourguidance. Poetry again is somethingwhere you can publish and also SlamPoetry, where instead of writing youspeak the poetry you have written.There are many institutes that promotethese hobbies and help you findoptions.
The one thing common in all thesefields are, sharing the knowledge learntthrough educating others, that is bybeing Trainers. The field of teachinghas grown subject-wise, where Music,Art, Drama and Languages, all of thesecan have a great career ahead. All weneed is to curate the idea of sticking toone's ambitions and passions in life.Our young adults today, have been for-
tunate to be quite exposed to what liesbehind books and out in the world.Aiding them with whatever is neededto make it to their destination, is whatwe need now focus on.
In the view of this thought, we havelaunched an array of courses that helpchildren to take a step towards theirhobbies and make it a career and mostimportant, have fun. FSM Buddyshowcases all the skills where one'sCreative side is nurtured and devel-oped. We mainly focus on the Rightbrain skill development, and haveOnline educators that have a vast expe-rience and specialise in the respectivefields.
Finally, in the words of KatharineWhitehorn, “Find out what you likedoing best and get someone to pay youfor doing it”. If you have the passion anddesire to fulfill your dreams in your life,there ain't no mountain high enough!Keep your focus on and your will high,you surely can achieve success indoing what you love. ���*����������&��������������&�.=�;������
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The growing impact of ArtificialIntelligence (AI) and Machine
Learning (ML) has opened up newways for the millennials to earn theirliving. Startups for instance in everyfield today is an emerging trend thatis being harnessed by Gen Z tobecome entrepreneurs and bring ina new wave of innovation in theindustry.
Media is one such field that ishugely influenced by these newtechnologies and millennials arecrafting a new future for themselveswith unique opportunities like suc-cessful ventures in startups amongstothers.
Showrunner: Web series onOTT platforms are created with apurpose to encourage viewers tobinge watch on the internet. Makingone season of a web series is equiv-alent to making five full-length fea-ture films. Such scale of productionfor each project requires creative pro-ducers, line producers, writers andindividual directors. The overridingauthority of this process is theshowrunner, who acts as the con-necting medium between the plat-form, the financiers, various writers,producers, and actors.
The showrunner is a highlyspecialised job that demands exper-tise in production, direction, writing,
finance, marketing, and exception-al interpersonal skills. Typically,showrunners of popular web seriesearn as much as a top director of abig-budget Bollywood film.
Careers in film appreciation:Most of the people think that cine-ma is only about making films or act-ing in them. However, millennialswho have a passion for cinema andare interested in studying & research-ing about the field have a myriad ofchoices in exploring new age careers.These career options always existed,but now they've become financiallyrewarding enough to be seen as inde-pendent career choices. These careerchoices include: curating in-flightentertainment for airlines, filmmuseums, cinema archivists, histo-rians, film critics, and creative headsat different film companies, pro-
duction houses amongst others.Wedding photography: With
time destination weddings haveemerged as major events. Weddingphotographer, who traditionallyused to shoot on negative and sellprints to the family and guests, isnow the star of the show. From styl-ized photoshoots with the use ofdrones, to digitally correcting thefinal photos, wedding photographyhas become a glamorous field. It isone of sought after profession whichcan pay as much as two lacs per dayto the professional photographer.glamour photography, food pho-tography, industrial photography,and corporate photography areequally flourishing.
Music producer: Traditionally,a film used to have one music direc-tor, who composed songs as well asthe original soundtrack for the film.However, today the industry uses dif-ferent composers, music directors,and lyricists for each song in a film.With this trend, it becomes vital toensure that there is continuity andseamlessness in the soundtrack. Towithhold this job, comes the role ofmusic producers who take over anddeliver the final soundtrack includ-ing various versions of the songs. ���*��������8���$�%�������������� �����
Changing another obstacle into opportunityManav Sthali School under the guardian-
ship of its visionary Director & FounderPrincipal Mamta V Bhatnagar an e Book Weekof its own kind was organised by Dipti ABhatnagar. It commenced from July 1 and con-cluded on July 5, 2020. Each child of the schoolwas asked to read a book during the monthof June and to participate in activities basedon his reading. Stories and books were metic-ulously handpicked to add on to the knowl-edge of the child and to make him learn val-ues.
