T he Supreme Court on Friday said the state of affairs in Delhi hospitals was “horrific” with regard to dis- posal of the bodies of Covid-19 and sought responses from the Centre and different States on its plea taking suo motu cog- nisance on the treatment given to patients and the handling of the bodies. The court said hospitals are not showing due care to the bodies and not even informing family members about deaths, as a result, they are unable to attend the last rites. “Hospitals aren’t giving due care and concern to the dead bodies. Patients’ families aren’t even informed about deaths. Families haven’t been able to attend the last rites too in some cases. How are dead bodies being treated?” the court asked during the hearing. “It is a horrendous situation. Worse than animals, people are being treated,” the court said. A bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, SK Kaul and MR Shah also issued notices to the Centre, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Tamil Nadu. “The situation in Delhi is horren- dous, horrific and pathetic,” the bench said during the hearing. The judges went on to add that Government hospitals in Delhi are not properly dealing with bodies of deceased Covid- 19 victims, adding that patients’ families have not been informed about deaths on some occasions. It also asked the Government why some patients were not getting admission in hospitals despite the Government app showing the availability of beds. “Reports also show that patients are not able to get admitted to the hospital where- as data shows a large number of beds remain vacant. The State is not only duty-bound to provide beds but also ade- quate infrastructure, manpow- er, and staff to attend to the patients,” the SC bench said. The top court further slammed the Delhi Government citing media reports which have shown the “pathetic” condition of patients. “Very sorry state of affairs in Delhi and its hospitals. There is no adherence to the MHA guidelines,” SC said. Not just Delhi but the SC also pulled up Maharashtra, Bengal and Tamil Nadu over the condition of Government hospitals in their States. Faridabad: The pathological test laboratory of a Faridabad- based ESI Hospital dedicated to the treatment of Covid-19 patients has been closed after around 70 per cent of its tech- nicians were found nfected. Faridabad is one of the worst-affected districts, having reported 21 Covid deaths and 1,050 patients till date. The lab had to be closed down three days ago, hospital’s Deputy Civil Surgeon, Dr Ram Bhagat said on Friday. The medical tests in the dedicated Covid-19 treatment centre would resume only after the induction of new staffers, he added. He said all work related to the collection of test samples of suspected patients were sus- pended and the test lab was closed after over 70 per cent of its technicians were found infected with coronavirus. T he country’s total number of positive Covid-19 cases crossed 3 lakh-mark on Friday night while the infections breached one lakh-mark in Maharashtra and Delhi record- ed 2,000-plus cases for the first time in a day. The Maharashtra total tally touched 1,01,141 in the State where 127 more people suc- cumbed to pandemic during the last 24 hours taking the total number of deaths to 3,717. With no let up in the coror- navirus crisis in the State, 3,493 people tested positive for the pandemic in various parts of the State on Friday. Despite the Tamil Nadu Government’s stance that there was no need for any total lock- down of Chennai and the three neighbouring districts to checkmate the spread of coro- navirus disease, the State recorded an all time high of 1,982 persons testing positive for the pandemic on Friday, the highest numbers to be tested positive on a single day. With Friday’s testing, the number of persons tested pos- itive in the State for the pan- demic till date has reached 40,698. Taking into account the number of persons cured of the disease and discharged (22,047) from hospitals across Tamil Nadu, there are 18,281 covid patients across the State as on Friday evening, said a release by the Government of Tamil Nadu. The death toll in Tamil Nadu reached 367 with 18 more persons succumbing to the pandemic on Friday. While 17 of the dead had co-mor- bidities (suffering from other serious ailments) a 38 year old male died without any comor- bidities. Of the 127 deaths report- ed on Friday, Mumbai — which had recorded 97 deaths each during the last two days — accounted for 90 deaths, while there were 12 deaths in Pune, 11 deaths in Thane, three deaths each in Kalyan- Dombivli and Sangli, two deaths each in Nashik and Aurangabad, one death each in Bhayandar, Vasai-Virar, Dhule and Amravati. Delhi recorded the highest single-day spike after 2,137 cases were reported on Friday. E ven as India sees a steep rise in coronavirus cases with the consequent jump in the number of deaths, Maharashtra and Delhi, two of the worst-hit States with a rising graph of the pandemic, have rejected the possibilities of extending the lockdown. It was expected that the States like Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Delhi and Gujarat which are the top four States with a share nearly 2,00,000 coron- avirus cases of a total of 3,00,000 in the country might continue with the lockdown at a time when the pandemic is peaking across these States. While Tamil Nadu and Gujarat Governments are yet to speak up their mind on the issue, Delhi and Maharashtra Governments made it clear that lockdown would not be extended beyond June 30 and activities would be unlocked with “new normal” of social distancing and other standard operating procedures. Reviving and sustaining economy seemed to have over- ridden the logic of “life first” in not continuing the lockdown when there is no sign of coro- navirus curve in any way straightening itself in these two States. Delhi Health Minister Satyendar Jain said lockdown would not be extended when asked if there have been dis- cussions to continue it in the national Capital. Jain’s remarks came a day after the city witnessed the highest single-day spike in Covid-19 cases as it recorded 1,877 fresh infections on Thursday and total 1,085 casu- alties. Maharashtra Chief Minister’s Office too made it plain that the lockdown in the State will not be extended and also appealed people to avoid crowding in order to halt the spread of coronavirus. At present, the lockdown is imposed in the State till June 30. “Lockdown will not be re- announced. Chief Minister Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray has requested and appealed to the people not to crowd any- where. Follow the instructions given by the government and take care of yourself,” the Maharashtra CMO tweeted. F earing a large influx of pri- vate vehicles post lockdown and in an attempt to make coronavirus an opportunity, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) has issued an advisory to States, cities and metro rail corpora- tions on public transport sug- gesting to encourage non- motorised transport (NMT), touchless and cashless tech- nologies, rearrange the seating capacity to curb transmission of the virus. In a three-pronged strate- gy for re-opening metros in the short, medium and long-term, the MoHUA emphasised the opportunity for encouraging bicycling and pedestrians. According to the advisory, due to social distancing norms, about 25-50 per cent of the Metro rail and bus rapid tran- sit (BRT) capacity of 10 million passengers daily would be used once it restarts. The advisory stated that roughly 16 to 57 per cent of urban commuters are pedestrians and 30 to 40 per cent use bicycles in the country. New Delhi: “In war, you do not make soldiers unhappy. Travel extra mile and channel some extra money to address their grievances,” the Supreme Court said on Friday taking serious note of non-payment of salary and lack of proper accommo- dation to doctors engaged in fight against Covid-19. The courts should not be involved in the issue of non- payment of salary to health care workers and Government should settle the issue, it said. The top court was hearing a plea by a doctor, who alleged that front line healthcare work- ers engaged in fight against Covid-19 are not being paid salaries or their salaries are being cut or delayed. PTI New Delhi: Delhi Lt Governor Anil Baijal on Friday consti- tuted a high-level expert committee, which includes Indian Council of Medical Research Director-General Balram Bhargava, to suggest effective steps to deal with the Covid-19 outbreak in the national Capital, officials said. Apart from Bhargava, the six-member panel also includes National Disaster Management Authority members Krishna Vatsa and Kamal Kishore; AIIMS Director Randeep Guleria, DGHS Additional DDG Dr Ravindran and National Centre for Disease Control Director Surjit Kumar Singh. New Delhi: Veteran Urdu poet Anand Mohan Zutshi ‘Gulzar’ Dehlvi passed away on Friday afternoon, five days after he recovered from Covid-19. He died at his Noida home, and was a month shy of turning 94. “His corona test came nega- tive on June 7 and we brought him home. Today he had lunch and around 2.30pm he passed away,” his son Anoop Zutshi said. PTI New Delhi: The Government on Friday allowed certain categories of foreigners, including Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card- holders, to enter India amid restrictions on entry of people from abroad due to the Covid-19 pandemic, officials said. Among those allowed entry into India are married couples where one spouse is an OCI cardholder and the other is Indian national, and stu- dents who are OCI cardholders and whose at least one parent is Indian or OCI cardholder. PTI A s many as 49 more people tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Jharkhand on Friday, taking the total number of conformed cases to 1,656. The active cases now stand at 963, while 685 people recov- ered and were discharged from various hospitals in the State, according to a Government bulletin. Eight people have died from infection since the disease break out in State on March 31. The cases were reported from Gumla (18), East and West Singhbum four each, Palamu seven, Ramgarh four and oth- ers. According to health bul- letin, three cases were report- ed from Rajendra Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) one of the four testing centre in State. On Thursday, State Covid 19 tally reached 1607 after detection of 44 cases. Thursday cases were reported from Hindpiri area too after the gap of eight days. Out of total cases, migrant workers account for nearly eighty per cent of total cases. Out of 1656 cases till Friday, the number of migrant tested pos- itive is 1,354. The maximum growth in cases has occurred in month of June. Nearly, 50 per cent Covid-19 cases reported in Jharkhand till date surfaced in the first ten days of June, fig- ures released by the National Health Mission (NHM). As per official data of the state government, out of the 1656 cases of Covid-19 infec- tion reported in Jharkhand till Friday, 626 surfaced from June 1 to June 9 – the period when the government decided to offer major relaxations from lockdown curbs in what the Centre called Unlock 1.0. As there has been growth in corona cases in past ten days, Congress party a partner in the ruling alliance in Jharkhand had asked chief minister Hemant Soren to impose a complete lockdown in the state to stem the spike in Covid cases.Congress party state spokesperson Alok Dubey too has stated that the reason behind my demand for impos- ing strict lockdown is State recording 50% in the last 11 days since Unlock 1.0 came in force on June 1. However, sources said that Jharkhand government is in no mood to increase lockdown further. The government is also planning to open garments and footwear shops in State from Tuesday. The government has started the initiative to bring the extreme economy back on track due to the lockdown. Under this, the state gov- ernment has decided to open shops. But during this time, the guideline on the corona epi- demic will have to be followed. Use of mask and sanitizer will be necessary. At the same time, social distancing will also have to be followed. V arious quarantine centres, hospitals and private diag- nostic clinics involved in test- ing and treating Covid-19 patients in Jharkhand have pro- duced nearly a tonne of bio- medical waste in the process from April 1 to May 31, data compiled by the Jharkhand State Control Board (JSPCB) highlights. In the wake of the Covid- 19 pandemic and reports about glitches in the waste manage- ment process, the pollution watchdog of India, Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) started using a dedi- cated Covid Biomedical Waste Tracking App recently. The JSPCB here has been updating the figures of Covid- 19 biomedical waste on the aforementioned App on a daily basis, officials from the board said. According to the latest fig- ures shared by the JSPCB, at least 920 Kilograms of Covid-19 biomedical waste was produced in Jharkhand since April 1. The total figure of 920kg here includes yellow category, red category, blue category and black category biomedical waste, officials from JSPCB said. According to recent guide- lines issued by the state board on Covid-19 waste manage- ment, yellow category of bio- medical waste includes anatom- ical waste, chemical waste, solid waste, chemotherapy waste, dis- carded linen and medicines and laboratory waste. Contaminated plastic waste is put in the red category, while glass waste and metallic waste are put in blue category. The black category is for sharp met- als. Member Secretary of JSPCB, Rajiv Lochan Bakshi said that the guidelines issued by the board were followed in most of the hospitals across Jharkhand. “The guidelines for Covid-19 waste management are followed more or less in all the hospitals and diagnostic centres here,” he said. “We keep updating the fig- ures on the CBPC's tracking App,” he added. The Government has so far collected samples of 99,129 Covid-19 suspects from across the State, and more than 1500 of them have tested positive. At least 97,572 of the 1,00,000-odd samples collected have been tested so far, the NHM bulletin released on Wednesday said.
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The Supreme Court onFriday said the state of
affairs in Delhi hospitals was“horrific” with regard to dis-posal of the bodies of Covid-19and sought responses from theCentre and different States onits plea taking suo motu cog-nisance on the treatment givento patients and the handling ofthe bodies.
The court said hospitals arenot showing due care to thebodies and not even informingfamily members about deaths,as a result, they are unable toattend the last rites.
“Hospitals aren’t giving duecare and concern to the deadbodies. Patients’ families aren’teven informed about deaths.Families haven’t been able toattend the last rites too insome cases. How are deadbodies being treated?” the court
asked during the hearing. “It isa horrendous situation. Worsethan animals, people are beingtreated,” the court said.
A bench of Justices AshokBhushan, SK Kaul and MRShah also issued notices to theCentre, Maharashtra, West
Bengal and Tamil Nadu. “Thesituation in Delhi is horren-dous, horrific and pathetic,” thebench said during thehearing.
The judges went on to addthat Government hospitals inDelhi are not properly dealingwith bodies of deceased Covid-19 victims, adding that patients’families have not beeninformed about deaths onsome occasions.
It also asked theGovernment why somepatients were not gettingadmission in hospitals despitethe Government app showingthe availability of beds.
“Reports also show thatpatients are not able to getadmitted to the hospital where-as data shows a large numberof beds remain vacant. TheState is not only duty-bound toprovide beds but also ade-quate infrastructure, manpow-
er, and staff to attend to thepatients,” the SC bench said.
The top court furtherslammed the DelhiGovernment citing mediareports which have shown the“pathetic” condition of patients.
“Very sorry state of affairsin Delhi and its hospitals.There is no adherence to theMHA guidelines,” SC said.
Not just Delhi but the SCalso pulled up Maharashtra,Bengal and Tamil Nadu overthe condition of Governmenthospitals in their States.
Faridabad: The pathologicaltest laboratory of a Faridabad-based ESI Hospital dedicated tothe treatment of Covid-19patients has been closed afteraround 70 per cent of its tech-nicians were found nfected.
Faridabad is one of theworst-affected districts, havingreported 21 Covid deaths and1,050 patients till date.
The lab had to be closeddown three days ago, hospital’s
Deputy Civil Surgeon, Dr RamBhagat said on Friday.
The medical tests in thededicated Covid-19 treatmentcentre would resume only afterthe induction of new staffers,he added.
He said all work related tothe collection of test samples ofsuspected patients were sus-pended and the test lab wasclosed after over 70 per cent ofits technicians were foundinfected with coronavirus.
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The country’s total numberof positive Covid-19 cases
crossed 3 lakh-mark on Fridaynight while the infectionsbreached one lakh-mark inMaharashtra and Delhi record-ed 2,000-plus cases for thefirst time in a day.
The Maharashtra total tallytouched 1,01,141 in the Statewhere 127 more people suc-cumbed to pandemic duringthe last 24 hours taking thetotal number of deaths to 3,717.With no let up in the coror-navirus crisis in the State, 3,493people tested positive for thepandemic in various parts ofthe State on Friday.
Despite the Tamil NaduGovernment’s stance that therewas no need for any total lock-down of Chennai and the threeneighbouring districts tocheckmate the spread of coro-navirus disease, the Staterecorded an all time high of1,982 persons testing positivefor the pandemic on Friday, thehighest numbers to be testedpositive on a single day.
With Friday’s testing, thenumber of persons tested pos-itive in the State for the pan-demic till date has reached40,698. Taking into account thenumber of persons cured of thedisease and discharged (22,047)from hospitals across TamilNadu, there are 18,281 covidpatients across the State as onFriday evening, said a release bythe Government of TamilNadu.
The death toll in TamilNadu reached 367 with 18
more persons succumbing tothe pandemic on Friday. While17 of the dead had co-mor-bidities (suffering from otherserious ailments) a 38 year oldmale died without any comor-bidities.
Of the 127 deaths report-ed on Friday, Mumbai — whichhad recorded 97 deaths eachduring the last two days —accounted for 90 deaths, whilethere were 12 deaths in Pune,11 deaths in Thane, threedeaths each in Kalyan-Dombivli and Sangli, twodeaths each in Nashik andAurangabad, one death each inBhayandar, Vasai-Virar, Dhuleand Amravati.
Delhi recorded the highestsingle-day spike after 2,137cases were reported on Friday.
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Even as India sees a steep risein coronavirus cases with
the consequent jump in thenumber of deaths, Maharashtraand Delhi, two of the worst-hitStates with a rising graph of thepandemic, have rejected thepossibilities of extending thelockdown.
It was expected that theStates like Maharashtra, TamilNadu, Delhi and Gujarat whichare the top four States with ashare nearly 2,00,000 coron-avirus cases of a total of3,00,000 in the country mightcontinue with the lockdown ata time when the pandemic ispeaking across these States.
While Tamil Nadu andGujarat Governments are yet tospeak up their mind on theissue, Delhi and MaharashtraGovernments made it clearthat lockdown would not beextended beyond June 30 andactivities would be unlocked
with “new normal” of socialdistancing and other standardoperating procedures.
Reviving and sustainingeconomy seemed to have over-ridden the logic of “life first” innot continuing the lockdownwhen there is no sign of coro-navirus curve in any waystraightening itself in thesetwo States.
Delhi Health MinisterSatyendar Jain said lockdownwould not be extended whenasked if there have been dis-cussions to continue it in thenational Capital.
Jain’s remarks came a dayafter the city witnessed thehighest single-day spike inCovid-19 cases as it recorded
1,877 fresh infections onThursday and total 1,085 casu-alties.
Maharashtra ChiefMinister’s Office too made itplain that the lockdown in theState will not be extended andalso appealed people to avoidcrowding in order to halt thespread of coronavirus.
At present, the lockdown isimposed in the State till June30. “Lockdown will not be re-announced. Chief MinisterUddhav Balasaheb Thackerayhas requested and appealed tothe people not to crowd any-where. Follow the instructionsgiven by the government andtake care of yourself,” theMaharashtra CMO tweeted.
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Fearing a large influx of pri-vate vehicles post lockdown
and in an attempt to makecoronavirus an opportunity,the Ministry of Housing andUrban Affairs (MoHUA) hasissued an advisory to States,cities and metro rail corpora-tions on public transport sug-gesting to encourage non-motorised transport (NMT),touchless and cashless tech-
nologies, rearrange the seatingcapacity to curb transmissionof the virus.
In a three-pronged strate-gy for re-opening metros in theshort, medium and long-term,the MoHUA emphasised theopportunity for encouraging
bicycling and pedestrians.According to the advisory,
due to social distancing norms,about 25-50 per cent of theMetro rail and bus rapid tran-sit (BRT) capacity of 10 millionpassengers daily would be usedonce it restarts. The advisory
stated that roughly 16 to 57 percent of urban commuters arepedestrians and 30 to 40 percent use bicycles in the country.
New Delhi: “In war, you do notmake soldiers unhappy. Travelextra mile and channel someextra money to address theirgrievances,” the Supreme Courtsaid on Friday taking seriousnote of non-payment of salaryand lack of proper accommo-dation to doctors engaged infight against Covid-19.
The courts should not beinvolved in the issue of non-payment of salary to health careworkers and Governmentshould settle the issue, it said.
The top court was hearinga plea by a doctor, who allegedthat front line healthcare work-ers engaged in fight againstCovid-19 are not being paidsalaries or their salaries arebeing cut or delayed. PTI
New Delhi: Delhi Lt Governor Anil Baijal on Friday consti-tuted a high-level expert committee, which includes IndianCouncil of Medical Research Director-General BalramBhargava, to suggest effective steps to deal with the Covid-19outbreak in the national Capital, officials said. Apart fromBhargava, the six-member panel also includes NationalDisaster Management Authority members Krishna Vatsa andKamal Kishore; AIIMS Director Randeep Guleria, DGHSAdditional DDG Dr Ravindran and National Centre for DiseaseControl Director Surjit Kumar Singh.
