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Back in the day when hewas awaiting his bigscreen debut with Kai Po

Che, actor Sushant SinghRajput had sauntered into ThePioneer office with a casualease, a winning smile, jeans andtees, totally playing down hisheartthrob appeal among theyounger women staff. In fact,he was acutely alert and dis-arming at the same time, con-trolling and spontaneous in bitsand pieces. The young man hada sharp mind, playful, witty anddeep, depending on the ques-tions one fielded at him. It wasthis agility that helped thisboy from small-town Bihar toscore top grade as a mechani-cal engineer at the DelhiCollege of Engineering andcarve his way to stardom as he

loved theatre. So it is difficultto understand that the sameyoung man lost control ofhis mind and committedsuicide by hanging himselffrom a ceiling fan after anight of partying withfriends.

And amid the swamp ofthe pandemic, Sushant’s suicideis a grim reminder of how clin-ical depression, for which hehad been taking help for thelast six months, got the bet-ter of him. Was it the inse-curity of a profession, wherehe was actually delivering hitsconsistently, prompting com-parisons with his idol ShahRukh Khan as the next TVstar who would conquer thebig league of the film indus-try? Was it the fleeting andpyrrhic nature of fame or themeaninglessness of it? Failed

relationships? Was itthe crumbling cir-

cle of his closefriends whoseemed to be ina Hemlockpact, his man-ager commit-ting suicidejust a fewd a y sbefore? Orwas it his

deep trauma atnot having recov-ered from his

mother’s deathwhen he was 16?

Any which wayhis decision would beirreconcilable consid-ering many years ago

he had shared howhe developedempathy, getting

into the skin of human char-acters at theatre director BarryJohn’s workshops, how he wasa spiritualist believing that weare on a journey that should beworth the end and how heloved star-gazing as it remind-ed him of the bigness of theuniverse around us. And yes, heloved reading books and writ-ing. He did admit he was anintrovert but one never thoughtthat the devil would nest in thecorners of a mind that was evercurious and probing.

One would tend to remem-ber him by his short filmogra-phy but he stood out in each ofhis characters. Inspired by JackNicholson and Daniel Day-Lewis, he egolessly surrenderedto fill the contours of the com-mon Indian youth, completewith his anxieties and bravado.Though a buddy film, he stood

out among Rajkumar Rao andAmit Sadh in Kai Po Che. Heeven received a nominationfor the Filmfare Award for BestMale Debut. As the titulardetective in the action thrillerDetective Byomkesh Bakshy, hebrought out the crevices of aninvestigative mind with suchangularities and pointedness atthe same time that directorDibakar Banerjee said he wasthe true intellectual legacy inter-preter of Bengal’s cult fictionhero. Of course, his highest-grossing releases came with asupporting role in the satire PK(2014), followed by the biopicMS Dhoni, The Untold Story. Itnot only became one of thehighest grossers of Bollywoodbut showed the maturity of anactor, who was not overawed bythe aura of one of India’s mostloved cricketers, did not just

mimic his physicality butinvested him with a humanityand emotion that shaped theCaptain Cool he had become.Then there was Kedarnath,Sonchiriya and Chhichhore,where he brought alive peoplefrom the dustbowl with extraordinary grit, all of whom ended up rescuinghumanity itself.

Perhaps, that’s the reasonwhy he set up a teaching acad-emy to educate underprivi-leged kids from the hinterland.He had strong views on theeducation system and didn’tbelieve that we should addmore bricks to the wall. And atone of The Pioneer discus-sions, he even became pas-sionate. “We shouldn’t be tellingthe kids what to wear, what toeat or who to vote.

Continued on Page 2

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The peak stage of coron-avirus could come about in

mid-November when thecountry will face paucity of iso-lation and ICU beds as wellventilators.

This alarming finding ispart of study conducted by theIndian Council of MedicalResearch (ICMR), which hassaid the eight-week lockdownalong with strengthened pub-lic health measures has delayedthe peak stage of Covid-19 pan-demic in India.

The study conducted byresearchers from an OperationsResearch Group of ICMR hasnoted that if the coverage ofpublic health measures can beincreased to 80 per cent, theepidemic can be mitigated,otherwise around mid-November there will be seriousshortage of isolation and ICUbeds as well as ventilators.

“The lockdown shifted thepeak of the pandemic by anestimated 34 to 76 days andhelped bring down the numberof infections by 69 to 97 percent thereby allowing time forthe healthcare system to shore

up resources and infrastruc-ture,” said the study. In the sce-nario of intensified publichealth measures with 60 percent effectiveness after lock-down, the demand can be met until the first week

of November. After that, isolation beds

could be inadequate for 5.4months, ICU beds for 4.6 andventilators for 3.9 months, pro-jections by the healthresearchers showed.

However, this shortfall isestimated to be 83 per cent lessthan what it could have beenwithout the lockdown andpublic health measures.

With sustainedGovernment steps at increasingthe infrastructure and differentpace of epidemic in differentregions, the impact of unmetneed can be reduced. If the cov-erage of public health measurescan be increased to 80 per cent,the epidemic can be mitigated,the researchers stated.

According to the model-based analysis for Covid-19pandemic in India, with theadditional capacity which hasbeen built up for testing, treat-ing and isolating patients dur-ing the lockdown period, thenumber of cases at the peakwould come down by 70 per cent and the cumulativecases may come down by near-ly 27 per cent.

Continued on Page 2

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The Centre and the DelhiGovernment will fight

coronavirus together in thenational Capital as on Sundayin a crucial meeting withLieutenant Governor AnilBaijal, Chief Minister ArvindKejriwal along with the AIIMSDirector, the Union HomeMinister Amit Shah said theCentral Government is com-mitted to check Covid-19spread in Delhi.

Key decisions which weretaken in the meeting includedCovid-19 testing to double inin Delhi in the next two daysand subsequently increased bythree times in six days.

Also, the Centre willimmediately provide 500 con-verted rail coaches to the DelhiGovernment, which will increase the bed capacityby 8,000.

A committee has been setup to ensure availability of 60per cent beds by private hos-pitals at lower rates and fix the

rate of corona testing and treat-ment and house-to-househealth surveys will be con-ducted in containment zones.

According to an officialstatement, the Home Ministerhas directed immediate trans-fer of 4 IAS officers to NewDelhi to assist the DelhiGovernment for managementof Covid and public health.Two senior officers SS Yadavand SCL Dass, currently post-ed at the Centre, will assist theDelhi Government, it said.

Announcing a slew ofmeasures to check the spread ofthe coronavirus in the nation-al Capital after he held a meet-ing, Shah said Covid-19 testswill be started at every pollingstation in containment zonesand a comprehensive house-to-house health survey will beconducted in the hotspots forcontact tracing.

In view of shortage of bedsfor coronavirus infectedpatients in Delhi, the ModiGovernment has decided toimmediately provide 500 rail-

way coaches which will beequipped with all facilities, he said.

Also, detailed guidelineswill be issued for conductingthe last rites of those who suc-cumb to the deadly virus.

Shah said a joint team ofdoctors of the Union HealthMinistry, the DelhiGovernment’s HealthDepartment, AIIMS and thethree Municipal Corporationsof Delhi will visit all Covid-des-ignated hospitals in the Capitaland prepare a report afterinspecting the health systemsand preparedness.

The development comestwo days after the SupremeCourt lashed out at the AAPGovernment, describing as“horrific” the state of affairs inDelhi hospitals with bodiesbeing stacked next to coronapatients. It had also expressedconcern over fewer tests beingconducted in the nationalCapital and had directed ramp-ing up of testing.

Continued on Page 2

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Facing the brunt of themonth-long stand-off

between the Indian andChinese troops along its terri-tory, the Union Territory ofLadakh is now struggling tocope up with another nemesis:Coronavirus.

During the last one weekalone, the UT has seen a five-fold high in its number ofpositive cases, going up from103 on June 7 to 549 on June14. During the last three daysthe State has seen back-to-back three 100 plus spikes,recording the highest single-day spike with 198 positivecases on Saturday. On Sundayit recorded 112 new cases.

As per the media bulletinreleased by the Directorate ofHealth Services UT Ladakh, all of the 198 persons testedpositive for Covid-19 in Kargil district.

With no marked change inthe Covid-19 situation,Maharashtra on Sundayrecorded 120 new deaths and3,390 fresh infections, taking

the total number of deaths to3,950 and infected cases in theState to 1,07,958 cases.

Delhi recorded 2,224 casesand 56 deaths on Sunday tak-ing its total number of cases to41,182, including 15,823 recov-ered/discharged/migrated,24,032 active cases and 1,327deaths. This is the highest sin-gle-day spike in the number ofCovid-19 cases. The total num-ber of containment zones inDelhi is now 242; total 67zones have been de-containedtill date.

A day after the number ofdeaths had come down to 113and the number of new posi-tive cases stood at 3,427, coro-navirus claimed 120 more livesand left 3,390 others infectedon Sunday in Maharashtra.

Having taken into accounttotal 3,950 deaths reported sofar and 50,978 patients dis-charged from various hospitalsever since the outbreak of pan-demic in the State, the Statehealth authorities pegged thenumber of “active cases” in theState at 53,017.

Continued on Page 2

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Its contagious smite may belosing its killer sting.

That may be the only speckof hope for a world haunted bytalks of a possible second waveof Covid-19 in the US, itsreappearance in Beijing, andthe alarming spread of thedeadly virus in South America,Asia and the Middle East.

The cases are shooting up,but the death curb is unmis-takably on the bend.

On June 12, the total num-ber of cases globally stood at78,29,293 and the death tally at4,30,813. In terms of CaseFatality Rate (CFR), this turnedout to be 5.50 per cent.

A month ago on May 12,the number of positive casesworldwide stood at 43,06,378and the death count at 2,92,946.This translated into a mortal-ity rate of 6.80 per cent. Itmeans during the one monthperiod, the CFR came down by1.21 per cent.

Now let’s take a look at theone-month period between

May 12 and June 12. Duringthis period the CFR furthercame down. The total numberof cases globally stood at43,06,378 on May 12, whichwent up to 77,27,232 with theaddition of 35,28,915 new casesby June 12. Similarly, the deathcount went up from 2,92,946 to4,27,698. Overall, during thisperiod the CFR stood at a mere3.81 per cent, nearly 1.70 pc lessthan the all-time CFR.

The global death count

peaked outon April 25when theCFR stood at7.28 per cent.From then one, it witnessed asteady decline from week toweek, fortnight to fortnight. On May 10, the CFR stood at6.99 per cent, on May 25 at 6.38per cent, and on June 3 at 5.50 per cent.

Similarly, between May 31and June 12 the global death

count rose byone per centevery day

with the exception ofjust one day when it

shot up by 2 per cent on May 27.

Compare this with theperiod between May 1 and May15 when out of 15 days, deathcount rose by 2 per cent on 13days and 3 per cent and one percent each on two other days.

There is another way of

looking at this declining trend.On June 12, the world record-ed 1,36,572 cases, the highestsingle-day spike so far. Thisincluded 8,000 more cases overthe previous day count. On thesame day, the global deathcount stood at 4,925. This was419 less death than the previ-ous day tally of 5,344.

Once again, the number ofcases went up, but the deathcount came down.

Continued on Page 2

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In the backdrop of monthlong stand-offs at the Line of

Actual Control (LAC) inLadakh, Defence MinisterRajnath Singh on Sunday saidIndia will never compromiseon its “national pride” as it is nolonger a “weak” country.

Stressing the point thatthe country’s security capabil-ity has increased, he alsoassured the Opposition thattalks with China were on topeacefully resolve the con-

frontation. Making these assertions

in a virtual rally in Jammu &Kashmir, he also said no onewill be kept in the dark about the issue.

“I want to assure that wewill not compromise withnational pride under any cir-cumstance. India is no longera weak India. Our strength innational security has risen. Butthis strength is not meant tofrighten anyone but to secureour country,” he said.

Continued on Page 2

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A42-year old man suddenlycollapsed and died due to

natural causes onboard AirIndia’s Lagos-Mumbai flighton Sunday, the national carri-er said. The flight was part ofVande Bharat Mission, underwhich the Central Governmentis operating special repatriationflights to bring back strandedIndians from abroad amid thecoronavirus pandemic.

Air India’s flight AI 1906departed from Lagos in Nigeriaat 7 pm Indian Standard Timeon Saturday and landed inMumbai at 3.45 am on Sunday.

“A passenger aboard AI1906 of June 13 from Lagos toMumbai passed away due tonatural causes today.

“A doctor onboard alongwith our crew, trained to han-dle such medical emergencies,made a valiant attempt torevive the passenger, aged 42, who had suddenly col-lapsed, through resuscitationetc but all their efforts went in vain,” the airline’sspokesperson said.

Continued on Page 2

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PIOCCI, a body formed in2018 to support the Indian

diaspora has assisted Indianswho have been impacted by theCovid-19 pandemic andarranged several charteredflights between UAE and India.

“Overall we have soughtpermission for eight charterflights to South India in phase1 and have already enabled asmooth departure of 3 flightsso far.

Each flight managed totransport over 168 passengers.It is our endeavor to continu-ously support the wellbeing ofour fellow Indians," saidSiddharth Balachandran,PIOCCI Board Member.

As one of the many initiatives by PIOCCI theyhave been instrumental in not only seeking relevant permission from several Indianand UAE authorities to organise chartered flights, butalso to raise funds and assistthose in need.

“While Covid-19 hasimpacted many people, wehave had to prioritise passen-gers that are in the late stagesof pregnancy or medicallyunfit, those facing grievances intheir family, as well as blue col-lar workers who have lost jobsand are struggling to makeends meet”, says Yogesh Mehta,Vice Chairperson.

This has been possible as aresult of the immense efforts ofthe dedicated PIOCCI and theFOI Events CSR team.

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New Delhi: The domesticpolitical rumblings in Nepal, itsgrowing aspirations andassertiveness driven by China'sstrong economic backing andIndia's "complacency" in engag-ing with it made the landlockednation take the unprecedentedstep of escalating its decades-old border row with India to anew high, strategic affairsexperts said on Sunday.

The communistGovernment of Nepal onSaturday managed to get aunanimous approval of thelower house of the country'sparliament to a new mapdepicting disputed areas ofLipulekh, Kalapani andLimpiyadhura as Nepalese ter-ritories, prompting India to saythat such "artificial enlarge-ment" of territorial claim isuntenable.

The vote, notwithstandingthe all-encompassing cultural,political and trade ties of sevendecades between the two coun-

tries, is seen as a reflection ofNepal's readiness to take on theregional giant, India, and sig-nals that it no longer caresabout the old framework ofrelationship.

Rakesh Sood, who wasIndian Ambassador to Nepalfrom 2008 to 2011, said bothsides have allowed the rela-tionship to come to a "very verydangerous point" and that Indiashould have found time toengage with Kathmandu as itpressed for talks on the issuesince November.

"I think we have displayeda lack of sensitivity, and nowthe Nepalese have dug them-selves deeper into the holefrom which they will find it dif-ficult to come out," he told PTI.

Nepal shares a border ofover 1,850 km with five Indianstates — Sikkim, West Bengal,Bihar, Uttar Pradesh andUttarakhand. In sync with theunique ties of friendship, thetwo countries have a long tra-

dition of free movement ofpeople across the border.

According to official data,nearly eight million Nepalesecitizens live and work in India.The two countries also havesolid defence and trade ties.India is the largest tradingpartner of Nepal, and the totalbilateral trade in 2018-19 was�57,858 crore. Currently, about32,000 Gorkha soldiers fromNepal are serving in the IndianArmy.

Ambassador Ranjit Rae,who served as Indian envoy toNepal between 2013 and early2017, said Prime Minister K PSharma Oli decided to goahead with the new map just toconsolidate his position andovercome rumblings in domes-tic politics.

"This sort of playing upanti-India sentiment hadhelped him in winning theelections and he thought it willagain help him now as he isunder lot of domestic pres-

sure," he said."I think it is related to

Oli's insecurity domesticallyas his position in Nepal isquite weak. There have been alot of demonstrations in Nepalfor the government's failure inthe economic front, on man-aging COVID-19. There havebeen rumours within NepaliCommunist Party that theremay be a change in leadership.I think this has been a lifelinefor Oli," he said.

India's relations with Nepalcame under severe strain fol-lowing the 2015 economicblockade.

Since then, China has beenpumping in huge amount offinancial resources in Nepal,helping the landlocked countryin laying new roads includingconnecting it to Chinese citiesfor transportation of petroleumand other essential products,ostensibly to help Kathmanducut dependence on New Delhi.

China is also planning to

lay an ambitious railway net-work connecting Kathmanduand Shigatse in Tibet where itwould join an existing railwayline to Lhasa. China has alsooffered Nepal four ports forshipment of goods to the land-locked country which previ-ously had to rely heavily onroutes through India.

Prof S D Muni, a notedstrategic affairs expert, saidChina has been a factor in thewhole issue as Nepal wasmore encouraged to raise theissues with India realisingthat Beijing has been sup-porting it.

However, he said the big-ger message from Nepal wasthat the Nepalese are assertingthemselves and the old frame-work of special relations isgone completely.

"They do not care about it.You will have to deal withNepal differently, with littlemore sensitivity and with littlemore tact and understanding.

"It is a new Nepal. Over 65per cent of Nepalese are veryyoung people. They do not careabout the past. They have theiraspirations. Unless India is rel-

evant to their aspirations, theywould not care," he said.

By going for a constitu-tional amendment for the newmap, Ambassador Sood

argued, Nepal is convertingwhat was a difference in termsof territorial perceptions into adispute and making its positionnon-negotiable over it. PTI

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Kathmandu: NepalParliament's upper house onSunday endorsed a proposal todiscuss the Constitutionamendment bill to update thecountry's new political mapthat includes three strategical-ly key Indian territories, a dayafter the lower house unani-mously voted in favour of thebill.

Nepal's ruling and opposi-tion political parties onSaturday voted in unison toamend the Constitution toupdate the national emblem byincorporating the controversialmap incorporating Lipulekh,Kalapani and Limpiyadhurain India's Uttrakhand, a movedescribed by New Delhi as"untenable."

Of the total 275 lawmakersin the House of Representativeson Saturday, all 258 lawmakerspresent in the house voted infavour of the Constitutionamendment bill.

Now, the bill will undergoa similar process in theNational Assembly, whereinthe ruling Nepal CommunistParty commands two-thirdsmajority.

Rajendra Phuyal, secre-tary of the National AssemblySecretariat, tabled the bill at thefirst meeting of the upperhouse on Sunday, The

Kathmandu Post reported.During the second meeting

of the National Assembly lateron Sunday, Law Minister ShivaMaya Tumbahangphe tabled aproposal to consider the bill fordiscussions, the paper said.

After the discussions, theproposal to consider the billwas unanimously endorsed, itadded.

The National Assemblywill give lawmakers 72 hours tomove amendments against thebill's provisions, if they haveany.

"We are making necessarypreparations to endorse the billwithin the next four days,"Phuyal was quoted as saying bythe paper.

After the NationalAssembly passes the bill, it willbe submitted to the Presidentfor authentication, after whichit will be incorporated in theConstitution. After that, thenew map will be used in all offi-cial documents, including thecoat of arms.

Meanwhile, the mainOpposition Nepali Congresshas urged the government tointensify diplomatic efforts toensure the country's rights inthe Kalapani area after thecountry includes its updatedpolitical and administrativemap in the Constitution, the

Himalayan Times reported.In a press statement on

Saturday, the party said the"campaign to reclaimencroached territories wouldenter the second phase after therevised map incorporatingLimpiyadhura, Lipulek andKalapani areas as its parts, getsendorsed and this would marka significant solidarity in theissue of nationality."

Reacting to Kathmandu'smove, Ministry of ExternalAffairs Spokesperson AnuragSrivastava said on Saturday"this artificial enlargement of

claims is not based on his-torical fact or evidence and isnot tenable.

It is also violative of ourcurrent understanding to holdtalks on outstanding boundaryissues."

The India-Nepal bilateralties came under strain afterDefence Minister RajnathSingh inaugurated a 80-km-long strategically crucial roadconnecting the Lipulekh passwith Dharchula in Uttarakhandon May 8.

Nepal reacted sharply tothe inauguration of the roadclaiming that it passed throughNepalese territory. India reject-ed the claim asserting that theroad lies completely within itsterritory. PTI

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From Page 1Instead we should be

educating them on how todifferentiate between what iswrong and right. That’s themost important and funda-mental wisdom.”

Very few know of hisphilanthropic efforts. Orwhy he chose to co-ownDelhi Gladiators, top drawin a professional boxingleague. “I like boxing andRobert de Niro’s Raging Bullof a complex boxer goingthrough crests and troughsis my all-time favourite film.Besides sportsmanship is avirtue and can help youdevelop additional skills liketeam-spirit, focus, disci-pline, egolessness, all ofwhich you can use in otherspheres, no matter what youchoose.”

He credited his growthto his working experiencewith Dibakar Banerjee andShekhar Kapur. “Acting wasnot a natural choice. I couldnot even say that I wanted tobe an actor even if I wantedto be one. I come from amiddle class family where Ihave four sisters and they areall super qualified, doctorsand all. And I am theyoungest. So I figured out

early that I had to do some-thing important. I was toldto be an engineer muchagainst my hidden will. Andthen I figured out a way.First I forced myself to likewhat I was reading. Andwhen I became good at it,the subject got the best ofme. I was a class topper anda national Olympiad winner(Physics). Then I sat for allthe engineering exams andDCE happened. I was okwith my life. But one thingwas for sure, when I wasstudying, I was curious butnot excited. Probably, Ithought I liked it. In the firstsemester itself, I went toShiamak Davar Institute forthe Performing Arts(SDIPA) just to have anextra-curricular activity.And then when I was onstage performing for thefirst time, I realised theenormity of connecting withthe world, the adrenalinegush and the achievement ofowning a moment. I don’tworry about Fridays, that’sfor the audience to decide.But come Monday, it is Iwho decides.” Why didn’t heown a feeble moment on aSunday morning? And getto decide on a Monday?

From Page 1He was declared dead

onboard by the attending doc-tor. Mumbai InternationalAirport Limited doctorsattended to the passenger afterthe flight landed at 3.45 am and

after all the procedures werecomplete, the body was sent toa hospital as per protocol, thespokesperson noted.