Like in primary they read Needle Tree,The Honest Woodcutter, The Lion and theFox, The Red Hen, The Mixed up Chameleon
and various other stories conveying a messageto be content, not to be greedy, be naive, gen-erous and good to others. In middle they wereasked to read stories of Ruskin Bond, HarryPotter Books and the Classics like Alice in the
Wonderland. Autobiographies andBiographies were also picked up to reaffirmthe faith in ones abilities and learn how to wadethrough the rough weathers. Volunteers ofclasses XI and XII were attached in to assistthe librarian Achla Sahay and PrimaryCoordinator Neha Khanna to conduct virtu-al meetings and take rehearsals for their roleplays.
It was fun to watch them transforminginto lions and foxes, grasshoppers and ants,woodcutter and a chai waala. They displayedfavourite characters from the famous storiesof Ruskin Bond enacted their famous per-sonalities also. It concluded with a great showby the volunteers and words of wisdom byMamta V Bhatnagar, Director, Manav SthaliSchool.
The students of KiiTInternational School
(KiiT-IS), Bhubaneswar post-ed excellent result in the ClassXII examinations conductedby the Central Board ofSecondary Education (CBSE),results of which were declaredon July 13, 2020. The studentsexcelled in all the threestreams of Class XII CBSEExamination 2020.
The highest mark scoredby Aman Patra in the Sciencestream is 98% with 30% of stu-dents having scored above90%. The school which trulyhas International in its ethoshas 25% of its students secur-ing above 90% in theCommerce stream with thehighest scores of Rishi Kediaand Adishree Pala shining at96%.
The Humanities top scoreof Amrita Nanda remains to be98% with a whopping 50% ofthe candidates securing above90 %. All students have securedfirst division in the examina-tion.
The school which offersCBSE, IGCSE and IB DP cur-riculum has always excelled inacademics and all co curricu-lar activities since the past 14years of its inception.Congratulating all students fortheir success Dr AchyutaSamanta, Founder, KIIT &KISS said, it has possible onlybecause of proper care andmodern teaching methodolo-gy. He thanked Chairperson DrMonalisa Bal, Principal DrSanjay Suar and other staff fortheir effort towards this success.
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�+��)���:"���������Aclass X student of Modern
Academy Sr Sec School,Kavya Bajpai has made her par-ents proud byscoring 94.6 percent in Board exams.
Study throughout the yearand understand the conceptsinstead of just cramming, worksmart and not just hard, start yourpreparation as soon as the sessionstarts, have realistic and deter-mined goals — these were the sim-ple strategies of success adopted byher. Her mother, Ritu Bajpai, saysthat Kavya didn’t only study butalso made time for her interests accordingly. She loves playingbasketball.
Her father, Abhishek Bajpai, added that he always believedin her and is extremely proud of her. He gave credits to her schoolfor splendid teaching, Kavya also added she did not needed anytuitions and thanked her school and parents.
Kavya’s favourite subjects are science and history and nowshe wants to pursue a career in the Medical field.
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Business management is one of themost sought-after career opportunitiesand a popular major for college students
across the globe. Business managementbeing the most lucrative career is acquiringmore and more MBA aspirants every yearand the student pool is consistently and dra-matically broadening. The business man-agement industry demands professionalswho can keep up to the pragmatic, fast-pacedrace of the new era complexities,and hencetaking up an MBA education programmenow requires dedicated efforts more than everbefore.
Only MBA seekers know how manyaspects they need to keep in mind before rac-ing into the constantly flourishing corporateworld. Unlike other streams, MBA aspirantsneed to cope up and prepare themselves inan all-encompassing manner for the highlycompetitive platform. Besides, the changingparadigms of management education havebrought about new ventures to its studentsand success will follow only if you groomyourself with the right understanding, out-look, and mindset. If you find the mentionedstatements familiar and you are one of thosepursuing education in MBA, you are at theright place. Listed below are some of the pre-vailing but potent pieces of guidance that willhelp you conquer the bigger picture as a newMBA student.
The idea of research might sound ordi-nary, but it is the foremost practical step tocut-off that nervous, shaky feeling on the firstday of your B-school. Attending B-school isquite different from the rest of the streams,as you will need to be of the ongoing activ-ities. MBA courses are mostly loaded withevents, seminars, practical sessions, experi-ential learning, and industry visits and youcan’t seem to miss on even one.