New Delhi: Veteran Urdupoet Anand Mohan Zutshi‘Gulzar’ Dehlvi passed awayon Friday afternoon, five daysafter he recovered fromCovid-19. He died at hisNoida home, and was amonth shy of turning 94.“His corona test came nega-tive on June 7 and we broughthim home. Today he hadlunch and around 2.30pm hepassed away,” his son AnoopZutshi said. PTI
New Delhi: The Government on Friday allowed certain categoriesof foreigners, including Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card-holders, to enter India amid restrictions on entry of people fromabroad due to the Covid-19 pandemic, officials said. Among thoseallowed entry into India are married couples where one spouseis an OCI cardholder and the other is Indian national, and stu-dents who are OCI cardholders and whose at least one parentis Indian or OCI cardholder. PTI
As many as 49 more peopletested positive for the novel
coronavirus in Jharkhand onFriday, taking the total numberof conformed cases to 1,656.The active cases now stand at963, while 685 people recov-ered and were discharged fromvarious hospitals in the State,according to a Governmentbulletin.
Eight people have diedfrom infection since the diseasebreak out in State on March 31.The cases were reported fromGumla (18), East and WestSinghbum four each, Palamuseven, Ramgarh four and oth-ers. According to health bul-letin, three cases were report-ed from Rajendra Institute ofMedical Sciences (RIMS) one
of the four testing centre inState.
On Thursday, State Covid19 tally reached 1607 afterdetection of 44 cases. Thursdaycases were reported fromHindpiri area too after the gapof eight days.
Out of total cases, migrant
workers account for nearlyeighty per cent of total cases.Out of 1656 cases till Friday, thenumber of migrant tested pos-itive is 1,354. The maximumgrowth in cases has occurred inmonth of June. Nearly, 50 percent Covid-19 cases reported inJharkhand till date surfaced in
the first ten days of June, fig-ures released by the NationalHealth Mission (NHM).
As per official data of thestate government, out of the1656 cases of Covid-19 infec-tion reported in Jharkhand tillFriday, 626 surfaced from June1 to June 9 – the period whenthe government decided tooffer major relaxations fromlockdown curbs in what theCentre called Unlock 1.0.
As there has been growth incorona cases in past ten days,Congress party a partner in theruling alliance in Jharkhandhad asked chief ministerHemant Soren to impose acomplete lockdown in the stateto stem the spike in Covidcases.Congress party statespokesperson Alok Dubey toohas stated that the reason
behind my demand for impos-ing strict lockdown is Staterecording 50% in the last 11days since Unlock 1.0 came inforce on June 1.
However, sources said thatJharkhand government is in nomood to increase lockdownfurther. The government is alsoplanning to open garments andfootwear shops in State fromTuesday. The government hasstarted the initiative to bring theextreme economy back on trackdue to the lockdown.
Under this, the state gov-ernment has decided to openshops. But during this time, theguideline on the corona epi-demic will have to be followed.Use of mask and sanitizer willbe necessary. At the same time,social distancing will also haveto be followed.
Various quarantine centres,hospitals and private diag-
nostic clinics involved in test-ing and treating Covid-19patients in Jharkhand have pro-duced nearly a tonne of bio-medical waste in the processfrom April 1 to May 31, datacompiled by the JharkhandState Control Board (JSPCB)highlights.
In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic and reports aboutglitches in the waste manage-ment process, the pollutionwatchdog of India, Central
Pollution Control Board(CPCB) started using a dedi-cated Covid Biomedical WasteTracking App recently.
The JSPCB here has beenupdating the figures of Covid-19 biomedical waste on theaforementioned App on a dailybasis, officials from the boardsaid. According to the latest fig-ures shared by the JSPCB, atleast 920 Kilograms of Covid-19biomedical waste was producedin Jharkhand since April 1. Thetotal figure of 920kg hereincludes yellow category, redcategory, blue category andblack category biomedicalwaste, officials from JSPCBsaid.
According to recent guide-lines issued by the state board
on Covid-19 waste manage-ment, yellow category of bio-medical waste includes anatom-ical waste, chemical waste, solidwaste, chemotherapy waste, dis-carded linen and medicinesand laboratory waste.Contaminated plastic waste isput in the red category, whileglass waste and metallic wasteare put in blue category. The
black category is for sharp met-als. Member Secretary of JSPCB,Rajiv Lochan Bakshi said thatthe guidelines issued by theboard were followed in most ofthe hospitals across Jharkhand.“The guidelines for Covid-19waste management are followedmore or less in all the hospitalsand diagnostic centres here,” hesaid. “We keep updating the fig-ures on the CBPC's trackingApp,” he added.
The Government has so farcollected samples of 99,129Covid-19 suspects from acrossthe State, and more than 1500of them have tested positive. Atleast 97,572 of the 1,00,000-oddsamples collected have beentested so far, the NHM bulletinreleased on Wednesday said.
Amajor incident of an IED blastwas averted by the timely
input and action by WestSinghbhum Police and CentralReserve Police Force (CRPF). Thesecurity forces involved in flushingout Maoists from West Singhbhumon Friday recovered about 40improvised explosive device (IED)from the road connecting Kuida toHathiburu under Goilkera policestation area of West Singhbhumdistrict. The jawans of CRPF's 60battalion and district police recov-ered the improvised explosivedevice (IED) during patrolling.
"The Maoists wanted to triggera major blast. However, acting ona tip off we managed to recover thebombs. During the patrolling thesecurity personnel recovered thebombs. We immediately pressed an
anti-bomb disposal squad on ser-vice and the bombs were defused,"said an official.
Sources informed that a sud-den rise in the Maoists activitieshave let the forces intensify thepatrolling. Following the incidentthe police have launched combingoperations in the naxal-infestedareas of West Sighbhum.
In the last few days an antiinsurgency operation in Kolhanhas been intensified following
intelligence reports that sug-gest rebels are camping in thepockets. The administrationhas increased police patrollingon the bordering areas con-necting to West Bengal and hasalso deployed adequate num-bers of paramilitary personnelon areas potential to rebelattack.
“Security has been beefedup in the area and they were keep-ing strict vigil on movement of theNaxalites. The plan is to keep a tabon the camps being operated byultras,” said another official.
According to information thesecurity forces besides taking upother issues, recently resolved toincrease 'joint operation' with theneighbouring states in all the naxalinfested blocks of the three districtsthat are attached to borderingstates of West Bengal and Odisha.
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DALTONGANJ: A joint teamof Palamu police and assaultteam of Jharkhand Jaguarrecovered ammunition, cellphones, chargers etc from thefleeing extremists of the TSPC( Tirtiya Sammelan PrastutiCommittee) but the securityteam found no mask or sani-tizer of the extremists even inthis high tide of Coronavirus.
Confirming no seizure ofany mask and sanitizer fromthe abandoned items of theTSPC extremists SDPOLesliganj Anup Baraik saidthese extremists have only onegoal to extract money and noany concern for their ownhealth or for those who comein contact with them.
SP Ajay Linda said, “Anencounter took place between
our forces and TSPC contin-gent today in the jungle ofMadhya under Manatu policestation around 6.30 in themorning when our securityforces were out in search oper-ation against them.”
Linda said, “Our searchoperation had begun last nightitself and this Friday morningthe first fire came from theTSPC which was retaliatedproperly forcing TSPC extrem-ists to flee abandoning theirammunition like 120 rounds ofSLR fire, 01magzine, 01 ammu-nition pouch, 6 cell phones, 3mobile chargers, 1 blue tooth,5 polythene sheet, 2 shawls, 1blanket, 1 pair of shoes, eata-bles etc.”
Linda said the TSPC con-tingent was led by Udesh andGajender and both are theGanjhus. PNS
R a n c h i : T h epacket of dryration was dis-tributed amongthe sanitationworkers ofMunicipal Corporation Chasby DDC Ravi Ranjan Mishra atBokaro Airport complex on thedirection of DC MukeshKumar. The relief packet con-tains rice, lentils, salt, torch, oiland other ingredients. DDCMr. Mishra said that in thishour of crisis it becomes theresponsibility of the districtadministration to provide allpossible help to the poor peo-ple so that such people do notface basic problem of eatingand drinking. The entire coor-dination of distribution wascarried by having strict com-
pliances of socialdistancing.
Also Costumewas distributed tothe cleaning staff ofChas Municipal
Corporation by Mayor BholuPaswan and AdditionalMunicipal CommissionerShashi Prakash Jha. The Mayorsaid that all cleaning friendshave to wear apparel everyday for cleaning to maintainproper hygiene for all.
During the distribution ofration Additional CollectorVijay Kumar Gupta, DPLRPashupatinath Mishra,Secretary Biada SandeepKumar, Additional MunicipalCommissioner Satya PrakashJha and other officials of thedistrict were present. PNS
DALTONGANJ: DDC Palamu Bindu Madhav PrasadSingh on June 11 inspected work sites of Birsa HaritGram Yojnas (BHGYs) and Trench Cum Bunds (TcBs)at Uldanda panchayat under Ramgarh block.
The DDC said, “People and migrant workers aretaking keen interest in earth works and BHGYs andTcBS are looking up. About 46,000 labourers areengaged in various MGNREGA schemes in Palamu.”
About BHGY Singh said, “The choice is for mangoplantation. On one acre of land there can be 112 pitsfor mango plantation. There will be Bagwani Mitra totake care of the saplings so planted for 5 years.”
The DDC said it is in everybody’s knowledge thata mango tree starts giving fruit in its third year andthen the growers will have a happy time - eat it or sellit as no government official can poke nose into this.
Reminded that it is Corona time and a growerneeds return in cash sooner than any later to whichthe DDC said “Digging pits bring in 194 rupees asMGNREG wages a day.”
State convener of NREGA Watch James Herunjsaid, “Let me make it very clear that a MGNREGA reg-istered labourer is to dig 54 Cft of earth work to earn194 rupees as his wages a day.”
James Herunj said “It takes a day for an able bod-ied MGNREGA labourer to dig two pits to earn 194.The two pits account for 54 Cft of earth work.” PNS
Bokaro :Three Vedanta-Electrosteel’s(ESL) employees were felicitated with‘Chairman’s Award’ for their out-standing contributions in the fightagainst COVID-19 epidemics.
ESL’s Chief Security Officer SumitBurman, CSR Department employeesRakesh Kumar Mishra and RiffatShamim Khan have been chosen as‘COVID Heroes’ by company’sChairman Anil Agarwal and felici-tated with ‘Chairman’s Award’,informed ESL Public Relation official.
Their efforts were appreciated bythe Chairman, said the official.
Besides three employees, thepartner organisations JRL MiningPrivate Limited and CommandoSecurity Force and co-NGOs DristiFoundation and Nav Bharat JagritiKendra who have made their full con-tribution in fighting this battle werealso honoured with the ‘COVIDHeroes’ award. Speaking on the occa-sion Agarwal said, the objective of the
Vedanta group is the betterment anddevelopment of the community. Inthis difficult time of COVID, we aregiving every possible help to ourcountrymen with untiring efforts.
I am proud of our employees andall our business partners and NGOswho have protected their communi-ty as a family, he said. “Together withour communities and government,these efforts will be continued in thedirection of protecting COVID-19. Ihope that these steps will inspire oth-ers to work in public interest also,”added Agarwal.
Pankaj Malhan CEO of ESL said,we appreciate the efforts made by theVedanta group and hope that all theemployees will work together to pro-tect the community.
“Our employees have played animportant role in identifying stake-holders from regional and local com-munities to meet their needs,” headded. PNS
Jamshedpur : As part of its efforts to strengthenhealthcare infrastructure, Tata Steel has come up withquarantine cabins and isolation cabins, to enable keyinfrastructure that can be used to treat Covid-19patients. These cabins are being set up at Ranchi,Ramgarh and Chaibasa. The steel city will also soonget such cabins.
Tata Steel has worked on engineering the designand supply chain, and is offering this solution throughits brand ‘Nest-In’. This construction solution unit hasalso leveraged expertise of Tata Steel’s new materi-als business and the tubes strategic business unit.
Tata Steel is already serving a major order throughNest-In, and is currently in the process of supplyingIsolation & Quarantine cabins for a 550-bed isola-tion facility. The entire facility, which spans 80,000square feet, is being set-up in just 60 days. Anotherorder for quarantine cabins is being serviced in thenorth-eastern part of India.
P. Anand, chief, services & solutions, Tata Steelsaid:“As the nation faces one of the most challeng-ing times in history, it is our endeavour to providethe best physical infrastructure to augment the larg-er efforts undertaken across the country to treat andcontain Covid-19. PNS
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An FIR will be lodged for themysterious disappearance
of a married couple alongwiththeir three minor children onJune 06. They were kept in thewomen's shelter home locatedin Garhwa town.
District Social WelfareOfficer Kamal Kishore Singhsaid, "On the instructions of theCWC, Garhwa, a husband andwife alongwith three minorchildren were kept in thewomen's shelter home andnow they are reported missingsince the night of June 6 with-out any notice. I have beeninformed about this onThursday by the shelter homemanagement. Today, action isbeing taken to register an FIRin the Garhwa police station.”
The information of thisentire case is also being givento the CWC. Although they
were reported missing on thenight of 6 June, but onThursday, the manager of theshelter home, Gudiya, gave anapplication to the DistrictSocial Welfare Officer andinformed them about the dis-appearance of the family.
One Asma Khatoon aliasNisha Rani a native of Amwarvillage of Duddhi Nagar policestation area of Sonbhadra dis-trict of Uttar Pradesh was soldto a person in Gonda districtarea by her Aunt (Mausi) whenshe was minor because hermother is mentally ill and livedin her parent's house in Narhivillage under Banshidhar Nagar
police station area of the dis-trict.
Several years later, she wasrescued from the Gonda dis-trict and married with AftabAnsari hailed from Merath(Uttar Pradesh). Asma hadtwo children from AftabAnsari, Soni Kumari and SonuKumar respectively. Once againher luck betrayed him whenAftab died. In laws pushed herout from the house alongwithher two children. Ashma waswandering around with herchildren.
Meanwhile, one Dalit fam-ily youth Vipin Kumar, residentof Paviti Khas village ofKankerkeda police station areaof Meerut, married Asma byHindu customs in the templeand also registered a courtmarriage. Asma changed hername to Nisha Rani. She gavebirth to a child Monu fromVipin.
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In the series of special aware-ness programmes being run
on electrical safety for contractworkers working in variousdepartments of Bokaro Steelplant SMS-1.An awarenessProgram was organized tomake them aware of safetyaspects while operating elec-trical equipment in BallastFurnace Department was con-ducted by following norms of
social distancing.During this program Chief
General Manager (Electrical)Ved Prakash, Chief GeneralManager (SMS-1) MR Gupta,General Manager (SMS-1)Amit Rai, A. Mundu, OPAggarwal , General Manager(Blast Furnace) M. Prasad, S.Roy along with officers ofSecurity EngineeringDepartment and contractworkers working in SMS-1 andBlast Furnace were present.
demanded from the StateGovernment that shoe, gar-ments shops and salons shouldbe opened in the State fromnext week with proper precau-tion.
Addressing a press meetJMM General Secretary,Supriyo Bhattacharya said thata large number of shoes, gar-ment shops and saloon ownersare sitting idle without anywork and they are facing prob-lems to feed them and theirfamily members. "With the
WHO's and ICMR's protocolthe State Government shouldissue proper guidelines to opentheir shops to these shop own-ers so that infection could notspread," he added.
The Party also demandedthat a person should bepenalised for not wearingfacemask because the face-masks are the most effectivetool to combat Coronavirus,said the party GeneralSecretary.
"Earlier there were variousexample that people ofJharkhand were carried in thename of employment and theygot only Rs 2,000 for the job of
Guards, Rs 3,000 for tailoring,but now in the leadership ofChief Minister, Hemant Soren
the people of the State willnever see such kind ofinstances. Now, the if the peo-
ple of the State will have to goto other State for earning thenthe State Government willallow them to go outside withproper labour laws guidelines.As Hemant Soren'sGovernment is firstGovernment in the history ofthe State, which sent its labour-ers to work outside with sign-ing MoU with the employerthat the employer would paythem proper salary on time,"said Bhattacharya.
Mocking on the CentralGovernment the party GeneralSecretary said that there wasnews that the CentralGovernment distributed Rs
1000 crore among labourersbut no one saw that who got themoney and Rs 2000 crore dis-tributed for ventilators but theState has not received a singleventilators from the CentralGovernment.
Seeking immediate elec-tion for State Assembly con-stituency Dumka which wasvacated by Chief Minister,Soren because he also wonfrom Barhet constituency,Bhattacharya said that the partyis demanding immediate elec-tion for the seat as keeping theseat without representative isalso not proper justice for thepeople of the seat.
Popularly known as waterman ofJharkhand; Padma Shri recipient
Simon Oraon (84) will soon have apucca house as United Bank Officers’Association (UBOA) has decided toconstruct a house for him worth Rs10 lakh at his native village KhaksiToli under Bero block about 40 kmsfrom Ranchi district headquarter.
Last week members of UBOAaccompanied with architects visitedhis house for site verification and todraw the map.
Oraon who was conferred withPadma Shri in year 2016 for hisexemplary contribution in waterharvesting and rural irrigation hasbeen living in a tin-roofed dilapi-dated house.
Talking about the initiative assis-tant general secretary of UBOA’sJharkhand chapter; Rambali Ramsaid that they use to organize con-ferences.
“In one such conferences held inFebruary at St. Xavier’s College wehad invited him as a guest to seek hisblessings. We thought Oraon isPadma Shri recipient and he must be
living in a good financial condition.But, when we visited him at his vil-lage we were shocked to find that hedoesn’t have proper house to live. Therooftop is covered with plastic sheet.He even doesn’t have a proper roomto sleep. He is a man of simple liv-
ing and high thinking. As he hasdone such a great service to the soci-ety we decided to do something forhim,” said Ram.
Oraon lives along with his wifeVirginia and two maternal grand-children.
Ram said that the association willspend Rs 10 lakh for construction ofhouse.
“During the lockdown we couldnot much in this regard. But on June1 when the lockdown was relaxed weexpedited the process and further vis-ited his village. On June 6 I alongwith president of UBOA SunilBansal, vice president VishwajitKound, general secretary KaushikGhos, besides other office bearers oforganization namely Jharkhand in-charge Sanjay Das, Juten Kalita,Nitren Topno, Amarjit Sisodia andMahadeo Bhattacharya visitedOraon. We have hired an architectRitesh Kumar who accompaniedus,” Ram said.
On being contacted Oraon con-firmed and said that some bank offi-cials had come to meet him.
“They told me that they want tobuild a house for me. I have no wordsto express my gratitude towardsthem if they are taking care of elder-ly persons like me. I had neithermoney nor any plan to build ahouse. I devoted my life to the ser-vice of humanity and nature,” he toldThe Pioneer over phone.