Relatives of the deceasedwere informed and aircraftwas taken for full fumigation asper the norms, the spokesper-son said.

From Page 1In terms of Covid-19 mortality,

approximately 60 per cent deathswere prevented and one-third of thismortality prevention is attributed tothe reduction in unmet need for crit-ical care as a result of the interven-tion, the analysis showed.

The researchers said the man-agement of Covid-19 will involve adynamic review of policies and sig-nificant strengthening of the health-care system.

“While lockdowns will delaythe onset of peak and will give themuch needed time for the health sys-tem to respond, strengthening thehealth system response in terms oftesting, isolation of cases, treatmentand contact tracing, as is beingdone currently, will have to be themainstay to reduce the impact of thepandemic in India until vaccinebecomes available,” it said. The over-all economic health system cost ofthis pandemic is estimated to be 6.2per cent of India’s gross domesticproduct (GDP). As per the Ministrydata on June 9, there are 958 dedi-cated Covid-19 hospitals with1,67,883 isolation beds, 21,614 ICUand 73,469 oxygen supported beds.

From Page 1Similarly, on June 7 the world record-

ed 1,36,404 cases (+8,462) and 4,586deaths. The death tally was 1,061 short ofthe previous day’s fatalities.

On June 8 again, we witness the sametrend. The global death toll was 117 lessthan the previous day count.

Now take a look at a shorter trend.Between May 2 and May 12, globally coro-navirus killed 48,110 persons. During thesame period, worldwide total positive casesrose from 3,44,192 on May 2 to 43,06,378on May 12 at an average of 86,286 cases aday. The mortality rate stood at 5.58 percent.

Compare this with the trend for thelast 10 days. The 10-day period betweenJune 2 and June 12 saw 4,589 deaths and1,26,826 fresh cases every day, which trans-lated into a low 3.61 per cent fatality.

The data presented a glimmer of hopewhen the when the world was in a“unlock” phase and cases were going upevery day.

Was the coronavirus losing its deathsting, or the world now was dealing witha much milder strain that ravaged Italy, theUnited Kingdom, France, and Germany?

It’s equally possible that the deathcount has come down because the worldwas now better equipped to deal with thisglobal scourge. This logic is fortified by the

fact that Covid-19 death rate has beenmuch higher in rundown locations.

This may not be the global trend, butit shows the obvious: Serious Covid-19patients need the best possible medicalintervention to be back on their feet. Nodoubt, Covid-19 has come as a deadlycurse for the poor.

Data from the UK’s Office for NationalStatistics (ONS) powerfully drives homethis point. According to it, the mortalityrate was twice as high in the mostdeprived areas of England and Wales com-pared to the wealthiest areas.

The data show that as many as 128people succumbed to Covid-19 out of1,00,000 in the most deprived areas ofEngland in March, April, and May. The fig-ure of death is twice as many - only 60deaths per 1,00,000 -- in the least deprivedareas of England.

Wales also showed the same trend.The death rate in its most deprived areasduring the same period was 110 per1,00,000 people, which is again double of58 per 1,00,000 people in the least deprivedparts of Wales.

There could be several other reasonsto influence the mortality rate, but bothglobal and regional data show that - if thetrend persists --- fewer people will die ofcoronavirus than in the past.

One can argue that since the Covid-19 outbreak has been contained in Europe,which was the biggest theater of death, theglobal death count is bound to propor-tionally come down. But countries likeBrazil, Mexico, Chile, and Peru haveemerged as new death rings, replacing the

European quartet. On June 12, Brazil’s Covid-19 death

toll of 42,720 overtook the UK’s tally of41,662 deaths. Now Brazil is the secondhighest in the world behind the USA interms of the death count. On June 13,Mexico recorded 5,222 new cases and 504deaths, which is as high as 10 per cent fatal-ity, only a shade lower than Italy.

The US has clearly peaked out in termsof death. A May 30 report of the USA’sCentre for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) says that “Based on death certifi-cate data, the percentage of deaths attrib-uted to pneumonia, influenza or Covid-19 (PIC) decreased from 13.7 per cent dur-ing week 21 to 8.4 per cent during week22. This is the sixth week during which adeclining percentage of deaths due to PIChas been recorded; however, the percent-age remains above the epidemic thresholdand is now similar to what has beenobserved at the peak of some influenza sea-sons.”

On June 7, the USA reported 373 newfatalities, the lowest one-day total sinceMarch 26, according to data compiled bythe Covid Tracking Project.

Similarly, France’s coronavirus deathtoll rose by 27 on June 10. This was thelowest count a fortnight when the coun-try saw an average daily increase of over50 cases. From April 17, when the worldrecorded 12,532 deaths, the highest single-day fatality, Covid-19 has killed more than10.8 lakh people. But far more could nowhope to come alive from its clutches.

(SOURCEs WHO, Worldometer, CDC,and Our World in Data)

From Page 1Of the 113 deaths on Sunday,

Mumbai accounted for 69 deaths,while there were eleven deathseach in Pune and Jalgaon, sevendeaths in Aurangabad, fivedeaths in Ulhasnagar, four deathsin Thane, three deaths each in

Solapur and Nashik, two deathseach in Osmanabad and Akola,one death Palghar, Vasai-Virarand Ratnagiri.

After recording 97 deathseach on June 10 and 11 and 90deaths on June 12, the numberof deaths in Mumbai camedown to 69 each on Saturdayand on Sunday, taking the totalnumber of deaths in themetropolis to 2,182 on Sunday.The number of Covid-19 pos-itive patients went up by 1,395cases to touch 58,226 now.The authorities pegged thenumber of “active cases” inMumbai at 29,050.

Tamil Nadu reports 1,974new cases and 38 deaths onSunday, taking the total numberof cases in the state to 44,661,including 19,676 active cases,24,547 discharged and 435deaths.

Haryana recorded 459 casesand 10 deaths, taking the numberof cases in the State to 208, 88deaths. Telangana recorded 237cases and three deaths. The Totalnumber of cases in the state is now

at 4974 and 185 deaths.Gujarat reported 511 fresh

cases and 29 deaths during thelast 24 hours, taking the totalnumber of cases to 23,590including 16,333 recoveries &1478 deaths.

West Bengal registered anincrease of 389 new infectionsand 12 fatalities m on Sunday,pushing the case count to 11, 087and toll to 475. According to abulletin issued by the Statehealth department, 5,060patients have been discharged tilldate and the discharge ratestands at 45.63 per cent.

With 163 fresh cases of coro-navirus and four deaths, thetotal tally of Covid-19 positivecases surpassed 5,000 mark andthe death toll reached 59 in theUnion territory of Jammu &Kashmir on Sunday. Significantly,120 patients recovered fully andwere discharged from differenthospitals during the day.

Ten CRPF personnel andfive Jammu and Kashmir police-men tested positive for Covid-19in the Union Territory onSunday, officials said. While fivepolicemen are from Shopian dis-trict police lines, 10 CRPF per-sonnel were from different bat-talions posted in south Kashmir,they said. The officials said theirtests were undertaken at SKIMSlaboratory here and were among92 positive cases in total detect-ed at the laboratory on Sunday.None of these troopers or police-men had any recent travel histo-ry, they said.

According to the media bul-letin, one patient died in Jammuwhile three deaths were report-ed from Kashmir on Sunday.

Meanwhile, out of 163 freshcases 28 cases were reportedfrom Jammu division while 135from Kashmir division.

Out of 5,041 total coron-avirus positive cases, the totalnumber of active cases are 2,593.Out of these 2,593, 745 cases areactive positive in Jammu divi-sion and 1,848 in Kashmir divi-sion. The total patients recov-ered in Jammu & Kashmir are2,389, 411 in Jammu and 1,978in Kashmir division.

On Sunday, the highest num-ber of cases were reported fromShopian and Pulwama. 45 casesreported positive in Shopianwhile Pulwama reported 33cases. In Kashmir valley, Kulgamdistrict has reported the highestnumber of 631 cases so far fol-lowed by 538 from Shopian, 524from Srinagar and 515 fromBaramulla. As many as 293 casesand 10 deaths reported inRajasthan on Sunday, taking thetotal number of cases to 12,694and death toll to 292.

Kerala reported a marginaldip in fresh COVID-19 cases onSunday with 54 people, includ-ing three health workers, testingpositive, taking the overall casecount to 2,460. As many as 56people were cured of the deadlyvirus as the total active casesstood at 1,340, state HealthMinister KK Shailaja said. Of the54, a total of 23 had arrived fromabroad and 25 others from otherStates, the Minister said.

Seventy more Covid-19 caseswere reported in GautamBuddha Nagar on Sunday. Totalnumber of cases in the district isnow at 935, including 510 cured,413 active cases and 12 deaths.

From Page 1 Taking note of the “gravi-

ty” of the Covid-19 situation,the Delhi High Court has alsodirected the AAP Governmentand the Centre to increase thenumber of beds and ventila-tors for the coronaviruspatients.

The Covid-19 tally hasreached nearly 39,000 in Delhiand the virus has claimedmore than 1,200 lives so far inthe Capital.

“To prevent coronavirusinfection in Delhi, testing willbe doubled in the next twodays and after six days the test-ing will be increased to threetimes. Also, after a few days,the testing will be started atevery polling station in thecontainment zones,” Shah saidin a series of tweets in Hindi.

According to the cityGovernment’s recent submis-sion in the Delhi High Court, the combined daily testingcapacity of 40 labs, 17 publicand 23 private, is 8,600 per

day.The number of contain-

ment zones in Capital hasincreased from 122 on June 1to 242. The Home Minister,who was directed by PrimeMinister Narendra Modi onSaturday to look into the DelhiCovid-19 situation, said inorder to carry out the contacttracing well in Delhi’s con-tainment zones, a compre-hensive house-to-house healthsurvey of every person will bedone and its report will besubmitted within a week.

For proper monitoring, hesaid, the Aarogya Setu app willbe downloaded in every per-son’s mobile phone.

With the railway coachesprovided by the Centre, thenumber of beds will beincreased by 8,000 beds. He saida committee has been formedto ensure reservation of 60 percent beds for coronaviruspatients in private hospitals atlow rates and to fix rates ofCovid-19 treatment and testing.

From Page 1Underlining efforts made to

de-escalate tension on the LAC,Rajnath said talks between mil-itary commanders of the twoarmies were on. “China hasexpressed the desire to resolvethe issue through dialogue andour effort too is to find a solu-tion through talks at the militaryand diplomatic level,” he said.

Moreover, “We will notkeep anybody in the dark. Wewill tell everything at an appro-priate time to Parliament and toeverybody,” he added whilereferring to the situation alongthe LAC.

In his speech, he also saidabrogation of Article 370 givingspecial status to Jammu andKashmir last year has led to allround development in theunion territory.

The government will carryout so much development in theregion in the coming years thatpeople of Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir(POK) will demand tobe part of India. This will leadto the fulfilment of ourParliament’’s resolution thatPoK is an integral part of India,Singh said.

He also referred to formerprime minister Atal BehariVajpayee’s statement about find-ing a solution to the situation inJammu and Kashmir through“Kashmiriyat, Insaniyat andJamhooriyat”.

“Though Vajpayee ji is nomore, but we still believe in thisprinciple of Kashmiriyat,Insaniyat and Jamhooriyat,”Rajnath said, adding that“through Kashmiriyat, we seeHazratbal and Amarnath also”.

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Ahmedabad: An earthquake of5.3 magnitude shook parts ofGujarat on Sunday night but nomajor damage to property orlife has been reported as perpreliminary assessment, thestate government said.

The epicentre of the tremorwas located near Bhachau inKutch district, officials said.

An official of the Instituteof Seismological Research (ISR)said that the tremor wasrecorded at 8:13 pm.

An aftershock of 3.1 mag-nitude was felt six minuteslater, with its epicentre locat-ed 25 km west north west ofRapar in Kutch district, theISR said.

In Kutch, Rajkot,Ahmedabad and Patan, manypeople rushed out of theirhouses.

While several parts ofGujarat felt the quake, its inten-sity was said to be more inPatan and Rajkot districts

neighbouring Kutch.Deputy Chief Minister

Nitin Patel said a quake ofsuch intensity was felt after along time. "Entire Saurashtraand north Gujarat regions,including Ahmedabad, felt theimpact of the quake with 5.3magnitude. The after shockwas of a lower intensity.Thereis no report of any majordamage to life and propertyfrom any area after the quake,"he said. PTI

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Umaria (MP): Two tiger cubs,around 15 days old, were killedby an adult big cat inBandhavgarh Tiger Reserve(BTR) of Madhya Pradesh, anofficial said on Sunday.

A patrolling team reachedthe spot after being informedthat an adult tiger has killedtwo cubs in Kathli beat of Talaarea of the reserve on Sundaymorning, BTR's directorVincent Rahim told PTI. Initialinvestigation and examination

of the carcasses confirmed thatthey were killed by an adulttiger. "The inspection of thespot revealed the presence ofthe cubs, a tigress and a tiger inthe area," he said.

The tiger might have killedthe cubs in the process ofestablishing a territory, hesaid. The carcasses were dis-posed of as per the directivesof the National TigerConservation Authority(NTCA), he said. PTI

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After the crucial adminis-tration level meeting, the

Union Home Minister AmitShah has called a meeting of allpolitical parties of Delhi onMonday to review the coron-avirus situation in the nation-al Capital.

The meeting is importantsince Delhi has witnessed sud-den surge in Covid -19 caseswhich could become evenmore words in the days tocome, if urgent remedial mea-sures are not taken.

While Shah took meetingwith Delhi Chief Minister

Arvind Kejriwal, LieutenantGovernor Anil Baijal, UnionHealth Minister Dr

Harshvardhan and senior doc-tors and experts ( AIIMS), thiswill be plan B to discuss thepreparation at ground level, anofficial said.

Delhi Bhartiya Janta Party( BJP ) President Adesh Gupta, Aam Admi Party Delhi con-

venor Gopal Rai, DelhiCongress president ChaudharyAnil Kumar and leaders fromother political parties areexpected to attend the meetingat the North Block.

Meanwhile, newly appoint-ed Delhi BJP president Adesh

Gupta said, 'I am thankful tothe Modi Government forimportant decisions that weretaken in the meeting betweenthe Home Minister Amit Shahand Chief Minister ArvindKejriwal to keep the people ofDelhi safe and to prevent thespread of Corona infection.

“I have received a messagefrom Union Home Ministrythat an all-party meeting hasbeen called for tomorrow overCOVID-19 situation in Delhiand all over the country,” saidDelhi Congress president AnilKumar Chaudhary. There wasno official response from theAAP, though party officialssaid their leaders will be goingfor the important meet onMonday.

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Abody of a 20-year-old manwas found in Delhi's Vijay

Vihar area with multiple stabinjuries. Police suspectsinvolvement of at least two-three people in the killing ofthe man.

The deceased was identi-fied as Suraj, a resident ofRithala village. Police policethat Suraj was an e-rickshawdriver.

According to a seniorpolice official, the body wasspotted by the guard of thepark who then informedpolice control room (PCR) ataround 11.15 PM on Saturday.

"Police suspects involve-ment of at least two-threepeople in the killing. Initialinvestigation suggests that theman was brought to the parkand was killed. The victim sus-tained severe stab injuries onhis neck, stomach and chest.He was rushed to a nearbyhospital where he was declaredbrought dead, said the seniorpolice official.

"A case has been registeredat Vijay Vihar police station inthis regard and an investiga-tion is underway to identifythe culprits and ascertain themotive being the killing," hesaid.

"The family of thedeceased, however, has notmade any allegations so far.The body will be handed overto the family after post-mortem," he added.

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In an attempt to deal with therising number of Covid-19

patients, the DelhiGovernment on Sunday des-ignated Bara Hindu RaoHospital run by North DelhiMunicipal Corporation, aCovid-19 facility.

Medical superintendent ofthe hospital has been directedto make all 980 hospital bedsavailable to admit coronaviruspatients, a senior North

Corporation official said,adding that out of these, 37beds are not available due toone wing of the buildingdeclared dangerous recently.

The official further saidthat besides 17 ventilators,three beds in ‘Intensive CareUnits’ and 250 beds with oxy-gen facility are available in thehospital.

“In view of the projectionsof surge in COVID-19 casesand the necessity of augment-ing bed capacity urgently, in

exercise of powers under DelhiEpidemic COVID-19 regula-tions and the Epidemic Act,1897, Bara Hindu Rao Hospitalrunning under North DelhiMunicipal Corporation is here-by declared as designatedCOVID-19 Hospital,” the gov-ernment said the order issuedon Sunday.

At least 209 patients areadmitted in the hospital andwill be shifted to KasturbaHospital, he said.

“We will ensure certain

modifications in manpowerdeployment, infrastructuredevelopment and other facilitiesrelated to health care,” he added.

The development cameafter Union home ministerAmit Shah held a meetingwith Delhi chief ministerArvind Kejriwal, union healthminister Harsh Vardhan,Lieutenant Governor AnilBaijal, AIIMS director RandeepGuleria to assess Delhi’s pre-paredness to fight the diseaseearlier on Sunday.

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In a tragic incident, two secu-rity guards, deployed at a

company were allegedly beatenup with sticks by a group of menin outer Delhi's Narela and latersuccumbed to injuries duringtreatement. Police said that theincident occured on the inter-vening night of Saturday-Sunday.

The deceased have beenidentified as Amit (22) and Sunil(24), both residents of GautamColony in Narela area.

According to a senior policeofficial, on the intervening nightof Saturday-Sunday, the twoguards were on night duty whenthey were beaten up with sticksby few boys at second floor of thebuilding. "Meanwhile, hearingnoise, other guards also reachedthere but the boys after beatingup the two managed to run awaytowards the forest area.Both thevictims were rushed to MV hos-pital from where they werereferred to BSA hospital where

they succumbed to injuries whileundergoing treatment, said thesenior police official.

"The two did not suffer anyapparent injury on head andother vital parts of the body butdid sustain fractures in limbswhich indicates that theassailants intended to severelybeat them and not murder themoutrightly," said police officialprivy to investigation.

"However, preliminaryinvestigation suggests involve-ment of known persons includ-ing those who were deployed atthe site. Even in past, there havebeen incidents of quarrel amongthe other guards as well onpetty issues such as money set-tlement," he said.

The police, however, hasnot ruled out involvement of out-siders in the incident. "A case hasbeen registered and an investi-gation is underway to ascertainthe motive behind the incidentwhile suspects are being round-ed up," he added.

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The rapid increase of coron-avirus cases in Gurugram

continued on Sunday with 169fresh positive cases emerging inthe district.

The figures of COVID pos-itive patients in Gurugramreached 3,294 and 1,998 areactive cases. A total of 1,265have been cured and dis-charged. Ten patients are incritical condition and are onventilator support. The cityhas also reported 31 deaths intotal including six deaths onSunday.

As many as 21 deaths inGurugram have been reportedin the last 10 days.

A Gurugram Healthdepartment official said that amajority of corona cases arecoming from containmentzones where the situationremains precarious.

Meanwhile, Gurugramnow has 98 containment zonesand an equal number of bufferzones in the district after areview meeting at the Mini-Secretariat which was chairedby District Magistrate AmitKhatri.

The number of contain-ment zones in the district hasincreased to 98 from 66. Inwhich 94 containment zoneshave been set up in Gurugramblock, 2 in Pataudi and one-one

each in Sohna andFarrukhnagar. Thus a total of98 containment zones havebeen made in the district.

"As per the guidelines ofthe ministry of health andfamily welfare, we havedeclared the same number ofbuffer zones along every con-tainment zone. The review ofthese containment zones willtake place only after no casewould appear in the next 28days," a health official said.

Apart from this, theadministration in Gurugramhas decided to build temporaryquarantine centres in the resi-dential societies and upscalecondominiums. However, theofficials of the health depart-ment have prepared a list of 61such community centres whichwill convert into isolation cen-ters.

The officials in Gurugrambelieve that next one month isvery crucial as chances ofspreading Covid-19 is maxi-mum and at a very large scale.

"The basic idea is to isolateas much as suspected or posi-tive patients from commonpeople. Since, quick arrange-ments of beds are not possible,temporary quarantine centresin residential society will even-tually help their own resi-dents," said a health official.

Moreover, a 45-year-oldsecurity guard Amar Singh aresident of Etah, Uttar Pradeshposted at Sushant lock resi-dential society allegedly com-mits suicide on Sunday 4.00 pmafter shot himself with his ser-vice gun. According to thepolice the family where he wasposted found Covid-19 positivefive days back while his reportyet to come but before that hetook extreme step.

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In wake of Coronavirus out-break, the Delhi Traffice

Police, organised a webinarfor contactless training pro-gram for its personnel. Thewebinar was aimed at briefingthe field staff about their safe-ty.

According to Anil Mittal,the Additional Public RelationOfficer (APRO), Delhi Police,Dr Monica Mahajan, MedicalDirector - Max MultispecialityHospitals conducted the 60minute-long interactive ses-sion with 200 Delhi TrafficPolice officers and men ofSouthern Range.

"Through this, the DelhiTraffic Police personnel wereinformed in detail about vari-ous facts and myths related tocoronavirus and about various

known causes, symptoms, pre-ventive measures, lifestylechanges and treatment forCOVID-19 coronavirus," saidMittal.

"They were also informedabout various physiologicaland psychological issues asso-ciated with the pandemic aris-ing due to various misconcep-tions and also given expert tipsto successfully handle suchissues," said Mittal.

"Delhi traffic police is get-ting equipped and also trainingits personnel to face all thechallenges arising due to thechanging global scenario. SuchWebinars and video-confer-encing sessions are the need ofthe hour and Delhi Police willcontinue to use this tool as anew method to protect andempower the force," Mittaladded.

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As part of "MenstrualHygiene Campaign"

Minister for Social WelfareRajendra Pal Gautam distrib-uted 15,000 reusable sanitarynapkins in various areas of theNational Capital on Sunday.

"Women living in clustersand slums, as we know, do nothave access to proper sanitisa-tion which poses serious healthrisks, especially during men-struation. Sanitary napkins arenot easily accessible to womenhailing from lower-incomefamilies. That is why we decid-ed to distribute 15000 specialsanitary napkins which arereusable for up to 2 years,” hesaid.