This is the stepping stone to the activeand swift business realm and every movecounts. More than textbooks and theoreticalknowledge, innovation, active participation,and embracing the dynamic opportunitieswill help you grow, and that is precisely howyou need to start to avoid even the slightestregretful consequences.Moreover, you needto understand that institutions nowadays fol-low different trends of imparting educationand a certain level of pre-research on yourinstitution and course-structure will only easeyou in settling you into your MBA life.Yourpersonal and academic life will blend morethan you assume. Now, this is a very trickypart that most of the students struggle toadjust with. An MBA course will require youto communicate, interact, and connect with
people, more than any other academicstream. Most of the projects will be dividedinto groups, and you can hence expect tospend ample time working with a team. Thisbecomes a centralised issue for students whoare of an introvert nature. However, remem-ber that you do not need to be an extrovertto socialise and work efficiently in a team.These are some of the crucial and lesser dis-cussed skills that you will learn to inherit dur-ing the course of your MBA programme thatwill further help you build the right attitudeboth for your academic and personal life.Apart from work, management studentsoften need to be active in an extended class-room environment that involves collegeevents, get-togethers, casual workshops, andwebinars. You can always groom yourself tosome extent to embrace the change, as it willalways be fruitful for your career.
Last, focus on building valuable connec-tions. Many of the MBA students get mis-guided by the idea of starting to take neces-sary steps like building connections, research-ing job availabilities, and grabbing addition-al opportunities after the completion of theirMBA course. You need to keep spirits highwhen it comes to building a network andsocialising with those who may contribute toyour professional lives ahead.
However, a substantial part of skillsets andcapabilities to attain the customs and prac-tice depends on expertise of mentors. Hence,choosing the right institution is important.
applications for its MBADeans ExcellenceScholarships for 2020.Candidates for full-timeMBA programme inGlasgow will automaticallybe considered for thesescholarships.
Number: 5Value: £15,000Subject: Accounting
and Finance, Economics,Entrepreneurship, HumanResource Management,Marketing, Business,Strategy and Organisation,Hospitality and Tourism,Management, ManagementScience.
Eligibility: Candidateswho are prepared to act asambassadors for theStrathclyde FT MBA. Whocan demonstrate throughtheir ideas outlined in theirapplication and interviewhow they would contributeto bring the class togetherthrough teamwork to createcommunity, from the outset,in order to achieve the ulti-mate earning (and social)experience for the group asa whole. Leadership/man-agement skills or potential,overall quality of the appli-cation and financial needwill also be considered.
The University ofMelbourne is providingthe Bachelor of ArtsInternational funding forstudents in Australia.Participants from India canapply.
They can pursue abachelor’s degree pro-gramme in the field ofHistorical, philosophical,political and social studies;Language, literature andcultural studies at the uni-versity.
Eligibility: Apply as afull-time student.You needto complete the VictorianCertificate of Education oran equivalent qualification.
Language require-ment: If your native lan-guage is not English, so youwill be asked to satisfy theEnglish language require-ments of the university.
The fee educationaward provides 25 or 50 percent fee remission, or a$5000 bursary, to a selectgroup of high-ranking inter-national students.
How to apply: Youneed to take admission in anUG degree programme atthe university.
Application deadline:The last date to apply isOctober 30, 2020.
Over the years, technolo-gy has been utilised toimprove teaching and
learning and help our studentsbe successful. The concept offorce multiplier when applied totechnology allowed studentsaccess to online resources,assignments and assistancefrom teachers on-demand with-out the physical connection. Italso expanded the school day byallowing them this access any-time and from anywhere withjust an Internet connection.
Although design institutesamongst others have openlyutilised this technological fea-ture or outsourced it, it stillformed only a part of the cur-riculum. The pandemic broughthome the fact that our olderbusiness model was now introuble as students and teach-ers remained confined withintheir homes. Thus as institutes,leaders, academicians, admin-istrators, service providers,technological partners and stu-dents, we needed to up ourgame and adapt to a new nor-mal, which involves under-standing learning science andusing technology as the inter-mediary to enable teaching andlearning.
The core competency ofany institute is the unique blendof imparting quality educationand creating a conducive learn-ing environment. Online teach-ing has now become a strategic
priority emphasising the needfor value-based education andre-establishing standards ofexcellence. It has meant encour-aging academicians to upskill,innovate and create learner-cen-tric digital content, find newerinteractive teaching method-ologies and assessment mech-anisms. The new understandingemphasizes that simply inter-changing classroom teachingformat onto the online mediumas a notion of doing live class-es isn’t effective. It calls for amindset change to create thecorrect interplay of synchro-nous and asynchronous teach-ing methodologies to influencelearning outcomes, elicit inter-est and productively engagewith students and cater to dif-ferent learner groups withoutcompromising on quality.