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On the directions of ChiefMinister Hemant Soren,
Sports Secretary Pooja Singhal hasgiven instructions to JharkhandState Sports Promotion Society(JSSPS) to make arrangements forlodging and training of 12 playersof Jharkhand selected in the IndianFIFA U-17 World Cup team atSports Complex, Ranchi. Theseplayers selected for the World Cupwere being trained in Goa by theGoa Football Association, but dueto the lockdown, these playershave come to their home, andcould not get proper training toprepare for the World Cup. Singhalwas reviewing the work of theJharkhand State Sports PromotionSociety (JSSPS) on Friday.
In the review meeting, theSecretary directed to ensure all nec-
essary arrangements for the stay ofa total of 650 trainee players in thehostel of JSSPS. She inquired aboutthe work being done by JSSPS andsought suggestions related to thedevelopment of the players ofJharkhand. In the review meeting,the CEO of JSSPS gave detailedinformation about the work beingdone by JSSPS through presenta-tion.
Out of 12 players of Jharkhandselected in Indian team for FIFA U-17 World Cup, 7 players Astam
Oraon, SumatiKumari, AmishaBakhala, SudhaAnkita Tirkey,Salina Kumari,Neelam Tirkey andPurnima Kumariare from residen-tial training centresoperated by theg o v e r n m e n t .Three playersSunita Munda,Neetu Linda andAnjali Munda are
from SAI SAG Centre, Ranchiand 2 players Anita Kumari andSoni Munda are from the footballacademy operated by the N.G.O'Oscar' of Ormajhi in Ranchi dis-trict.
In the meeting Anil KumarSingh, Director, Sports and YouthAffairs Department, BasavChaudhary, Ratnesh Shrivastava,RK Jaiswal, A.D. Badhawa, AjayMukul Toppo, Pushpa Hassa,Shrikant Purwar, B.K. Manjhi andGayatri of JSSPS were present.
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The State BJP unitahead of biennial
Rajya Sabha electionreceived a shot in the armas Election Commissionof India (ECI) acceptedDhanwar MLA and for-mer Jharkhand VikasMorcha (JVM) chief,Babulal Marandi as BJPmember. Marandi onFebruary 17 this year hadmerged his party JVMwith BJP in presence ofUnion Home MinisterAmit Shah at a grandfunction held at PrabhatTara ground.
At the same time, theECI has consideredPradeep Yadav (PoreyahatMLA) and Bandhu Tirkey(Mandar MLA) as inde-pendent MLAs.
Confirming thedevelopment, JharkhandAssembly secretary,Mahendra Prasad said,“We have received a letterfrom ECI in which thecommission has consid-ered Babulal Marandi asBJP member, while thetwo other former JVMlegislators Pradeep Yadavand Bandhu Tirkey whomerged with Congresshas been considered asindependent lawmakers.”Prasad, however, said thatthe ECI has given the
decision for Rajya Sabhaelection.
Sources said that ECIdecision is seen as setbackfor ruling party ahead ofJune 19 Rajya Sabha elec-tion. The names ofBabulal Marandi, PradeepYadav and Bandhu Tirkeywere sent by theLegislative Assembly forthe Rajya Sabha electionsas Jharkhand VikasMorcha (JVM) legisla-tors. However, the ECI hasmade changes in the listsent by the StateLegislative Assembly. Thenew list that has beenprepared was necessitateddue to sudden death ofCongress MLA fromBermo Rajendra PrasadSingh.
Sources said that theECI giving nod toMarandi as BJP legislatoris seen in the direction ofECI accepting Marandi’s
plea on merger of hisparty with BJP.
Meanwhile, the BJPhas welcomed the deci-sion of ECI. BJP statepresident Deepak Prakashsaid, “The JVM legislatureparty and party have beenmerged with BJP whichhas been confirmed byElection Commission ofIndia (ECI). Marandi hasbeen recognized as BJPMLA.” The BJP State pres-ident has also requestedthe Assembly speaker togrant Leader ofOpposition status toMarandi as ECI has con-sidered Marandi as BJPlawmaker.
The BJP lawmakerswith their demand hadcreated ruckus at the lastbudget session in thehouse over delay inannouncing BabulalMarandi as leader ofOpposition. Due to
ruckus created by BJPlegislators the House wasadjourned for a few dayscontinuously.
Three candidatesincluding JMM presidentShibu Soren are in the frayfor the two Rajya Sabhaseats in Jharkhand, theelections for which will beheld on June 19. Soren,Congress candidateShahzada Anwar and BJPstate president DeepakPrakash had filed theirnomination papers inMarch after the ElectionCommission had issuedthe notification for thetwo Rajya Seats.
The Rajya Sabha elec-tion in the state wasscheduled to be held onMarch 26 but was post-poned due to the coron-avirus- induced lockdownto contain the spread ofinfection and will now beheld on June 19.
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Ranchi Deputy Commissioner, RaiMahimapat Ray reviewed the
ongoing MGNREGA scheme andPradhan Mantri Awas Yojana Gramin,Covid-19 and Bazaar App on Friday.
Ray while reviewing the MGN-REGA works, in the meeting, instruct-ed all the Block Development Officers,Circle Officers, all Block ProgramOfficers that the works should con-tinue in all the villages and in allPanchayats at least 200 labourersshould get work so that their eco-nomic condition could improve. Hedirected that under the Birsa GreenVillage Scheme, digging of pits forhorticulture scheme should be com-pleted by June 15.
In the course of reviewing theNilambar-Pitambar Jal SamridhiYojana, The DC directed to take atleast three schemes of trench cumbund and field bund in all villages.Simultaneously, it was directed thatthe plan for sewer and soak pitshould also be taken.
He gave a stern warning to BlockProgram Officers Ratu and Nagdi toimprove MNREGA work. Ray also
said that all the migrant laborers com-ing back to the district, so theyshould get their job cards on priori-ty basis and they should be providedwork after completion of the quar-antine period.
Meanwhile, to prevent the possi-ble spread of Covid 19, medicalscreening and survey work is going onin areas where new cases of Covidinfection have been reported. Surveywork was done in Bhabha Nagar,Khora Toli and Tetar Toli on Friday.Sub Divisional officer Sadar Ranchiwas keeping an eye on the entireprocess. During this period, medicalscreening and survey work was donein a total of 804 households.
Ranchi: The State's Agriculture MinisterBadal on Friday met former Bihar DeputyChief Minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal(RJD) leader Tejashwi Yadav. During this,the two young leaders had a conversationon several topics for about 45 minutes.
Speaking on the occasion Yadav saidthat Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumarshould learn from the JharkhandGovernment in the time of Corona crisis.He said that in the time of crisis, ChiefMinister of Jharkhand Hemant Soren isdoing good work. "When the workers arereturning to their State from outside, ChiefMinister Hemant Soren is standing at theairport with flowers and welcoming thembut Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar didnot appear anywhere during the time ofcrisis, said Tejashwi.
Meanwhile, Badal in a review meetingof his department on Thursday directed allthe Deputy Commissioners (DCs) of thedistrict to work in mission mode to upliftthe farmers' economic conditions andmigrant laborers and provide thememployment.
The Minister said that farmers relat-ed to agriculture, dairy and fisheriesshould get 100 per cent benefit of theGovernment's schemes. He directed thatthe work of seed distribution should bestarted within three days in the presenceof public representatives so that farmers canget timely benefits.
Badal said that during the challengesof the Covid-19 epidemic, all the districtlevel functionaries have done better andalmost all the migrant laborers havereturned to their homes. In such a situa-tion, the accountability of the Rural
Development Department and theDepartment of Agriculture, AnimalHusbandry and Cooperation has increasedconsiderably, he added.
"The migrant should be associatedwith Panchayat level co-operative societyso that they can get employment. There isa need to make agriculture, poultry anddairy sectors self-sufficient. Focus shouldbe given on the use of the products ofMedha Dairy in Government and othernon-Government programs so that thefarmers could be associated with milk pro-duction, said the Minister.
The Minister directed all the DCs toreport the damage caused by hailstorm andcyclone within three days to provideimmediate relief to the farmers. He saidthat the Government is going to start theKisan Relief Scheme soon and a budget ofRs 100 crores has also been provided forit. He said that the amount of crop insur-ance was not available to the farmers ontime, due to which this decision has beentaken.
"In the last three years, theGovernment had paid a premium of Rs 477crore to insurance companies for cropinsurance, but compensation to farmerswas only Rs 77 crore and the companieshave been avoiding their accountability. Butthe farmers will get direct benefit from therelief scheme. The report of farmers whohave not received compensation during thedrought in 2018 should be sent so that thedepartment can take action in this regard.The amount of the relief fund will beincreased if needed. The Government isalso formulating an agricultural policy inthe State," said Badal. PNS
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Ranchi woke up to marked-ly special national headlines
on 7th May, 2013. City boyAnagh Prasad had emerged asthe National Topper in JEEMain’s first-ever edition (testfor IITs was called IITJEE till2012). He had joinedComputer Science at IIT Delhiwith AIR-66 in JEE Advanced,graduated with the depart-ment Gold Medal for all-roundexcellence, and is currentlyworking as an InvestmentAnalyst at a Venture Capitalfirm in Bengaluru. Now, he hascome up with a book on effec-tive planning for JEE candi-dates.
Anagh believes thatpreparing seriously for JEEnot only let him pursue his tar-get undergraduate course butalso permanently shaped theway he thinks and approachesreal-world problems. With astrong will to disseminate hispersonal learnings, he hashelped hundreds of JEE candi-dates for the exam over the lastfew years - including hisyounger brother (AIR-49 inJEE Adv, 2017).
In this upcoming booktitled “A Plan That ActuallyWorks”, Anagh argues that
most IITians are neither borngeniuses nor unusual hard-workers; they are smart plan-ners instead. He promises totake his readers behind-the-scenes to reveal how smartplanning works for JEE. As thebook is directly useful for JEEcandidates, Anagh vows tohave laid out an actionableframework for anyone hopingto achieve large and meaning-ful goals early in life.
The book, which is alreadygarnering attention on socialmedia, is slated for nationwiderelease in early July. Anaghconfesses to be all-in excited forthe launch, and has decided todevote the author’s share ofsales-earnings for supportingneedy high school students.
More about the book canbe found out at www.thejeep-roject.com.
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With an increase in therainfall activity, the
onset of monsoon inJharkhand is likely to bedeclared today. After itsonset on Kerala on June 1,the date for its advent inJharkhand is June 15 andthis year along with its time-ly arrival a normal monsoonseason is also being pre-dicted for the State.
According to theMeteorological CentreRanchi, the monsoon windswill first hit the north east-ern and south eastern parts.The rains then might takeabout a week’s time to coverthe rest of the State.
“The low pressure sys-tem present in the Bay ofBengal is gradually movingtowards the west and all thepre requisite condition arealso favourable for the onsetof monsoon in Jharkhand.Monsoon has already made
an onset over southern partsof Chhattisgarh and Odisha.As per our expectations itwill enter Jharkhand fromthe north eastern and southeastern districts,” saidDeputy Director METCentre Ranchi, AbhishekAnand. As per the METCentre Ranchi, almost allthe districts in the State willwitness scattered to widespread rainfall activity oflight to moderate category inthe next few days. Isolatedheavy rainfall is also expect-
ed in the north east andsouthern parts.
From June 13 to June 18the maximum temperaturewill also remain below nor-mal and lie in the range of31- 37 degree Celsius.
As for the agriculturesector good amount ofshowers received in Apriland May along with thetimely arrival of the rainyseason will prove to be verybeneficial for the farmers.
“This year Jharkhandreceived very good amount
of rainfall of more than 150mm in the months of Apriland May as compared to thepast few years where itwould hardly receive 50-60 mm of rain in thesemonths.
This rainfall hasimmense importance forpreparation of land. Farmerswere wise to go for plough-ing and as soon monsoonarrives they will directly gofor the sowing process,” saidA Wadood, an agro- mete-orological scientist at BirsaAgriculture University(BAU) Ranchi.
“Unlike last few years,this time farmers are readywith respect to preparationof land, planning of crops indifferent fields, availability ofinputs like seeds and fertil-izers. Timely sowing ofKharif crops has lots ofimportance because everydelay in sowing causes illreduction to a certain per-cent. This time 2020 isexpected to harvest bumperKharif crops in Jharkhand,”added Wadood.
As gradual disengagement takesplace at the Line of Actual
Control(LAC) in Ladakh, DefenceMinister Rajnath Singh on Fridayreviewed the situation with Chief ofDefence Staff(CDS)General BipinRawat and the three Services Chiefs.Since the complete de-escalation willtake some more days, he was briefedalso about the next course of actionregarding talks at all levels of the twoarmies to resolve the stand-offs.
Incidentally, this was the secondmeeting between the defence minis-ter and the defence top brass in thisweek. The first meeting on Mondayassessed the talks between Lt GeneralHarinder Singh and Major General LiuLin last week. The latest meeting tookstock of the pace of efforts to reducetension and an assessment of theground situation, sources said here.
The high-level meeting alsoreviewed the military build-up byChina all along the LAC from Ladakh,Uttrakhand, Himachal Pradesh andArunachal Pradesh last month. TheIndian forces had also quicklyresponded by adding muscle to theirtroop strength besides deploying
heavy weapons closer to the LAC asa precaution, they said.
Rajnath has all along maintainedduring the month-long stand-off atfour locations in eastern Ladakh thatdiplomatic and military efforts willfind a peaceful way out to end theimpasse. He was apprised of theforthcoming schedule of talks whichinclude meetings between officers oftwo sides at the LAC over a course of10-12 days to ensure mutual with-drawal of additional troops fromoperational areas to peacetime loca-tions.
Moreover, the latest review camein the backdrop of almost regularinteraction at the diplomatic and mil-itary level to end confrontation. Also,India and China in the last two daysalso gave out almost similar statementsfavouring early resolution.
The minister was also apprised ofthe tension still prevailing at PangongTso(lake)with the Chinese troops notgoing back. However, the two armieshave pulled back from the other threesites including the Galwan valley andthe Hot Springs. In fact, in the HotSprings, the Chinese intruded at leastthree kms and were now retreating totheir original positions, sources said.
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Covid-19 may affect theentire nervous system,
including the brain, spinalcord, nerves, and the musclesof the infected individual,according to a review of stud-ies which may help better man-age the neurological symp-toms of the disease such asheadaches, seizures, andstrokes.
According to the research,published in the journal Annalsof Neurology, nearly half ofhospitalised Covid-19 patientshave neurological manifesta-tions like headache, dizziness,decreased alertness, difficultyconcentrating, disorders ofsmell and taste, seizures,strokes, weakness, and musclepain.
"It's important for the gen-eral public and physicians to beaware of this, because a SARS-COV-2 infection may presentwith neurologic symptoms ini-tially, before any fever, cough orrespiratory problems occur,"said study lead author IgorKoralnik from NorthwesternUniversity in the US.
In the analysis, the scien-tists describe the different neu-rological conditions that mayoccur in infected patients andhow to diagnose them, as wellas likely pathogenic mecha-
nisms.Koralnik said that this
understanding is key to directappropriate clinical manage-ment and treatment for Covid-19 patients.
There are many differentways Covid-19 can cause neu-rological dysfunction, he said.
In addition, they said thevirus may cause direct infectionof the brain, meninges -- a con-nective tissue lining severalparts of the nervous system --and the cerebrospinal fluid(CSF) which acts as a shockabsorber for the skull.
The reaction of theimmune system to the infection
may also cause inflammationthat can damage the brain andnerves, the scientists added.
Since knowledge about thelong term outcome of neuro-logic manifestations ofCOVID-19 is limited, theresearchers plan to follow somepatients prospectively to deter-mine if neurological problemsare temporary or permanent.
Prof. Rajinder K Dhamija,Head of NeurologyDepartment, Lady HardingeMedical College and SSKHospital, Delhi agreed with theobservations of the researchers.He explained that the virus caninfect the brain two ways--through nasal cavity andthrough the blood supply to thebrain. “Once the virus attacksthe brain, it can result intoblood clotting,” he said addingthat there are perviousresearches also like those con-ducted in Wuhan, China whichhave found that neurologicalmanifestations in severely illpatients such as headache,dizziness, impaired conscious-ness, stroke, ataxia and seizurebesides loss of smell.
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Union Home Ministry onFriday told the States not
to block the movement of vehi-cles including goods and pub-lic transport Highways andmain roads after 9pm. Centre’sclarification came after seriesof complaints came on block-ing of transport during curfewtime 9pm to 5am in manyStates and State borders.
Union Home SecretaryAjay Bhalla wrote to ChiefSecretaries that curfew time isimposed only to prevent con-gregations and ensure socialdistancing and not for blockingvehicle movements. HomeSecretary said that public andgoods transportation shouldnot be blocked during the cur-few time.
Centre also told States thatloading and offloading ofgoods also not to be blockedduring curfew time. HomeSecretary also clarified thatmovement of people coming byflights, trains or buses after longjourney also permitted duringcurfew time.
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Ahead of the Rajya Sabhaelection, the Congress on
Friday accused the BJP ofindulging in corrupt electoralpractices and said it will raise theissue with the ElectionCommission.
Congress spokespersonAbhishek Singhvi said a dele-gation of party leaders wouldmeet the EC and petition it tohighlight instances of its legis-lators in Gujarat being lured andintimidated by the ruling BJP.
The election for four RajyaSabha seats in Gujarat will beheld on June 19.
Singhvi said the party wassure of its victory in RajyaSabha elections in Gujarat andwould bag two of the four seatsas per its strength in the statelegislature.
Fearing poaching of itsMLAs, the Congress has movedits MLAs to resorts in the stateas well as in neighbouringRajasthan.
"Our victory is certain, ournumbers are sufficient," Singhvisaid at an online Press confer-ence.
"Our means are clean andpure, our strategy is strong, butthat should not prevent mefrom exposing before you thosewho are doing just the opposite,"he also said.
He alleged that "everybodyhas not indulged in gutter levelpolitics and everybody is not
indulging in corrupt practices".Singhvi also alleged that the
BJP was intimidating its MLAsthrough misuse of power, wascreating a non-level playingfield and making a mockery ofthe 10th Schedule.
The Congress leader citedan instance of one of its GujaratMLAs Panjbhai KunjbhaiVansh, who was being subject-ed to harassment at the handsof the state government in anold case even when he did nothave any criminal record.
Singhvi said the Congresswill not be cowed down by thethreats of the ruling BJP and willfight it out in EC and thecourts.
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Congress leader RahulGandhi on Friday said that
he was saddened to see India’stolerance and acceptance ofnew ideas “disappearing” andthat the “division of people wasweakening the structure of thecountry”.
“We are a very tolerantnation. Our DNA is supposedto be tolerant. We’re supposedto accept new ideas. We’re sup-posed to be open, but the sur-prising thing is that that DNA,that open DNA, is sort of dis-appearing. I say this with sad-ness that I don’t see that levelof tolerance that I used to see.I don’t see it in the United Statesand I don’t see it in India,”Rahul said in an interactionwith US diplomat NicholasBurns.
“When you divide AfricanAmericans, Mexicans andother people in the UnitedStates, so you divide Hindusand Muslims and Sikhs inIndia, you’re weakening thestructure of the country. But,the same people who weakenthe structure of the country saythey are nationalists," he added.
During the conversation,Burns, Professor of Diplomacyand International Relations atHarvard, said the US and Indiahad the advantage to correctthemselves unlike “an author-itarian country” like China.