“Masks along with sanitarynapkins, nutritious snacks and

biscuits distributed in areas ofSeemapuri, Sundar Nagri andNand Nagri areas in Seemapuriassembly constituency, andcluster areas of Babarpur,Gokalpur and Rohas Nagarassembly constituencies,” hesaid.

The Minister and DCPCRhad launched "MenstrualHygiene Campaign" in whichthey distributed 1 lakh sanitaryNapkins to women in east andnorth east districts of NewDelhi

“The progress of any soci-ety can be directly measuredwith the health of its children.We need to eradicate mal-nourishment in children.Healthy snacks and properdietary supplements are essen-tial for a child's growth andoverall development,” he added.

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The Delhi Police has arrest-ed a man for allegedly

killing a 37-year-old man todeath in front of his wife and10-year-old daughter outsidehis house in Aman Vihar areaof Rohini. Police said that theincident took place on June 11.

"The incident was caughton CCTV camera, where threeperson were seen stabbing theman to death infront of his wifeand a daughter," said police.

The deceased was identi-fied as Bharat Bhushan. Policesaid that one of the accused,Mukesh (31), a resident ofDelhi's Kirari Sulemen Nagar,has been arrested in connectionwith the killing, while hisaccomplices —Deepak andSuraj are absconding.

According to BK Singh,Additional Commissioner ofPolice, Crime, at around 11.40pm, Mukesh along withDeepak and his brother Surajreached the victim's house inAman Vihar.

"They called him out andan argument ensued betweenthem. Deepak and Mukeshcaught hold of the victim,while Suraj stabbed him mul-tiple times in front of his wifeand daughter. Deepak kept onkicking the victim even after hehad fallen down and later leftthe spot on their two-wheelers,"said the Additional CP.

"The victim was rushed tothe hospital where he wasdeclared brought dead. A caseof murder, was registered atAman Vihar police station,"said the Additional CP.

"After, our team receivedinformation on Saturday thatMukesh would be coming toJapanese Park, Rohini, some-time in the evening. A trap waslaid and Mukesh was appre-hended. During interrogation,he disclosed that he along withSuraj and Deepak had killedBharat Bhushan for revenge,"he said.

"Mukesh, is a taxi driver.He also runs Satta in Kirari andBegumpur area. Suraj and hisbrother Deepak are his part-ners. Interrogation revealedthat Bhushan was a regular vis-itor at these satta rounds," hesaid.

"According to Mukesh,Bhushan would often get intofights under the influence ofalcohol. About two weeks ago,a group of boys had assaultedBhushan and he blamedDeepak and Suraj for theattack," said the AdditionalCP.

"However, on the eveningof June 11, Bhushan and hisfriends had interceptedMukesh and Deepak nearSector 20, Rohini. They hadthrashed the duo before lettingthem go. On returning home,Deepak, Suraj and Mukeshhatched a plan to take revenge,"he added.

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New Delhi: The Union Health Ministry on Sunday asked the DelhiGovernment to hand over the dead bodies of corona suspects totheir family members without waiting for the test report.

Director General of Health Services, Dr Rajeev Garg told theDelhi Chief Secretary that the bodies should be immediately hand-ed over to the family members without any delay. Garg, in the let-ter, said that it has come to light that dead bodies of Covid suspectsare not handed over to their family members who are kept waitingfor the final test reports. "I want to clarify that the bodies of suchsuspects should be immediately handed over to the family mem-bers. It is not necessary to wait for the results of corona test," he said.He also said that the cremation of the dead bodies should be car-ried out with utmost care and as per the guidelines issued by theMinistry. Garg said if the report of the deceased comes out posi-tive, then appropriate action should be taken by tracing out theircontacts and then isolating them. IANS

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Experts have hailed the ModiGovernment decision to

amend the EssentialCommodities Act and bring anordinance to promote barrier-free inter-State and intra-Statetrade in agriculture sector, tousher in the path of creating‘One India, One AgricultureMarket’. In a webinar titled thesame, organised by PressInformation Bureau on Sunday,several scientists, educationistsand journalists were of opinionthat this new initiative of theUnion Government will opena new window of opportunityfor the agricultural marketing

sector of the country, thusbringing a positive change inthe rural economy.

Dr. N C Nayak,Department of Humanities andSocial Sciences, IIT Kharagpursaid, the agriculture sectorwould get a boost with the cab-inet decision for rejuvenationof agriculture and food pro-cessing sector of the countryand bring a change in the agri-cultural economy by encour-aging private as well as foreigndirect investment in the farm-ing sector. He also hoped thatsuch a positive initiative of theUnion Government will alsohelp encourage investment incold storages and usher inmodernisation in food supply

chain.Dr Kishore Goswami,

another expert from theDepartment of Humanities and

Social Sciences, IIT, Kharagpurspoke on the merits of the deci-sion with optimism for growthwhich is evident in the farming

sector with market linkages inthe value chain with the stake-holders. He is of the opinionthat the decision taken by theCabinet is in line with the‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’ and willlikely initiate private-publicpartnership among the stake-holders also.

Dr Dipankar Gorai(Agriculture) and Dr SubrataSarkar (Horticulture), bothexperts from Krishi VigyanKendra, Burdwan opined thatthe decision would play a piv-otal role in motivating farmersto produce and supply farmproduces with better linkagesamong farmers, processors,warehouse and exportersamong others.

They even spoke about theprice stability and better pro-ductivity which are integralparts of the positive sides of theCabinet decision.

Taranjit Singh, ManagingDirector, JIS Group stated thatthe decision is a positive ini-tiative from the perspective ofindustry, as it will empower thefarmers for engaging proces-sors, wholesalers, aggregators,large retailers, exporters andthe like on a level playing field,while building capacity as wellas fostering a resilient supplychain for the farm products tothe global markets, therebyencouraging entrepreneurshipin the agriculture and food pro-cessing sector.

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Congress on Sunday demand-ed that the Centre go for an

immediate reduction in theprices of petrol, diesel and LPGto August 2004 level.

With the seventh rise in fhefuel prices, the party in a state-ment said it is important toremind that the current crude oilprices at about 40 US Dollars issimilar to August 2004 level andyet consumers are paying aheavier bill.

In August 2004, Petrol wasRs 36.81 per litre, Diesel 24.16and LPG Rs 261.60 per cylinderin Delhi but currently Petrol isbeing sold at Rs 75.78 per litre,Diesel at Rs 74.03 per litre andLPG at Rs 593 per cylinder.

Congress chief spokesmanRandeep Surjewala said Modi-Shah government must imme-diately rollback the excise dutyhike of Rs 23.78 on petrol andRs 28.37 on diesel.

"Today 130 crore Indians arebattling the Corona pandemic.The poor, migrant workers,

shopkeepers, farmers, small andmedium businesses and thosewho have lost their jobs arestruggling to survive the eco-nomic ruin unleashed by theModi government. But insteadof reducing their burden the dra-conian and anti-people BJPGovernment is fleecing the peo-ple by not just raising fuel rateson daily basis but also refusingto share benefits of lower crudewith people," Surjewala said.

Petrol and Diesel priceshave been hiked by Rs 4.52 perlitre and Rs 4.64 per litre respec-tively during the last 8 days itselfdespite crude oil prices beingbenign.

"t is a matter of record thatexcise duty on Petrol was Rs 9.20

per litre and on Diesel it was Rs.3.46 per litre in May, 2014 whenModi Government assumedoffice. In the last six years, theexcise duty on Petrol and Dieselhave been increased on Petrol byan additional Rs 23.78 per litreand on Diesel by an additionalRs 28.37. This translates into a258 percent increase in excise onpetrol and 820 percent hike inexcise duty on diesel," the grandold party said in a statement.

Congress alleged thatbetween financial year 2014-15to fiscal year 2019-20, the Modigovernment has hiked taxes onPetrol and Diesel 12 times andhas collected a whopping Rs.17,80,056 crore in just the last 6years.

"Will Prime MinisterNarendra Modi and his gov-ernment explain why Petroland Diesel that cost less than Rs.20 per litre to India, is being soldat steep rates of Rs. 75.78 per litrefor Petrol and Rs. 74.03 per litrefor Diesel?," Surjewala asked.

The party demanded thatpetrol and diesel should bebrought under the GST.

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With no sign of improve-ment in the Covid-19

pandemic crisis, a 'Work fromHome' manual for CentralGovernment employees isbeing prepared by the Centre.

While the Department ofPersonnel and Training(DoPT) has asked the Statesand UTs to send back the offi-cers due for posting at theCentre, sources said theDepartment of AdministrativeReforms and Public Grievances(DARPG) has also been taskedto segregate and prepare a listof the IAS, IPS, IFS, IRS, IRTSetc and other Class I officerswho are also medicos to enableboth the Centre and State

Government to engage themaccordingly in tackling thepandemic.

Though the DoPT has pre-pared a draft framework for‘work from home’ (WFH)which was practised duly dur-ing the lockdown period, thefinal WFH guidelines with cer-tain legal validity seeking tofacilitate operation of e-officein all Central Ministries anddepartments is being workedupon.

Sources said that Ministerof State for Personnel DrJitendra Singh last week in ameeting on June 12 advised theDoPT officials to expedite theprocess and also suggested fora separate list of MBBS back-ground civil servants and thatthe Centre should write to

States to send back officersoverstaying in States and UTs.

A senior DoPT officer saidthat now it is certain that withdaily rise in COVID figures, the

central government secretariatwill have to continue for a stag-gered attendance and variableworking hours to maintainsocial distancing at workplace

for quite long now.“A broad framework for

work from home is importantto standardize the operatingprocedure even post lock downsituation and to ensure safetyand security of information,while accessing governmentfiles and information remote-ly from home,” said the officialmentioning that a new set ofStandard Operating Procedures(SOPs) have been finalised forthe employees which is differ-ent from the norms prevailedduring lockdown.

Sources said theDepartment of Expenditurehave been informed about theexpenses to be borne towardsemployees requiring the logis-tic supports in the form of lap-top/ desktop by the respective

minis tr ies /depar tments .Reimbursements like that forinternet services for workingfrom home may be added andthat transport and refreshmentexpenses in physical officesmay be dropped.

DoPT sources said it is alsofiguring out the medical/MBBSbackground civil servants andother health policy expertswho are into governmentdepartments so that they canquickly be engaged in the fight-ing the war against corona.

"As of now we can say thatthere may be around 20-25 per-cent of total strength of civilservants who are also doctorsor have undergone training inhealth policy and manage-ment. Once we have properdata this will be quite helpful in

this crisis and the same experts can be used or engagedin times of crisis," DoPTsources said.

A senior official said itwill be good if the Ministries ofHealth at the Centre and Stateengage the medico civil ser-vants in their departmentsrather than people from tech-nical and humanities' back-ground as has been the caseover the years.

"The corona pandemic hasmade the government andother stakeholders realise thathealth care service is of utmostsignificance in nation building,"said the official.

Further, the DoPT has alsowritten to State governments tospare officers for central dep-utation. In the letter it explains

that every cadre is allowed adeputation reserve rule underwhich the officers are allowedto work on deputation includ-ing that under the CentralStaffing Scheme (CSS).

“The utilisation of thisreserve is low and this under-utilization, particularly atDeputy Secretary/Directorlevel, causes serious gaps incadre management. It is, there-fore, requested that larger num-ber of officers may kindly berecommended for appoint-ment at DeputySecretar y/Director/JointSecretary level under the cen-tral staffing scheme (CSS) sothat the central deputationreserve/deputation reserves areduly utilized for this purpose,”said the letter.

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India should rethink andrevise its 'One China' policy

and exploit the geographic,ethnic, and economic fault lineswithin the Asian giant, such asHong Kong, Taiwan, Tibet, andXinjiang, a group of experts hassaid.

At a webinar jointly organ-ised by Law and SocietyAlliance and Defence Capitalon "Revisiting 'One China' pol-icy: Economic and PoliticalOptions for India: Hong Kong,Tibet, Taiwan, and Xinjiang",the experts said India's non-interference when Tibet was

annexed by China 70 yearsago, thereby changing its geo-graphical boundaries, has comeback to haunt India since 1962.

The experts at the webinarwere Arvind Gupta, formerdeputy national security advis-er of India and now director ofVivekananda InternationalFoundation; Jayadeva Ranade,former additional secretary inthe Cabinet Secretariat andpresent day President of Centrefor China Analysis andStrategy; Seshadri Chari, sec-retary-general of Forum forIntegrated National Security;Nitin A. Gokhale, editor ofStratNewsGlobal andBharatShakti; and Abhijit Iyer-Mitra, senior fellow at Instituteof Peace and Conflict Studies.Editor of Defence.Capital N CBipindra moderated the ses-sion.

In his remarks, Gupta saidwhat 'One China' policy wasconsidered as a reciprocity tothe 'One India' policy. However,India gave up its influence onTibet in the 1950s and accept-ed its annexation by China.This situation as far as Tibet isconcerned continues till date.

However, India has taken aflexible approach in the past fewyears on Tibet, Gupta said andpointed out to the 2010 India-China joint statement that did-n't mention the 'One China'policy, then external affairsminister Sushma Swaraj’s state-ment in 2014 on the reciproc-ity on the unity and sovereign-ties of each other, and theinvite to the Taiwanese repre-sentative to join the 2014Narendra Modi oath takingceremony.

He expressed his concernsabout not taking a dynamicapproach and said that we havenot moved very much in revis-ing policy and taking forwardwhat was said in the statements.On Tibet, Gupta suggested thatIndia should be supporting theeffort of the Tibetans to haveself-rule and should give theDalai Lama more recognitionand position in diplomaticengagements, apart from visi-bility in India’s political circles.

Nitin Gokhale, in his argu-ments, said China’s actionsregarding ‘One India’ policysuch as stapled visas to Indiancitizens from the states ofJammu and Kashmir and

Arunachal Pradesh, denyingvisa to an Indian militarycommander who was headingthe army in Jammu andKashmir and Beijing’s opposi-tion to Indian prime ministervisiting Arunachal Pradeshwere all reasons enough forIndia to rethink the ‘One China’policy.

“Taiwan is the low hangingfruit as far as a rethink on ‘OneChina’ Policy is concerned. Weshould think of increasing oureconomic and technologicalrelations with Taiwan. Theyare wonderful in electronicchip manufacturing, semicon-ductors, and 5Gn technolo-gies,” Gokhale said.

Jayadeva Ranade stressedthe need to build up India’s owncapabilities in countering China- not only on the border, but onall fronts. He predicted that thetensions between the US andChina will certainly either putIndia in a sweet spot or in a del-icate position in the days tocome. He said that the govern-ment should provide scholar-ships to those wanting to learnMandarin from Taiwan insteadof China, where the visitors arebrain-washing into becomingslaves of Chinese supremacy.

Sheshadri Chari arguedthat India should never acceptthe ‘One China principle as pro-pounded by Beijing. OnXinjiang, Chari pointed outthat the region was annexed byChina because of which it cre-ated borders for itself withCentral Asian nations,Afghanistan, and India.

Abhijit Iyer-Mitra classifiedthree major problems of Indiawith China - cutting off thePakistan-China nexus, the needfor a problems free border, andChina’s veto power at UNSC.

He gave food for thoughtby flagging questions like - arewe ready to give nuclearweapons to Taiwan? Can wesupport Taiwan strategically?Can we support the democra-cy movement in Hong Kong,given the fact that we alreadyhave many protests in India?Can we recognise Taiwan? Canwe support Uighurs? Can wesupport Manchuria and InnerMongolia? Can we support theminority rebels in Mongolia?Can we sell them weapons?

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The India MeteorologicalDepartment (IMD) used

ISRO’s satellites –INSAT 3D,INSAT 3DR, polar orbitingsatellites including SCATSAT,ASCAT, Oceansat-2 andMegha Tropiques kept a con-stant eye on the super cycloneAmphan along with availableships and buoy observations tostudy the intensity, locationsand cloud cover around as itbrewed into super cyclone.According to IMD report onsuper cyclone Amphan, thesystem has been monitoredsince April 23, a three weekprior to the formation of atrough of low pressure over thesoutheast Bay of Bengal onMay 13.

As it developed into asuper cyclone, Indian satel-lites sent data every 15 minutesto the ground station helpingtrack and forecast its move-ment and save hundreds oflives and helped the agencies tominimize the damages.

Amphan has intensifiedinto a super cyclone on May19-20 and made its landfall inWest Bengal between Dighaand Hatiya on the afternoon ofMay 20 that caused extensivedamages in West Bengal andcoastal Odisha. The WestBengal Government haspegged financial loss to the

tune of Rs 1.02 lakh croreacross the state due to Amphan.

The India MeteorologicalDepartment (IMD) report onSuper Cyclonic Storm"Amphan" that crossed WestBengal coast during May 16-21, as a very severe cyclonicstorm across Sundarbans, saidthat from May 18 midnightonwards till May 20, the systemwas tracked gradually by IMDDoppler Weather Radars(DWRs) at Visakhapatnam,Gopalpur, Paradip, Kolkataand Agartala as it moved fromsouth to north.

IMD also utilised DWRproducts from ‘DRDOIntegrated Test Range’,Chandipur, Balasore for track-ing the system. The cyclone wasmonitored through Indiansatellite observations fromINSAT 3D and 3DR, polarorbiting satellites includingSCATSAT, ASCAT etc. andavailable ships & buoy obser-vations in the region.

Amphan moved very slow-ly during initial two days witha speed of 4-5 kmph and veryfast during last two days priorto landfall with windspeed ofabout 20-30 kmph. A LowPressure Area formed oversouth Andaman Sea andadjoining southeast Bay ofBengal on May 1. It meanderedover the region for next fivedays and became less marked

on May 6. However, associat-ed cyclonic circulation persist-ed over the region till May 12. On 11th, it was indicated thatcyclogenesis (formation ofdepression) would occuraround 16th May (48 hoursprior to formation of the LowPressure Area and 120 hoursprior to formation of depres-sion) over the BoB. It againreappeared as an Low PressureArea on May 13 over southeastBay of Bengal. Underfavourable environmental con-ditions, it concentrated into adepression over southeast BoBin the early morning on May 16and further intensified into adeep depression (DD) in thesame afternoon. It movednorth- northwestwards andintensified into Cyclonic Storm“AMPHAN” (pronounced asUM-PUN) over southeast BoBin the evening on May 16. Itfurther intensified into a SevereCyclonic Storm (SCS) on May17.

The World MeteorologicalOrganisation (WMO) haslauded the IMD for its accurateprediction of Amphan.

This was the second timethat WMO appreciated IndiaMeteorological Department(IMD) for its accurate prediction.

Earlier, during Fani cyclonein Odisha, the world body hashailed IMD forecast.

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Amid the ongoing face-offwith China at the Line of

Actual Control, Union Ministerand senior BJP leader NitinGadkari on Sunday India is notinterested in the land of Chinaor Pakistan but wants peaceand amity. "India (even) nevertried to grab land of its neigh-bours like Bhutan andBangladesh," he stressed.

Addressing the virtual ''JanSamvad'' rally of Gujarat BJPfrom Nagpur in Maharashtra,he said India believed in peaceand non-violence and doesnot want to be strong bybecoming an expansionist.

The Minister of RoadTransport & Highways andMSME also said that COVID-19 crisis will not last long, as avaccine is on its way soon.

"India do not want land ofeither Pakistan or China. AllIndia want is peace, amity,love, and (want) to worktogether (with neighbouringcountries)," Gadkari said.

His comments came at atime when India and China areengaged in a stand-off at theLine of Actual Control (LAC)in eastern Ladakh.

Talking about the comple-tion of one year of the secondterm of the Modi government,Gadkari said its biggest

achievement was to bring peacein the country by dealing withmatters of internal and exter-nal security.

"...Whether it is aboutalmost winning over the Maoistproblem or securing the coun-try from Pakistan-sponsoredterrorism...There is China onthe one side of our border andPakistan on the other side. Wewant peace, not violence," hesaid.

During his speech, Gadkarireferred to the famous novel"Mrityunjaya" by Marathi nov-elist Shivaji Sawant, sayingpeace and non-violence can beestablished by only those whoare strong and not weak.

"We should not make Indiastrong by becoming expan-sionist. We want to make Indiastrong for establishing peace.

We never tried to grab land ofBhutan. Our country madeSheikh Mujibur Rahman theprime minister of Bangladeshafter winning the war (withPakistan in 1971), and oursoldiers returned thereafter.

"We took not a single inchof land. We do not want landeither of Pakistan or China. Allwe want is peace, amity, love,and wanted to work together,"he said.

Gadkari also said the coro-navirus crisis will not last longas scientists in India and abroadhave been working to developa vaccine.

"This crisis is not going tolast long. Effort is on in ourcountry to develop a vaccinefor coronavirus. Scientistsacross the world are working inthis direction.

As per the informationreceived by me, I can say withconfidence that very soon wewill find vaccine. Once wedevelop a vaccine, we won''thave to fear the crisis, Gadkariadded.

As per the Union Healthministry, India saw the highestsingle-day spike of 11,929 novelcoronavirus cases in the last 24hours, taking the number ofinfections to over 3.20 lakh onSunday, while the toll crossedthe 9,000 mark with 311 moredeaths.

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The Centre on Sunday saidthat six Indian companies

- Hetero, Cipla, BDR, Jubilant,Mylan and Dr Reddy's Labs --have applied to Indian DrugRegulatory Agency, CentralDrug Standard ControlOrganisation (CDSCO) forpermission to manufacture andmarket the Remdesivir drug inIndia.

In a release here, the UnionHealth Ministry said that fiveof these have also entered intoan agreement with Gilead, abiopharmaceutical company,which had applied to CDSCO,for import and marketing ofRemdesivir on May 29. Afterdue deliberations, permissionunder Emergency UseAuthorization was granted onJune 1 in the interest of patientsafety and obtaining furtherdata.

"The applications of thesesix companies are beingprocessed by the CDSCO onpriority and in accordancewith the laid down procedures.The companies are at variousintermediate stages of inspec-tion of manufacturing facilities,verification of data, stabilitytesting, emergency laboratorytesting as per protocol. Beingan injectable formulation, test-ing for assay, identity, impuri-ties, bacterial endotoxin testand sterility become very crit-ical for patient safety and thisdata needs to be provided bythe companies," the releaseread.