CHANGED MINDSETThe pandemic has brought
about a changed mindset withregards to the ageold perceptionof the value of a teacher’s phys-ical presence in classroomswhile simultaneously looking athow that value can be leveragedeffectively online. There is aneed now to clearly under-stand the workload of teachersas they combine offline andonline teaching practices.
ONLINE EDUCATIONOnline education has also
put the ownership of learning
on to the students. Studentslearn best in an interactive andsocially engaged environment.Teachers working closely withstudents help explore their dif-ficulties and requirements lead-ing to a better understanding oftheir learning journey andprogress. It also supports thatstudents have different learningstyles some are self-motivatedwhile others need the constantnudge to move ahead.
Art and design courses areinherently hands-on, experi-ential and participatory. Asassessments and placementsare evolving as key concerns,questions around how effectiveand valuable online educationcan be and how learners canapply their acquired learning topractical workplace scenariosneed careful thought. This hastherefore highlighted the needto relook and redesign ourexisting physical campuseswhile adhering to health andsafety guidelines.
Reopening institutes callfor streamlining processes thatwill help screen students andstaff upon arrival, increasingcleaning and disinfecting thefacilities, encouraging handwashing and sanitising andwearing face masks.
Within classrooms, socialdistancing can be created bystrategically altering the exist-ing space with clearly demar-cated coloured markings so
desks are sufficiently separated.Flexible furniture and movablefurnishings can also add to thespace.
Social distancing can alsobe encouraged by making cer-tain operational decisions likestaggering class timings to limitstudents within a physical spaceand remove overcrowding,dividing students into groupsand rotating their schedule sothey have a mix of classroomteaching and home learning,limiting student movements byonly allowing teachers to movebetween classrooms, restrictingsharing of commonly utilisedhigh-touch materials likesewing machines, library books,design tools, supplies andequipment.
Students should be encour-aged to bring in their suppliesto reduce the risk of physicalcontact. A combination ofteaching methods, both offlineand online also ensures studentsare not present within the facil-ities for extended periods.
Due diligence with regardsto wireless connectivity withinthe physical campus need forsetting up mobile hotspots,using mobile whiteboards andlarge writing surfaces for teach-ers, exploring electronic learn-ing tools and devices are crucialto upgrade the educationalfacility. ���*�����������������������������������
Inter Milan put one foot in nextseason’s Champions League on
Monday after coming frombehind to beat relegation-threat-ened Torino 3-1 and move up tosecond place in Serie A.
Antonio Conte’s Intermoved above Atalanta and Lazioto go eight points behind leagueleaders Juventus thanks to twogoals early in the second halffrom Ashley Young and DiegoGodin and another fromLautaro Martinez justafter the hour mark.
The Milanese clubare level on 68 pointswith off-form Lazio, whoslumped to a 2-1 defeat atSassuolo on Saturday, andone ahead of flamboyantAtalanta in fourth.
However, with a first leaguetitle since 2010 unlikely, the mostimportant statistic for Inter is the
14-point gap between them andfifth-placed Roma with sixmatches left to play.
“It’s important to winmatches like this any way youcan... I think we deserved to
win,” said Godin toSky Sport Italy. “We’resecond now and wewant to continue win-ning... let’s see wherewe can finish, but it’sdifficult to get closer to
Juventus.”Torino meanwhile still
have to look over their shoul-ders following their fourthdefeat since the league restart-
ed last month.Moreno Longo’s side are
16th, five points above the rele-gation zone.
Inter were dismal in the firstperiod and the transformationafter the break suggested theyhad been subjected to one ofcoach Antonio Conte’s famousroastings at halftime.
“It was a very good perfor-mance with over 60% posses-sion, 20 shots on goal, nine cor-ners to two,” said Conte. “Thelads did well. That goal couldhave made us nervous but theystayed on their feet and keptplaying and finding the goal.”
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Manchester Unitedmissed the chance to
move up to third in thePremier League onMonday afterMichael Obafemi’s96th minute equalis-er earnedSouthampton a 2-2draw at Old Traffordin the latest twist in therace for a place in nextseason’s ChampionsLeague.
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’smen were unable to takeadvantage of weekenddefeats for Chelsea andLeicester to remain in fifth.