"In many ways, India andthe US share many traits. Wewere both subjects of theBritish empire, we both liber-ated ourselves from that empirein different centuries…Countries sometimes have togo through a discussion and apolitical debate about who arewe at the core? What kind ofnation are we? We are animmigrant nation, a tolerantnation,” Burns said.
Of the US’s “deep politicaland existential crisis”, he added,
“I do see strengths that democ-racies go through trials. Weplay out our differences, inpolitical campaigns or in streetprotests, but at least we can dothat. You can authoritarianismcoming back in China andRussia. We democracies, wesometimes go through painfulepisodes because of our free-doms, but we’re so muchstronger because of them.”
Burns described Trump ashaving an “authoritarian per-sonality”. “He (Trump) wrapshimself in a flag. He declaresthat he alone can fix the prob-lems. I must say, I thinkPresident Trump is in manyways an authoritarian person-ality. But in our country, you’reseeing the institutions remainstrong,” he said.
On the coronavirus pan-demic, Burns expressed disap-pointment at the lack of coor-dination between countries.“This crisis was made for theG20. It was made for PrimeMinister Narendra Modi andPresident Xi Jinping andDonald Trump to work togeth-er… for the common globalgood,” he said.
The Gandhi scion notedthat people were becoming“insular”, a behaviour that wasaccelerated by the Covid crisis.However, he later added: “I dosee new ideas and new waysemerging after Covid. I canalready see people cooperatingmuch more than they werebefore. Now, they realise thatthere are advantages to beingunified.”
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Prime Minister NarendraModi convened two-day
meeting of Chief Ministersand Administrators of UnionTerritories on June 16 and 17to assess the Covid-19 situationprevailing across the country.The meeting will be heldthrough video conferencingon June 16 and 17 at 3pm andmain agenda is expected to bethe treatment on the pandem-ic and health sector scenarioacross the country.
According to highly placedofficials, the Prime Ministerand Chief Ministers will discusson the health scenario andhealth infrastructure and itsupgradation to control thepandemic. The increase ofdeaths and patients in theMetro cities and creation ofmore infrastructure are also inthe agenda of the meeting.Before the meeting the PrimeMinister will assess the situa-tion with the Union HealthMinistry officials and otherhealth experts.
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Elders are not setting theright example. Many former
and present Rajya Sabha mem-bers have been found to beindulging in, what ChairmanVenkaiah Naidu termed, “bla-tant misuse and disregardtowards public money”. TheParliamentarians made multi-ple train bookings but neverbothered to cancel it even ifthey did not undertake thejourney. This has not onlyresulted in massive losses to theState exchequer but also waste-ful expenditure.
For the calendar year 2019,
the Railways has raised ademand for a payment of Rs.7.8 crores to be made by theRajya Sabha Secretariat as 1/3rdshare of the total cost of traintravel by the sitting and formermembers of Parliament, theirspouses and companions. Therest 2/3rd of the total cost is tobe paid by the Lok SabhaSecretariat.
Following this huge billraised by the Railways an analy-sis by the Rajya SabhaSecretariat of the number ofbookings made and actualjourneys undertaken by somesitting and former members ofthe Upper House, on the direc-tions of Naidu, was conducted.
Several cases of MPs blatantlymisusing the privileges pro-vided to them have been found.
A former member of RajyaSabha made as many as 63bookings of up to 4 per day on23 days in January, 2019 cost-ing a total of Rs 1,69,005. Asagainst this, the former MPconfirmed having travelled bytrain only on seven occasionsagainst a total train fare of onlyRs 22,085. This, in effect,means, the Rajya SabhaSecretariat has to pay an extraamount of Rs 1,46,920 whichcomes to about 87% of the totalamount claimed by theRailways on account of book-ings made by the said formermember of Rajya Sabha duringthe month of January, 2019.
In respect of a sitting mem-ber also, the analysis done bythe Rajya Sabha Secretariathas revealed that the actualjourneys performed duringJanuary, 2019, amounted to
only 15% of the total claim ofRailways. This means theSecretariat is required to pay85% extra for journeys not per-formed and the respectivebookings not cancelled.
With Naidu expressing hisstrong displeasure, the upperhouse Secretariat has issued astern note of caution to theMPs that in case of future vio-lations, deductions will bemade from their salaries.
Rajya Sabha SecretaryGeneral Desh Deepak Vermaasked the members to ensurecancellation of bookings notavailed failing which recoverywill be made for such bookingsif they are not cancelled in time.
"The members of RajyaSabha are being advised forsome years to avoid multipletrain bookings and to cancelthe unused bookings. Furtherto audit objections regardingsuch multiple bookings and thecost sharing formula and direc-
tions of the CentralInformation Commission torecast the process of trainbookings, the Rajya SabhaSecretariat has been taking upthe matter with the Railwaysover the last couple of years,"said a Parliament source.
On its part Railways havesince agreed to change thesoftware for train bookings bythe MPs to enable identificationof bookings by the members ofboth the Houses separately.This new software is likely to beoperationalised soon, sourcestold The Pioneer.
In his note, Verma said, “Ithas, however, been noted fromthe details of debit claims raisedby the Ministry of Railways thatmultiple bookings are beingmade by some members in var-ious trains departing fromsame/different stations to dif-ferent destination stations forthe same day. Rajya SabhaSecretariat has to make pay-
ments to the Ministry ofRailways even for those book-ings which are actually notutilised by the members.”
“Members would appreci-ate that non-performance ofjourney on reserved berthsand non-cancellation thereof intime leads to unnecessaryexpenditure and avoidabledrain on Rajya Sabha budget.It also put the public to incon-venience as they fail to get con-firmed berths/seats," said thenote.
Following discussions withthe Chairman Naidu, the sec-retary general warned, “In viewof the above, members arerequested to cancel all suchbookings which are not likelyto be utilised, well in advance.In case of non-cancellation ofbookings which are not actu-ally utilised by the members,the amount of fare of suchbookings shall be recoveredfrom the members.”
Shahnawaz Hussain on Fridayhit back at Congress leaderRahul Gandhi over his “intol-erance in India” remark andsought him to offer an apolo-gy for his "unpardonable utter-ances".
Former Congress presi-dent reportedly equated Indiawith America in claiming thatboth countries were not beingtolerant.
BJP spokesperson saidRahul’s comment that like inAmerica where ‘whites andblacks’ dispute exist and theyclash with each other in Indiatoo Hindu, Muslims and Sikhsface a similar situation, is “unpardonable” and“undoubtably condemnable”.
Hussain quoted Rahul say-ing that “intolerance” wasincreasing in India and claimedthat it was conspiracy to
defame the country . BJPleader said Rahul’s commenthave diminished country’simage and demanded his apol-ogy to the country.
He said Rahul has nounderstanding of India’s “greatheritage” and “culture” and hehas become habitual in criti-cising his country.
Hussain alleged that evenat time of crisis like presentedby Coronavirus pandemic, theCongress leader was not leav-ing a chance to attack thecountry that too while atalkingto a foreigner. “ It is highly con-demnable and people of thecountry would not forgive him”.
patients amid Corona scare, theInsurance Regulatory andDevelopment Authority ofIndia (IRDAI) has asked thehealth insurers to allow thefacility to be part of the claimsettlement policy. It need not befiled separately with the author-ity for any modification, itoutlined.
Telemedicine allows healthcare professionals to evaluate,diagnose and treat patients inremote locations usingtelecommunications technolo-gy in remote locations too toaccess medical expertise quick-ly, efficiently and without travel.
Telemedicine offered shallbe in compliance with thetelemedicine practice guide-lines issued by the UnionHealth Ministry in March and
as amended from time to time,IRDAI said.
As per the guidelinesissued in consultation withNITI Aayog, medical practi-tioners will have to pursue asound course of action to pro-vide effective and safe medicalcare founded on current infor-mation, available resources,and patient needs to ensurepatient and provider safety.
Dr N Subramanian,Chairman, Health Committee,PHDCCI and Director atIndraprastha Apollo Hospitalsadvised young practitionerswho are keen to adopt thetelemedicine technology that itis very important to have cer-tain amount of discipline andthey should establish a rela-tionship and trust with thepatients especially in case ofTelemedicine.
He said this at a video con-ference of series on "DigitalHealth: The Future:
Telemedicine-Where do WeStand Today" held last monthand organized by the PHDChamber of Commerce andIndustry.
During the discussion, DrHarsh Mahajan from MahajanImaging said that with the
advent of Corona, telemedicinehas become the necessity wheretechnology is helping us a lotto fight this crisis. But it has tobe under supervision of a clin-ician. He further added thatapart from teleradiology,telemedicine can be used indigital pathology, dermatol-ogy, ophthalmology and manyother segments.
Aditya Berlia from ApeejaySatya University felt thatbecause of Covid-19, at least20-25% medical system willmove to telemedicine in nearfuture while Dr. Hans RajBaweja, Chairman, EthicsCommittee, MCI explainedthe key points of telemedicineguidelines, like mandatorypatient consent, mandatorypatient identity as it is difficultto identify the patient in audioconsultations, taking of histo-ry & entering all the details inthe prescription. “It is manda-tory for doctors also to intro-
duce themselves at the time ofconsultation and only genericmedicines should be pre-scribed,” he said.
The experts also called forRegulatory framework forTelemedicine for Internationalpatients as well.
Vivek Seigell, PrincipalDirector Health, PHDChamber said that the recom-mendations arrived from thediscussions held will be sub-mitted to NITI AAYOG aspolicy inputs on various aspectsof telemedicine especially forconsulting internationalpatients.
The Telemedicine guide-lines were issued amid thenovel coronavirus outbreak, todecongest the healthcare facil-ities as medical professionalscan consult the patient remote-ly which would protect both ofthem from virus transmission,and does not disrupt the lock-down measures.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Fridayallowed the Tamil Nadu Government to find outways and means to sell liquor, whether online orat physical outlets in the state.
A bench of the apex court, headed by JusticeAshok Bhushan, said it is not for a court to laydown how liquor can be sold. "These are for theState governments to decide what to do," the benchsaid.
The court was hearing a petition seeking direc-tions to not open Tamil Nadu State MarketingCorporation (TASMAC) shops in the state.
The top court had last month stayed aMadras High Court order, which had directed theclosure of all state-run liquor shops and allowedonly the online sale of liquor in the state duringthe coronavirus-induced nationwide lockdown.
Tamil Nadu government had filed a petitionbefore the Apex Court challenging the MadrasHigh Court order on the matter.
Madras High Court had passed the order afterhearing anumber ofpetitions andfinding theviolation of thesocial distanc-ing norms, asordered by theUnion of Indiato prevent thespread of coronavirus, atthe liquorshops
Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) supre-mo HD Deve Gowda, senior
Congress leader MallikarjunKharge and ruling BJP's grassrootcadres Ashok Gasti and IrannaKadadi have been declared electedto the Rajya Sabha unopposed, apoll official said on Friday.
"Gowda, Kharge, Gasti andKadadi have been duly elected to fillthe seats in the Upper House inplace of Kupendra Reddy of JD-S,B.K. Hariprasad and Rajeev Gowdaof the Congress, and PrabhakarKore of the BJP, who are retiring onJune 25 on the expiration of their
term of office," returning officerM.K. Vishalakshi said in a state-ment here.
Though the biennial electionswere scheduled on June 19 in theevent of a contest, the returningofficer declared the results after theend of the last date of withdrawalof nomination, which was Friday, as there were no other can-didates.
Former Prime Minister DeveGowda, 87, got elected to theUpper House with the support ofthe opposition Congress as hisregional party has only 34 legisla-tors, 10 short of the required 44votes.
Jaipur: Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot onFriday made a scathing attack on theCentral Government alleging that theRajya Sabha polls were deliberately deferredin March as the Centre's poaching attemptswere incomplete by then, and now when thedates were rescheduled, "four of our MLAsfrom Gujarat have already resigned".
Speaking at a press conference onFriday, the CM said, "The Rajya Sabha elec-tions could have been held two monthsback. However, the Centre's poachingattempts were not complete by then, so, theRajya Sabha polling was deferred. Now, withthe dates of these elections beingannounced, four of our Gujarat CongressMLAs have already resigned. Even duringCorona times, Modi and Shah are busyplaying politics," he alleged.
"This is the time to save lives. SoniaGandhi has already told the PM that westand united to fight Covid-19. However,BJP continues conspiring to break up thegovernments even during the corona peri-od. Not a single vote in Rajasthan will gointo their kitty and both our candidates will
win," Gehlot said."Today, we need to see who is causing
pain and who is applying balm on pain. Thecorona crisis started appearing in February.Rahul Gandhi had warned the Governmenton February 12, however, during those days,the MP Government was toppled.Karnataka, too, faced the same fate. Thegovernment invested all its resources in top-pling governments. We can see the resultslooking at the present situation of the coun-try," he said.
"Modiji says he would make a 'Congressmukt Bharat', but India will never getCongress 'mukt'. Congress lives in the DNAof India", said Gehlot.
He questioned how the nation wouldbe able to fight Covid-19 if all political par-ties, all castes and creed don't stand unit-ed. "Why does this thought never cross PMModi or Amit Shah's mind?"
All Congress MLAs stand united todefeat the fascist forces, he said, adding 13independents and 2 BTP MLAs havepromised to support the Congress inRajasthan. IANS
The short-term Kuruvai cul-tivation spread across the
five districts of Thanjavur,Tiruvarur, Nagapattinam,Tirucirapalli, Cuddalore andNagapattinam commenced onFriday as the Cauvery watergushed out of the Mettur Damto irrigate the vast stretch ofpaddy fields.
The importance of theevent could be understoodfrom the fact that ChiefMinister EdappadiPalaniswamy travelled to Salemfrom Chennai despite theemergency conditions prevail-ing in the state due to coronavirus pandemic to open thesluice gates of the Dam forreleasing the water.
Palaniswamy scored apolitical advantage over hisrivals by opening the gates ofthe shutters on June 12, the tra-ditional date on which Cauverywater is released from MetturDam for Kuruvai cultivation.This is the first time in the lastnine years Cauvery water isreleased from Mettur Dam onJune 12.
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Since the situation in Tamil Nadu,especially in Chennai and sur-
rounding districts are getting aggra-vated , the Government on Fridaymorning announced that JRadhakrishnan IAS, principal secre-tary, would be the new HealthSecretary of the State. The incumbentHealth Secretary, the glamorous DrBeela Rajesh IAS has been transferredto the commercial taxes department.
The exit of Dr Rajesh as health sec-retary was in the cards for the last fewweeks as the number of coronaviruscases in the State has been increasingsteeply. The last one month saw thenumber of covid patients in TamilNadu increasing by four folds and allmeasures going haywire.
Dr Rajesh, daughter of a formerCongress legislator Rani Venkatesh,had become a darling of the media aswell as housewives across the State forthe kind of sarees which she used towear during the press briefings.
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Despite Tamil NaduGovernment’s stance
that there was no need forany total lockdown ofChennai and the threeneighbouring districts tocheckmate the spread ofcoronavirus disease, theState recorded an all timehigh of 1,982 persons testingpositive for the pandemic onFriday, the highest numbersto be tested positive on a sin-gle day.
With Friday’s testing,the number of persons test-ed positive in the State forthe pandemic till date hasreached 40,698. Taking intoaccount the number of per-sons cured of the disease anddischarged (22,047) fromhospitals across Tamil Nadu,there are 18,281 covidpatients across the State ason Friday evening, said arelease by the Governmentof Tamil Nadu.
The death toll in TamilNadu reached 367 with 18more persons succumbingto the pandemic on Friday.While 17 of the dead had co-morbidities (suffering fromother serious ailments) a 38year old male died withoutany comorbidities.
The day also saw 1,342getting discharged from hos-pitals after getting cured ofthe pandemic. Till Friday, atotal of 6.42 lakh personshave been tested across theState in 78 laboratories.
Earlier in the dayGovernment PleaderJayaprakash Narayan toldMadras High Court thatthe administration has noplans to order lock down inChennai or any other placesin the State. The MadrasHigh Court had asked theGovernment about thescope of a total lockdown inthe backdrop of the everincreasing number of covidcases in the capital city andneighbouring districts.
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Kerala’s hope for a respitefrom coronavirus came a
cropper as the State saw 78 per-sons testing positive for thepandemic on Friday. Thedepartment of health blamedthe 36 expatriates and 31 fromother States who reachedKerala following lockdown forFriday’s upsurge in the covidcases.
The State also saw tencases of community transmis-sion on Friday though officialsdenied the possibilities of largescale transmission of the dis-ease. As on Friday, 1,303 per-sons were under treatment invarious hospitals across Kerala.
With the passing away of a71-year-old man in Kannurdistrict on Friday. Kerala’s deathtoll due to covid reached 19.Till date Kerala has tested 1.06lakh samples. There are 128hotspots in the State and 999persons have been cured of thepandemic till Friday.
The famous Lord KrishnaTemple would remain out ofbound for the devotees fromSaturday morning, according toMinister K Surendran who is incharge of temples in the State.The decision not to allow devo-tees in the temple was takenfollowing reports that Thrissurdistrict is experiencing a hikein the number of coronaviruscases.
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Inconvenienced as they have been by recurringinundations over the years across their city, then
monsoon has begun on an optimistic note forMumbaikars. For, the Ministry of Earth Sciences(MoES), in coordination with the BrihanmumbaiMunicipal Corporation (BMC), on Friday put inplace a State-of-the-art Flood Warning System,which can predict flood inundation three days inadvance.
Maharashtra Chief Minister UddhavThackeray and Union Earth Sciences Minister Dr.Harsh Vardhan jointly launched an IntegratedFlood Warning System for Mumbai.
Named iFLOWS- Mumbai, the IntegratedFlood Warning System will help make themetropolis become more resilient, by way of earlywarnings for flooding especially during high rain-fall events and cyclones.
Using this, it will be possible to have an esti-mate of the flood inundation 3 days in advance,along with three to six hours immediate weath-er updates.
It will be very useful, especially if people needto be evacuated from low-lying areas as we willbe able to forecast 12 hours in advance that a par-ticular spot may get flooded. The system will alsoforecast the rainfall in each pocket.
Developed by the MoES using its in-houseexpertise, in close collaboration with the BMC, thesystem uses rain gauge data and local data suchas data on land use, land topography, drainage sys-tems, water bodies in the city, tide levels, infrastructure and population in the metropolis.
Using these as inputs, the prediction systemmodels weather, rainfall, runoff and water move-ment, tide and storm surge impacts based onwhich early flood warnings for the city will be provided.
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After earning a Supreme Court rap on itsknuckles for its alleged mismanagement of
corona pandemic the Bengal Government onFriday faced flak from the principal Oppositionparties which accused the ruling TrinamoolCongress of bringing back “medieval barbar-ity” in its style of governance.
Hours after the Apex Court sought clari-fications from the State on issues related to hap-hazard handling of the corona cases Bengal BJPpresident Dilip Ghosh said only a judicial slapcan make the State Government work.
“It has become the habit of the MamataBanerjee Government to receive slaps from thecourt without which it would not functioningthe way it should,” Ghosh said complaining how“from the very beginning the State governmenthas been hiding the number of deaths and sup-pressing corona related facts which only com-plicated the problem… Initially they would testadequately to keep the infection figures down.Then they started collecting samples butdelayed their examinations … patients are madeto wait for days before results are made avail-able … by when either they are dead or theyhave gone back home.”