The CDSCO is awaitingthe data and is providing com-plete support to these compa-nies. It has already waived offthe requirement of local clini-cal trials for these companies byinvoking emergency provi-sions.

The Ministry made it clearthat as per its upated ClinicalManagement Protocol forCOVID-19, drug Remdesivirhas been included as an "inves-tigational therapy" only for

restricted emergency use pur-poses along with off label useof Tocilizumab andConvalescent Plasma.

The said protocol alsoclearly mentions that the use ofthese therapies is based onlimited available evidence andlimited availability at present.

"Use of Remdesivir underemergency use may be consid-ered in patients with moderatedisease (those on oxygen) butwith no specified contraindi-cations. This drug has still notbeen approved (market autho-rization) by the US Food andDrug Administration(USFDA), where like India itcontinues only under anEmergency Use Authorization.Additionally, the first threebatches of imported consign-ments are to be tested andreports submitted to theCentral Drug Standard ControlOrganisation (CDSCO)," saidthe release.

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Close on the heels of Ayurvedicphysicians, homoeopathy doc-

tors in Kerala are up in arms againstthe State Government order banningthem from attending to Covid-19patients. Dr M Suresh Kumar, home-opathy physician with nearly fourdecades of experience said the KeralaGovernment in association withmodern medicine practitioners istrying to destroy homoeopathy system of medicine.

“Why and how they came to theconclusion that homeopathy is notfit for covid pandemic is notexplained. The order says we shouldnot attend to patients who call on uswith cold, runny nose, fever, sourthroat and breathlessness. It looksabsurd,” said Dr Kumar who had putin a total of six years of learning toget his diploma in homeopathymedicine.

Interestingly, hundreds ofpatients who were tested positive forcovid have been cured by Dr Kumar

and his colleagues much before theKerala Government issued the orderbanning the homeopaths from treat-ing patients. As on date, modernmedicine has no known medicine tocure the pandemic while Ayurvedaand Homeopathy streams curepatients by strengthening theirimmunity and fortifying the resis-tance of the body from attacks bycoronavirus, said Dr Kumar.

But Dr Jaswant Patil, A doctorof medicine in allopathy who is oneof the leading homoeopathic prac-titioners in the country has said thathe along with his team of home-opaths cured six patients who weresymptomatic. “All of them testednegative after they were adminis-tered with homeopathy medicine,”said Dr Patil describing the achieve-ment as proof of the effect of evi-dence based science.” This is thebiggest evidence based science,” hesaid.

Dr Patil expressed shock overthe government order asking home-opaths not to attend to the covidpatients who come to them. “This

has happened at a time when home-opathy has proved itself to be effi-cacy in treating covid-19. We havesucceeded in curing the disease inplaces like Malegon and even inMumbai,” said Dr Patil.

He said the Department ofAyush, Government of India, had ina letter dated March 6 (DO No Shadwaxed eloquence on the curingproperties of Homoeopathy. “Thepreventive aspect of Homoeopathyis well known and historicallyHomoeopathy has reportedly beenused for prevention during the epi-demics of Cholera, SpanishInfluenza, Yellow Fever, ScarlettFever, Diphtheria, Typhoid etc. TheGenus Epidemicus (GE) is the rem-edy found to be most effective for aparticular epidemic once data havebeen gathered from several cases,”wrote Rajesh Kotecha, secretary,department of ayush, Governmentof India to all State Governments. Itremains a mystery why KeralaGovernment issued an order ban-ning other medical streams fromattending to covid patients in spite

of Kotecha’s letter endorsing theIndian and Homoeopathy systems.

According to Dr Patil, an inte-grated approach in the treatment ofcovid has been found to be effective.“Homoeopathy medicines take careof chemicals secreted in the body fol-lowing coronavirus attack. Thesechemicals damage lungs, kidneyand arteries. It was homoeopathymedicines administered as adjuanttherapy that saved many lives. Therewere instances when covid patientswho were waiting outside hospitalsto get admitted were administeredhomoeopathy medicines and thissaved hundreds of lives. We gave themedicine as a stop-gap arrangementand it turned out to be successful,”said Dr Patil.

With no vaccine readily availableto cure the pandemic and the num-ber of coronavirus patients increas-ing on an hourly basis, the questionbeing asked by doctors like SurehKumar is relevant: “Why this kindof discrimination and apartheidtowards Indian system of medicineand Homoeopathy?”.

Bengaluru: There is no ques-tion of re-imposing a lock-down, a Karnataka Ministersaid on Sunday, seeking to dis-pel speculation over this issue.

“The question of re-impos-ing lockdown does not arise,”said Medical EducationMinister K. Sudhakar toldmedia persons as he touredKalaburagi and Bidar districtsto visit medical colleges, meetpeople and officials to discussthe Covid scenario.

Amid rising infections,there was speculation that thelockdown may be clampeddown again as Prime MinisterNarendra Modi plans to talk toChief Ministers on June 16 and17.

As part of World BloodDonors Day, Sudhakar also donated blood atKalaburagi. IANS

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As many as 1,974 people tested Covid-19 positive taking the tally to 44,661,

and 38 patients breathed their last raisingthe toll to 435 over the past 24 hours inTamil Nadu, the Health Department said,here on Sunday.

During the day, 1,138 Covid-19 peoplewere discharged from various hospitals rais-ing the number to cured people to24,547.

The number of active cases in the statestands at 19,676. The number of infectedchildren in the 0-12 age group went up to2,270.

The state capital Chennai continued tohead the Covid-19 infection table with 1,415people testing positive and the tally standsat 31,896.

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Even as the political parties arebaying for each other's blood

over the deteriorating corona situ-ation making the atmosphere bit-ter a vendor of sweets in Kolkatahave come up with a new kind of‘Sandesh’ (a dry and popular sweet-meat) with a message of peace andto stimulate friends and foes alike.

Known for keeping a sweettooth the Bengalis will now be luredwith a particular type of “sandesh”which will take care of their coro-na concern.

With the prevailing coronascare keeping a large section of peo-ple away from the sweet shops asweetmeat chain in Bengal hasdiscovered a new solution toaddress their virus concern.

Christened “ImmunitySandesh” by its makers, the descen-dants of Balaram Mullick andRadharaman Mullick — one of theancient sweet chains in Kolkatastarted way back in 1885 — the newsweat dish promises to boost up its

eaters’ immunity and prepares it totackle diseases including coronainsiders claim.

Sudipta Mullick a currentowner of the stated shop says thatthe idea of preparing this specialsweet came up at a time when peo-ple were becoming hesitant to visitsweet vendors for their fear ofcorona infection.

“We decided to innovate a spe-cial kind of sweet that will take careof the customers’ immunity con-cerns because as we know boostingone’s immunity is the only way wecan fight the disease in the absenceof any medicine till now,” saidMullick. The new kind of sandeshcan be had in 15 varieties and tastes,he said adding one such sweet willconst Rs 25.

“We have consulted the experts,including those who have vastknowledge of Ayruveda to developthe ingredients of the sweet,” he saidinforming the makers have “avoid-ed adding sugar to it… ImmunitySandesh is purely made out ofHimalaya honey.”

The makers have includedturmeric, cloves, cardamom, cin-namon saffron, black cumin,Mulethi, bay leaves, honey and afew others things to prepare thissandesh, he said adding the newsweat has become an instant hit.“There is a considerable demand ofthe sweet and we people are likingthis new kind of sandesh,” he said.

Sandesh or Sondesh is a Bengalidessert, with some of its recipes ofcalling for the use of chhena orricotta cheese or paneer (made bycurdling the milk and separatingthe whey from it). Some people inthe region of Dhaka in Bangladeshcall it Pranahara (literally, heart'stealer') which is a softer kind ofsandesh, made with mawa or khoya(prepared by simmering full-fatmilk in an iron frying pan for a cou-ple of hours over a medium flame)and the essence of curd.

The history of sandesh datesback to the medieval Bengali liter-ature including Krittivasi Ramayanand lyrics of Chaitanya Mahaprabhuof present Nadia district.

Amaravati: From the overnighttally of 186, the number ofCovid cases jumped by 67 torecord an all-time one-dayhigh of 253 positive cases onSunday. Incidentally, Saturday'stally was the previous highestsingle day record.

With the latest update,Andhra Pradesh's cumulativetally of Covid cases has zoomedto 4,841. The past week has wit-nessed daily rise by not lessthan 100 cases. The currenttrend has been taking shapesince June 6, when the statereported a 3-digit tally of 161cases for the first time.

On a positive note, 82 per-sons were discharged fromhospitals on Sunday, raising thecumulative tally of cured per-

sons in the state to 2,723 fromthe overnight figure of 2,641.

Meanwhile, the cumulativetally of active cases in the statealso climbed to 2,034 fromSaturday's figure of 1,865 activecases, the state nodal officerreported.

With 2 deaths reportedduring the 24 hours ending 9a.m., Sunday, the death toll inAndhra Pradesh climbed to 84.While one death was reportedfrom Kurnool district, anoth-er one was reported from EastGodavari district.

Over the past few days, thestate's mortality rate has beenimproving steadily. On Sunday,Andhra Pradesh's mortalityrate stood at 1.43, sharing the9th position with Chandigarh

among the states of India. Incomparison, India's mortalityrate was 2.87 per cent onSunday. In comparison to14,477 samples on Saturday,15,633 tests were conducted inthe last 24 hours, the statenodal officer reported.

Sunday also saw a rise inthe cumulative tally of Covid-19 cases among returnees fromother states. On Sunday, thetally stood at 1,107 comparedto the Saturday figure of 1,068cases. However, the tally ofactive cases dropped from 546to 536 with 48 persons beingdischarged from hospital.

Two new cases were detect-ed among foreign returnees,taking the cumulative tally to204. IANS

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Goa is taking notes fromKerala on its efforts to

combat the coronavirus pan-demic, Health MinisterVishwajit Rane said on Sunday.

“... Kerala is an ideal exam-ple. I am in constant touch withKerala (Health) Minister,Madam (KK) Shailaja, on thenew ways being practicedthere,” Rane told reporters inMargao while updating onGoa's efforts to tackle increasing corona cases in theState.

Goa currently has 454active cases, even as ChiefMinister Pramod Sawant hasclaimed that a vast majority ofthe infected persons are asymp-tomatic.

Earlier on Sunday, the statedesignated four additionalfacilities as 'Covid-19 care cen-tres', where corona positivebut asymptomatic persons willbe admitted.

The care centres aim toseparate symptomatic andasymptomatic patients.

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With 163 fresh cases of coronavirus andfour deaths, the total tally of Covid-19

positive cases surpassed 5,000 mark and thedeath toll reached 59 in the Union Territoryof Jammu & Kashmir on Sunday.

Significantly, 120 patients recovered fullyand were discharged from different hospitalsduring the day.

According to the media bulletin, onepatient died in Jammu while three deaths werereported from Kashmir on Sunday.Meanwhile, out of 163 fresh cases 28 caseswere reported from Jammu division while 135from Kashmir division.

Out of 5,041 total coronavirus positivecases, the total number of active cases are2593. Out of these 2593, 745 cases are activepositive in Jammu division and 1,848 inKashmir division.

The total patients recovered in Jammuand Kashmir are 2,389, 411 in Jammu and1,978 in Kashmir division.

On Sunday, the highest number of caseswere reported from Shopian and Pulwama.45 cases reported positive in Shopian whilePulwama reported 33 cases.

In Kashmir valley, Kulgam district hasreported the highest number of 631 cases sofar followed by 538 from Shopian, 524 fromSrinagar and 515 from Baramulla.

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Acritically injured Army jawandeployed along the line of con-

trol in Poonch sector succumbed tohis fatal injuries in the wee hours ofSunday. The jawan had receivedsplinter injuries during heavyexchange of firing after the Pakistanarmy resorted to 'unprovoked' cease-fire violation in the region. The jawanwas airlifted from Poonch past mid-night but could not survive.

In the last 10 days, three Indiansoldiers have attained martyrdom in'unprovoked' incidents of ceasefireviolations in Rajouri and Poonch sec-tors.

According to Lt-Col DevenderAnand, Defence PRO in Jammu,“Pakistan Army resorted to unpro-voked ceasefire violation on the lineof control (LoC) in Poonch Sector on13 Jun 2020. Own troops respondedstrongly to the enemy fire. In the inci-dent, Sepoy Lungambui Abonmeiwas critically injured and later suc-cumbed to his injuries”.

Earlier, on June 10 NaikGurcharan Singh, hailing fromGurdaspur district of Punjab and onJune 4 Havildar Mathiazhagan P,hailing from Salem district of TamilNadu had sacrificed their lives in theline of duty in Rajouri sector.

Even as tensions between Indiaand Pakistan are escalating the local

residents in the area have been livingin the shadow of guns.

Fresh firing was also reportedalong the line of control in Rampursector of North Kashmir's Baramulladistrict. According to reports,Pakistani army lobbed mortar shellson civilian pockets in the area, Inresponse, Indian army gave them abefitting reply.

According to official sources,more than 2000 incidents of ceasefireviolations have been reported inJammu and Kashmir till the first weekof June 2020.

“A total of 2027 ceasefire viola-tions took place this year till June 10,with the highest number of 411 vio-lations taking place in March.

During January, a total number of367 ceasefire violations were record-ed, 366 in February, 387 in April and382 in May, while the first 10 days ofJune saw 114 incidents of firing andshelling from Pakistan.

Against this, 926 ceasefire viola-tions took place in the same period in2019.

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Etah (Uttar Pradesh): A 30-year-old man, known to be apsycho killer, has been arrest-ed while trying to hack hiselder brother with an axe,police said.

The accused had allegedlymurdered two minors and was'planning to kill three more'.

Radhey Shyam, theaccused, is an intermediatepass youth and a resident of theDharmpur village under in theEtah district.

The accused had strangledtwo of his nephews -- six-year-old Satyendra on February 4and five-year-old Prashant onJune 9. Satyendra was the sonof Radhey Shyam's elder broth-er while Prashant was the sonof his cousin Raghuraj Singh.

Sakrauli Station HouseOfficer (SHO), Kritpal Singh,

said that late in the night of June11, Radhey attempted to kill hiselder brother Vishwanath Singhwho was sleeping.

Fortunately, relativescaught him before the attackand brought him to the policestation. During questioning,the accused claimed that he'liked' killing people.

Etah Superintendent ofPolice Sunil Kumar Singh said,“The accused has confessed tohave killed two of his nephews,and disclosed that he was aboutto kill three more people. He isa psycho killer and takes plea-sure in killing people.”

Significantly, the policehad sent three people, includ-ing a woman, to jail for themurder of Satyendra, whilethree more were booked inPrashant's case. IANS

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Bengaluru: Domestic returnees andrising infections in contacts of earlierCovid cases in Karnataka made thestate's tally touch the 7,000 mark with176 new cases, an official said onSunday.

“New cases reported from Saturday5 p.m. to Sunday 5 p.m., 176,” said ahealth official.

Like everyday, domestic returneesare the highest number of cases, 88,while 61 contacts of earlier cases alsoturned positive.

Among the domestic returnees, 82or 93 per cent of the cases had travel his-tory to Maharashtra.

There were also six cases with inter-national travel history to the United ArabEmirates, Kuwait and the Philippines.

Meanwhile, contacts of earlier casesturning positive are showing an upwardtrend with 61 such cases reported onSunday.

Cases spiked in Bengaluru Urban,Yadgir, Udupi, Bidar, Kalaburagi,Dharwad, Ballari, Kolar, Uttara Kannada,Mandya and Daskhina Kannada.

Among the new cases, BengaluruUrban contributed 42, followed byYadgir (22), Udupi (21), Bidar (20),Kalaburagi (13), Dharwad (10), Ballari(8), Kolar (7), Uttara Kannada (6),Mandya and Dakshina Kannada (5each), Bagalkote (4), Ramanagara (3),Raichur and Shivamogga (2 each) and

Belagavi, Hassan, Vijayapura, BengaluruRural and Haveri (1 each).

Twelve patients are suffering frominfluenza like illness (ILI) and five fromsevere acute respiratory infection (SARI).

Meanwhile, five people succumbedto the virus, three from BengaluruUrban, one from Dakshina Kannada andanother from Bidar.

Among the new cases, 106 aremales and 70 females, including 13 chil-dren below the age of 10 years.

Of the total cases, 2,956 patients havebeen discharged, 86 have died while 16are admitted in the ICU. In the last 24hours, 312 patients were cured and dis-charged.

On Sunday, the health departmenttested 7,451 samples out of which 6,835turned negative.

In total, 4.43 lakh samples have beentested, of which 4.27 lakh have returnednegative. IANS

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With no marked change inthe Covid-19 situation,

Maharashtra on Sundayrecorded 120 new deaths and3,390 fresh infections, takingthe total number of deaths to3,950 and infected cases in thestate to 1,07,958 cases.

A day after the number ofdeaths had come down to 113and the number of new posi-tive cases stood at 3,427, coro-navirus claimed 120 more livesand left 3,390 others infectedon Sunday.

Having taken into accounttotal 3,950 deaths reported sofar and 50,978 patients dis-charged from various hospitalsever since the outbreak of pan-demic in the state, the statehealth authorities pegged thenumber of “active cases” in thestate at 53,017.

Of the 113 deaths onSunday, Mumbai accountedfor 69 deaths, while there wereeleven deaths each in Pune andJalgaon, seven deaths inAurangabad, five deaths inUlhasnagar, four deaths in

Thane, three deaths each inSolapur and Nashik, two deathseach in Osmanabad and Akola,one death Palghar, Vasai-Virarand Ratnagiri.

After recording 97 deathseach on June 10 and 11 and 90deaths on June 12, the numberof deaths in Mumbai camedown to 69 each on Saturdayand on Sunday, taking the totalnumber of deaths in themetropolis to 2182 on Sunday.The number of Covid-19 pos-itive patients went up by 1,395cases to touch 58,226 now.

The authorities pegged thenumber of “active cases” inMumbai at 29050.

Of the 120 dead in the stateon Saturday, 81 were menwhile 39 were women. Sixty sixof them were aged over 60years, 40 were from the agegroup 40 to 59 years and 14were aged below 40 years.

Eighty out of the 120patients (67%) had high-riskcomorbidities such as diabetes,hypertension and heart disease.

Currently, as many as 97laboratories are functioningfor Covid-19 diagnosis in thestate currently – 55 govern-ment-run and 42 private ones.Out of 6,47,739 samples sentto laboratories, 1,07,958 havetested positive (16.3%) forCovid-19 until Sunday..

The recovery rate in thestate is 47.2 percent while thecase fatality rate in the state:3.65 per cent. Currently,5,87,596 people are in homequarantine. There are 77,189beds available in 1,535 quar-antine institutions while 29,641people are in institutional quar-antine.

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The case of drawing ofsalaries totalling over �1

crore in the name of AnamikaShukla in Uttar Pradesh is tak-ing interesting turns with eachpassing day, with the policeidentifying two more accusedwomen and arresting one ofthem.

In a positive twist to thewhole scam, the 'real' AnamikaShukla, who has been jobless sofar, has got a job offer from aprivate school in Gonda districtafter its management came toknow about her.

During investigations inthe case, authorities had iden-tified two more women in theKasturba Gandhi BalikaVidyalaya (KGBV) as mas-querading Anamika Shuklaand drawing salaries in hername.

While one was arrested by

Ambedkar Nagar police fromher hometown in Bewar area inMainpuri district, the otherwoman hailing from KanpurDehat is being traced.

Arrested woman AnitaSingh, a widow fromLakhanpur Jaatmai village inBewar police jurisdiction, toldlocal reporters that an "area res-ident Pushpendra Singh Jatavhad arranged the job for herwithout charging any moneyand that she was getting�10,000 every month fromhim out of her salary of�22,000".

She said: "I did not havemoney to even manage food formy child and my family at thattime and hence acceptedPushpendra's offer."She saidshe was a postgraduate fromEtawah and had returned to herhometown after relaxations inthe lockdown. Police is nowlooking for Pushpendra.

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Iwill always remember my first shot atbeing atmanirbhar, a much-chasedmoniker now, with my Atlas cycle.Senior school meant assuming someadult-like responsibilities and engag-

ing with the world and my father gave methat first ticket to freedom. I trained on afriend’s Avon cycle, seen by family elders asa wannabe that didn’t have any of the tough-ness or elegance of a superbrand they hadgrown up with. So when it came to buyingone for me, it had to be Atlas. Besides, backthen it had a colour range that was not toopop-up. Mine actually was syrupy-shiny likeCoca Cola, not brown exactly, the rightchoice I felt, like many peers caught in thecola wars of the time, wondering which com-pany had the most fizz in its TVCs. And sobegan my upward mobility, beginning withmeeting friends, hanging out with them, run-ning errands with great joy, reaching out tomy pupils as a home tutor and simply let-ting the wind blow through my hair in a gushof a new-found sense of self.

If the bicycle was with me, there wasnothing that I could not conquer. Not evena deluge of a Kolkata monsoon could keepme home from finding my own way. Atlaswas the reason that I learnt how to navigatethe shortest routes through a maze of backalleys and lanes at a time when there was noGoogle map. And in Kolkata’s bustling traf-fic, it taught me discipline and alertness. Bythe lake and the greens, it let me give in togay abandon. And then the inevitable hap-pened, life moved on at a faster pace thanits wheels and in India’s post-liberalisationera, I became part of a chase called aspira-tion and wish-fulfilment. I left behind theAtlas, donated it to an office clerk in myfather’s office, for whom it turned out to bea means of livelihood, sparing him bus faresto work. I had forgotten all about it till theother day, in the grim days of the pandem-ic, I read that its last unit at Sahibabad hadshut down. The company had been doingbadly for the last few years, given the pen-chant for Chinese or branded superbikesamong today’s youth. So when the lockdowncame with the Coronavirus, the company lostits financial muscle and folded. Yet its leg-endary status came to haunt me and mademe wonder if it was symptomatic of an Indiabefore and after 2020. The death of dreamsthat have been vacuous or rebirth of life asit should be and not what we liked it to be?In many ways, the death of Atlas signifies thedeath of the middle class dream, one that wehad pedalled hard to realise and taken careto bubble-wrap, working our way throughour many EMIs and propelling ourselves topersonal conquests of the material kind —swanky car, eating out, a townhouse in theleast and exotic vacations at the most. Andnow with the pandemic pushing us into agreat depression on many fronts, social, eco-nomic and personal, many of my generationwish that Atlas was around to revive that oldfearlessness of starting out from zero. One

that could battle job cuts, layoffs,furloughs, salary freeze andlosses and help us reorder lifeagain. The virus has flattened theself-made fortunes of India’ssurging professionals and turnedtheir hard-earned indulgenceinto a sin. And as we cut cornersof our upturned lives, which wehad so lovingly crafted with ourtalent pool as the rich investedin our efforts and the poor ser-viced with their labour, we are nolonger the happy mayonnaiselayer. That is now spilling outbadly and deepening India’shaves versus have-not story. ForIndia’s middle class can nolonger work towards becomingrich, to “have” a life or decide toslide down completely to its ori-gins or “not have” a job as themigrant labourer. The rich canafford to pull through by raid-ing the buffer stocks of theirwealth. And if the reverse migra-tion has taught us anything, thenthe poor, dispossessed of oppor-tunity and now even dignity, aredetermined to steer their lifethrough another degree ofpenury that they have anywaybeen used to. Besides, the redis-tribution of wealth in the formof revised Government spend-ing and crisis response hasmeant that the rural economyhas got a booster shot. Yet withthe middle class that connectsboth layers thinning out, theeconomy won’t be catering muchto either the “have” or the “have-not.” Credit-based packageswon’t do much to rescue the

middle class. Besides nobodythinks it needs welfarism orbreak of any sort.