United had becomethe first side in PremierLeague history to win fourconsecutive games by athree-goal margin, butthere was no cruise for theRed Devils this time evenafter they responded toStuart Armstrong’s earlyopener.
Two goals in as manyminutes from MarcusRashford and AnthonyMartial turned the gamearound, but United werecaught out by a cornerdeep into stoppage timewhen substitute Obafemiturned home JanBednarek’s flick on.
“It’s the worst time toconcede a goal but it hap-pens in football. You haveto be strong and take it,”
said United manager OleGunnar Solskjaer. “We’vewon so many games thatway ourselves but it’s allpart of the learning for thisteam.”
Manchester City’s vic-tory over UEFA in theCourt of Arbitration forSport earlier on Mondayupped the pressure onUnited to continue their
impressive form with onlya place in the top four nowgood enough forChampions League quali-fication.
Solskjaer will still beconfident of achieving thatgoal as his side have closedan eight-point gap onLeicester, who they face onthe final day of the season,since the Premier League’s
restart.But two dropped
points were a reminderthat United are far fromthe finished article if theyaspire to chal lengeLiverpool and ManchesterCity for the title next sea-son.
“We didn’t deservethree points today,” admit-ted Solskjaer. “We never
got the rhythm in ourpassing today, especiallyafter 2-1.”
Ralph Hassenhuttl’sside remain in 12th, buthave lost just once in sixgames since the restart.“We are becoming morebrave,” said Hassenhuttl.“You can feel the guysreally enjoy what they aredoing.”
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Real Madrid need one victory tosecure La Liga after they held off
a second-half comeback fromGranada on Monday to win 2-1 andmove four points clear of Barcelona.
With two games left, Madridwill be crowned champions ifthey beat Villarreal at home onThursday regardless of howBarca fare at the Camp Nouagainst Osasuna.
But they were made tosweat by a Granada team that aregunning for Europe and have beenarguably the division’s surprise of theseason after being promoted from
second tier last year.Ferland Mendy and Karim
Benzema looked to have setMadrid on course for a comfort-able win at Los Carmenes butGranada were transformed after
the break and Machis’s 50th-minute strike gave them hope.
An increasingly nervousMadrid were clinging on by the endand needed Sergio Ramos to clearone shot off the line as ZinedineZidane’s side dug in for a ninth
consecutive victory.“Our vision when we start every
season is to win the league,” saidZidane. “There are two games left.We are close but we’re not there yet.”
When the final whistle blew,Zidane roared with relief and Ramosclenched his fists after coming
through their toughest testsince the restart.
“We can’t relax, we’re a bitcloser but we have to carry on,”said Ramos afterwards.
“We let our guard downhere a bit on the second half. Wewon the first half and lost the sec-ond and maybe that’s a warning forus. We have to make sure we don’trepeat that mistake.”
Madrid could win La Liga forthe third time in eight years at theAlfredo di Stefano Stadium onThursday night. “It would mean alot,” said Ramos.
“We’re in the race and hopeful-ly on Thursday we can celebrate.”
If Madrid slip up againstVillarreal, they will still have a sec-ond chance on Sunday when theyfinish at Leganes while Barcelonavisit Alaves.
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Jason Holder on Tuesdayattained the highest rating
points by any West Indies bowlerin 20 years, reaching a career-bestsecond place in the ICC TestPlayer Rankings after leading histeam to a famous win overEngland at Southampton.
Holder, who picked sevenwickets including a haul of six for42 in the first innings, is now ona career-best 862 rating points,the best for any West Indiesbowler since Courtney Walsh’stally of 866 in August 2000.
Indian cricketers, who havenot taken the field since Marchdue to the Covid-19 pandemic,have retained their positions inthe top-10 of batsmen and
bowlers rankings.Skipper Virat Kohli remains
second in the batsmen standingsbehind Steve Smith whileCheteshwar Pujara and AjinkyaRahane remain seventh and
ninth respectively. JaspritBumrah is the only Indianbowler in the top-10 at seventhspot.
Holder retained 35th posi-tion among batsmen after thefirst Test and has also reached acareer-best tally of 485 points atthe top of the all-rounders’ list.
The competition at the toppromises to gain momentum asnumber-two Ben Stokes has alsomade huge gains to attain acareer-best tally of 431 points,narrowing the lead from 66 to 54points.