Referring to the dead bodies being “sub-jected to utmost humiliation” when they werepulled by hooks and “stuffed like dead cattle inside municipal vans” for stealthy dis-posal he said, “like the CPI(M) stole corpsesto cloak its crime at Nandigram, the TMC isstealing dead bodies to hide corona.” CongressLeader in Lok Sabha called the entire act ofstuffing the bodies inside vans with the help oflong hooks “an act of medieval barbarism whichhas no parallel in the modern world. It hasshamed us in the entire country and elsewhere.”
Kolkata: The Bengal EducationDepartment has suspended twowomen teachers working in a pri-mary school in East Burdwan dis-trict after it was discovered that theywere teaching from an Englishalphabet book which had lessonsthat amounted to belittle people withblack complexion.
“Two teachers have been sus-pended and the Department islooking into the matter as to howsuch lessons were allowed to be pub-lished,” State Education MinisterPartho Chatterjee said adding theschool had purchased the book in itsown capacity and that it was not aregular book prescribed by theGovernment. PNS
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Coronavirus has so farclaimed the lives of at least
35 police personnel and left3,388 other personnel infectedin various other parts ofMaharashtra.
“..3,388 police personnelhave tested positive for Covid-19. Of these 1,945 have recov-ered & 35 have tragically suc-cumbed,” Maharashtra HomeMinister Anil Deshmukhtweeted on Friday, givingdetails of fatalities and infec-tions among the state policepersonnel.
Informed officials sourcessaid that as many as 129 police
personnel had tested positivefor the pandemic during thelast 48 hours.
“There's been a steady risein the number of #Covid_19calls on the police helpline100. As many as 1,02,361 suchcalls have been received. 263instances of assaults on police-men have seen 846 arrests,”Deshmukh tweeted.
“As many as 1,27,846offences have been regd. u/s188 of IPC since the lockdownleading to 25,741 arrests &seizure of 81,206 vehicles. �6,97,67,411 havebeen collected in fines fromoffenders,” the Minister tweeted
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The line of control inHajipeer sector of Uri in
Baramulla early Friday morn-ing witnessed heavy exchangeof mortar shelling in the for-ward areas in which one civil-ian woman was killed whiletwo others received splinterinjuries.
More than one dozen fam-ilies from forward villages wereshifted to the safer locationinside a guest house by the localadministration.
Hitting back strongly,Indian army is learnt to havecaused extensive damages onthe other side of the line of con-trol.
Ground reports claimed,few Pakistani soldiers receivedinjuries as some of their postswere directly hit in retaliatoryfire. The line of control alsoremained active in differentpockets of Rajouri and Poonchduring the day.
At least three incidents ofceasefire violations werereported from Shahpur,Kirniand Qasba sectors of Poonch,Balakote sector in Mendhartehsil and Manjakote sector ofRajouri.
Srinagar based DefencePRO, Col Rajesh Kalia in astatement said, "Pakistan armyinitiated an unprovoked cease-fire violation along the LoC inRampur by firing mortars andother weapons. Befittingresponse was given".
According to local reports,four villages of Uri includingChuranda, Hathlanga,Gowhalan, and Hajipeer suf-fered maximumdamages.Several vehicles andresidential houses were target-ed by the Pakistan Army in thearea.
in Maharashtra on Friday, asthe infected cases’ tallytouched 1,01,141 in the Statewhere 127 more people suc-cumbed to pandemic duringthe last 24 hours taking thetotal number of deaths to3,717.
With no let up in thecorornavirus crisis in theState, 3,493 people testedpositive for the pandemic invarious parts of the State onFriday.
Of the 127 deaths report-ed on Friday, Mumbai –which had recorded 97 deathseach during the last two days
– accounted for 90 deaths,while there were 12 deaths inPune, 11 deaths in Thane,three deaths each in Kalyan-Dombivli and Sangli, twodeaths each in Nashik andAurangabad, one death eachin Bhayandar, Vasai-Virar,Dhule and Amravati.
There have been a total of1,937 deaths in Maharashtraduring the previous 17 days.On May 26 (Tuesday) thestate had witnessed 97 deaths,while there were 105 deaths
on May 27, 85 deaths on May28, 116 deaths on May 29 and99 deaths on May 30, 89deaths on May 31, 76 on June1, 103 on June 2, 122 on June3, 123 on June 4, 139 on June5, 120 on June 6, 91 on June7, 109 on June 8, 120 on June9, 149 on June 10, 152 on June11 and 127 on June 12.
There have been ten suchdays since June 2 when thetotal number of deaths havetouched three digits in thestate.
Of the 127 dead onFriday, 92 were men while 35were women. Seventy sevenof them were aged over 60years, 52 were from the agegroup 40 to 59 years and 8were aged below 40 years.
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Jammu: More than 250 Covid-19 patients were dischargedfrom different hospitals ofJammu on Friday while 156new cases were detected andone more patient died inJammu, taking the death toll to53.
According to the mediabulletin, out of 156 new cases,88 patients were detected acrossJammu division while 68patients tested positive acrossKashmir division. Out of 266patients, who were discharged,
211 patients were from Kashmirand 55 from Jammu division.
At the present, the count ofCovid-19 patients in Jammuand Kashmir has reached 4730cases, out of which 2591 areactive positive. A total numberof 738 patients were active pos-itive from Jammu and 1853from Kashmir division.According to the media bul-letin, more than 2,000 patientshave recovered fully in Jammuand Kashmir. 353 in Jammuand 1733 in Kashmir. PNS
The murder of a pregnant ele-phant, which died in theVelliyar river in Kerala’sMannarkkad forest division inPalakkad district on May 27,
must rank among the cruellest killingsof animals ever. According to the post-mortem report, the immediate cause ofher death was drowning. Before that, shecould not eat or drink for nearly 14 daysfollowing an explosion in her mouth thatinflicted major, incapacitating woundsin the oral cavity. “This”, the report reads,“resulted in excruciating pain and dis-tress in the region and prevented the ani-mal from taking food and water for near-ly two weeks. Severe debility and weak-ness, in turn, resulted in a final collapsein water that led to drowning.”
According to Kumar Chellappan’sreport in The Pioneer of June 6, the ele-phant was injured as she tried to eat acoconut that had been stuffed withexplosives to kill wild boars that ate upcrops. The report further stated that thepolice had arrested P Wilson, a tapperin a rubber plantation, the previous dayand were looking for the plantation’sowners, Abdul Kareem and his sonRiyazuddin, and had charged all threeof them under various sections of theKerala Forest Act and the Wildlife(Protection) Act, 1972. Wilson hasreportedly admitted that he had filled acoconut with explosives and placed it inthe plantation to kill wild boars that reg-ularly devoured/destroyed crops.According to reports, Wilson, followinginterrogation, had taken police andforest department officials to a shedinside the plantation, where the explo-sives had been worked on, and someremnants were found. In the event,instead of a wild boar, an elephant bitinto the fruit.
A word of caution. Before burstinginto a round of applause for the police,one should remember that the accusedare yet to be convicted and adequatelysentenced. Since Indian elephants(Elephas maximus) feature in Part I(mammals), Schedule I, of the WildlifeProtection Act, their hunting “in asanctuary or a national park” can leadto imprisonment of up to seven yearsand a “fine which shall not be less thanten thousand rupees.”
The award of the maximum punish-ment will depend on successful prose-cution in courts, which, in turn, woulddepend on convincingly marshalling andweaving evidence into unfolding argu-ments. This implies thorough investiga-tion and reflection thereon. This aspectneeds to be emphasised as the KeralaGovernment’s and local bodies’ recordin protecting animals and bringingtheir murderers and tormentors to bookis by no means exemplary. In some cases,
they are guilty of condoning oreven sanctioning killing.
In fact, one wonderswhether the Kerala Governmentwould have ordered an investi-gation into the present case andmade the kind of serious effortsit has to arrest the culprits, hadthe media not taken it up sostrongly and waves of shock andanger not swept the country.Another female elephant haddied in April in thePathanapuram forest range areaunder Punalur division inKollam district after trying to eatan explosive-laden fruit. It was,according to forest officers,treated adequately but in vain.The incident did not find anycoverage in the national mediauntil anger exploded over thepregnant elephant’s murder andwas only mentioned in passingin a couple of reports even afterthat. An investigation has beenordered but nothing like theefforts made following the deathof the pregnant elephant hasbeen launched.
Poaching is rampant in thearea. According to a report byVinod Mathew in The Print(datelined June 5), 24 wild ele-phants have died of unnaturalcauses like poaching in the lastfive years in Kerala. If theGovernment was serious aboutstamping out the menace, itwould have made recognisablydetermined efforts to bring theguilty to book in every case ofelephant killing like the one inApril. Besides, a telling com-mentary on the state of affairs inKerala is the almost casual men-tion in several post-Palakkaddeath media reports that the
explosive-laden coconut thatkilled the elephant was targettedat wild boars destroying crops.
Two points need to be madehere. First, such savage killing ofno animal can be justified.Second, the Kerala Governmenthad permitted the killing ofwild boars in May. The Printreport cited above quotes DrAsha Thomas, Additional ChiefSecretary, Forest and Wildlife,Kerala Government, as saying,“There have been periodicdemands from farmers that theybe allowed to protect their cropand given the right to shoot wildboars. About a month ago, aGovernment order was issuedthat allowed the shooting of wildboars, subject to a number ofclauses.” The clauses, accordingto her, included “certification bythe local authorities that an areais suffering crop loss on accountof sustained attack by wild boarsand so on.” She added, “And oncethe permission is granted, onlysomeone from an empanelledgroup of licenced firearm own-ers would be allowed to shoot. Sofar we have had only one suchcase.”
P Wilson, who allegedlystuffed explosives in the coconutthat killed the pregnant ele-phant, as well as the two otheraccused in the case, AbdulKareem and Riyazuddin, had, ifthe allegations against them arecorrect, either not heard aboutthe conditions governing thekilling of wild boars or thoughtthese could be ignored withimpunity. One needs hardly to besurprised if the latter has beenthe case. According to a reportin the NDTV (June 5) by Sneha
Mary Koshy (edited byDeepshikha Ghosh), villagersin the region often used fire-crackers or explosives stuffed infood to protect their fields fromwild animals like boar and thehorrific practice had been wide-ly condemned. Obviously, how-ever, such condemnation had notled to deterrent punishments ofthe kind that would have haltedthe three accused in their tracks.
It is certainly important toprotect crops. The need to do so,however, can also be cited as anexcuse. A report by AdamWithnall in The Independent ofthe United Kingdom datelinedJune 5 quotes KartickSatyanarayan, co-founder of theNGO Wildlife SOS, as sayingthat farmers continued to use“crude and inhumane” methodslike fruit bombs “on the pretextof crop protection… despitecrop compensation schemesavailable from the forest depart-ment”. According to a report byShaji Phillips in The IndianExpress of June 6, theMannarkkad range forest officer,Ashique Ali U, in charge of prob-ing the Palakkad killing case,said that the accused were in thehabit of hunting wild animalsand selling their meat. This, iftrue, would junk any claim thatthey were trying to protect theircrops.
There are multiple reasonsfor growing elephant-humanconflict. In many cases, humansare guilty of wanton provocation.This is clear from a report,datelined May 18, 2019, byBirdie Witten in the Mirror, theUnited Kingdom, which wasbrought to the notice of this
writer by Sonia Jabbar, whoruns a successful elephant con-servation programme in NorthBengal. The report is about amother elephant, which hadgiven birth near the dry bed ofa lake, trying to get her newbornbaby to stand, while a crowd ofvillagers watched and took pho-tographs. Increasingly indicatingher irritation through move-ments, she finally charged at thecrowd as the latter started throw-ing stones at her and killed a 27-year-old man. Ten other ele-phants appeared in the areashortly afterwards, causingpanic.
This incident happened inWest Bengal. Kerala is not theonly State where elephants aremaltreated. In the last couple ofdays, three elephants wereapparently poisoned to death inChhattisgrah. Such crimes arebecoming increasingly frequentthroughout the country becausehuman encroachment into ani-mal habitats is growing, thanksto a swelling population. It is notjust new farms and human set-tlements but the entire range ofprojects — roads, rail tracks,power transmission lines, mines,industrial plants — undertakenin the name of a skewed conceptof development catering toadvertisement-driven compul-sive consumption. Animals willperish and the environmentruined if the process continuesunreformed. Finally, with theirsupportive linkages of life formsgone, humans will face extinction.
(The writer is ConsultantEditor, The Pioneer, and an author)
Sir — New Zealand PrimeMinister Jacinda Ardern must becongratulated for having eliminat-ed the scourge of Coronavirus.This is inspiring for the rest of theworld. While it is hearteningthat the country has declared itselfCOVID-19 free, it would beunjust to compare its recoverywith the rise in active cases inIndia. The whole of New Zealandcomprises only 4.9 million peo-ple, which comes to around one-fourth of the population of Indianmegacities like Mumbai or Delhi.Compared to India, New Zealandhas an extremely low populationdensity. This would relativelyhinder the spread of theCoronavirus.
No doubt New Zealand’srecovery will act as a case studyfor the entire world but onecountry’s situation cannot becompared with that of another.However, India needs to takesome important lessons fromNew Zealand on public health.We must exercise caution toarrest the spread of the diseasein our country.
Ravi Teja KathuripalliHyderabad
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Sir — With the InternationalCricket Council (ICC) banningthe age-old technique of using
saliva to shine a ball when crick-et emerges from the shutdowncaused by the COVID-19 pan-demic, bowlers will have to fixtheir gaze on revamping theirbowling skills to thrive in inter-
national cricket.Mastering bowling actions
and delivering the ball with var-ied lines and lengths consistent-ly may well be an alternative forthe bowlers. To enhance the
chances of taking wickets at fre-quent intervals, pacers may optfor reverse swing deliveries bytaking the best out from therough patches of the ball. One justhopes that before resuming crick-et, the ICC discusses the usage ofartificial wax in future meetingsto balance the game between thebat and ball. The problem calls forpragmatic solutions.
Tushar AnandPatna
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Sir — Despite the fact that India’sCOVID-19 cases have climbed tothe fourth highest in the world,people are yet to come to termswith the gravity of the situation.This despite the fact that we arebeing given daily updates on thenumber of cases and deaths. It’sjust not enough for us to followGovernment instructions undera lockdown. For our own safety,we must follow guidelines evenunder “unlock.” It’s a matter of lifeand death after all.
In April, even as the country was in the gripof the global pandemic, the Ministry ofHuman Resource Development (MHRD)
wrote to universities around the country, urg-ing them to study India’s response to the SpanishFlu and to identify those strategies from 1918that might be replicated in the lockdown-exitplan. Further, the MHRD exhorted universitiesto set up dedicated research teams to survey theneighbouring villages for their awareness ofCOVID-19.
In spite of being sincere and noble, thesedirectives tend to underscore, quite unintention-ally, a couple of chronic oversights that our insti-tutions have historically suffered from. Perhapsmore so now, than in 1918. However, the con-temporary clamour over the imperatives ofonline teaching, calls for technological upgra-dation of academic institutions, debates aboutequal access to e-learning portals and the long-term feasibility of such a learning model, giventhe low-to-moderate success of India’s alreadysizeable distant learning programmes, have com-pletely drowned out these other questions ofgreater import.
As our economy limps back to its routineafter undergoing an extended hard lockdownfrom March 25, what precise roles and tasksshould we delegate to our universities andresearch institutes? If India’s road to economicrecovery and self-reliance is predicated onwidening the bylanes of the “local”, how do wemobilise our universities to contribute to themission?
Perhaps an honest acknowledgment of ourshortcomings would be a useful plank to takeoff from. Of the two aforementioned instruc-tions sent by the MHRD, the first draws uponan assumption that the older city universities,such as those in Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai andBanaras, would have archives detailing the colo-nial administration’s handling of the Spanish Fluepidemic.
Admittedly, as a people, we aren’t too goodat record-keeping. In spite of the annual reportsand the college magazines, our educational insti-tutions haven’t really fared too well when itcomes to documenting their own activities andachievements, let alone those of the Governmentand such. It is only in the last five or six years— thanks to the compulsion of submittingdetailed reports to various accreditation bod-ies — that the process of meticulous documen-tation and archiving has come into effect.
The second directive, at least in theory, seeksto alert academic and research institutions totheir own geo-cultural location. We must be can-did in admitting that in a bid to have an exceed-ingly “national” character, Indian universitieshave often ignored the uniqueness of theirrespective locations. This oversight is more pro-nounced in the Central universities.
An engagement with the local — its needs,its history, its practices as well as its knowledgetraditions — if harnessed well, would havereaped great dividends. Unfortunately, thisremains a major omission both in syllabi andinstitutional outlook.
Before we assign responsibilities to our uni-versities and seek to realign their priorities, wemust address both of the aforementioned con-cerns. Further, we must begin by asking as towhat it is that the “local” needs the most in thesetumultuous times and in the uncertain futurethat we anticipate with much trepidation.
Here, the experience of Hollywood, prob-ably one of the most spontaneous-yet-organisedindustries in the world, has an important les-son for us. Prior to the outbreak of the Spanish
Flu, the business of movie-making inthe US thrived on a partnership of sortsbetween film-makers and independentexhibitors. The family-run “mom-and-pop” theatres, which had mush-roomed throughout the US, had pro-pelled the small-time local exhibitorson a somewhat level playing fieldwith the big city-based producers.
However, once the prolonged lock-down threw the subsistence economyof these theatres into a spin, a mannamed Adolph Zukor, a Hungarian-American film producer, started prey-ing on their vulnerability and launcheda vicious acquisition drive. He bulliedthe theatre owners into selling off theirassets at throwaway prices and estab-lished a total monopoly by extendinghis control over every link in the busi-ness chain.
Zukor succeeded in altering forev-er the participative character of theAmerican film industry and turning itinto a highly centralised trade thatrefused to factor in spaces outside LosAngeles. This structure of productionand control that was set in place dur-ing the pandemic and has produced thelikes of Harvey Weinstein remains vir-tually untouched till date.
As India aims for economic recov-ery through strategies of self-relianceand power to the small and cottagebusinesses, it must remain vigilant ofsuch predatory monopolising tenden-cies. We need to guard our at-risk localplayers against hawkish forces thatthreatened to render them inconse-quential.
This has to be done through acombination of financial assistance andskill upgradation. While theGovernment has announced a detailedeconomic package, a roadmap forrecalibrating the retreating workforcetowards the needs of the rural econo-my remains to be thrashed out.
It is precisely in this context thatthe role of universities in post-COVIDIndia may be best framed. Universitiesmust start by identifying problems spe-cific to the workforce and businessesaround their locations, devise contin-
gency measures to help them survivethe immediate crisis and, in the longrun, find ways to enable them to con-tribute robustly to our economicrevival.
To this effect, the following sugges-tions may be of interest. First, the mas-sive labour movement in the weeks fol-lowing the lockdown has propelledback into the limelight certain con-stituents of our economy that werebecoming increasing invisible. Afterdecades of focus on heavy industries,mega infrastructure projects, IT hubsand the service sector, we are onceagain looking at the rural economy andagriculture.
Under the circumstances, it isimportant that our universities, agri-cultural research institutes and depart-ments of agriculture, horticulture andbotany leverage their research outputto the local farmers. This, in turn,would entail training a batch of indi-viduals from the nearby villages who,by virtue of being familiar with bothscientific terminologies and the localidiom, can establish a bridge betweenresearchers at a regional centre and thefarming community that thrives in itsvicinity.