The globalised world hasalways looked greedily at India’saspirant and rising middle class-es as an engine of growth and agrowing market but with urbanconsumption collapsing, theeconomy has completelyshapeshifted. World over, thesubsidiary and allied industriesthat depended on urbandemand and consumption andfuelled a post-millennial, lifestyleeconomy have taken a deepdive. As people have stoppedtravelling, going to restaurantsand cut down on shopping, thetourism, hospitality and retailsectors have been badly hit.Nobody is swiping the creditcard of conspicuous consump-tion when survival is the onlynecessity supported by a debitcard.

Nobody may have docu-mented it but there has been areverse migration of the middleclass along with the daily wagersand the homeless. Out of job,their savings flattened out inmonths and carrying the burdenof EMIs, many have gone backto their home States, incapableof sustaining their lives in the bigcities. The professionals findthemselves at sea with a shrink-ing demand for their services.The “let’s change the world”start-up owners are floundering.This group comprises mostlyIndia’s young — skilled, educat-ed, talented, energetic and effi-

cient — qualities that have lentIndia the demographic edge. Yet,their home States, too, have noroom for them. There havebeen shocking reports of Mastersdegree-holders in Uttar Pradeshsigning up for road-diggingwork under MGNREGA. Sothose waiting in the wings fortheir flight in the world questionwhy education should be seen asan empowering tool when itcannot even withstand threemonths of crisis.

The Americans say that themiddle class did not face such aserious economic threat sincethe 1930s. We could say that theIndian middle class is in its worstphase, having gone back by atleast two generations in itsrationing and privation. Andthat’s going to last quite a while.It doesn’t have the stomach totake the burden of our economyor feed it anymore. Withoutsalaries, neither can theGovernment earn taxes, norcan industries find a market fortheir products.

This vicious cycle and theerosion of the middle class willfurther entrench our deep socio-economic divides as it has ear-lier during disasters and pan-demics. At least 49 million peo-ple across the world are expect-ed to plunge into “extremepoverty” and India leads thatprojection. About 12 croreIndians have already lost theirjobs, according to estimates bythe Centre for MonitoringIndian Economy. The virus has

not just recast economics butsocio-cultural patterns. Womenare losing jobs faster than menbecause more of them are in ser-vice sectors most affected by thevirus. Think the hospitalityindustry, with a slew of womenfrom the front desk to thekitchen, retail, fashion and beau-ty industries. Think aviationand its army of hostesses. Thinkreceptionists and office admin-istrators. Think IT operators.The average educated Indianwoman, who had waged manybattles to be where she wants, isback to square one. She is alreadyretreating into a home life ofbaking for kids, cooking specialsand rushing between the wash-ing machine and chores, as thatrole hasn’t changed and in a malepatriarchal order, has beencemented further by the pan-demic. All the dream-chasingyoung people from Tier 2 and 3cities, who filled up service-industry jobs and even trainedthemselves to be worthy of it —in restaurants, bars, hotels, callcentres — are out of work, notsure how they will retro-fit theirlives back in their hometowns.They do not even have the Atlascycle anymore. Even if I had one,would I be able to ride it in thesemiddling years, what with theGovernment planning cycle cor-ridors? Maybe it is time to pedalagain after chewing on Parle G.Yes that company has postedrecord profits during lockdown.

(The writer is AssociateEditor, The Pioneer))�� (

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Sir — Shopping malls, restau-rants, hotels and places of worshipare now gradually opening up.Government guidelines for theopening up of such public placesinclude controlling the number ofvisitors to the malls and disallow-ing touching of idols at religiousplaces. Detailed rules have alsobeen issued for offices that havereopened over the past few weeks.

All establishments in contain-ment zones will remain closed aswill cinema halls, gaming arcadesand children’s play areas in malls.Despite these safety measures inplace, it will be risky for peopleto visit public places. It is betterto stay indoors. Office goersmust be the most careful.

Najibullah QasmiMumbai

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Sir — Heart-wrenching images ofpeople suffering from COVID-19infection being ill-treated andtheir dead bodies being manhan-dled have emerged. In MadhyaPradesh, for example, an elderlyman suffering from COVID-19

was tied to a bed after he alleged-ly failed to make payment for histreatment. In Puducherry,Government workers were seenthrowing the body of a COVID-19 positive man into a pit.

It is pertinent to note that theright to live with dignity, asenvisaged in Article 21 of theIndian Constitution, also includesthe right to die with dignity. To

die with dignity calls for the safedisposal of the dead bodies anddecent burial/cremation. On sev-eral occasions, the Supreme Courthas recognised the “right to diewith dignity” as a fundamentalright. The court must interveneand uphold their right to die withdignity.

Vinayan SinghDelhi

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Sir — It is unfortunate that theBJP spent crores of rupees on the“virtual rally” for Bihar but notfor the poor, who are strugglingdue to the COVID-19 pandem-ic, lockdown, unemploymentand a failing economy whichproves that the Government is

only interested in power and isnot bothered about the State andits people. Bihar, under theJanata Dal-United (JD(U)-BJPrule, has become bankrupt andbackward in all spheres. Thepeople of Bihar have beenbetrayed.

Bhagwan ThadaniVia mail

��

Sir — It is disheartening that inthese crisis times, too, private hos-pitals have fared no better.Allegations of price gouging havebeen flying thick and fast. In thepre-pandemic period, too, theydid not cover themselves in glory.No wonder, they have been milk-ing the present situation. Thougha few State Governments havecapped COVID-19 treatmentprices in such hospitals, the pro-hibitive prices are beyond thereach of the middle class. For thecommon man, prevention is bet-ter than no cure. People must notbe given false hopes.

Rashmi SinghVia email

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Amid the continuing military stand-off inLadakh and a series of failed bilateralmeetings at varying military-diplomatic

levels, Beijing embarked upon the familiar“video war”, releasing clips showcasing China’smodernised and digitised military prowess. Thevideo, released a few days before the scheduledCorps Commander-level meeting, featured a taskforce doing “infiltration drills.” It showed troopsoperating at night, crossing the border in the darkto avoid detection with only a laser to guide themand the destruction of en route threats throughdrones. It showed a sniper team destroyingenemy spotlights and a fire strike team neutral-ising the enemy’s light armoured vehicles withanti-tank rockets. Thus the enemy’s defenceswere neutralised and thereafter the task forcelaunched the final assault on the enemy head-quarters, in which a vehicle-mounted infraredreconnaissance system was used to guide thetroops to accurately lock on the targets anddestroy them.

The exercise, as per the Chinese mouthpieceGlobal Times, was done at 4,700 metres, simu-lating the border with India, deep in theTanggula mountains. However, seasoned defencestrategists and military experts in India were notimpressed by it as the video had glaring mistakes.Apart from not displaying the timeline, thetroops were wearing summer combat fatiguesand not the winter clothing essential to surviveat that altitude. China watchers, who refused tobe misled by the Chinese media, revealed thata similar video was released by Beijing in July2017 at the peak of the Doklam crisis. Only itwas claimed to be filmed at a different altitudethen.

To grasp why the Chinese media resorts tosuch tactics and propaganda offensives, we haveto understand the Chinese strategy of “winningwithout fighting.” It goes to the credit of theChinese army that it has not depended on for-eign armies to define its military doctrine buthas used indigenous knowledge and experienceto draft its war strategy.

China is a one-party State with undisputedsupremacy of the Communist Party of China(CPC). The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) isthe army of the communist party and not of theState. It has a political task to defend China’snational interest which entails providing “strate-gic support for consolidating the leadership ofthe CPC and the socialist system.” It is the lega-cy of Mao’s Red Army, which was “an armedbody for carrying out the political tasks of therevolution.” The PLA is controlled by the CPCthrough the Central Military Commission(CMC) and the Chinese security doctrine asenunciated by the CMC is referred to as “polit-ical warfare.”

Adhering to Chinese general and militarystrategist Sun Tzu’s dictum of “winning withoutwaging a war”, the CPC’s Central Committee andthe CMC have laid out the concept of “ThreeWarfares” as a set of codes for the PLA to con-duct political warfare. Referred to as the “polit-ical work guidelines of the PLA” the “ThreeWarfares” strategy entails: Public opinion war-fare (through the media), psychological warfareand legal warfare. Their main focus is on con-trol of public opinion; psychological warfare toinclude blunting an adversary’s determination;transformation of emotions; psychological guid-ance; collapse of (an adversary’s) organisation;psychological defence and restriction throughlaw.

Of the three strategies, two have direct bear-ing on subverting the enemy, playing mindgames, coercion and psychological domination

using different platforms. It is a subsetof the more widely-known“Information Warfare.” It aims at shap-ing the international image of China byinfluencing foreign decision-makers’perceptions and their approach towardsBeijing. It is operated by means of pre-conflict posturing by the military/para-military forces or application of othernational capabilities (diplomatic, eco-nomic, and cultural) with the intentionof intimidating adversaries and encour-aging acquiescence to Beijing-desiredoutcomes.

These are not just used against anadversary but also citizens and friend-ly countries, for building public opin-ion favourable to the CPC and percep-tion management. In doing so, the well-tried policy of “carrot and stick” isscrupulously adhered to. The same isvery visible in the current stand-off aswell. A careful scanning of various arti-cles, videos and tweets emanatingfrom China related to the currentface-off bears testimony to the fact.These can easily be termed as instru-ments of propaganda warfare. Most areprepared under simulated conditionsnot only to scare the adversary but tomotivate the PLA since morale is a bigissue with the Chinese armed forces.

With this in mind, the CentralCommittee of the CPC has given theresponsibility of implementing China’s“Three Warfares” strategy to thePolitical Work Department after therecent organisational reforms. Thedepartment, which is subordinate to theCMC, works in coordination with thePLA with the aim to create and safe-guard the legitimacy of the CPC’spolitical power from any internation-al as well as domestic threat.

Another facet of psychologicaloperations is sowing discord and asense of hopelessness in the adversarynation’s army and populace. Not onlywill this help in breaking their will tofight off adversary forces and demor-alise the population, it will discourageresistance in case of an actual conflictand promote mental fatigue and

demoralisation in case of a longishstand-off. This also helps in seekingconcessions at the negotiating table.“When one defeats the enemy, it is notsolely by killing the enemy, or winninga piece of ground, but is mainly in termsof cowing his heart.” In order to under-mine the opponent’s morale, theChinese believe in pedalling informa-tion favourable to oneself throughvarious forms of media as well asthrough third parties, friendly ele-ments in the opponent’s society andsimilar outlets.

Fortunately, the current face-off hasexposed many such Chinese moles inour society, including veterans, colum-nists and defence analysts. They sparedno effort to multiply the Chinese effortbut were defeated in their efforts to cre-ate the “China bogey” by those whowanted the nation to ignore the alarmistand exaggerated reporting which hasbeen proved wrong.

The Chinese, in their bid to coerceIndia, launched a full-fledged “psycho-logical operation” but had to eat hum-ble pie. The mirror deployment by theIndian Army, the Indian Air Force(IAF) and the Navy took the Chineseby surprise. Coupled with this is thefirm and rock-solid politico-diplomat-ic stand taken by India that has not onlyrattled the Chinese but sent them aclear-cut message regarding the “no-nonsense” approach of the IndianGovernment.

In order to buy time, China hasbeen insisting on a series of meetingsso that it can prolong the face-offbecause early resolution would hit itsglobal image. An important meetingwas held at the Moldo post (oppositethe Indian post of Chusul) between thetwo delegations led by the CorpsCommanders. Even before the outcomeof the meeting was known, the PLAonce again resorted to mind games byreleasing a video displaying China’soperational readiness, mobilisationand capability of switching combat-ready troops from one theatre of com-mand to another.

A couple of days later it wasrevealed that both armies have agreedto disengage from a few areas and alsopull back additional troops and weaponplatforms deployed on their side of theLine of Actual Control (LAC). Theintent of the video is now becomingclearer. The Indian side would haveasserted to their counterparts the localsuperiority enjoyed by our forces in thedesignated areas. The video was meantas a counter but failed to have thedesired impact because India is in a bet-ter position to muster a larger numberof fully-acclimatised combat-readytroops.

Thereafter the pullback took place.Interestingly, it has now been acknowl-edged by a Chinese military expertHuang Guozhi in a Chinese militarymagazine that, “At present the world’slargest and most experienced countrywith plateau and mountain troops isneither the US, Russia nor anyEuropean powerhouse, but India.”

The timing and content of the arti-cle written in Mandarin is self-explana-tory. Global Times, the CPC’s mouth-piece, writes in English and is obvious-ly not meant for the larger domesticaudience.

China must be thinking of emulat-ing Sun Tzu by adopting his strategy of“winning without fighting” againstNew Delhi without realising that Indiais the land of the grand strategistKrishna and political adviserChanakya.

India cannot be browbeaten norsubverted through a motivated mediawar because it has the capacity andcapability to stand firm and resolute.China needs to realise that it is in theinterest of both nations to resolve theboundary dispute through mutualnegotiations and concentrate the com-prehensive national power towardsbuilding stronger economies in a post-Coronavirus era.

(The author is a Jammu-based vet-eran, political analyst, columnist, secu-rity and strategic analyst. The viewsexpressed are personal.)

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The pandemic has required us toreorganise our lives and rethinkhow several laws operate. While

much of the intellectual propertyrights (IPR) debate has been aboutpatents in the medical context, theboundaries of copyright are being test-ed as well. With teaching movingonline, there have been many ques-tions on how copyright laws and “fairuse” provisions extend to online uses.These are exceptions to copyright law,

which allow the use of materials with-out the permission of copyright hold-ers in some contexts. While the use ofcontent by teachers solely for educa-tion would generally be covered under“fair use” exceptions, what of institu-tions such as libraries that serve pub-lic interest in a broader way?

An interesting debate has shapedup in the US in this context. InMarch, the US-based Internet Archivesuspended wait-lists for the 1.4 millionbooks in its catalogue by creating a“National Emergency Library” meantto last until the end of the lockdown.As per the Archive, this was done togive students access to assigned read-ings and library materials.

However, four major publishinghouses sued the Archive in early June,claiming that it amounted to copyrightinfringement and piracy. For the

uninitiated, the Archive is an NGOthat describes itself as an internetlibrary for “offering permanent accessfor researchers, historians and schol-ars to historical collections that existin digital format.” It uses a system ofcontrolled digital lending that partlyrelies on the first sale doctrine, whichgives the buyer of a book the right tosell, lend or dispose it. The Archivestates that it only digitally lends asmany copies as it has in its possessionand further lends to each user only fortwo weeks at a time. It maintains an“owned to loaned” ratio and puts inplace measures to prevent redistribu-tion or copying. However, the NationalEmergency Library temporarilyamends this system to remove thewait-list, an action that the Archiveasserts would be covered by the “fairuse” exception under US copyright law.

It argues that the lockdown madephysical books in libraries inaccessi-ble to the public and it is trying to fillthis “unprecedented need” for books.Plus, its catalogue focusses on mater-ial published during the 20th centuryand not on contemporary bestsellers.

On the other hand, the publish-ing companies argue that the Archiveis making books available in full fordownload without paying any licencefees or other payments, and that itsactions exceed legitimate library ser-vices. The firms also dispute theArchive’s non-profit status and arguethat the controlled digital lending sys-tem is not permitted under copyrightlaw. Given the differences in physicaland digital books, the complaintasserts that the latter are governed bydifferent terms and conditions than theformer. The American Association of

Publishers also highlighted measuresthat publishers have already undertak-en to enable access to resources,including by providing complimenta-ry passes, flexible licences and otherinitiatives.

The Authors Guild, too, arguedthat the Emergency Library woulddivert income from authors by pre-venting them from introducing theirbooks in digital formats when theirbooks go out of print. It also contest-ed that many of the books on theArchive were in-copyright books thatauthors/publishers rely on for revenue.

This issue essentially strikes at thecore of the IPR law, which aims toincentivise innovation and progress forsociety by balancing the economicrights of copyright holders while alsoenabling access for public good.Therefore, user rights are an important

component of copyright law as well,since enabling access may better servethe larger goal of innovation andprogress. “Fair use” provisions are animportant way in which this balanceis struck in copyright systems global-ly. The ruling in this case will have sig-nificant implications for all users of theArchive and is likely to inform how theissue is examined in other jurisdictionsas well. It also touches on the issue ofwhat users are entitled to under copy-right law. Publishers and rights hold-ers taking measures to enable easieraccess during emergencies like thepandemic is certainly welcome.However, copyright law is meant toaccount for user rights as well, whichare not dependent upon the largesseof rights holders. In the US, “fair use”analysis generally considers the natureof the copyrighted work, how and how

much of the work is used and its effectson the copyright owner’s market.

In India, the Copyright Act has alimited clause in its “fair dealing” pro-vision allowing libraries to store dig-ital copies of works already in theirpossession. But there is no clarity onwhether access to and distribution ofsuch work is permitted.

There aren’t any provisions specif-ic to digital libraries and frameworkssuch as controlled digital lendinghave not yet been tested in courts here.This leads to uncertainty on the legal-ity of providing digital library accessin India. As part of ensuring inclusionand access to resources and services,it is vital to assess how copyright lawmust adapt to digital technologies andhow existing rights should operate ina digital context.

(The writer is Fellow, ESYA Centre)

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Washington: After monthsaway from the campaign trail,President Donald Trump plansto rally his supporters thiscoming Saturday for the firsttime since most of the countrywas shuttered by the coron-avirus. Trump will head toTulsa, Oklahoma — a state thathas seen relatively few COVID-19 cases.

But health experts questionthe decision, citing the dangerof infection spreading amongthe crowd and sparking out-breaks when people return totheir homes. The Trump cam-paign itself acknowledges therisk in a waiver attendees mustagree to absolving them of anyresponsibility should peopleget sick.

Trump's rally will be heldindoors, at a 19,000-seat arenathat has canceled all otherevents through the end of July.Scientists believe the virusspreads far more easily incrowded enclosed spaces thanit does outdoors, where circu-lating air has a better chance ofdispersing virus particles.

The Centers for DiseaseControl and Prevention out-

lines the highest risk events fortransmission of the coron-avirus this way: “Large in-per-son gatherings where it is dif-ficult for individuals to remainspaced at least 6 feet apart andattendees travel from outsidethe local area.” The CDC rec-ommends cloth masks in placeswhere people might shout orchant.

Trump's rallies typicallydraw tens of thousands of sup-porters.

They usually stand outsidein line for hours before passingthrough airport-style securityand cramming into an arena,where they sit side by side orstand shoulder to shoulder.The rallies are typically rau-

cous, with much shouting,cheering and chanting. Somepeople dance and jeer atreporters. Sometimes protest-ers are met with violence beforethey are removed by security.

Many attendees are older,which would put them at high-er risk of severe complicationsfrom COVID-19. It's notunusual for several individualsin the crowd to require medicalattention when the temperaturerises.

The rallies also typicallydraw supporters from sur-rounding towns and states.Some die-hard fans travelacross the country from rally torally like groupies for a band.

Dr. Ashish Jha, director ofHarvard's Global HealthInstitute, called the upcomingTrump rally “an extraordinar-ily dangerous move for the peo-ple participating and the peo-ple who may know them andlove them and see them after-ward." Trump supporters com-ing from neighboring citiesand states could carry the virusback home, Jha said. "I'd feelthe same way if Joe Bidenwere holding a rally.” AP

Moscow: When LeonidShlykov's father, Sergei, died ina Moscow hospital last monthafter 11 days on a ventilator, thedeath certificate listed thecoronavirus as an underlyingcondition but not the actualcause of death.

“Yes, he was suffering fromimpaired kidney function anddiabetes, but if it hadn't beenfor COVID-19, he would'vebeen alive,” the son wrote onFacebook. “If we had knownthe real number of infectionsand deaths … it would havehelped us make the decision tohospitalize (dad) earlier.”

The way Russia countsfatalities during the coron-avirus pandemic could be onereason why its official death toll

of 6,829 is far below manyother countries, even as it hasreported 520,000 infections,behind only the United Statesand Brazil.

The paradox also has led toallegations by critics andWestern media that Russianauthorities might have falsifiedthe numbers for political pur-poses to play down the scale ofthe outbreak. Even a top WorldHealth Organization officialsaid the low number of deathsin Russia “certainly is unusual.”Russian authorities have bris-tled at the suggestions.

“We have never manipu-lated the official statistics,” saidDeputy Prime Minister TatyanaGolikova.

Finding the true numbers

during the pandemic is diffi-cult, since countries countcases and deaths in differentways and testing for the virusis uneven. Still, several factorscould contribute to Russia's lowvirus mortality rate, includingthe way it counts deaths, a ten-dency among some officials toembellish statistics, its vastgeography and the shorter lifeexpectancy of its population.