Stokes, leading the side in theabsence of Joe Root, has equalledhis career-high ninth positionamong batsmen that he achievedlast November, after scores of 43
and 46 at the Ageas Bowl.He is now only one place
behind Root. Stokes has alsorisen three places in the bowlers’list to 23rd position with sixwickets in the match.
For the visiting side,Shannon Gabriel has gained 46points to reach a tally of 726 witha player-of-the-match effort ofnine wickets, but risen only oneplace to 18th owing to the widegap between him and RavindraJadeja (722) before the match.
Jermaine Blackwood’ssuperb second-innings knockof 95 has helped him advance 14slots to 58th position amongbatsmen while Shane Dowrich isat a career-best 37th positionafter scores of 61 and 20.
�1������� Former India crick-eter Mohammad Kaif has triedto decode as to why youngwicket-keeper-batsman RishabhPant has been a hit with DelhiCapitals in IPL but has failed toput up consistent performancesfor Team India on the interna-tional arena.
Kaif, who is Delhi Capitals’assistant coach, has seen Pantfrom close quarters and statedhis batting position hasn’t beenfixed by the Indian team man-agement and that is why he has-n’t been able to replicate his con-sistent IPL performance on thebiggest stage.
Before coronavirus pan-demic put a stop on cricket inMarch, Pant saw KL Rahultake over wicket-keepingduties in NewZealand inlimited-oversformats as thesouthpaw wasdropped fol-lowing a string ofunderwhelming scores.
He, however, kept the glovesin the two-match Test series,which India lost against KaneWilliamson’s troops.
“Rishabh Pant is a free-flowing player. He is an attack-ing player and he should playattacking shots from ball one,”Kaif told former India cricketerAakash Chopra on his YouTubeshow AakashVani.
“At first, Dada (SouravGanguly), (Ricky) Ponting andI decided to send him early butthen we figured out he has toplay 10 overs. He should get 60balls to play. This is somethingthat Indian team hasn’t done yet.
“An attacking player shouldget the role a finisher. I feel they
haven’t been able to figure outon Pant’s batting position inthe Indian team. In IPL, we
know we haveto make himplay the last 10
overs. He plays his naturalgame in the IPL and that iswhy he does well,” headded. IANS
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England head coach ChrisSilverwood has thrown his
weight behind struggling JosButtler, saying he looked goodwith the bat in the first Test andwill be given “the best chance tosucceed” in the remainder of theseries.
Buttler, a wicket-keeperbatsman, has not scored a fiftyin his last 12 Test innings andalso dropped JermaineBlackwood, who ended up scor-ing match-winning 95 for WestIndies in the first Test.
Former England seamerDarren Gough believes Buttler’splace in the team is under threatand he “has got two Test match-es to save his career.”
“I’m not going to go down
that road yet of putting Josunder pressure, because I don’tthink it’s going to help him. So,first and foremost, we want togive Jos the best opportunity tosucceed,” Silverwood said.
“(Jos) looked brilliant com-ing into this game, in practiceand everything. He looked verygood in the first innings. He justneeds to go and make those bigscores now, doesn’t he? Whichhe knows as well.”
The 45-year-old said it is allabout giving Buttler the confi-dence with the hope that he willcome good in the next match.
“From our point of view, it’sjust making sure that he feelsconfident in the environmenthe’s in. We’ll give him the bestchance to succeed really. The restof it is, he has a good day out,
�� ��� � Former New Zealandcaptain Glenn Turner has ratedcurrent skipper KaneWilliamson ahead of hisIndian counterpart Virat Kohliiwhen it comes to tough bat-ting conditions.
Kohli and Williamson areregarded as two of the finestbatsmen in modern-day crick-et. As per the latest ICC Testrankings, Kohli andWilliamson are placed at sec-ond and fourth spots respec-tively and have been leadingtheir respective teams withgreat aplomb for a while now.
Turner believes Kohli’s abil-ity to play spin is second to nonebut he rated Williamson ahead
of him to bat in challenging bat-ting conditions.
“Kohli is less likely to havebeen exposed early in his devel-opment to seaming pitches andthe ball continuing to swing forextended periods, whereasWilliamson will have experi-enced those conditions more
often,” Turner was quoted as say-ing by The Telegraph.
“Kohli’s greater exposureto pitches that take turn will havehim more accustomed to play-ing spin better. Conditions lessfavourable for swing and seam-ers will also have allowed himmore opportunities to becomegood at aggressively dominatingthat type of bowling.