A successful model for such anenterprise has already been put in placeby an Odisha-based organisation calledBack to Village (B2V). Through itschain of Unnat Krishi Kendras, whichprovide scientific training to youngfarmers and college graduates withroots in the villages, B2V has succeed-ed in establishing a dialogue amonguniversities, researchers and farmers.
It will be expected of the univer-sities to find ways to open up suchknowledge traffic and further diversi-fy the scope of their outreach to otheraspects of the agricultural economysuch as food processing, packaging,warehousing, transportation and so on.
Second, universities must try toread the sociology of the regional econ-omy by extensively mapping and doc-umenting local business trends, prac-tices, market orientations and gaps inthe production chain.
Besides being of immense value topolicymakers, both at times of crisis(the current one and in the future) andotherwise, such data would emboldenthe universities themselves to launchshort-term skill enhancement courses,bearing in mind the specific needs ofthe local workforce.
Easing age-restriction and otheradmission-linked eligibilities will pro-mote learning opportunities outsidethe curriculum and extend them tothose learners, who aren’t necessarilya part of the regular academic pro-grammes. This will go a long way inempowering the migrant populationthat has swarmed backed to the villagesand is now staring at joblessness anda bleak future.
Third, on the strength of the afore-mentioned data, each university mustendeavour to establish at least one cen-tre dedicated exclusively to local his-tory, trends and resources. For exam-ple, universities in States like Jharkhandand Chhattisgarh can establish centresfor the promotion of the tribal econ-omy, while those in Punjab andHaryana can focus on sports.
By providing market linkages,devising strategies for product-promo-tion, organising trader-policymakermeets and continuously leveragingtheir in-house research findings, suchcentres may trigger new businesstrends that would be naturally sustain-able and might even prevent large-scalemigration to urban centres once thepandemic ends.
However, in a bid to become“vocal for local”, institutions must notend up usurping the local’s right tospeak for itself. Mechanisms for rou-tine interactions with stakeholdersfrom the local community and factor-ing in their feedback while assigningresearch goals must be institution-alised. If we must speak for the local,it is imperative that we know its lan-guage too. Then and only then can wemove towards a resurgent India that istruly self-reliant.
The pandemic has affected theworld in more ways than one.Economies of nations are in
shambles due to the Corona-enforced lockdowns. The world hasseen major job losses in each sector.And with the global death tolltouching 4,24,333, countries areeven finding it difficult to arrangefor last rites, particularly as manynear and dear ones have refused to
accept bodies of Coronavirus vic-tims. The State is left shouldering theburden of funerals of the dead andlivelihood doles for the living. As oftoday, social distancing is the onlyeffective method to control furtherspread of the contagion and coun-tries are struggling to open up theireconomies while dealing with thethreat of community spread.
However, we should learn tomake the best of what is available tous and come up with innovativeideas that will work during this time.Online education has come to stayand will require more innovativemethods, be it teaching, learning orconducting examinations. ArtificialIntelligence (AI) and MachineLearning (ML) are in for a quantumjump and these areas will requiremany specialists and offer millions
of jobs. E-libraries can also be con-sidered in this domain.
The digital economy has plen-ty of jobs to offer. With social dis-tancing becoming the new normal,people will increasingly resort to theuse of digital transactions and devel-oping different applications willrequire many specialists. As onlinebuying and selling become morerampant, they would require inno-vative advertising, too.
Another demand will be in thefield of alternate energy. Keeping inview the need for keeping pollutionlevels low now that they have beenbrought under control by the lock-down, more and more people willswitch to solar energy. Solar cars willalso be in demand in the near futureand all this will require designing,manufacturing and marketing skills.
While restaurants and road-side eateries may take longer toreopen and business will be a bitslow to pick up even when they do,home delivery of food items is like-ly to see a spurt in times to come aspeople will be a little reluctant toventure into crowded places. Onlinecooking classes, too, will be theorder of the day as food styling isvery much in demand these days.
While the global tourism indus-try is likely to remain severelyaffected, domestic tourism is expect-ed to pick up once the lockdown iscompletely eased across the coun-try. But most of it is likely to berestricted to areas within driving dis-tance as people will most avoidunnecessary train and plane travel.
The gig economy was doing welleven before the pandemic struck
and is likely to boom now. One canbe a “one stop shop” even for majorprojects and take the help of otherspecialists as and when required.
Once the scare of the Coronaoutbreak is over, everyone is goingto be much more careful about theirhealth, including improving theirimmune system. This will ensurethat associated industries in thehealthcare domain will be indemand and will have to gear up tocope with this sudden spurt.
Surely the market for healthcareand personalised gym equipmentwill also witness an upward trajec-tory. Additionally, the demand foralternate medicines such as ayurve-da, homeopathy and so on willincrease manifold. Further, yoga willbecome even more popular andmore experts and specialists in
these areas will be required. One can also consider upgrad-
ing one’s knowledge and skills asthere are a number of online cours-es available right now, some even forfree.
As they say, there is always a sil-ver lining in every dark cloud. Oneshould just learn to evolve and inno-vate and consider some of the newoptions available now and find asmany positive alternates to deal withthese trying times as possible.
One thing is for sure, the oldway of life is gone forever. One hasno option but to adapt, innovate andtry something new and different.The question is when and theanswer to that is: The best time isnow.
London: Twitter has removeda vast network of accounts thatit says is linked to the Chinesegovernment and were pushingfalse information favorable tothe country’s communist rulers.Beijing denied involvementFriday and said the companyshould instead take downaccounts smearing China.
The US social media com-pany suspended 23,750accounts that were posting pro-Beijing narratives, and anoth-er 150,000 accounts dedicatedto retweeting and amplifyingthose messages.
The network was engaged“ in a range of coordinated andmanipulated activities” in pre-dominantly Chinese languages,including praise for China’sresponse to the coronaviruspandemic and “ deceptive nar-ratives” about Hong Kongpro-democracy protests, thecompany said. The accountsalso tweeted about two othertopics: Taiwan and GuoWengui, an exiled billionairewaging a campaign from NewYork against China’s presidentand party leader Xi Jinping andhis administration. AP
Rotterdam: Dutch activistshave spray painted the words “killer” and “ thief ” anddaubed red paint on a statue ofa man from the 17th-centuryGolden Era of Dutch trade andcolonial expansion.
A municipal worker wasremoving the paint from thestatue of Piet Hein inRotterdam on Friday, amid awave of vandalism on statues ofhistorical figures in the UnitedStates and Europe.
Hein is best known forleading a Dutch naval action in
1628 that captured a Spanishtreasure fleet near Cuba. Agroup calling itself “ Heroes ofNever” in Dutch claimedresponsibility, saying in a state-ment Hein was “ a key figure inclearing the way for trans-Atlantic human trade inenslaved West Africans.”
The death of George Floydat the hands of Minneapolispolice officers has sparked a re-examination of the actions ofhistorical men, who often wereexalted in the form of statuesand other memorials. AP
London: The statue ofMahatma Gandhi in London’sParliament Square is amongseveral monuments being cov-ered and boarded up hereahead of another set of plannedprotests, which erupted afterthe custodial killing of African-American George Floyd.
The steps below Gandhi’sstatue and the sculpture offormer UK Prime MinisterWinston Churchill nearby wereamong those targeted withgraffiti during anti-racismBlack Lives Matter protestslast weekend, which ended inviolent clashes betweendemonstrators and police offi-cers on duty.
More clashes are fearedthis weekend as anti-racistgroups as well as far-right bod-ies are planning rival demon-strations in the UK capital.
“ The statue of WinstonChurchill in Parliament Squareis a permanent reminder of hisachievement in saving thiscountry – and the whole ofEurope – from a fascist andracist tyranny,” UK PrimeMinister Boris Johnson said ina Twitter statement, as he urgedpeople to stay away from fur-ther protests amid fears ofmore violence.
“ It is absurd and shamefulthat this national monumentshould today be at risk ofattack by violent protestors. Yes,he sometimes expressed opin-ions that were and are unac-ceptable to us today, but he wasa hero, and he fully deserves hismemorial,” he said.
Johnson said that while heunderstands the “ legitimate
feelings of outrage” at the cus-todial death of Floyd, a 46-year-old man who died after a whitepolice officer knelt on his neckin Minneapolis on May 25, theprotests held in the UK in sol-idarity have been “ hijacked byextremists” intent on violence.
“ The attacks on the policeand indiscriminate acts of vio-lence which we have witnessedover the last week are intoler-able and they are abhorrent.The attacks on the police andindiscriminate acts of violencewhich we have witnessed overthe last week are intolerable andthey are abhorrent,” he said.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan
also urged Londoners to stayaway from the protests, withfears of clashes between anti-racism and far-right demon-strators.
“ I’m extremely concernedthat further protests in centralLondon not only risk spread-ing COVID-19, but could leadto disorder, vandalism and vio-lence. Extreme far-right groupswho advocate hatred and divi-sion are planning counter-protests, which means that therisk of disorder is high,” saidKhan.
“ Be in no doubt thesecounter-protests are there toprovoke violence, and their
only goal is to distract andhijack this important issue.Staying home and ignoringthem is the best response thisweekend,” he said.
Khan confirmed that theMetropolitan Police wereworking on a “ robust” polic-ing plan to keep Londonerssafe and to prevent disorder,including covering up keylandmarks.
“ Together with our part-ners, we are ensuring that keystatues and monuments at risk,including the Cenotaph,Winston Churchill and NelsonMandela, are covered and pro-tected,” he said. AP
Louisville (US): The use of con-troversial “ no-knock” warrantshas been banned in Louisville,and the new ordinance namedfor Breonna Taylor, who wasfatally shot after officers burstinto her home.
The city’s Metro Councilunanimously voted Thursdaynight to ban the controversialwarrants after days of protestsand calls for reform.
Taylor, who was studying tobecome a nurse, was shot eighttimes by officers conducting anarcotics investigation onMarch 13. No drugs were foundat her home. “ I’m just going to
say, Breonna, that’s all she want-ed to do was save lives, so withthis law she will continue to getto do that,” Taylor’s mother,Tamika Palmer, said after thelaw was passed.
“ She would be so happy.”The law bans the use of the war-rants by Louisville Metro offi-cers. Police typically use them indrug cases over concern thatevidence could be destroyed ifthey announce their arrival.
Kentucky Sen. Rand Paulalso introduced federal legisla-tion Thursday that would banthe use of no-knock warrantsnationwide. AP
Hong Kong: More than 100protesters in Hong Kongmarched and shouted slogansduring a lunchtime protestFriday in a luxury shoppingmall, marking the one yearanniversary of a clash withpolice outside the semi-autonomous Chinese city’s leg-islature.
Protesters marched throughthe mall in the Admiralty busi-ness district holding flags thatread “ Hong KongIndependence” and shouting “stand for Freedom, stand withHong Kong.”
Protesters sang the protestanthem “ Glory to Hong Kong”, and a large banner was laid outwith a Chinese saying meaning“ The people fear not death, whythreaten them with it?” Thedemonstrators were commem-orating last year’s event in whichtens of thousands of protesterssurrounded the legislative build-ing and stalled the reading of anextradition bill that would have
allowed criminal suspects to besent to mainland China to standtrial. Police deployed tear gasand rubber bullets to dispersethe protesters, one of the firstviolent clashes in what wouldbecome a monthslong push forgreater democracy.
The protest movement qui-eted down earlier this year as thecoronavirus pandemic began,but picked up steam in recentweeks after China’s ceremonialparliament decided to enact anew national security law forHong Kong, a former Britishcolony. AP
Kiev: The wife of UkrainianPresident Volodymyr Zelenskiysays she is infected with thenovel coronavirus.
First lady Olena Zelenskawrote in an Instagram post onFriday that her husband andtheir children have tested neg-ative.
She said she feels good, isreceiving outpatient treatmentand is isolated from her fami-ly “ in order not to put them indanger” .
Ukraine has so far report-ed over 29,000 confirmedcoronavirus cases, including870 deaths.
The Government startedgradually easing lockdownrestrictions in late May with theresumption of public trans-portation and the reopening ofmalls and gyms. AP
Rome: Prosecutors went toquestion Italian PremierGiuseppe Conte on Friday aboutthe lack of a coronavirus lock-down on two towns in northernItaly’s Lombardy region thatbecame one of the hardest-hitareas of the country’s outbreak.
Doctors and virologistshave said the two-week delay inquarantining Alzano andNembro helped allow the virusto spread in Bergamo province,which saw a 571% increase inexcess deaths in March com-pared with the average of theprevious five years.
Lead prosecutor Maria
Cristina Rota arrived with ateam of aides morning at thepremier’s office in Rome,Palazzo Chigi, on Friday morn-ing. In addition to Conte, sheis expected to question thehealth and interior ministers. Inprevious days, Rota has inter-viewed the head of the SuperiorInstitute of Health.
To date, no one has beenplaced under investigation andit’s unclear what, if any, crimi-nal responsibility might beassigned to public officials fordecisions taken or not in theonetime epicentre of Europe’soutbreak. AP
Islamabad: Pakistan hasreported 6,397 new coron-avirus cases on Thursday, thehighest single day spike, tak-ing the total number of infec-tions in the country to1,25,933, the Health Ministrysaid on Friday.
The new record single dayspike was reported on a daywhen the Pakistan governmentwas to present the budget forthe 2020-21 fiscal year inParliament after showing dis-mal negative 0.38 per centGross Domestic Product (GDP)growth in the outgoing year, forwhich the officials have blamed
the coronavirus outbreakamong the main reasons.
The Ministry of NationalHealth Services reported that107 patients died of coron-avirus during the last 24 hours.A total of 40,247 patients haverecovered from the contagiousinfection so far.
Punjab province has report-ed 47,382 patients of coron-avirus, Sindh 46,828, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa 15,787,Balochistan 7,673, Islamabad6,699, Gilgit-Baltistan 1,030 andPakistan-occupied Kashmirreported 534 cases till now, thehealth ministry said. PTI
Oklahoma City: Black com-munity and political leaders arecalling on President DonaldTrump to at least change thedate of an Oklahoma rally kick-starting his return to publiccampaigning, saying that hold-ing the event on Juneteenth, theday that marks the end of slav-ery in America, is a “slap in theface.”
Trump campaign officialsdiscussed in advance the pos-sible reaction to the Juneteenthdate, but there are no plans tochange it despite fierce blow-back. California Sen. KamalaHarris and Tulsa civic officialswere among the black leaderswho said it was offensive forTrump to pick that day — June19 — and that place — Tulsa, an
Oklahoma city that in 1921 wasthe site of a fiery and orches-trated white-on-black attack.
“ This isn’t just a wink towhite supremacists — he’sthrowing them a welcomehome party,” Harris, a leadingcontender to be Democraticpresidential candidate JoeBiden’s running mate, tweetedof Trump’s rally plans.
“ To choose the date, tocome to Tulsa, is totally disre-spectful and a slap in the face toeven happen,” said SherryGamble Smith, president ofTulsa’s Black Wall StreetChamber of Commerce, anorganization named after theprosperous black communitythat white Oklahomans burneddown in the 1921 attack. AP
New York: Global poverty couldrise to over one billion peopledue to the Covid-19 pandemicand more than half of the 395million additional extreme poorwould be located in South Asia,which would be the hardest-hitregion in the world, accordingto a new report.
Researchers from King’sCollege London and AustralianNational University publishedthe new paper with the UnitedNations University WorldInstitute for DevelopmentEconomics Research (UNU-WIDER) said that poverty islikely to increase dramaticallyin middle-income developingcountries and there could be asignificant change in the dis-tribution of global poverty.
The location of globalpoverty could shift back towardsdeveloping countries in SouthAsia and East Asia, the reportsaid. The paper, ‘Precarity and
the Pandemic: Covid-19 andPoverty Incidence, Intensityand Severity in DevelopingCountries,’ finds that extremepoverty could rise to over 1 bil-lion people globally as a resultof the crisis.
The cost of the crisis in lostincome could reach $500 millionper day for the world’s poorestpeople, and the intensity andseverity of poverty are likely tobe exacerbated dramatically.
The report said that basedon the $1.90 a day poverty lineand a 20 per cent contraction,more than half of the 395 mil-lion additional extreme poorwould be located in South Asia,which would become the hard-est hit region in the world —”mainly driven by the weight ofpopulous India” — followed bysub-Saharan Africa whichwould comprise 30 per cent, or119 million, of the additionalpoor. The report added that as
the value of the poverty lineincreases, a larger share of theadditional poor will be con-centrated in regions where thecorresponding poverty line ismore relevant given the averageincome level. For instance, theregional distribution of theworld’s poor changes drastical-ly when looking at the $ 5.50 aday poverty line—the medianpoverty line among upper-mid-dle-income countries.
At this level, almost 41 percent of the additional half a bil-lion poor under a 20 per centcontraction scenario would livein East Asia and the Pacific,chiefly China; a fourth wouldstill reside in South Asia; and acombined 18 per cent would livein the Middle East and NorthAfrica (MENA) and in LatinAmerica and the Caribbean(LAC), whose individual sharesare close to that recorded forsub-Saharan Africa. AP
Kabul: A bomb explodedFriday inside a mosque inwestern Kabul, killing at leastfour people, including theprayer leader, and woundingeight, an Afghan governmentofficial said.
Interior Ministryspokesman Tariq Arian said thebomb had been placed insidethe mosque but had no addi-tional details. Police cordonedoff the area and helped movethe wounded to ambulancesand nearby hospitals. No onetook immediate responsibilitybut a mosque attack earlier thismonth was claimed by theIslamic State group’s affiliate.The Taliban issued a state-ment condemning the attackand calling the death of theprayer leader a “ great crime.”Azizullah Mofleh Frotan wasamong the city’s more promi-nent prayer leaders. Violencehas spiked in recent weeks inAfghanistan, with most of theattacks claimed by the IS affil-iate, headquartered in the east-ern Nangarhar province. AP
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New Delhi: Due to activity ofStatic and dynamic databasecompression, all the services ofDelhi PRS i.e. reservation, can-cellation, charting , internetbooking, PRS enquiry on tele-phone no. 139 and ElectronicDeposit Receipt ( EDR) ser-vices will not be available forthree hours and thirty minutesduring the intervening nightof 13/14.06.2020 i.e. from11.45 p.m. on 13.06.2020 to03.15 a.m. on 14.06.2020approximately.
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In view of the lockdown, theGovernment on Friday
released only a part of the retailinflation data, which indicatesthat food prices have gone upby 9.28 per cent in May.
“All India year-on-yearinflation rates for ConsumerFood Price Index (CFPI) forthe month of May 2020 forRural, Urban and Combinedsector are 9.69 per cent, 8.36per cent and 9.28 per centrespectively,” said an officialpress release.
In May 2019, the foodinflation was 1.83 per cent asper the full CPI data releasedfor that period.
The Government for thesecond month in a row releasedthe truncated data on retailinflation in the backdrop of thelockdown following COVID-19pandemic. For April also,Ministry of Statistics andProgramme Implementationhad released a truncated CPIdata. The Government had
imposed the lockdown fromMarch 25, 2020 to curb thespread of coronavirus. The lock-down adversely affected eco-nomic activities in the country.