An autopsy is mandatoryin Russia in every confirmed orsuspected case of COVID-19,with a determination on thecause of death made by a com-mission of specialists, said Dr.Natalia Belitchenko, a pathol-ogist in the medical examiner'soffice in the region around St.Petersburg. AP

Atlanta: An Atlanta policeofficer was fired following thefatal shooting of a black manand another officer was placedon administrative duty, thepolice department announcedearly Sunday.

The moves follows theSaturday resignation of AtlantaPolice Chief Erika Shields, whostepped down as the Fridaynight killing of RayshardBrooks, 27, sparked a newwave of protests in Atlantaafter turbulent demonstrationsfollowing the death of GeorgeFloyd at the hands ofMinneapolis police had sim-mered down.

The terminated officer wasidentified as Garrett Rolfe,who was hired in October2013, and the officer placed onadministrative duty is DevinBrosnan, who was hired inSeptember 2018, according toa release from policespokesperson Sgt. John Chafee.

The police department alsoreleased body camera and dashcamera footage from both offi-cers. More than 40 minutes

elapses between the timeBrosnan first knocks onBrooks' car door while he's inWendy's drive-thru and whengunshots ring out; Rolfe arriveson scene about 16 minutes in.

The shooting is audible infootage from Rolfe's dash cam-era and both officers' bodycameras, but wasn't capturedon any of the four recordingsprovided by police.

Both body cameras fall offduring the struggle that ensueswhen Rolfe moves to handcuffBrooks after speaking to himfor about 20 minutes, althoughBrooks is briefly glimpsedbeing Tased before he's shot.

Protesters on Saturdaynight set fire to the Wendy'srestaurant where Brooks wasfatally shot the night before andblocked traffic on a nearbyhighway. The fire was out by11:30 p.M., but video fromlocal news stations showed itagain aflame around 4 a.M.Sunday. Atlanta police said 36people were arrested at protestsas of midnight.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha

Lance Bottoms announced thepolice chief 's resignation at aSaturday afternoon news con-ference, and had called for theimmediate firing of the officerwho opened fire.

“I do not believe that thiswas a justified use of deadlyforce," Bottoms said.

She said it was Shields'own decision to step aside andthat she would remain with thecity in an undetermined role.Interim Corrections ChiefRodney Bryant will serve asinterim police chief.

The Georgia Bureau ofInvestigation, which is probingthe shooting, said the deadlyconfrontation started with acomplaint that a man wassleeping in a car blocking therestaurant's drive-thru lane.The GBI said Brooks failed afield sobriety test and thenresisted officers' attempts toarrest him.

Rolfe is seen on body cam-era video administering thefield sobriety test, followed bya Breathalyzer test with Brooks'permission. AP

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After more than a year ofthinly-veiled threats to

start pulling US troops out ofGermany unless Berlinincreases its defense spending,President Donald Trumpappears to be proceeding witha hardball approach, planningto cut the US military contin-gent by more than 25 per cent.

About 34,500 Americantroops are stationed inGermany — 50,000 includingcivilian Department of Defenseemployees — and the planTrump reportedly signed offon last week envisions reduc-

ing active-duty personnel to25,000 by September, with fur-ther cuts possible.

But as details of the still-unannounced plan trickle out,there's growing concerns itwill do more to harm the US'sown global military readinessand the NATO alliance thanpunish Germany.

The decision was not dis-cussed with Germany or otherNATO members, andCongress was not officiallyinformed — prompting a let-ter from 22 Republican mem-bers of the House ArmedServices Committee urging arethink.

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Holding handmade signsthat read “Black Lives

Matter,” hundreds of peoplemarched peacefully in Tokyoon Sunday, highlighting theoutrage over the death ofGeorge Floyd even in a coun-try often perceived as homo-geneous and untouched byracial issues.

Mitsuaki Shidara, standingin the crowd at Yoyogi Park,where the march began, saidJapan has plenty of discrimi-nation problems, but they'reoverlooked.

“We are all human first, butwe are divided by nationality,gender, religion, skin color,” hesaid, wearing a pendant withthe Japanese character for“love,” which he said was hisfavorite word.

Portland, Maine: Fitnessjunkies locked out of gyms,commuters fearful of publictransit, and families going stircrazy inside their homes dur-ing the coronavirus pandem-ic have created a boom in bicy-cle sales unseen in decades.

In the United States, bicy-cle aisles at mass merchandis-ers like Walmart and Targethave been swept clean, andindependent shops are doing abrisk business and are sellingout of affordable “family”bikes.

Bicycle sales over the pasttwo months saw their biggestspike in the U.S. since the oilcrisis of the 1970s, said JayTownley, who analyzes cyclingindustry trends at HumanPowered Solutions.

“People quite frankly havepanicked, and they’re buyingbikes like toilet paper,” Townleysaid, referring to the rush tobuy essentials like toilet paperand hand sanitizer that stores

saw at the beginning of thepandemic.

The trend is mirroredaround the globe, as cities bet-ter known for car-cloggedstreets, like Manila and Rome,

install bike lanes to accom-modate surging interest incycling while public transportremains curtailed. In London,municipal authorities plan togo further by banning cars

from some central thorough-fares.

Bike shop owners in thePhilippine capital say demandis stronger than at Christmas.Financial incentives are boost-

ing sales in Italy, where thegovernment’s post-lockdownstimulus last month includeda 500-euro ($575) “bici bonus”rebate for up to 60% of the costof a bike.

But that's if you can getyour hands on one. The crazehas led to shortages that willtake some weeks, maybemonths, to resolve, particular-ly in the U.S., which relies onChina for about 90% of itsbicycles, Townley said.Production there was largelyshut down due to the coron-avirus and is just resuming.

The bicycle rush kicked offin mid-March around the timecountries were shutting theirborders, businesses were clos-ing, and stay-at-home orderswere being imposed to slow thespread of the coronavirus thathas infected millions of peopleand killed more than 450,000.

Sales of adult leisure bikestripled in April while overallU.S. bike sales, including kids’

and electric-assist bicycles,doubled from the year before,according to market researchfirm NPD Group, which tracksretail bike sales.

It's a far cry from what wasanticipated in the U.S. The $6billion industry had projectedlower sales based on lower vol-ume in 2019 in which punitivetariffs on bicycles produced inChina reached 25%.

There are multiple rea-sons for the pandemic bicycleboom.

Around the world, manyworkers were looking for analternative to buses and sub-ways. People unable to go totheir gyms looked for anotherway to exercise. And shut-infamilies scrambled to find away to keep kids active duringstay-at-home orders.

“Kids are looking forsomething to do. They’ve prob-ably reached the end of theinternet by now, so you’ve gotto get out and do something,”

said Dave Palese at GorhamBike and Ski, a Maine shopwhere there are slim pickingsfor family-oriented, leisurebikes.

Bar Harbor restaurateurBrian Smith bought a newbike for one of his daughters,a competitive swimmer, whowas unable to get into the pool.On a recent day, he was head-ing back to his local bike shopto outfit his youngest daughter,who’d just learned how to ride.

His three daughters usetheir bikes every day, and theentire family goes for rides acouple of times a week. Thefact that they’re getting exerciseand enjoying fresh air is abonus.

“It’s fun. Maybe that’s thebottom line. It’s really fun toride bikes,” Smith said as he andhis 7-year-old daughter, Ellery,pedaled to the bicycle shop.

The pandemic is also dri-ving a boom in electric-assistbikes, called e-bikes, which

were a niche part of the over-all market until now. Most e-bikes require a cyclist to pedal,but electric motors provideextra oomph.

VanMoof, a Dutch e-bikemaker, is seeing “unlimiteddemand” since the pandemicbegan, resulting in a 10-weekorder backlog for its commuterelectric bikes, compared withtypical one-day delivery time,said co-founder Taco Carlier.

The company's sales surged138% in the U.S. and rocketed184% in Britain in the February-April period over last year, withbig gains in other Europeancountries. The company isscrambling to ramp up pro-duction as fast as it can, but itwill take two to three months tomeet the demand, Carlier said.

“We did have some issueswith our supply chain back inJanuary, February when thecrisis hit first in Asia,” saidCarlier. But “the issue is nowwith demand, not supply.” AP

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Beijing: The total number ofCOVID-19 cases in Beijingreached 54 after eight newcases were reported on Sunday,all linked to a wholesale foodmarket supplying vegetablesand meat to 90 per cent of thecity, prompting authorities to gointo a "wartime" mode to stemthe spread of the virus in theChinese capital, officials said.

Significantly, the BeijingCentre for Diseases Preventionand Control (Beijing CDC)has said the genome sequenc-ing of the strain of the coron-avirus which caused the newCOVID-19 outbreak in theChinese capital at the Xinfadiwholesale food market shows itoriginated from the importedcases from Europe.

With the new cases, thetotal number of cases in Chinahas gone up to 74 sinceSaturday, the highest in thecountry after the virus wasbrought under control in thefirst COVID-19 epicentre inApril, this year.

The number of casesincluded 57 new confirmedCOVID-19 infections and nineasymptomatic cases, the officialsof the China's National HealthCommission (NHC) said.

Beijing Municipal author-

ity on Sunday said eight newcases were reported in the cap-ital city.

China's civil aviation reg-ulator on Sunday that ChinaSouthern Airlines' flight fromDhaka to Guangzhou would besuspended after 17 passengershad tested positive for COVID-19 on a June 11 flight, state-runXinhua news agency reported.

Also on Saturday, nine newasymptomatic cases werereported, it said.

Currently, 103 people withasymptomatic symptoms arekept under quarantine.

Asymptomatic cases arealso known as silent spreadersas the patients are tested

COVID-19 positive but devel-op no symptoms such as fever,cough or sore throat. However,they pose a risk of spreadingthe disease to others.

As all the new cases inBeijing were linked to Xinfadimarket in south Beijing'sFengtai District, health officialsappealed to people who hadvisited the market since May 30to undergo nucleic acid tests.

The sudden increase incases has sparked concernsthat China may be on the cuspof rebound of COVID-19, bely-ing experts' predictions that asecond wave may hit the coun-try during the winter startingfrom October.

All hospitals in Beijinghave been ordered to performnucleic acid and antibody tests,a CT scan and a routine bloodtest on patients with a fever,Gao Xiaojun, spokesperson ofBeijing's health commissiontold the media on Sunday.

So far, the local govern-ment has closed six wholesalemarkets and made alternatearrangement for vegetable sup-plies to the retail stores.

Beijing has tightenedCOVID-19 control measuresand officials in the Chinesecapital have initiated"wartime" measures, focus-ing on a wholesale food mar-ket where the new cluster ofinfections was reported. TheBeijing local government saidearlier that health workersdetected the virus in 40 sam-ples collected at Xinfadi,including from cutting boardsused to prepare importedsalmon.

Wu Zunyou, the chief epi-demiologist at the ChineseCentre for Disease Control andPrevention said the source of thelatest outbreak could be eithercontaminated seafood or meatfrom the market, or a visitor orworker who had contracted thevirus unknowingly. PTI

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Washington: A 70-year-oldman in the US, who nearly diedfrom the coronavirus, receivedanother shock after he wasgiven a whopping $1.1 million(over �8.14 crore) bill for hismedical expenses, according toa media report.

Michael Flor was so sickfrom COVID-19 that his wifeand kids called him to saygood-bye.

But he managed to pullthrough while being treated atSwedish Medical Center inIssaquah, the Seattle Timesreported. “I opened it and said‘holy [bleep]!' “ Flor says. Thetotal tab for his bout with thecoronavirus: USD 1.1 million.

Michael Flor battled withcoronavirus for 62 days atSwedish Issaquah, making himthe longest coronavirus patientat the hospital. Flor has aMedicare Advantage insur-ance policy that normally cov-ers all charges after the rough-ly $6,000 deductible, the paperreported. Special financial reg-ulations enacted by Congressfor COVID-19 patients, how-ever, might keep Flor frompaying one red cent, the SeattleTimes said. PTI

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Berlin: Europe is taking a bigstep toward a new normality asmany countries open bordersto fellow Europeans after threemonths of coronavirus lock-downs — but even thoughEuropeans love their summervacations, it's not clear howmany are ready to travel again.

Tourists from the US, Asia,Latin America and the MiddleEast will just have to wait fornow. Europe is expected to startopening up to some visitorsfrom elsewhere next month,but details remain unclear.

The European Unionhome affairs commissioner,Ylva Johansson, told member

nations last week that they“should open up as soon aspossible" and suggestedMonday was a good date.

Many countries are doingjust that, allowing travel fromthe EU, Britain and the rest ofEurope's usually passport-freeSchengen travel area, whichincludes non-EU countries likeSwitzerland.

Europe's reopening won'tbe a repeat of the chaotic free-for-all in March when pan-icked, uncoordinated borderclosures caused traffic jamsthat stretched for miles. Still, it'sa complicated, shifting patch-work of different rules. AP

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Nafed on Sunday said it hasprocured 25,000 tonnes

of onion so far from farmerproducer organisations (FPOs),cooperatives and direct pur-chase centres at the prevailingrates for creating a buffer stockon behalf of the Government.

Last year, the Nafed hadpurchased a total of 57,000tonnes of onion from the 2018-19 rabi (winter) crop. The tar-get this time is to buy 1 lakhtonnes of key kitchen staplefrom the major producingstates, it said.

“This initiative will havedual benefit of stabilising thedomestic prices of onion in the

COVID-19 time as well andcreate an all-time high bufferstocking of 1 lakh tonne whichmay be utilised for the leanmonths,” National AgriculturalCooperative MarketingFederation of India (Nafed)said in a statement.

It has already purchased25,000 tonnes at the prevailingrates. Onion is being pur-chased from Maharashtra,Madhya Pradesh and Gujaratfrom FPOs, cooperatives aswell as direct purchase centres.

Currently, the onion pricesfor fair average quality areranging from �1,000 to � 1,400per quintal, depending on thelocation. The retail prices inmajor cities at present are rul-

ing in the range of �20 to �30per kg.

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, Nafed said reg-ular virtual review meetings arebeing held with FPOs, membercooperative societies andbranches to monitor theprogress of procurement, asground challenges remain due

to the deadly disease. At someplaces, pre-monsoon showersare affecting the pace of pro-curement.

This season, the services oftechnical experts for bettermaintenance of the stock arealso being taken in an attemptto cut into the storage losses, itsaid.

Further, a pilot is beingconducted for storage of onionafter irradiation in MadhyaPradesh to evaluate the gain onaccount of shelf life and qual-ity keeping. “It is hoped thatthis initiative of Nafed willhelp both the onion growers aswell the consumers,” it added.

About onion storage, Nafedsaid the cooperative this yearhas added its own operationalstorage capacity for onions inMaharashtra and MadhyaPradesh by 30,000 tonne, withthe support of state govern-ments.

It is in the process of cre-ating more storage space oncluster models at farm gates inthe onion growing regions

since 2018, it said, adding thatthis initiative has enabled theFederation to enhance the pro-curement target, providingmarket support to the oniongrowers.

Meanwhile, Nafed said ithas also approached the stategovernments to send theirrequirements of lean monthsin advance. This will facili-tate timely evacuation of thestored onion in a plannedmanner to have a salutaryeffect on the retail prices,which tend to go up in theperiod late August toNovember.

Further, this will help incutting the storage losses,aslong duration of storage entails

higher storage loss to the extentof 35 per cent, which getscompounded due to adverseweather conditions,as reported last

year, it said. Besides onion,Nafed is procuring pulses forbuffer stock.

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In view of major demand fordigital skill training amid

Coronavirus pandemic, variousonline platforms likeDigiVidhyapeeth are makingforay in the sector to helpyouth enhance their skills aswell as earn livelihood which isa good endeavour, said UnionMinister for Skill Developmentand Entrepreneurship,Mahendra Nath Pande here.“The Govt has been promot-ing Digital India Programme ina big way wherein youth in thecountry are not only enhancingtheir skills but also earninglivelihood. “it’s a matter of sat-isfaction and encouragementthat online platforms likeDigiVidhyapeeth are enteringinto the sector in a large num-ber to provide employment tothe needy, “ the Minister saidrecently while launching theonline initiatives of the organ-isation engaged in providing e-learning courses.”Undoubtedly,the COVID-19 outbreak is themajor accelerator that has ledto a mega shift in digital teach-ing and learning approach,”DigiVidhyapeeth head PradeepKhatri said adding that threetypes of courses digital mar-keting, personnel finance man-agement and soft skill devel-opment wherein personalitydevelopment is included havebeen launched at nominal fees.”

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The nation’s largest lenderState Bank of India has

temporarily closed threebranches - two in Mumbaiand one in adjoining Thane -after eight staff tested positivefor COVID-19, bank employ-ees said. The bank’’s mainbranch in Thane was shutteredlast week after seven of the 25staff were found to be COVID-19 positive, according to asenior bank employee.

A cash officer at the localcheque processing cell (LCPC),also known as the clearingdepartment, in the northwest-ern Mumbai suburb ofJogeshwari (East) was foundCOVID-19 positive, leadingto temporary closure of thebranch early last week, saidanother employee.

As a precautionary mea-sure, the bank temporarilystopped operations at its LCPClocated in the Andheri area,after a gardener working therewas founded to be infectedwith the virus, the employeesaid. When contacted, SBI said,“Our quick response teamheaded by a general manager iscontinuously monitoring thesituation in the entire countryand due protocol is followed in

case of any infection. Many ofour staff members, who gotinfected, have recovered andare contributing to the func-tioning of the bank in these try-ing times”.

Banks are classified asessential services to provideuninterrupted services evenwhen the entire country wasunder lockdown. Over the pastfew days, three SBI employees-- Sandu Borade of theChurchgate branch; AnirbanDatta of the Belapur CBDbranch; and Ramesh Rane ofthe Ghatkopar branch werelost to the new coronavirusinfection.On the death of thesestaffers, the SBI statement said,“A few unfortunate deaths havehappened and we are deeplysaddened by the incidents. Thecompensation (includingCOVID compensationamount) is paid as per theestablished rules of the bank”.

“Safety protocol is com-plied with and all possible sup-port is provided. We salute ouremployees who are contribut-ing to the nation in these try-ing times.” It can be noted thatMaharashtra is the worst affect-ed state with over 1 lakh infec-tions and Mumbai as the epi-centre. On Saturday, the statereported 3,427 new cases and113 deaths, including 69 fromMumbai.

The latest count in thestate stands at 1,04,568 andfatalities at 3,830, according tothe state health department. Ofthe total cases, 78,134 are con-centrated in the Mumbai

Metropolitan Region (MMR),which has reported 2,650deaths, including Mumbai with56,831 cases and 2,113 fatali-ties. Another SBI employeesaid despite such a high num-ber of cases being detected, thebank management is askingthem to come in full strengthand branches are back to nor-mal operations.

A third employee said thatthe mortgage divisional head-quarters in Thane is carryingout “full documentation” andlet applicants visit the branchwhere no social distancing ispossible because of the largenumber of applicants, butputting the lives of bankers atrisk.

“Working with the PPEkit (given to us by the bank) onis practically not possible,” thestaffer cited above told PTI.

The employee stated thatthey are being asked to reportonly on alternate days and

forced to apply for CLs on therest.”We are asked to apply forcasual leave on days we are notgoing to the branch, or forworking on alternate days,” hesaid, adding “we are not evengiven commuting allowanceor pick-up and drop since thelockdown was lifted on June 1”.

“I pay over � 400 a day ontwo-way auto fare alone as thebank had long ago stopped thepick-up and drop facility whichwas there in the initial weeks ofthe lockdown,” the employeeaverred. SBI did not respond tothe specific PTI query on themanagement asking staff to befully present and also askingthem to apply for CL for everyabsentee-day. Recently, bankunions had written to the deptof financial services demand-ing regular sanitisation ofbranches,�1,000 dailyallowance and �50 lakh insur-ance cover for bank staff as pro-vided to healthcare workers.

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Rating agency S&P will givecredence to reforms in agri-

culture and labour market aswell as easing of bad loanstress of banking sector whiledeciding future rating action onIndia, a senior official has said.

S&P Director & LeadAnalyst Sovereign & IPFRatings APAC Andrew Woodalso said return of insolvencyprovision under the Insolvencyand Bankruptcy Code (IBC),which was suspended for atleast six months, and strongerregulator framework would beimportant in improving thehealth of Indian banks.

Last week, S&P GlobalRatings had retained India’s rat-ing at lowest investment grade‘BBB-’ for 13th year in a row,saying risks to India’s long-termgrowth rate are rising, ongoingeconomic reforms, if executedwell, should keep the country’sgrowth rate ahead of peers.

To a PTI query on whatspecific reforms the ratingagency would look at whiledetermining the future ratingaction, Wood on Fri said therating agency would give cre-

dence to reforms to domesticagriculture sector, liberalisationof labour market thereby jobcreation in manufacturing sec-tor, improvement in infra-structure and business friend-ly foreign investment policy.

“The reforms that we willgive credence to is reforms inagriculture sector, into domes-tic markets. Those have beenintroduced and that’s some-what path breaking in historyof India. It would help addressthe supply side bottlenecksthat have cropped up in theeconomy in the past as well asto make agriculture sector

more efficient,” Wood said.He, however, emphasised

on the need to create jobs in themanufacturing sector. “In orderto achieve that labour marketreforms are going to be impor-tant. Govt appears to be mak-ing some headway in this issue.”

Stating that in India, statesdecide on labour laws andrelated reforms, Wood said,“But the BJP Government hasa strong mandate and appearsto be pushing harder on thestates to get this done. Wewould be looking at liberalisa-tion of labour markets further”.

Efforts to bring in foreign

capital, private sector in infra-structure and improving busi-ness environment through thatroute is going to be very cru-cial, he said, adding attractingFDI is also very important.

With regard to financialsector, Wood said it is a specificweakness for India and IBCwas “very constructive” interms of starting to addressissues and leading to moreprudence in lending by PSBs.

Also fund injection intopublic sector banks have led toimprovements in their capitalposition over past few years, hesaid. “But more work is prob-ably needed here.”

The Govt earlier thismonth promulgated an ordi-nance to amend the Insolvencyand Bankruptcy Code where-by fresh insolvency proceed-ings will not be initiated for atleast six months starting fromMarch 25 amid the coron-avirus pandemic.

Default on repaymentsfrom March 25, the day whenthe nationwide lockdown beganto curb coronavirus infections,would not be considered for ini-tiating insolvency proceedingsfor at least six months.