“I would only say thatunder tougher batting condi-tions, I would back Williamsonahead of Kohli. Under good bat-ting conditions, Kohli is likelyto be more dominant, therebyproviding his team with moretime to get a favourable result,”he added. IANS
�������Former Barcelona mid-fielder Luis Garcia feels the club’ssuperstar forward Lionel Messi caneasily continue playing till 2025.
The 33-year-old is currentlycontracted until the end of nextseason with Barcelona holdingtalks with the ace Argentina for-ward about an extension.
There is speculation thatrecord six-time Ballon d’Or win-ner Messi is unhappy with theclub’s leadership.
“Why not? The way he isplaying, adapting his style tothe game is impressive. Everyyear he shows us somethingdifferent but keeps up thesame amount of goals, ofassists,” Garcia, whoplayed for Barcelonain the 2003-2004 sea-son, said during avideo conferencefacilitated by LaLiga.
“Even gettingmore every year! He’sadapting, he doesn’t
spend so much time up frontbecause he knows it’s harder, so hedrops a little more. He shows whyhe’s so intelligent. He adapts hisgame to what the team needs inevery game. I could see him play-ing in 2025, easily!” added the for-mer Atletico Madrid andLiverpool winger.
Real Madrid are closer towinning the LaLiga title after
their 2-1 win against Granadaon Monday which tookthem four points clear ofBarcelona with two gamesremaining in the season.
“There have been a cou-ple of games where they have
struggled. But they carrythe momentum wheneven not playing well theyare getting the results.(Federico) Valverde hasbeen one of their best
players so far. Key playershave been Ramos andBenzema,” Garcia said onReal Madrid. IANS
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Former Swedish WorldNo1 Stefan Edberg said
that Swiss great RogerFederer is set apart by thekind of all-round abilitythat he possesses. Edbergcoached Federer betweenJanuary 2014 andDecember 2015.
“Like I said to Roger, helooks so easy when he plays,he floats around the court.He’s got grace, he’s gotpower, he’s got touch, he’sgot everything you wishfor. He’s almost the perfecttennis player as I see it-bothon and off-court. So he’svery special like we allknow,” Edberg toldEurosport.
Edberg said thatAustrian Dominic Thiem isa player he feels is closestamong the younger gener-ation of men’s tennis play-ers who can match up to theincredible career stats ofFederer, Rafael Nadal andNovak Djokovic.
“He showed he couldhave won the AustralianOpen this year very easily,”the Swede said aboutThiem. “That was a bigchance for him. If Rafawasn’t there, he’s going towin the French Open oneday. He’s probably the clos-est one today, I would say.
“But at the same time,(Alexander) Zverev hasshown a lot of potential, sortof lost track a little bit, butit doesn’t take much to getback on the right trackagain.
“(Stefanos) Tsitsipas hasshown some… He’s defi-nitely knocking on the dooras well. I probably can adda few others. But Thiem, Iwould say at the moment.
)%��� .�� ������������������-������������������������������� ���������( �� �� � Pep Guardiola on Tuesday said
a weight had been lifted from ManchesterCity after their European ban was over-turned by the Court of Arbitration forSport (CAS), but rival managers JoseMourinho and Jurgen Klopp criticised theruling.
The court on Monday lifted a two-year ban imposed earlier this year on thePremier League club by European foot-ball’s governing body UEFA overFinancial Fair Play (FFP) breaches.
“I am incredibly happy for the deci-sion. It shows all the people said about theclub wasn’t true,” said Guardiola.
“People cannot understand how dif-ficult it was for everyone as a club beingunder suspicion. Now we have proven itat the court, we go again on the pitch.”
Tottenham manager Mourinho saidthe court’s decision was a “disaster” andshowed FFP, which limits club’s spendingin line with their revenue, is now dead,while Liverpool boss Klopp said City’sreprieve was a bad day for football.
An initial fine of 30 million euros ($34million) imposed by UEFA was reducedto 10 million euros by CAS. However, thefine related only to City’s failure to coop-erate with UEFA’s investigationrather than FFP breaches.
Mourinho said if they wereguilty, City should be banned —but if they were innocent, theyshould not have to pay a penny.
“It’s a disgraceful deci-sion, because if Man City isnot guilty then to be pun-ished with some millionsis a disgrace. If you arenot guilty, you are notpunished. By the otherway if you are guiltyyou should be banned so itis also a disgraceful deci-sion. In any case the deci-sion is a disaster,” saidMourinho. AFP
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