In a statement, the NationalStatistical Office (NSO) in theministry said that in view of thecontinued limited transactionsof products in the market inMay, 2020 as well, it has beendecided to release the pricemovement of sub-groups/groups of CPI, follow-ing the principles of adequacyas indicated in the CPI releasefor the month of April 2020.
“The price of only thoseitems were included, whichhave been reported from atleast 25 per cent of markets, sep-arately for rural and urban sec-tor and constituted more than70 per cent weight of the respec-tive sub-groups/ groups,” it said.
Also, the all India indiceshave been compiled usingdirect approach by consideringa common market at thenational level in both rural andurban sectors separately.
New Delhi: The Governmenton Friday held back the releaseof complete data of index ofindustrial production for April,saying it is not appropriate tocompare the IIP data with ear-lier months due to COVID-19lockdown.
An official statementshowed that the IIP — whichmeasures factory output in thecountry — stood at 56.3 pointsin April, 2020 compared to 126
in the same month a year ago.“In view of the preventive
measures and announcementof nationwide lockdown bythe government to containspread of COVID-19 pandem-ic, majority of the industrialsector establishments were notoperating from the end ofMarch, 2020 onwards.
“This has had an impact onthe items being produced bythe establishments during the
month of April, 2020, where anumber of responding unitshave reported NIL produc-tion,” Ministry of Statistics andProgramme Implementationsaid in the statement issued onFriday.
Consequently, it is notappropriate to compare theIIP of April, 2020 with earliermonths and users may like toobserve the changes in IIP inthe following months. PTI
New Delhi: BhartiAXA Life Insurance, ajoint venture betweenBharti Enterprises, oneof India’s leading busi-ness groups, and AXA,one of the world’slargest insurance com-panies, said the company regis-tered 17 per cent growth in itsrenewal premium to �1,359 corefor the year ended March 31,2020, against �1,164 crore in thelast financial year 2018-19.
The total premium incomegrew 5 per cent to �2,187 crorein the financial year 2019-20from �2,076 crore in 2018-19.The company said its new busi-ness premium income stood at�829 crore in the financial year2019-20, as compared to �911crore in the corresponding fiscal
period a year ago. Assetunder management wit-nessed a surge of 21 percent to �6,902 crore infor the year ended March31, 2020, from �5,699 crore as on March31, 2019.
Parag Raja, ManagingDirector and Chief ExecutiveOfficer, Bharti AXA LifeInsurance, said, “We grew andregistered steady performanceon many business parametersin the financial year 2019-20,despite the disruption causedby the spread of Coronaviruspandemic and the subsequentlockdown in the crucial monthof March, which adverselyaffected the domestic life insur-ance industry in terms of newbusiness.”
Raipur: In certain sections ofmedia it has been reported thatChhattisgarh Government onThursday disallowed NMDC tocarry out Iron Ore storage,loading in its Bailadila Minesat Dantewada District. Thoughthere is no written communi-cation from the StateGovernment, however, it hasbeen reported that NMDC hasnot obtained storage licensesfor its Loading Plants.
NMDC will place all therelevant facts and legal positionbefore the State Government toresolve the issue amicably.
NMDC is having a longassociation of more than 60years with the people ofChhattisgarh and is committedto serve the State and its peo-ple in years to come.
Mumbai: The country’s for-eign exchange reserves crossedthe half-a-trillion mark for thefirst time after it surged by mas-sive USD 8.22 billion in theweek ended June 5, accordingto the latest data from the RBI.
The reserves rose to USD501.70 billion in the reportingweek helped by a whopping risein foreign currency assets(FCA).
In the previous week endedMay 29, the reserves hadincreased by USD 3.44 billionto USD 493.48 billion.
In the week ended June 5,FCA, which is a major compo-nent of the overall reserves, roseUSD 8.42 billion to USD 463.63billion. Expressed in dollarterms, the foreign currencyassets include the effect ofappreciation or depreciation ofnon-US units like the euro,pound and yen held in the for-eign exchange reserves.
The gold reserves declinedby USD 329 million to USD32.352 billion in the reportingweek, the Reserve Bank ofIndia (RBI) data showed.
In the reporting week, thespecial drawing rights with theInternational Monetary Fund(IMF) were up by USD 10 mil-lion to USD 1.44 billion. PTI
Mumbai: The Reserve Bankon Friday proposed to reviewthe guidelines on ownership,governance and corporate struc-ture of private sector banks inthe backdrop of key develop-ments in the space in the recentyears. The five-member internalworking group to review theguidelines will be headed by RBICentral Board Director PKMohanty, the central bank saidin a release. PTI
It was mid-February. The tepid wintersun played gracious host to manySunday brunches. The sweet smell of
spring was just about beginning to tingleone’s senses. Regular conversationsrevolved around summer trips to Europe,the forthcoming IPL season and theusual politico-economic gossip. Newschannels were busy beaming ‘BreakingNews’ stories even when there was none.There were faint murmurs about how avirus was affecting certain geographies,swiftly brushed aside since it did not con-cern us. Life, in short, was a breeze. Hadanyone bet on the odds of the breeze turn-ing into a violent tempest in a matter ofweeks would probably have been baptizedas a reincarnate of Nostradamus.
And so it happened. The pesky trav-eller, that some called the Chinese virus,went on an Around the World in 80 Daysor less trip. As it travelled, it left countriesdevastated. One after the other, countriesannounced airport shutdowns, sealedborders and stay-at-home orders. Theword ‘lockdown’ became an integral partof the Indian lexicon since March 25, 2020.Something this drastic, surreal and dra-matic had never been imagined before, letalone been experienced by generations.The stark reality resembled fictionalworks of Hollywood producers that wehad enjoyed over popcorn and cokecombos in movie theatres (unfortunate-ly, closed now).
While the June sun beats down on usin all its glory and the fresh Alphonso
mango shake (that I have perfected overmultiple tries) tastes simply superb, I pressthe rewind button to reminisce about thelittle things that brought joy and helpedmould a different perspective during thelast few months — moments and experi-ences that gave me an opportunity toreflect, appreciate and acknowledge real-ities.
TAKE NOTHING FOR GRANTED —EUREKA MOMENT
The morning jog on the road, theimpromptu coffee date (with wife, ofcourse), the rustling of the daily newspa-per, the live sports on TV and the avail-ability of beer from the local liquor store— all things taken for granted. Until thelockdown struck. The sight of the morn-ing newspaper at my doorstep after a threeweek break and the endorphin rush Iexperienced with a five km jog after thehiatus, brought immense joy as well as arealisation to ‘take nothing for granted’.The age-old saying, finally understood,loud and clear. However, I am still crav-ing the coffee date and a classic Federer-Nadal duel.
HUMANITY IS ALIVEIn spite of personal strife, countless
people stepped up to the plate and loos-ened their purse strings to help feed theneedy irrespective of faith, caste or polit-ical biases. These heroes deserve to beapplauded. The joy at seeing such selflessservice cemented my belief that human-ity is alive and kicking. All is not lost.
NO EXPECTATION, NO DISAP-POINTMENT
Governments across the world actedto mitigate the effects of the pandemic.Such was the nature of the problem thatthere was no easy solution for lawmakersto follow. Confusion, panic, flip-flops
ruled the roost. It would be premature andgrossly unfair to pass judgement on theresponse of governments around theworld. Whether they acted with prudenceor otherwise, depends entirely on the levelof personal strife of the evaluator as wellas his/her political disposition (unwaver-ing or not). While I oscillated betweendespair and hope, the famous words byJohn F Kennedy reverberated loud andclear, “Ask not what your country can dofor you, ask what you can do for yourcountry.” Words that made me lightlamps, bang plates and add my pennies tothe newly launched care fund. Withhope, and I must admit a bit of expecta-tion, I even perused through the fine-print of the 20 lakh crore package. Whilethe zeroes made my head spin, I foundsolace in a quote by Mark Twain, “Ifvoting made any difference they would-n’t let us do it.” With that thought, Ilearnt not to expect — a surefire recipe to avoid disap-pointment.
J O U R NA L I S MV/S BREAKINGNEWS
C o u n t l e s shours in front ofthe television andmany more buried inreading news stories onmy phone made meappreciate true journal-ism. At one end of thespectrum was the ‘break-ing news’ in bold fonts andbright colours trying towoo me with a narrativethat spelt sensationalism.At the other end, was a jour-nalist traversing the lengthand breadth of the country,reporting on the plight of
migrants. I must admit, the latter was farmore compelling to watch, appreciate andreflect upon.
DIGNITY OF LABOURDusting around the house, wiping the
droplets off the shower panel and learn-ing how to clean the dishes. Simplechores, unnoticed till the lockdown hap-pened. The intervening period taught me,and hopefully many, the respect and dig-nity such jobs deserve.
DEBATES, DATA AND FLATTENINGOF THE CURVE
Endless hours spent infront of the television.Heated exchanges onWhatsApp groups.Learning (unsuccessfully)to be a quasi-epidemiolo-gist. And understanding
data that would makean Applied-Math stu-dent proud. All in aday’s work. Well,all it did was to‘fatten the curve’(notice the miss-ing ‘L’), on thegraph as well asthe mid-riff.
The discus-sions and
debatess i m p l yre-iterat-ed mylong heldbelief thatcommon
s e n s e ,
after all, is not so common. And that herdsare immune to an alternate viewpoint. Welive in a world of on-tap information andmaking sense of this information over-loadfed to us through social-media universi-ties requires diligence. As for debates,sometimes silence speaks louder thanwords. Much to the delight of my family,I am now learning to use the mute buttonon my TV remote and have downloadedthe latest version of App-Detox on mymobile. It seems my personal journeytowards the Zen garden has begun.
ONE FOR SORROW, FOUR FOR APARTY
Home cooked delicacies, some freshbrews, conversations and fights over whohas the best Spotify playlist. It does not takea dozen friends to make a rocking party.All it takes is four of the most amazing peo-ple whom I call family — my wife, my lazyson, my adorable daughter and moi. As formy friends who called me a bore until now,wait till we meet again. I sure have learnta thing or two about partying.
BACK TO SCHOOLFrom spending time setting up my
daughter’s online class module to helpingher with her assignments helped mereconnect with learning. Long hours read-ing texts, learning and explaining conceptswere a refreshing change from the monot-ony and pressures of everyday work life.If anything, the lockdown made me con-versant with what children learn at schoolthese days, quite different from what andhow we were taught in yesteryears. Analternate career in teaching in the future?Never say never.
THE GAMES, HOUSE-PARTIES,NETFLIX AND FAMILY ZOOM CALLS
The first time I logged onto thehouse-party app to connect with
friends, I was admonished by the childrenof the house. This seemed to be theirdomain. Gradually, the friends and fam-ily sessions moved to Zoom calls, muchto the relief of the younger generation.Birthdays were celebrated, anniversarieswished and Ludo played online. Withtime on hand, even though distanced,social interactions never stopped. Yes,everyone connected and thankfully so.Leisure found a new medium throughtechnology. Long-lost hobbies were revi-talised, board-games were scheduled,countless Netflix series enjoyed andthere was enough laughter all around. Foronce, time was never short and gettingbored not an option. The lockdown, ina strange way, brought us all a little clos-er.
INDIA’S GOT TALENTMy Facebook / Instagram feed was
inundated with posts that spelt pure tal-ent in capitals. A friend stroking away atthe keys of his piano, another doing aperfect rendition of Summer of 69 and yetanother displaying the perfectly bakedcroissant. I could never have imaginedthe passion and talent that was hiddenbehind the cloak of the regular ‘9 to 5’life. The lockdown brought this talent tothe fore and I hope has re-kindled longlost passions. The therapeutic effecteach one of these posts had on me isimmeasurable.
The virus-induced lockdown hasbeen tough on many counts. Funnilyenough, it has given each of one of us,moments that we might have missednoticing or appreciating otherwise. I wishto use these special moments to re-build,re-invigorate and re-imagine my being.
Let the summer sun smile and shine.(The author is the director of Pebble
Street.)
Ayushmann Khurrana has alwaysbeen inspired by Amitabh
Bachchan since his childhood andit was his dream to share screenwith the legend. Shoojit Sircar’sGulabo Sitabo made his life-longdream come true. On the releaseday of the film on a digital plat-form, Ayushmann has penned anote recounting his first impres-sion of seeing the iconicsuperstar on the bigscreen.
“Whenever ayoung person in ourcountry wants to stepinto the field of acting,his goal is AmitabhBachchan. There wasa dialogue in my lastfilm that ‘Bachchancan’t be made, youare just bornBachchan’. As a childwhen I saw Big B onthe big screen in Humin Neelam cinema, Ifelt such a surge ofenergy within me andthat’s when I decided thatI will become an actor,” saysAyushmann.
He adds, “My first TV
shoot was done in Mukesh Mills and thiswas the place where Jumma
Chumma De De from Hum wasshot. That day I got the ‘I havearrived’ feeling. If this was the sit-uation back then, you might bethinking what feeling I must begoing through today.”
Ayushmann thanks his men-tor Shoojit for uniting him with
his biggest matinee idol. “In Gulabo Sitabo,
this celebrity stoodbefore me as a ‘co’artist and the attitudeof our characters inthe film was such thatwe had to endureeach other a lot. Inreality, I cannot sayanything to such abig star like him. Iwould like to thankShoojit da for thisamazing experience,for showing me inthe same frame with asuperhero likeAmitabh Bachchan.
You are my guru, I havereached here by holding
your hand.” saysAyushmann.
�What is the premise ofNancy Drew?
The series picks up withNancy Drew, a teenagedetective, at age 18. She’s alittle disenchanted with sev-eral things in her life andhasn’t been doing the detec-tive work that she was busywith in her youth. And thenthis mystery falls into her lapand it’s on her shoulders tofigure it out. Her resource-fulness and integrity are putto test in the glamorous —but sometimes treacherous— world of Hollywood.
As much as you’d like toflow and go along withNancy to figure out the mys-tery she finds around herself,you will also find youngadults dealing with things intheir day-to-day lives. Theyjust have this fantastic cir-cumstance right in front ofthem to deal with.
�Why do you think it is theright time to bring backNancy Drew?
I’m excited for this showbecause it incorporatesNancy Drew, who has beenimportant to so many gen-erations. When this first
came up, my parents hadstories about reading NancyDrew books to tell me. Iremember them being inthe library at the agewhen my friendsplayed comput-er games. Andso, it’s beensomethingthat’s famil-iar with somany peopleand to nowsee it in thisincarnation isindeed fantastic.
�Why do you think theaudience will love thisrecreation of Nancy Drew?
I would say for anybodywho has seen other rendi-tions of Nancy’s storythrough series, films or
books, I would just point outthat none of them have hadKennedy McMann. Nobodyimagined her like Kennedy.
Just meeting her andgetting to watch
her work is fun.She was bornto play thisrole. I’mexcited foreverythingthat comes
from it.
�How does Aceadd to the
premise?Ace is a guy who works
at The Claw Restaurantwith Nancy and her friends.He washes dishes in theback and he’s a friend andconfidant of Nancy and aco-worker of George and
Bess.Well, often known as an
“amiable burnout,” Ace is afairly-mindful person. Helives simply and enjoysdoing the dishes as much asanything else. He’s thought-ful enough to interact withNancy and figure thingsout with her.
�How are we introducedto Ace in the pilot episode?
We first meet Ace atThe Claw. He’s in the back,washing dishes and doinghis thing. He’s there withNancy as this mystery fallsinto their lap.
�How would you describeAce’s relationship to hisco-workers at The Claw?
Ace has several impor-tant relationships in hislife. He works closely withhis co-workers. George ishis boss and keeps him incheck. He’s a confidant ofNancy Drew and they shareeach other’s lives. He seemsto have quite an affectionfor Bess, who’s anotherwaitress at The Claw.
�Tell us something about yourcharacter Clark Kent.
Henry Cavill: Clark is a wellbrought up farm boy. At the sametime, he is a young man who hasno clue of who he is and why heis so different. Later, his self-dis-covery layers his life with a senseof loss. He feels like an outsiderat all stages of his life. The onlyplace he’s been able to feel athome is with Martha andJonathan but otherwise, evenwhen he knows who his real par-ents are and where his real homeis, he’s made to feel even more asan outsider there.
�Tell us something aboutMartha and Jonathan.
Henry: They both are good,
traditional and moral people. Ithink Kevin and Diane broughtthat to their characters exception-ally well. Kevin had an incrediblesort of openness and softness thatwas like a traditional father andwhen he played Jonathan, it wasreally easy to feel that. It was like-wise with Diane. As Martha, sheplayed the role of a caring moth-er so well.
There is still that slight fear ofClark for her because she knowswhat he is capable of. I thoughtthat was fantastic. When Clark isolder, she totally accepts andknows that I’m a controlled per-son. She portrays that wonderfulstrength, which is exactly whereSuperman gets a lot of hisstrength from. As generic as it
maybe, Clark’s upbringing and hisnurturing is from the likes ofJonathan and Martha and thestrength which Kevin and Dianebrought to those roles, made it soeasy to play that.
�How was it working with AmyAdams?
Henry: I really liked workingwith Amy. She is great and bringsgood fun and energy to the set.On long days, you do need some-one to goof around sometimes.As a person, you can have funwith Amy and then she brings outthis wonderfully powerful andaxed character. I think the inter-action between Amy andSuperman is that she is obvious-ly the ‘Superwoman’ in a subtle
sense. She has finally found thisone guy who can literally sweepher off her feet (Laughs).
�How was it working with ZackSnyder?
Henry: His energy was alwaysup and its fun. Even though thehours were extremely long, Zackkept stuff interesting and excitingwhich is a great thing about him.It’s cool for us also and that per-meates with the entire crew. Wewere making Superman for good-ness sake. So, it had to be cool andZack reminded us of that with hisattitude and his way of being him-self every day. And I couldn’t haveasked for a better director for thisfilm. He is great!
Amy Adams: Working withZack, at first, I was a little nervousbecause he is so confident and Idon’t possess the same confi-dence. If they let me work on thesame scene for five days, I’ll keepdoing it, perfecting it but Zackknows exactly what he is lookingfor and he knows when he has it.That gives a certain kind of con-fidence.
He just has a strong idea ofthe story, the character and I wasreally thrilled by that. I hate to saythat I was surprised but I reallywas because I knew he was sucha visual master and that he had areally strong vision for the film.His detailed understanding ofthe character was awesome. Forthe first couple of days, when I
worked with him, he wouldreally stay on somethingwhen it really had to bedone for the character. Whenwe were shaping Lois and
their relation, he really stayedwith me and helped me tofind Lois in this new worldand this tone of the film. Iappreciate that!
�Tell us more about thesuit.
Henry: I have loved thecostume. I think it’s a reallygood modernisation of some-thing very classic. It is veryalien and yet recognisable asthe suit we all know and love.I think it almost brings atestosterone energy to some-thing which I think isrequired in today’s set offilms because everyone isused to things being high inoctave and visceral in thenews. Films in today’s timesare fantasies and they have tobe even bigger and better. Ithink the suit lends some-thing of that sort. It is some-thing which is exceptionallycool.
�How does Superman affectLois?
Amy: I think he takesLois by surprise and it is veryinteresting that it takes thisperson from another world tomake her more human. Hishumanity brings about achange in her heart and prob-
ably gives her a strong senseof humanity as well. As thestory continues, she becomesa stronger and well-roundedhuman being. I think shereally comes to respect andidentifies humanity by herexperiences with Clark.