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Fuel prices recorded eighthconsecutive hike on Sunday,

taking the total increase sincethe resumption of the dynam-ic price revision system tomore than �4 per litre.

In the National capital,petrol price rose by 62 paise onSunday to �75.78 per litre, andthat of diesel by 64 paise to�74.03 per litre.

Since the dynamic pricerevision resumed on June 7,prices of petrol and diesel haveincreased by �4.52 and �4.64per litre respectively.

Fuel prices in the othermetro cities have also increasedon similar lines since the oilmarketing companies (OMC)resumed the dynamic pricingsystem for daily revision of fuelprices after over 83 days ofbreak during the nationwidelockdown.

In Mumbai, Chennai andKolkata, petrol was priced at �

82.70, �79.53 and �77.64, high-er from �82.10, �78.99 and�77.05 per litre respectively.

Diesel prices in these citieswere �72.64 (Mumbai), �72.18(Chennai) and �69.80(Kolkata), compared with �72.03, �71.64 and �69.23respectively on Saturday.

The increase in pricesvaries across metros, depend-ing on the tax structure onproducts in various states.

Prices of transportationfuel were halted under thedynamic pricing policy afterMarch 16 and post that therewere few instances of price hike

only when the respective stategovernments hiked VAT orcess. In a bid to increase rev-enues during the nationwidelockdown, several state gov-ernments raised taxes imposedon transportation fuel. Already,the gap between cost and saleprice of petrol and diesel forOMCs reached around �5-6per litre.

If this has to be coveredover a period of time, giventhere is no further increase inglobal prices, auto fuel prices may be increased by 40-60 paise per day for a few moredays to cover the losses.

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To give thrust to the ‘SkillIndia’ initiative of the

Government of India, NFL hasstarted tying up with IndustrialTraining Institutes (ITI) locat-ed near to its plants to trainyouth in various trades so as toenhance the chances of theiremployability in heavy andprocess industry.

The Nangal plant of thecompany in Punjab has signedan Memorandum ofUnderstanding (MoU) withITI, Nangal to train youth in 12trades. The students will beskilled under Dual System of

Training Scheme under whichthey will learn theoretical skills

in the institute and on-the-jobtraining in NFL Nangal plant.

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The Government is lookingat suggestions of the gems

and jewellery industry such assetting up of common facilitycentres and facilitating ship-ments through e-commercewith a view to promote manu-facturing and exports, sourcessaid. The industry has alsoasked for extension of theinterest subvention scheme tothe entire gems and jewellerysector, and providing level-playing field to foreign miningcompanies to encourage themto start sales/auction of roughdiamonds at special notifiedzones, they said.

The Govt has identifiedchampion sectors including

leather, gems and jewellery,renewable energy, pharmaceu-ticals and textiles, to provide

hand-holding for investors witha focus on improving India’’smanufacturing capabilities.

Federation of IndianExport Organisations DirectorGeneral Ajay Sahai said theindustry holds huge potentialto boost manufacturing andexports and certain sugges-tions have been made to thecommerce ministry to furtherpush the growth of the sector.

He said that for further eas-ing the working capital financ-ing, manufacturers andexporters should be permittedto import loose diamondswithout duty and SEZ (specialeconomic zones) manufactur-ers should be permitted to sellloose diamonds and jewelleryfrom SEZ to the domestic mar-ket without any duties andtaxes to contain slowdown.

“The industry has asked for

increasing the subvention ratefrom 5% to 7% to protect thetrade and forex (foreignexchange) earning of the coun-try and for business fraternityto be competitive against othersuppliers in the internationalmarket,” Sahai said. Anotherindustry expert said there is aneed for implementation of arisk management system inprecious cargo customs clear-ance centre, Mumbai, to ensureease of doing exports andimports. “We have also askedfor facilitating setting up ofmore common facility centresand mega CFCs to enableMSMEs (micro, small andmedium enterprises) to usecapital-intensive modern tech-nology,” the expert added.

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Northern Railway CentralHospital, New Delhi,

the zonal hospital of NorthernRailway added a feather in itscap on 13.06.2020 and becamepioneer amongst all RailwayHospitals to start in-houseCOVID - 19 testing in thenewly established MolecularMicrobiology Lab after obtain-ing approvals and authoriza-tion from ICMR and DelhiGovt. The name of theHospital is listed on date ats.no.130 on ICMR portal forGovt. Labs under CBNAATcategory of Delhi. TheBiosafety level -2 lab isequipped with GENEXPERT-XVI (CBNAAT) platform andTRUELAB QUATTRO(TRUNAT) System. GENEX-PERT- XVI lab has the capac-ity to process 16 samples at atime with final result in aCOVID positive case in aroundTWO hours.

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Health insurance compa-nies will not be allowed to

contest claims once the premi-um has been paid for a con-tinuous period of eight years,regulator Irdai said in a freshset of guidelines.

Irdai said the objective ofthe guidelines is to standardisethe general terms and clausesincorporated in indemnitybased health insurance (exclud-ing personal accident anddomestic/overseas travel) prod-ucts by simplifying the word-ings of general terms and claus-es of the policy contracts andensure uniformity across theindustry.

“All policy contracts of theexisting health insurance prod-ucts that are not in compliancewith these guidelines shall bemodified as and when they aredue for renewal from April 1,2021 onwards.

“After completion of eightcontinuous years under thepolicy no look back to beapplied.. .After expiry ofmoratorium period (of eightyears) no health insurance

claim shall be contestableexcept for proven fraud andpermanent exclusions speci-fied in the policy contract,”Insurance Regulatory andDevelopment Authority(Irdai) said.

The policies will, howeverbe subject to all limits, sub-lim-its, co-payments, deductibles asper the policy contract.

This period of eight yearsis called as moratorium period.

The moratorium wouldbe applicable for the sumsinsured of the first policy andsubsequently completion of 8continuous years would beapplicable from date ofenhancement of sums insuredonly on the enhanced limits,the regulator said in the guide-lines on ‘Standardization ofGeneral Terms and Clauses inHealth Insurance PolicyContracts’.

On claim settlement, Irdaisaid the insurance companyshould settle or reject a claim,as the case may be, within 30days from the date of receipt oflast necessary document.

In the case of delay in thepayment of a claim, the com-

pany will be liable to pay inter-est to the policyholder from thedate of receipt of last necessarydocument to the date of pay-ment of claim at a rate 2%above the bank rate.

It also said the policy willbecome void and all premiumpaid will be forfeited to thecompany in the event of mis-representation, misdescrip-tion or non-disclosure of anymaterial fact by the policy-holder.

On portability, the guide-lines said the insured personwill have the option to port thepolicy to other insurers byapplying to such insurer toport the entire policy alongwith all the members of thefamily, if any, at least 45 daysbefore, but not earlier than 60days from the policy renewaldate.

If such person is presentlycovered and has been contin-uously covered without anylapses under any health insur-ance policy with an Indian gen-eral/ health insurer, the pro-posed insured person will getthe accrued continuity benefitsin waiting periods.

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Imagine sitting with a basket ofhomemade popcorn, coffee andwatching Hum Saath Saath Hai

with your family on television.Suddenly, there’s an advertisementthat tells you to wash your handsthrice a day for at least two minutes.In the very next moment, you havea mobile phone ad, which says thatall its proceeds will be used forCOVID relief. Irritated with simi-lar ads, you look for some news aslittle did you know it’s the sameeverywhere. As the sad and repet-itive news has taken a toll on you,you finally settle yourself withsome comedy and fun contentonline.

In this pandemic-hit world,almost every other advertisement,actors in daily soap and even onlinefilms are doing their bit by makingus aware about the severe conse-quences of the virus and ways to besafe. But people are certainly look-ing for some shift to get over theprolonged gloominess.

Do you remember the old dayswhen the puppet theatre, cartoonsand animated shows subtly talkedabout social issues right from gen-der biasness to environment, poli-tics, pollution and much more?Well, nowadays, we don’t get to seethe puppet theatre but there aremodern day memes, which has cer-tainly forced us to think and driveconversations in an informed direc-tion.

Humour has often been used ina witty and sarcastic way to depictinequality, ignorance and injus-tice. For instance, Sanitary Panels,an Indian web comic analyses var-ious issues related to social justicein four panels or less. Another inline is Green Humour, which rais-es environmental concern. BoJackHorseman (2014) is a Netflix ani-mated sitcom, which addressescontemporary matters of Americansexism. It has separate episodesdedicated for depression, abortionand other similar issues, which areoften swept under the carpet.

A similar idea was used by thePopulation Foundation of Indiawhen they had an urgent mandateto produce communication mate-rial to deal with stigma and mythsarising due to Coronavirus as partof a national level campaign. Theyhad to curate and create verified,reliable, and updated communica-tion materials on COVID-19, alongwith the Government of India.Executive director of the PopulationFoundation, Poonam Muttreja said,

“There is an overload of informa-tion on social media and it isextremely hard to sift the truth fromfalsehood. We felt that in such som-bre times, we need the right infor-mation to empower ourselves andsome humour to tide over thesegrave times.”

For the campaign, they havecreated a series of short animationfilms on key issues related to thepandemic. The series features a poetcalled Potliwala, who recites shortpoems in each film on issues relat-ed to COVID-19. These includenecessary issues such as the use ofmasks, social distancing, precau-tions, stigma and discrimination. Ituses entertainment education toshare messages in an impactful andentertaining manner. The first ofthese animation shorts is a bi-week-ly series tit led, Hasya KaviPotliwala, conceptualised and pro-duced by theatre and film director,Feroz Abbas Khan.

Here are the excerpts of ourconversation with him, telling usabout how he went about with thisidea.

�How did you conceptualise it?Messaging through films is a

tricky business and particularlywhen so many are attempting to beheard on Corona. A lot of stuff wesaw on the internet were sincere inits intentions but not effective incommunication. Therefore, I decid-ed to create an animation charac-

ter who is instantly relatable, like-able, charming and highly enter-taining. He, Potliwala, delivers apowerful message and performancein 30 seconds cloaked as a beauti-ful poem.

�Since the series is a part of acampaign that caters to all agegroups, why did you think of dis-seminating information throughan animated series and not ausual one?

The lockdown has been a bar-rier for most of the shootings. Sodue to this, we couldn’t shoot withactors, which made way for anima-tion as the best route possible. Inhindsight, I believe it was a bless-ing in disguise because it forced usto think harder and push ourboundaries. With the main charac-ter, who is an old man, we havebeen able to transcend all age bar-riers.

�What do you think about com-bining humour with social issues?Does it help reach a wider audi-ence?

We have been bombarded withconstant messaging aboutCoronavirus everywhere that a cer-tain fatigue has set in. The lock-down too had its effect on the moodof the people and we felt thathumour will cheer them up and themessage will be more effective.

�As the series has short clips, how

challenging is it to convey strongand impactful messages in such arestricted time frame?

With shorter attention span andmassive content in the digital world,anything long lands up in the bin.Short and entertaining messageshave more recall value and it’s con-sumed in huge numbers. It goes viralvery quickly and everyonewants to share — that is itspower.

�You said that“We want totrigger a behav-iour changet h r o u g hhumour, poet-ry and instant-ly likeablecharacter ofPotliwala...”What moredo youintend toa c h i e v ethrough it?

A l o n gwith this, wewant a posi-tive behav-i o u r a lchange par-t i c u l a r l ytowards thegrowing stig-ma. Our front-line healthworkers includ-ing doctors arebeing stigmatisedand that is unaccept-able. The COVIDpatients are ostracisedand even recoveredpatients are boy-cotted. We hope thisattempt can helpchange attitudes.

�Since you are a the-atre director primar-ily, have you workedon something like thisbefore? How differentwas it?

Yes, this is very dif-ferent from theatre buthonestly, I just jumpedinto it without fearingthe consequences. I foundsome wonderful collabora-tors in writer Iqbal Raj and the ani-mation team led by Supreet andTaruna at Doublexstudio.

(The series was launched on theMyGov’s COVID-19 platform.)

Afew friends laughed over thevideo call and wished to hug

each other soon, sisters celebrat-ed their parents’ anniversary bysinging songs online and col-leagues recalled their chats in theoffice canteen over a Zoom meet-ing during the lockdown period.People are excited to meet and cel-ebrate their belated occasionsnow as the lockdown has beenrelaxed but not only do they needto slow down a bit, they need tobe extremely mindful. The recentexample of the popular eatingjoint of West Delhi — Qubitos —where 38 people were found cel-ebrating a birthday party withoutabiding by social distancingnorms shows how we will neverlearn despite the unprecedentedscale of human tragedy around us.

Life post-lockdown is notthe same as it used to be earlier.The world has welcomed the‘new normal’ and people need toact according to that. For now, wedon’t have treatment or vaccines,all we’ve got is using our socialbehaviour and codes as a preven-tive. There are various social dis-tancing norms that we need tomaintain while meeting people —

not just strangers but familiarones as well. We usually don’t takeprecautions while meeting friendsand family as it is all about thatone hug in that very moment butin order to stay safe, it’s crucial toadapt ourselves to new ways oflife. Other nations are doing that.

Initially in France, it wasannounced that gatherings ofmore than 10 people in public orprivate places would be prohibit-ed during the first phase ofdeconfinement. But later, it wassaid that the ban only concernspublic places and does not applyto homes. In all situations for anygathering of people, even just two,social distancing measures andbarrier gestures should be respect-ed. This involves keeping a dis-tance of one metre between eachother, coughing and sneezinginto your elbow and no kissing orshaking hands.

UK Prime Minister BorisJohnson shared how the rules onsocial distancing are being relaxedgradually. He announced thatadults who live alone or with chil-dren under the age of 18 but noother adult can form a ‘support

bubble’ with one other household.People within this bubble will bepermitted to spend time togeth-er inside each others’ homes.That includes overnight stayswhile staying two metres apart.You shouldn’t change or add to

your support bubble once it isformed.

“Groups of up to six peoplefrom different households canmeet outdoors, or in a garden,while continuing to practise socialdistancing with those who do notlive in the same household. Thesemeasures should allow people toreunite with their parents orgrandparents, provided that theyare not shielding or to see multi-ple friends from different house-holds, while keeping a safe phys-ical distance,” said he. It is stillagainst the law to visit friends andfamily inside their homes orspend time indoors with anyoneyou do not live with in most cir-cumstances. The exceptionsinclude where two households arepart of a support bubble or wherethis is necessary for work, emer-gency assistance or caring for thevulnerable. You are not allowed tostay overnight anywhere that youdo not live without a “reasonableexcuse.”

Though we don’t have a spe-cific law regarding meeting ourclosed ones here, but it is uponus to lead these tough times care-fully, with our behaviour. And

there is evidence that the behav-iour works, if we’re diligent aboutit. The easing of lockdown andallowing of e-commerce opera-tions, industries in rural areas,manufacturing in special eco-nomic zones and transport ofgoods, among others, are only torevive a battered economy. Thevirus is still lurking even moredangerously. And people need tounderstand that.

A video was making roundson the internet where an oldwoman and a man wrapped inplastic hugged each other.Certainly, giving a glimpse of theworld none of us had ever imag-ined.

Experts suggest that weshouldn’t enter anybody else’shome, unless urgent and that too,after proper sanitisation. Theidea is only to distance ourselvesphysically and not emotionally.Use social media to engage withyour loved ones for a few moremonths. Plan things for thefuture as it will give you some-thing to look forward to. Theworld will no more be surprisedat solo wine nights and moviemarathons.

Fashion for sure has the powerto spark joy in challenging

times. Amid the global health cri-sis, London Fashion Week (LFW)takes a new form — a digital-onlyplatform merging womenswearand menswear.

“Canceling London FashionWeek was never an option. Thebig question was around whatsort of format it would take inlockdown,” said Caroline Rush,CEO of the British Fashion

Council, in an interview recent-ly.

“We see London FashionWeek June 2020 as a moment tolisten, reflect, communicate andstart to reset. This global platformwas seasonless and gender neu-tral showing both men’s andwomen’s collections and a mix ofnew collection launches that willbe in stores in the future as wellas collections people can buy now.We wanted to create a platform

that flexes to audience and busi-ness needs and that gives a 360view of fashion today,” added she.

Bringing fashion, culture andtechnology together, the plat-form hosted exclusive multime-

dia content from designers, cre-atives, brand partners, media,retailers and cultural institutionsenabling collaboration. This newdigital experience worked as aglobal meet-up point, offering

interviews, podcasts, designerdiaries, webinars and digitalshowrooms, providing the oppor-tunity for designers to tell theirstories and share their experi-ences from the last few months.

This platform put storytelling atits heart, bringing the fashioncommunity together.

Caroline said, “Fashion is aunifying force and now, morethan ever, it is essential that wecollaborate and come together tosupport each other through dif-ficult times. Our ambition is tocontribute to the fight againstCOVID-19, while protecting vitalPPE supplies reserved for theNHS. Through this project, wewill not only celebrate Britishdesigners but also champion sus-tainability in a time of crisis.”

The pandemic has height-ened the urgency with which weneed to address a range of issuesfrom finding clean, fair and trans-parent supply chains to reducingcarbon emissions, tackling pollu-tion, textile waste, single-useplastic and the stark challenges ofover production. Some of thesekey topics were discussed duringthe fashion week.

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Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation, wasdeeply revered by the world over when he

spoke against his encounter with racial discrimina-tion in Africa, when he was thrown out of the rail-way compartment for which he had a valid reser-vation. Similarly, when Nelson Mandela took overas the president of South Africa, the hopes rekin-dled about the end of the sad chapter of racial dis-crimination. It felt like the birth of a new era of goodwill and amity.

However, looking at the scenes that are beingplayed out on various news channels since last fewdays, makes one think, reflect and ask — Whichforce has once again brought back the sad episodeof racism? Are we going forward or backward?People would give different answers to these ques-tions. But the fact remains that we are still a racistsociety at large.

Now, let us put the question as to ‘why has therebeen mass protests and why are the echoes gettingever louder in the UN and in high councils of var-ious countries? Some would say that the person whodied or rather was killed, reignited the spirit of self-respect in a community who has suffered insults,incarceration andpersecution fordecades. Whileothers would saythat the voiceraised by manynations and itsloud echo andresonance in themedia and dif-ferent fora of theUN ultimatelybecame so loudthat the majoritycommunity andthe ruling partythere could nolonger refuse tolisten and yield.All these answers might be correct but the basicquestion yet remains unanswered. Well, a simple yetvalid answer for that would be that racial discrim-ination was, is and will always be wrong. But whatis wrong with it? It insults the very dignity of ahuman and his rights. It is based on hatred and arro-gance on the part of those who consider themselvesto be superior on the basis of the colour of their skin.It leads to cruelty, injustice, inhuman treatment andconflict.

The colour of the body should not be the basisfor fragmentation of humankind and of injustice andrancour. One should remember that we are all oneand belong to one great family of humankind andcolour should not divide or alienate us.

So, saying it feebly or loudly, our real identityis not determined by our skin colour. Hence, it issheer ignorance of human rights or insanity to dis-criminate on the basis of its colour. The body is offlesh, blood and bones whereas we are made withdots of consciousness and experience and intelli-gence. In short, we are souls, point of light and webelong to one family or fraternity of beings.

Thus, what the world needs today is the spiri-tual response, which can break the psychological bar-rier of racial discrimination and bring down withit the high walls of hatred and injustice. It is spiri-tuality, which is different from religion that worksas a uniting factor whereas discrimination, basedon body or materialism, divides the society on thebasis of colour, gender, territory, language, etc.Spirituality generates or awakens love in the mindsof people and eliminates hatred, narrow-minded-ness and enmity whereas identification with the bodyor its various aspects, leads to conflict, based on caste,country or culture. Our present predicament thusis due to this missing element which should elicitthe soul-conscious or the spiritual response.

It is a blend of such benign values as universallove, goodwill, co-operation, concern for the well-being of the whole family of mankind, based on theconstant and living awareness that we are souls andwe belong to one family or fraternity of the beings-of-light. We must thus remember that without thiskind of spiritual response, no problem, whether youcall it political, economic, ethnic or by any othername, can be solved.

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Undoubtedly, the pandemichas brought about new as

well as various challenges for allof us. Everybody is facing eco-nomic, financial, personal andprofessional issues besides a lotof anxiety about one’s own well-being and that of the closedones. There is a lot of fear aboutthe future. A lot of people aredeveloping a high degree ofnegative energy by seeing themiser y around us.Simultaneously, the constantbombardment of information,data, advice and magical solu-tions through social media, areleaving many of us confused,worried and helpless.

Under these circumstances,it is natural for us to seek helpfrom experts. But people need tounderstand the stark differencebetween life coaches, counselorsand a clinical psychologist as itwill be extremely unfortunatefor anyone having any mentalhealth issue to ‘fall into’ thewrong hands. One of the mostcommon misconceptions aboutlife coaching is that it is thera-py in disguise or, worse yet,therapy from an unlicensedpractitioner.

Here are a few facts whichwe must know. A life coach isessentially a certified profession-

al who is trained in coachinghis/her clients on different issuesthat could relate to personalgrowth, business expansion,professional growth and person-ality development. In general, aprofessional life coach wouldtypically help a client under-stand his/her current situation,set up short/medium/long-termgoals and push the clienttowards the achievement ofthese objectives. The work of alife coach revolves around show-ing the path of progress, settingmilestones and providing posi-tive cues to the clients. However,a typical life coach cannot anddoes not have the ability to han-dle mental health issues of theclients. While a life coach canalso be a certified professional inthe field of psychology (as twoseparate streams of profession-al qualifications), most of the lifecoaches operate based on their

own professional training andexperience.

On the other hand, a clini-cal psychologist is a profession-

al, who is qualified in the fieldof psychology with at least amaster’s degree. An online cer-tification in Psychology doesn’t

make one a psychologist. Apsychologist is specificallytrained to deal with emotionaland mental health issues of thepatients, where the diagnosis iscompletely clinical in nature.The psychologist assesses thepatient and his/her situation(including state of mind) froman independent perspective andbased on this clinical assess-ment, a line of therapy is specif-ically devised for the patients soas to cure the mental healthissues entailed therein. Throughthis therapy, the psychologistaims to bring about a change inthe cognition and behaviouralpatterns of the patient so thathe/she is healed out of the ail-ment.