�Tell us about some attrib-utes that Henry andSuperman share.
Amy: I expected a lotmore swagger from Henrybut he actually turned out tobe quite humble and gener-ous. In our first reading, Iremember thinking that he isa rare package not only in lifebut especially in Hollywood.To find somebody with thatphysical presence that alsohas this softness is just rare.There is something very gen-tle about him. He has thatquality that is so importantfor Clark and for Superman,both. You are actually able tobelieve that he can just savethe entire world.
Returning to helm an Agatha Christie adaptation afterthe mammoth success of his last film Murder on the
Orient Express (2017), Kenneth Branagh seems partic-ularly pleased with how his next Death on the Nile hasshaped up. Audience in the sub continent have a spe-cial interest in the film as it stars our very own Ali Fazalalongside a bevy of talented artistes namely ArmieHammer, Gal Gadot, Letitia Wright, Annette Bening,Rose Leslie, Russell Brand and Emma Mackey amongothers.
Kenneth, who isin the midst of pro-moting his next,Christopher Nolan’sTenet, got talkingabout Fazal in aninterview. The actor-filmmaker, whenasked about Fazalwas quoted saying,“Ali was a joy towork with, anabsolute delight. He’sa total pro. He’s a realdetails man. He wascompletely caughtup in how the char-acter looked, sound-ed and was able to bevery precise, but alsovery playful. Hecould improvisewhen I asked him toimprovise. He has astrong sense ofhumour. He is ener-getic and physicallyvery adroit, so hewas involved in bothdancing and inaction pieces. Hewas a fantasticensemble player. Hewas incredibly pop-ular with our cast,they loved him.”
Fazal, who has a handful of international films to hiscredit including 2017’s Oscar nominated Victoria andAbdul alongside Judi Dench, is among the popular Indianactors, internationally. Known to balance between hisinternational and Indian work, the young actor is mak-ing the country proud globally.
The actor was recently in discussion for his talks abouthow he learnt to be independent in his teens, and hasrealised it is liberating but comes with immense respon-sibility. He added that his boarding school experience pre-pared him to cope with lockdown in a better way. Ali hasbeen at his Bandra home alone since early March and hasbeen managing well without any house help. “I am an acci-dental cook. But being outside home and living in a board-ing school has made me realise that I can manage wellon my own,” he said.
“I remember in my early teens when I first went toDoon, I struggled for a few weeks. But over the time, itbecame enjoyable. Being independent has its ownadvantages. It is liberating but it comes with immenseresponsibility, too,” he said.
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Sevilla beat local rivals RealBetis 2-0 as La Liga
returned after three monthsaway on Thursday, becomingthe second of Europe’s fivemajor leagues to resume fol-lowing the coronavirus pan-demic.
After the Bundesliga inGermany, La Liga opened itsdoors again to players but notsupporters at the RamonSanchez Pizjuan, where theusually vibrant Sevillederby was played in frontof empty stands.
Lucas Ocampos gaveSevilla the lead from a56th-minute penalty andFernando Reges thenadded the second goal for thehome side, who are third inthe table.
Both coaches made use
of their new allocation of fivesubstitutes and therewas a drinks breaks ineach half but the con-test lost its fluency lateon, in part becauseBetis never lookedlike staging a come-
back.Victory strengthens
Sevilla’s hold on third place asthey move four points above
Getafe and Real Sociedadbelow them. Betis sit 12thand face the possibility ofbeing dragged into a relega-tion battle.
“I always believed wewould play again,” said LaLiga president Javier Tebas,who had also indicated that“10 or 15 per cent” of fanscould attend stadiums beforethe season finishes on July 19.
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Young Haider Ali was rewarded for his stupendousrecent form with a maiden international call-up for
Pakistan’s ‘bio-secure’ tour of England in August-September.
The major surprises in the list of 29 players was theinclusion of former captain Sarfaraz Ahmed, who lastplayed for Pakistan in October 2019, and the recall offast bowler Sohail Khan, who last played for the coun-try in December 2017.
Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) on Friday announceda 29-player squad for three Tests and as many T20Is inthe UK.
Haider had an outstanding 2019-20 season, follow-ing which he earned an emerging contract for the 2020-21 season.
Meanwhile Sohail, whose last played for Pakistanin the Boxing Day Test aginst Australia in 2016, is com-ing off a good domestic season.
In the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy 2019-20, he took 22wickets in nine matches, while he grabbed seven wick-ets in the PSL.
The announcement a day after premier pacerMohammad Amir and middle-order batsman HarisSohail pulled out of the tour citing personal reasons.
“Amir withdrew so that he can be at the birth of hissecond child in August while Haris took the option ofpulling out of the tour due to the Covid-19 pandemic,”the PCB media release said.
Four reserve players have also been named as a coverin case anyone fails the pre-tour Covid-19 testing, whichwill be carried out on June 20 and 25.
An extended squad, including white-ball specialists,is being sent to England as the players, in accordancewith series SOPs in the wake of Covid-19, will remainin England from start to finish.
“The selectors have picked a squad which gives usthe best chance of success in England. But the main focusof the selectors has been red-ball cricket, which we willplay for nearly two months with the T20Is to be playedat the backend of the ICC World Test Championshipfixtures,” chief selector and head coach Misbah-ul-Haqsaid.
“The series against England will be challenging asour players have not played any competitive cricket sinceMarch, while the home team will come following a seriesagainst the West Indies.”
Besides Haider, Kashif Bhatti is the other uncappedplayer in the side. Kashif was in the Test squad againstAustralia and Sri Lanka but did not play.Squad: Abid Ali, Fakhar Zaman, Imam-ul-Haq, Shan
Masood, Azhar Ali (captain), BabarAzam (Test vice-captain and T20Icaptain), Asad Shafiq, Fawad Alam,Haider Ali, Iftikhar Ahmad,Khushdil Shah, MohammadHafeez, Shoaib Malik, Mohammad
Shaheen Shah Afridi,Sohail Khan, UsmanShinwari, WahabRiaz, Imad Wasim,Kashif Bhatti,Shadab Khan and
Yasir Shah.R e s e r v e s :Bilal Asif,Imran Butt,Musa Khan
a n dM o h a m m a d
Nawaz.
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Senior India speedster IshantSharma believes that theban on saliva to shine the
ball will make things easy forbatsmen and it needs to beensured that the competitionremains fair.
Ishant, who has played awhopping 97 Tests, reasonedthat if the bowlers don’t shine thered ball, used in the longest for-mat of the game, then it won’tswing helping batsmen.
“If we don’t shine the redball, it doesn’t swing and if itdoesn’t swing then it becomesreally easy for the batsman. Ithink the competition should befair and not a batsman dominat-ed game,” the 31-year-old said onStar Sports show CricketConnected.
The lanky pacer, who has297 Test and 115 ODI wickets tohis name, feels that bowlers willneed to take special precautionsto ensure that they don’t use sali-va as it is an old practice.
“I feel that the most impor-tant thing will be avoiding theuse of saliva on the ball andrefraining from shining the ball.
“We will have to take specialprecautions for this as we areused to shining the ball, especial-ly the red ball,” said Sharma, whorepresents Delhi in domesticcricket.
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The Indian team’s August tour ofZimbabwe was on Friday called
off by the BCCI owing to theCovid-19 threat, which hasn’tallowed national cricketers to evenresume training.
The development comes a dayafter Sri Lanka Cricket announcedthat India’s limited overs tour inJune-July was postponed indefinite-ly.
“...The Indian Cricket Teamwill not travel to Sri Lanka andZimbabwe owing to the currentthreat of Covid-19,” BCCI secretaryJay Shah said in a statement.
“Team India was originallyscheduled to travel to the islandnation from 24th June 2020 forthree ODIs and as many T20Is andto Zimbabwe for a series compris-ing three ODIs starting 22ndAugust 2020,” Shah said.
The Indian team is yet toresume training and the camp isunlikely to take place before July.The players will take around sixweeks to be match ready, accord-ing to the side’s support staff.
Shah, in the release, reiteratedthe board’s stance that it will organ-ise a training camp only when it isdeemed safe by the Government.
“...The BCCI will conduct acamp for its contracted players onlywhen it is completely safe to trainoutdoors.
“The BCCI is determined totake steps towards the resumptionof international and domestic crick-et, but it will not rush into any deci-sion that will jeopardize the effortsput in by the Central and StateGovernments and several other
respective agencies in containingthe spread of the coronavirus.”
Zimbabwe head coach andformer India opener LalchandRajput was left disappointed atthe cancellation of the series.
“It (the series cancella-tion) is a sad thing forZimbabwe Cricket as theywould not be able to playagainst India.
“Every teamwants to play againstIndia as it is one of thebest teams.
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India might not have to tourAustralia and play their
matches in front of empty standslater this year after AustralianPrime Minister Scott Morrisonon Friday said sports stadiumscapable of seating 40,000 peoplewill be allowed to host crowdsof up to 10,000 from nextmonth, in further relaxation ofcoronavirus restrictions.
The four Tests of the much-anticipated series will be playedat Gabba, Adelaide Oval, MCGand the SCG respectively start-ing December 3, CricketAustralia (CA) had said recent-ly. “For outdoor venues up to40,000 spectator capacity, tick-eted and seated events will beable to be held in front of acrowd of no more than 25 percent of capacity under Step 3,” astatement from the PrimeMinister said as per on the offi-cial website, pm.gov.au.
“For outdoor venues ofmore than 40,000 spectatorcapacity, further advice is beingsought from the AHPPC, witharrangements to be settled by thestates and territories on a venueby venue basis,” it added.
The announcement wasmade following a meeting of theNational Cabinet, which com-prises the Prime Minister andstate and territory leaders.
Morrison was joined byChief Medical Officer (CMO)Brendan Murphy who said thatAustralia’s response to Covid-19was in a “good place”.
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Bayern Munich could securean eighth straight
Bundesliga title this weekend,but host BorussiaMoenchengladbach onSaturday without suspendedduo Thomas Mueller andRobert Lewandowski.
Bayern will beconfirmed cham-pions with a winon Saturday if sec-ond-placed Borussia Dortmundlose at relegation-threatenedFortuna Duesseldorf earlier inthe day.
That scenario would giveHansi Flick’s side an unassail-able 10-point lead with threegames remaining.
But Bayern are withoutLewandowski, the league’s topscorer this season with 30 goals,
and Mueller, who is one shortof the Bundesliga record of 21assists in a single campaign.
“It’s annoying, but we can’tdo anything about it,” saidBayern coach Flick.
Thiago Alcantara has alsobeen ruled out, for three weeks
and needs an operation afterstruggling with a groin prob-lem, Flick said on Friday.
Joshua Zirkzee, 19, is anoption to replace Lewandowskiup front while Serge Gnabrycould start for Mueller if he isfit after a back injury.
Bayern proved they canscore goals withoutLewandowski by thumping
Hoffenheim 6-0 inlate February whenthe Polish strikerwas injured.
Fourth-placedGladbach pulled off
a shock 2-1 victory at BorussiaPark when the sides met lastDecember.
But Marco Rose’s side havebeen erratic of late, crushingUnion Berlin 4-1 at home at theend of May before stumbling todefeat at Freiburg last weekend.
Rose hopes to include Swissforward Breel Embolo, withthe 23-year-old fit after anankle knock.
At the foot of the table, fall-en giants Werder Bremen facea crucial game at Paderborn ina battle of the bottom two.
2����&6The International TableTennis Federation (ITTF) onFriday released an update of keyevents in the third quarter of2020, announcing the cancella-tion of the World Tour BulgariaOpen, while exploring the pos-sibility of holding an alternativeevent for players who can trav-el to the Czech Republic.
Due to local restrictions forhosting international events, theITTF announced the cancella-tion of the ITTF World TourBulgaria Open, set to be heldfrom September 1 to 6 inPanagyurishte.
Table tennis’ global gov-erning body will explore oppor-tunities for the possibility of analternative event to be scheduledon the same dates.
The Czech Open, scheduledfor August 25 to 30 in Olomouc,will not be staged as a full openinternational event due to poten-tial travel restrictions. However,the ITTF is discussing withlocal organizers about the pos-sibility of jointly holding an alter-native event for those who cantravel to the Czech Republic.
The ITTF is finalizingdetails of an alternative eventsformat. IANS
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The final stages of thisseason’s interrupted
Champions League willbe played in Lisbon, withthe final on August 22 or23, German newspaperBild reported on Friday.
The assertion by Bild follows reportsby several other European media in recentdays. An official announcement is expect-ed when UEFA’s Executive Committeemeets by videoconference next Wednesday,June 17.
Bild also reported that the closingstages of the Europa League are set to bemoved to Germany, with matches beingplayed in the region around Cologne, inthe west of the country. In both competi-tions, all ties would be played as one-offmatches from the quarter-finals onwards.Usually the quarter-finals and semi-finalsare staged over two legs.
�0�(,�6�The Union SportsMinister Kiren Rijiju on Fridayemphasised the importance ofbeing atmanirbhar in the sport-ing ecosystem and felt need todevelop a successful league cul-ture to make sport as a sustain-able career opportunity.
“You have to be empoweredto take care of yourself. Thecountry has to be self-reliant.Whenever there are challenges,disasters or catastrophe, we needto ensure we emerge stronger. Ihave to ensure our athletes andcoaches become stronger afterlockdown,” Rijiju said duringIndian table tennis player MuditDani’s online lockdown chatseries In The Sportlight on Friday.
“Sports stars motivate peo-ple immensely. In achieving theGovernment’s efforts, our sportsstars have played a very criticalrole,” he added.
The Minister further said wehave to make leagues successfulin order to ensure viable andfruitful sporting careers for ourathletes at all levels.
“First of all, sport is a way oflife but that is not enough.Sport has to be a career also.Sport has to give you respect,position, earning, comfort andrecognition. So for that whenyou have a flourishing leaguesystem in the country —
whether it is national or statelevel, it has to be successful. Andto make the leagues successful,it has to be commercially viableand successful too,” he said.
Rijiju also expressed hisdream of making India a topcountry in the Olympic medalstally. Stressing on the greatcooperation from various stake-holders, the Sports Ministerwants to make India one of thetop-10 medal winning nationsby 2028 Olympics. “Although wehave achieved some success inhockey and a few individualsports, we have not been able tomake any successful impact inOlympic history. I am talkingabout creating a sporting culturein India. In days to come I wantto ensure that not only our par-ticipation but our success ratealso soars,” he concluded. PNS
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Logistical restrictionscaused by the Covid-19
pandemic has led to the can-cellation of Formula 1 racesin Azerbaijan, Japan andSingapore.
While challenges inpreparing the street circuitsled to the cancellation ofAzerbaijan and Singaporerounds, travel restrictions inJapan due to the coronavirussealed the fate of JapaneseGrand Prix.
“These decisions havebeen taken due to the differ-ent challenges our promotersface in those countries,” theFormula 1 announced onFriday.
“In Singapore andAzerbaijan, the long leadtimes required to constructstreet circuits made hostingthe events during a period ofuncertainty impossible andin Japan, ongoing travelrestrictions also led to thedecision not to proceed withthe race,” the statement saidfurther.
Earlier this month,Formula 1 had announced arevised 2020 calendar withfirst two of the eight sched-uled races to be held inAustria starting July 7.
The cancellation of thethree races allows Formula 1to explore more venues inEurope.
On Thursday, F1’smotorsports chief RossBrawn expressed confidencein adding more races in thesecond half of the season.
“Things are moving fast,but we still have time. Wehave lots of different optionsand we’re very confidentwe’re going to have a greatsecond half of the season,”said Brawn.
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Former West Indies captainDarren Sammy has revealed
that an IPL teammate, whoaddressed him with a racistnickname, has reached out toassure him that he was “oper-ating from a place of love” andhe no longer wants an apolo-gy for what happened.
The two-time T20 WorldCup-winning skipper hadopened up about being calledKalu — a derogatory word todescribe black people — by hisSunrisers Hyderbad teammatesand demanded an apologyfrom the bunch earlier thisweek.
“I’m please to say that I’vehad a really interesting conver-sation with one of the guys andwe are looking at ways to edu-cate rather than focusing on thenegatives. My brother reas-sured me that he operatedfrom a place of love and Ibelieve him,” Sammy tweeted.
“In hindsight, asking for
apology, I shouldn’t have evendone that. If me and my team-mates have done something notintentionally, but now I realisethat could be deemed ortermed as something that couldbe hurtful to a team-mate ofmine,” he later toldESPNCricinfo.
He, however, did not revealthe name of the player he is intouch with.
“Don’t get me wrong I’mnot condoning what wasdone/said. I’m saying let’s usethis opportunity to educateeach other so it doesn’t happenagain. One can only apologizeif he/she feels wrong aboutsomething. I’m confident &proud to be black. That willnever change,” Sammy said.
Sammy’s allegation of beingaddressed with a racist a nick-name was lent credence by anold social media post of his thenSRH teammate Ishant Sharmain which Kalu was used to iden-tify the West Indian in a groupphotograph.
It’s not just the pacers who willbe at a disadvantage due to the
ban on use of saliva but spinnerstoo will suffer as they won’t get therequired drift during middleovers, feels India’s top wrist spin-ner Yuzvendra Chahal.
The ICC has banned the useof saliva on ball as an interimhealth safety measure in the wakeof the Covid-19 pandemic — amove that has raised concernsabout the game becoming evenmore batting friendly.
“When you use a natural ele-ment like saliva, it helps pacerswith swing and spinners with thedrift,” Chahal said onESPNCricinfo, specifically talkingabout white ball cricket.
Drift in cricketing terminol-ogy is the sideways movement inthe air when a slow bowler triesto impart spin.
“If as a spinner, I cannot getdrift in the middle overs, the bats-men will have it easy. This issomething that will affect everybowler in the world. I will have tofigure out a solution once I startbowling in the nets,” Chahal,
who will be turning 30 nextmonth, said.
The spinners also comple-ment the pacers in shining theball, said Chahal, who has 146wickets in 94 games.
“Spinners use saliva too tomaintain the shine of the ballbecause we are aware that pacerswill bowl after us or are bowlingfrom the other end,” he added.
“And I would like to maintainthe condition of the ball in a waythat it helps pacers whenev-er they come. Pacers alsothink the same way. Whenthey see spinners coming,they refrain from shiningthe ball too much. This ishow we plan things.”
On to his owngame and thewiry leg-spinnersaid one advicefrom HarbhajanSingh duringhis first IPLstint at theM u m b a iIndians has stayedwith him forever.
“. . .HarbhajanSingh once told me
— back your skills as a bowler. Mystrengths are varying my pace andbeating the batsman in flight.
“I have seen a lot of spinnerschange their actions while bowl-ing at the Chinnaswamy. I cansense their fear, I then tell this tothe batsmen in my team so thatthey can attack him,” Chahalsaid.
He feels that his attackinginstincts are considered beneficialby both Virat Kohli and RohitSharma.
“Virat Kohli or RohitSharma, whoever the captain is,they want us to pick up wickets.Even if I concede 70 runs in my
10 overs but pick up three wick-ets in the middle overs, it
will benefit the team,”said Chahal.
“The pace of thegame also quickenswhen spinners areoperating from bothends. If there is turn onoffer, it becomes difficultto play spinners in the
middle overs. We havealways believed in going forwickets in the middleovers,” Chahal added.
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