The reason for writing thisis not to discriminate betweenthe two categories of profession-als or make any value judgmentabout the utility of the two pro-

fessionals. The objective here isto create awareness regardingthe fact that the two profession-als are supposed to deal withcompletely different situationsand it may be risky for anunaware person to mix up thetwo.

Unfortunately, there are a lotof people claiming to be coachesand counselors, often without therequired qualification and train-ing, intending to encash theopportunity provided by the lock-down. Although life coaches andpsychologists occasionally helpclients with similar problems,their work is not at all the same.To get the right advice, it is veryimportant to learn which kind ofguidance will serve you the best.It’s a sincere advise to seek profes-sional help from only certifiedexperts for mental health andemotional issues pertaining toyourself and your loved ones.Please do not seek help on thesematters from any self-styled lifecoach and counselor, who is nota certified expert in the field ofPsychology.

(The author is a clinical psy-chologist, an adviser to the NationalCommission for Protection of ChildRights (NCPCR), a member of NitiAayog and founder of MindControl Solutions.)

Located 66 kilometres from Kankerdistrict in North Bastar region ofChhattisgarh, Gotulmuda village

in Durgkondal block is witnessing an‘organic’ revolution. In this nondescriptvillage, over 450 farmers have chosen‘Collective Organic Farming’ as the wayforward. Working together, these farm-ers, besides cultivating nine differentvarieties of aromatic rice, are produc-ing millets and other pulses and oilseedcrops in the region.

The seeds for this revolution weresown in the year 2016-17, when around200 farmers, supported by theAgriculture Department, had formed acoalition called Kisan Vikas Samiti.Protecting the natural ecosystem, main-taining soil fertility and producinggood quality crops were the shared goalsof these farmers that inspired them towork together. With mission SwasthyaUgaenge, Swasthya Khilaenge (producehealthy, serve healthy), these 200 farm-ers from six tribal-dominated villagescollectively started employing organictechniques of farming. Seeing their ded-ication, District Administration linkedthe committee with schemes such as theGreen Revolution Scheme, FarmerProsperity Scheme and Soil Health CardScheme. The administration also pro-vided training to the farmers.

In the initial phase itself, the com-mittee had laid down a diligent processto ensure good quality of the organic

crops. The first step was to analyse theland each farmer possessed. Based onthe specific qualities, farmers plantedcrops which were suitable for their land.This was followed by preparation oforganic manure which was also donejointly by the farmers. Instead of burn-ing cow dung, plant leaves, wheat andrice residue, they mixed and decom-posed all of it together to make manure.Understanding the harm done bychemical pesticides, they adoptedorganic pesticides like Karanja (IndianBeech), eucalyptus, garlic and chilliesto keep insects away from the harvest.These natural pesticides had no harm-ful effects on either the crop or the land.Next was to ensure hassle-free irriga-tion of the fields. For this, the commit-tee installed a pump in the water canaland dug tube wells at some places in thevillage.

Even after almost four years, thecommittee makes regular visits to thefield of every farmer and inspects it. Theproactive inspection allows for quickresponse and resolution of any kind ofproblem at the committee level. Postharvesting, members bring their cropsto the committee and sell it collective-ly in the market or to the government.The amount received is equally distrib-uted among all the farmers.

“Each one of us works dedicatedlyin the entire process. Right from com-posting, preparing natural pesticides to

seed production for farming – everyactivity is accomplished by all of ustogether. This decreases the input costand increases the profit margin,” sharesRatni Bai, a farmer and a member of thecommittee.

The farmers of Gotulmunda pro-duce nine varieties of aromatic rice —Chirainakhi, Vishnubhog, Ramjira,Bastabhog, Jawafool, Karlagato,Sundarvarnim, Luchai and Dubraj. Inthe recent times, the demand for local-ly grown millets like Kodo, Kutki andRagi has also increased. Earlier consid-ered to be food grains of the poor, themedicinal and nutritional benefits havemade these millets popular among the

rich across the globe today. To fulfill thedemand of Kodu in the InternationalMarket, ‘Kisan Vikas Samiti’ hasreceived an order to produce 20 met-ric tons of Kodu from the government.

D K Bhaskar, coordinator of theKisan Vikas Samiti said that in the firstyear, there were 200 farmers but todayover 456 farmers are benefitting fromthis concept of collective organic farm-ing. “Use of chemicals causes damageto the environment. And, humans areresponsible for it. The purpose of ourcommittee is to eliminate the utilisationof such harmful chemicals and promotebenefits of organic farming by makingit profitable.”

Agricultural scientist, Birbal Sahooof Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Kanker saysthat, “Our farmers are returning to thisancient cultivation technique calledorganic farming. With increaseddemand of organic products all over theworld, this natural method is gradual-ly being accepted as a profitable dealamong Indian farmers. Our objective isto provide them both recognition andprofit.”

Farmers in Gotulmuda village, whofollow the organic farming techniques,have to spend ��4,000 per acre to pro-duce 10 to 12 quintals of rice. On theother hand, chemical farming costsfarmers anything between 8,000 to9,000 for production of approximately17 to 18 quintals of rice. The negativeimpact of chemicals on soil productiv-ity, on health of humans and environ-ment is immense. The monetary, envi-ronment and health benefits of theorganic farming are being recognizedat national as well as international plat-forms. Farmers in Chhattisgarh areundoubtedly benefitting from thisrecognition, however, they still feel thatthey are not receiving the right price fortheir crops. Other than making organ-ic farming popular by announcingvarious schemes, both the state and cen-tral government are required to takesteps to provide farmers fair price fortheir organic crops.

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Lionel Messi returnedwithout a beard and witha goal and two assists as

Barcelona resumed theirLa Liga title challenge onSaturday with a thump-ing 4-0 victory over RealMallorca.

After three monthsaway because of the coro-navirus pandemic, Barcaexploded into the lead with just64 seconds played when ArturoVidal headed in and MartinBraithwaite struck a secondfrom a Messi headed assist.

Jordi Alba latched onto aMessi pass to add a third andMessi then scored a fourth ininjury time for his 25th goal ofthe season.

“I’m happy because start-ing like this is an enormous

boost for what’s to come,” saidBarcelona coach QuiqueSetien.

Victory extends Barca’sadvantage at the top of La Liga

to five points over RealMadrid, who can reducethe gap back to two whenthey restart at home toEibar.

Messi will be crucialto Barcelona’s hopes of

holding off Madrid but theircaptain, who turns 33 thismonth, may have to pace him-self, especially after an injury-interrupted season.

Clean shaven, and withoutany sign of the thigh problemthat prevented him from train-ing earlier this month, Messiplayed 90 minutes and lookedlike he had never been away.

His goal was set up by LuisSuarez and the sight of the

Uruguayan coming off thebench would have been wel-come for coach Setien too.

Suarez has not played sinceundergoing knee surgery inJanuary and was able to recov-

er during the suspension. Hecould play an important part inthe run-in.

Asked what pleased himmost, Setien said: “The satis-faction of seeing Luis again onthe field. You have to admirethe performance he gave inthose 35 minutes that he

played. Starting like this isvery important for him and forthe team as well.”

Mallorca, who sit 18th inLa Liga, were never going tooffer the sternest of tests butthis was a useful outing forboth Barcelona’s fitness andmorale.

�� Dries Mertens firedNapoli to the Coppa Italia finalon Saturday after netting thegoal which gave his side a 2-1aggregate semi-final win overInter Milan and made him theclub’s all-time top scorer.

Napoli will face Juventus inWednesday’s final in Romethanks to Belgium forwardMertens, who slotted home his122nd goal for Napoli four min-utes before half-time to make thescore 1-1 on the night and givethem overall victory after a 1-0first-leg win at the San Siro inFebruary.

Christian Eriksen had lev-elled the tie for Inter straightfrom a corner in the secondminute and the away side con-tinued to dominate the first half,but Mertens ended a lightningcounter-attack to put thehosts through at the StadioSan Paolo.

“We wanted the final atall costs and we achievedthat. Now we need to recu-perate and be ready for thefinal in a few days,” said LorenzoInsigne, who set up Merten’swinner.

Mertens, 33, overtakesMarek Hamsik and moves sevenclear of Diego Maradona, whoscored 115 goals in all compe-titions and won two Serie A titlesand the UEFA Cup over hisseven tumultuous years insouthern Italy.

Although there were nofans in the stands at the SanPaolo, broadcaster RAI report-

ed that a small number ofNapoli supporters that hadgathered outside the SanPaolo set off fireworksthroughout half-time incelebration of Merten’s goaland after the match.

Mertens moved to Napolifrom PSV Eindhoven in 2013and has become so settled inNaples that fans have nick-named him Ciro, a hugely com-mon Neapolitan name. Sportingdirector Christian Giuntoli saidpre-match that both club andplayer want to extend his con-tract, set to expire at the end ofthe month. AFP

��7+0�/

Bayern Munich moved towithin just one win of an

eighth straight Bundesliga titleas a late Leon Goretzka goalsealed a 2-1 victory overBorussia Moenchengladbach atthe Allianz Arena on Saturday.

Teenage striker JoshuaZirkzee put Bayern ahead beforeBenjamin Pavard’s own goallevelled for Gladbach, butGoretzka netted his third goal infive league games with fourminutes remaining.

“Turning such a late goalinto a victory that will allow usto win the title on Tuesdaymakes me overjoyed,” said the25-year-old.

Even without the suspend-ed Robert Lewandowski andThomas Mueller, Bayern earnedtheir 13th straight win in allcompetitions to re-establish theirseven-point lead over BorussiaDortmund at the top of the tablewith three matches left.

Victory at relegation-threat-

ened Werder Bremen onTuesday will confirmBayern as Germanchampions for the 30thtime in Hansi Flick’s firstseason in charge.

“We want to win there andbring this thing home,” added

Goretzka.While coach Flick said,

“I’m happy that the team gotthe job done with somehard work — those were

three important, ‘big’ points.” Bayern had to dig deep

again, having also laboured to

victory by the same margin inWednesday’s German Cup semi-final win over EintrachtFrankfurt.

Gladbach made a fast startbut were denied an early lead asJonas Hofmann’s strike wasruled out for offside.

But visiting goalkeeper YannSommer gifted Bayern a 26th-minute advantage when hisdreadful pass across the edge ofhis area was met by the 19-year-old Zirkzee, who coolly foundthe net to score his fourthBundesliga goal from just eightappearances.

Gladbach deservedly drewlevel though when Pavardturned Patrick Herrmann’s crossinto his own net eight minutesbefore the break.

Both sides had second-halfchances, but Goretzka settledmatters when he turned homePavard’s low cross.

�� 8�90�

Paris Saint-Germain sporting director Leonardohas confirmed that veteran duo Thiago Silva and

Edinson Cavani will not stay with the French cham-pions with their contracts due to expire at the endof this month.

“Yes, we are coming to the end,” Leonardo saidin an interview with newspaper Le Journal duDimanche.

“It has been a very difficult decision to reach.These are players who have marked the history ofthe club and you wonder if you should carry on alittle longer together or if it’s best to avoid stayinga year too long.

“We needed to make the right decision,including in economic terms and in terms of thenext generation of players coming through.”

It was widely reported earlier this week thatBrazilian centre-back Silva, the PSG captain whoturns 36 later this year, would not be kept on at theParc des Princes, where he arrived from AC Milanin 2012.

Silva’s contract is due to expire at the end ofthis month, as is that of Uruguayan striker Cavani.

Now 33, Cavani joined PSG from Napoli for64 million euros in 2013 and has gone on to becomethe club’s all-time top scorer with 200 goals.

However, his place in the side came underthreat following the arrival of Mauro Icardi on loanfrom Inter Milan at the start of the season.

Silva and Cavani have played a major role inestablishing PSG as the unrivalled force in Frenchfootball, but their time at the club will also beremembered for disappointing results in Europe.

Several other PSG players out of contract thissummer, including full-backs Thomas Meunier andLayvin Kurzawa, and striker Eric Maxim Choupo-Moting, are also set to leave the club.

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Sheffield United defender ChrisBasham fears the introduction of

the five substitutes rule for the rest ofthe season will favour the PremierLeague’s big clubs.

Chris Wilder’s side are pushing foran unexpected place in the ChampionsLeague as the English top-flight seasonresumes on Wednesday with the Blades’trip to Aston Villa.

But concern over players sufferinginjuries due to the coronavirus long lay-off has convinced the authorities to allowfive substitutions to be made insteadof the usual three for the remainderof the campaign.

Basham, whose team are justfive points behind fourth-placedChelsea, is concerned the new FIFArule, designed to help clubs bettermanage the hectic fixture list, willfavour those sides with bigger squads.

“I think the substitutes thing that hascome in will affect us a little bit becausewe are not going to be as strong as the

top six sides, Basham told BBCRadio on Sunday. “But we are goingto give it a good go and the man-ager would not let us do anythingother than that.

“The manager said we can gofrom just being in the Premier League,staying up, or we can go and do some-thing we’ve never done before and thatis getting into Europe and getting intothe Champions League.”

�� West Indiescoach Phil Simmons feels play-ing behind close doors againstEngland will favour the visitingside when international crick-et resumes next month in a“bio-secure” environment.

“I don’t know if it willincrease our chances, becauseboth teams are under the sameumbrella,” Simmons said in avideo conference.

“The nice part for us is that20,000 Englishmen raving forEngland, and that crowd sup-port, it’s not there for them. Sothat in a way will help us, so it’sgood from that point of view.”

Besides the absence of hos-tile English fans, Simmons saidlack of competitive cricket couldalso hurt the hosts in the series.

“...England hasn’t comefrom a tour recently, and we’vejust been playing cricket athome. Because in a normal sit-uation we would have beencoming from camps andEngland would have been

halfway through their seasonand the series would have beengoing on right now.

“So, I think that is a plusfor us, because it evens outthings a little bit, with the factthey haven’t been playing com-petitive cricket for a whilealso,” he observed.

Having beaten England 2-

1 in the Caribbean 18 monthsago, a tied series would beenough for the West Indies toretain the Wisden Trophy.

But Simmons admitted thatthe West Indies would miss theservices of Shimron Hetmyer,Darren Bravo and Keemo Paulin the series after the trio decid-ed against travelling to UK.

“Unfortunately a few guysdecided not to come but we arehere with the best squad that wecan have here. And from theway we’ve started our work, theguys have been putting in, Ithink we’ll be ready and look-ing to defend our trophy.

“...We know what we’ll bemissing. But in situations likethis we have to work hard withthe guys who are here andmake sure that what we’redoing is putting them in a posi-tion to fill those two shoes forthe series,” he said.

“Hopefully whoever fillsthe shoes can go on and be asgreat as they want to be.” AFP

�� +,-��,./0�

National team head coachIgor Stimac on Sunday

hailed Sunil Chhetri, saying thetalismanic captain was one ofthose who “glorified” Indianfootball with his dedication inthe 15 years of his illustriouscareer.

According to Stimac,Chhetri is someone who alwaysruns the extra yard, breaks somemore sweat during training ses-sions, which encourages young-sters to emulate him.

“I see him as someone whoalways pushes the bar in train-ing and never compromiseswith the regime. He drives theteam and he is the character whodefines the team. Numerouscharacters have glorified theIndian football history and he’sdefinitely one of them who

have made his country proud,”the Croatian tactician said.

“Dedicated, workaholic andteam man — those are some of

the attributes which define SunilChhetri,” he said in AIFF release.

The former Croatian WorldCupper, who took charge of thenational team last year, recalledseeing Chhetri during thepreparatory camp ahead of theKing’s Cup 2019 — his maidenassignment with the Blue Tigers.

He pointed out that despitebeing the senior-most memberof the team, Chhetri toiled max-imum to achieve positive resultsafter the heartbreak in AFCAsian Cup.

“When I first saw him lastyear, they were back to theNational Team camp after a longgap following the AFC AsianCup. A few boys were new butthe fire under his belly probablywas more than anyone else.That’s the secret of his longcareer. Congratulations!” Stimacsaid.

��7 ��India’s limited overs vicecaptain Rohit Sharma wants to com-pete in both the T20 World Cup andthe IPL this year as chances are thatonly one of the two tournamentscould be salvaged due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The ICC is yet to decide on the fateof the World Cup, scheduled to be heldin October-November in Australia,while the BCCI has postponed IndianPremier League indefinitely.

It is being speculated that if T20World Cup is postponed, the IPL canbe held in that window.

Rohit initiated an Instagramchat session to engage with his fansand said he would “preferably playboth” when asked which event hewould prefer this year.

Rohit leads four-time championsMumbai Indians in the IPL.

The star opener also said that it willbe challenging to play the pink ball Testwhen the Indian team travels toAustralia later this year.

India will engage in a four-Testseries with hosts Australia with the first

Test to be played at the Gabba fromDecember 3. The second Tests will bea Day/Night affair at the Adelaide Oval.

Asked to describe MahendraSingh Dhoni in one word, Rohitsaid, “Legend”.

The Indian vice captain also saidthat he enjoys watching the batting ofAustralian Steve Smith and England’sJason Roy. PNS

�� ,.�A79+,�

Former Australia captainMark Taylor on Sunday

warned that ban on the usageof saliva, to combat the Covid-19 threat, runs the risk ofupsetting balance between batand ball in Test cricket.

“I think it is a bit of a con-cern because I like, particular-ly in Test matches, to see theball slightly dominate the bat,it is much better game whenTest cricket is played that way,”Taylor told Channel 9.

The 55-year-old formeropener is concerned about thefact that no saliva means adelivery would become pre-dictable for a batsman.

“My concern will be that ifthe players can’t shine the balland the ball does get verystraight and very predictablewe are going to see more andmore runs, more and morehigh scores in Test matchcricket,” Taylor said.

“And that is not the bestTest match cricket. Test crick-et is much better when thescore is around 300,” he added.

The ICC has also intro-duced the system of issuingtwo warnings per innings toplayers found violating thesaliva ban. Any further viola-tion will result in a five-runpenalty.

“They have said try and belenient which I’m sure they willbe but eventually one umpireis going to stick his neck outand say ‘that’s a five run penal-ty’,” Taylor said.

��7��There was a part ofMahendra Singh Dhoni inSushant Singh Rajput.

It made the World Cup-winning former Indian cap-tain’s Untold Story a guilty indul-gence for masses and the actor,who played the titular role, ahousehold name in his short andeventful career.

It wasn’t a cinematic master-piece like late Irrfan Khan’sPaan Singh Tomar but there washardly anyone who dislikedNeeraj Pandey’s feel-good block-buster either.

Sushant, who committedsuicide at his Mumbai home onSunday, took fans to placeswhere an introvert Dhoni, fierce-ly guarded about his private life,never took anyone.

To that school match hewon, to those tennis ball khep(term used for games in Bengal)in Kharagpur or dealing withselection heartbreaks orromancing his wife Sakshi,

Sushant was the gateway to theDhoni no one knew before ornever knew after.

He gave everyone a sneakpeek into Dhoni’s life.

He got that gait, the man-nerism and the helicopter shot

so perfectly, that he becameDhoni. He was believable.

“Dhoni after watching meplay had said that Sushant caneasily play Ranji Trophy,”Sushant had said with a widegrin during promotion of his lastreleased film Chhichhore, wherecricket was a part of the climax.

In fact, Digvijay Deshmukh,who played the role of young Aliin Abhishek Kapoor’s Kai Po Cheis still not able to fathom that theactor is no more.

“I don’t know what to say,”Digvijay said in a choked voice.

“Sushant bhaiya was thenicest of human beings. Sixeventful months of my life wasshooting for Kai Po Che wherehe played the role of my coach(Ishaan). Trust me he was a goodcricketer.

“We played so much crick-et off camera. I was a kid and hewould keep me entertained,”Digvijay, who is now a profes-sional cricketer and will play in

IPL for Mumbai Indians,remembered.

Digvijay remembers his lastconversation good eight yearsback after the shoot got over.

“Sushant bhaiyya asked mewhat would I like to becomewhen I grow up. I told him justlike in film, I would become acricketer.

“Maine kahaan tha jabcricket mein kuch karoonga uskebaad hi aake aapse miloonga.Since MI picked me at IPL auc-tions, I thought once IPL startsand I am in Mumbai, I will goand meet him. That won’t hap-pen anymore,” Digvijay wasn’table to gather his thoughtsbeyond this.

Call it the irony of life, in hislast film, Sushant counselledhis on screen teenage son, whotried to commit suicide after fail-ing an entrance exam, tellinghim stories of underdogs.

Real life is brutal than 120minutes on 70 mm. PTI

�� 0.��A

Diego Costa scored hisfirst goal since October

but Atletico Madrid missedthe chance to move into topfour by drawing 1-1 away atAthletic Bilbao on Sunday.

Costa celebrated by hold-ing up the shirt of VirginaTorrecilla, a player fromAtletico’s women’s team, whounderwent surgery on a braintumour last month.

His gesture of support forTorrecilla did not go unno-ticed either. She posted amessage on Twitter with apicture of Costa’s celebrationthat said: “I have nowords...You are amazing!Thanks from the bottom ofmy heart”.

Costa’s equaliser cametwo minutes after the excel-lent Iker Muniain had givenBilbao the lead towards theend of the first half and nei-ther side could find a winnerat the empty San Mames,with Atletico defenderSantiago Arias missing thebest chance late on.

This was always going tobe one of the tougher gamesin Atletico’s run-in but it

was still an opportunitymissed after fellow top-fourhopefuls Valencia and Getafeboth failed to win onSaturday.

Diego Simeone’s side staysixth, now level on pointswith both Getafe and RealSociedad in front of them,although la Real have a gamein hand against Osasuna.

Athletic Bilbao remain10th, five points behindValencia in seventh.

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�� La Liga have saidthey will launch criminal pro-ceedings against the pitchinvader who ran on duringBarcelona’s match against RealMallorca on Saturday.

In the 52nd minute at SonMoix, a man wearing anArgentina shirt with LionelMessi’s name on the backentered the pitch and posedfor a picture on his phone nearJordi Alba.

He was not wearing amask, gloves and was chasedbefore being caught andescorted away by security.

“La Liga will file crimi-

nal actions against the invad-er who entered the pitchwithout permission andbroke the protocols estab-lished in current health leg-islation and disobeyed theorders of private securitypersonnel,” a statement fromthe league said. “His actionsconstitute a crime.” AFP

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