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Delhi minoritypanel chairmanbooked for sedi-tion over socialmedia post

Indian Railways useslockdown to remove bottlenecks

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REGD NO. CHD/0061/2006-08 | RNI NO. 61323/95

Sunday,May 3, 2020

CHANDIGARH, VOL. XXV, NO. 92, PAGES 8, RS. 2 YOUR REGION, YOUR PAPER

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Tokyo Olympics will'definitely' be held next yearNEW DELHI : IOC mem-ber and IOA presidentNarinder Batra on Satur-day said that the post-poned 2020 TokyoOlympics will "definitely"be held next year, amidconcerns over staging themega event before aCOVID-19 vaccine isfound.Some eminent sci-entists and doctors haveexpressed doubts on theholding of the TokyoOlympics if a vaccine is notfound by then. Even theJapan Medical Associationpresident said it would onlybe possible for theOlympics to go ahead inJuly 2021 if the infectionswere under control, notonly in Japan, but globally.

Modimeets FMto discusssecondeconomicstimuluspackage

‘Technical issues’ leave migrants stuckmidway between Gujaratand UP

Lokpal MemberJustice AK TripathiDies Due ToCoronavirus: SourcesNEW DELHI : 62-year-oldLokpal member JusticeAjay Kumar Tripathi hasdied after contractingcoronavirus, sources sadi.He was admitted to AIIMSin Delhi on April 2.His daughter and cook,who had also tested posi-tive for COVID-19, haverecovered, sources said.A former Chief Justice ofthe Chhattisgarh HighCourt, Justice Tripathi hadbeen in the Intensive CareUnit (ICU) of AIIMS sinceApril 5.

Six more casesreported inChandigarh,tally crosses 94CHANDIGARH: Chandi-garh recorded six morepositive COVID-19 cases,of which five are fromBapu Dham Colony andone from Manimajra. Withthis, the total tally ofCOVID cases in the cityhas crossed 94.A 14-year-old man fromBapu Dham Colony hasthree family contacts and24 community contacts.Another 34-year-old posi-tive case from the colonyhas one roommate while a30-year-old man living insame building has threeroommates. The 42-year-old male positive casefrom Bapu Dham.

BUREAUCHANDIGARH , MAY 02

The Chandigarh administration will lift thecurfew in the city on midnight of 3rd May,2020.

The lockdown period will be extended bytwo weeks i.e. upto 17th May, 2020. The con-tainment zone in the city will be restricted tothe pockets identified and notified by Admin-istration.

These decisions have been taken in themeeting held today under the chairmanshipof Governor of Punjab and Administrator, UTChandigarh, VP Singh Badnore today overDaily War Room meeting. The meeting wasattended by. Manoj Parida, Adviser, UT,Chandigarh and Sh. Sanjay Beniwal, DirectorGeneral of Police at Raj Bhawan.

After perusal of Government of India’sorder, the suggestions received from variousstakeholders including local leaders, MPs,Ex-MPs, RWAs, Industry, Trade Associationsand the practices followed by neighboringstates, the opinion of medical experts, publichealth officials and all senior officials, theGovernor Punjab-cum-Administrator, UTtook the following decisions : There will be

Intensive Screening and Testing of all caseswithin the containment pockets as per proto-col.

The Sector Markets will remain openfrom 07.00 AM to 07.00 PM.

• The vehicles will be allowed to be usedbetween 07.00 AM to 07.00 PM withoutpasses, as per protocol

Odd-Even formula will be applied in re-spect of both opening of shops and use of ve-hicles. For example on Monday beginning4th of May, 2020, only shops ending evennumber such as 2, 4, 6 etc. and similarly ve-hicles carrying registration no. whose lastdigit is 2, 4, 6 etc. will be allowed. The rota-tion will continue accordingly.

The essential shops like groceries, veg-etables, medicines etc. can remain open on alldays.

The restaurant/eating places will remainclosed. • Delivery of cooked food by onlineagencies will not be allowed.

• Apni Mandis will remain closed.• Distribution of fruits and vegetables by

Government buses will continue.• Big shopping malls and complexes such

as in Sector-17 Market or those on sector di-viding roads will remain closed.

Chd to lift curfew fromMonday, shops to remain open

BUREAU SHIMLA, MAY 2

People from Himachal Pradesh who arestranded in Chandigarh, Mohali,Panchkula and adjoining areas can boardHRTC buses from Himachal Bhawan,Chandigarh, to go back to their respec-tive districts.

Buses would be made available forKangra, Chamba, Una and Hamirpur dis-tricts on May 3, 6am, onwards at Hi-machal Bhawan, Sector 28, MadhyaMarg, Chandigarh.

People would be accommodated onfirst-come-first-served basis after pre-liminary medical checkup, a spokesper-son of the state government said today.

Buses would be available for Bi-

laspur, Mandi, Kul-lu and Lahaul andSpiti districts onMay 4, 6 am, on-wards while resi-dents going back toShimla, Sirmaur,Kinnaur and Solandistricts can boardbuses on May 5, 6am, onwards.

A photocopy ofAadhaar card or anyother governmentidentity proof wouldbe required andboarding would beallowed only after medical examination,he said, adding that all the people would

also have to give anundertaking that theyare not coronavirus-positive.

Schedule ofHRTC buses

May 3, 6 am on-wards - Kangra,Chamba, Una andHamirpur districts

May 4, 6 am on-wards – Bilaspur,Mandi, Kullu andLahaul and Spiti dis-tricts

May 5, 6 am on-wards - Shimla, Sirmaur, Kinnaur andSolan

Himachal to run buses for residentsstranded in Chandigarh, nearby areas

Punjab eases curfew hours in orange, green zonesCHANDIGARH: Punjab government announced it was easing curfew hours in orange andgreen zones on Saturday, as the state looks at slowly easing lockdown rules imposed inthe state over the coronavirus pandemic. Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh said shops in orange and green zones across thestate will remain open from 9 am to 1 pm. The new timing will be applicable from Sunday.However, there would be no relaxations in red zones and containment areas, he said.The new curfew hours are two hours longer than currently given. Punjab’s curfew hourscurrently are from 7-11 am.The chief minister attributed the decision to requests to have curfew time changed becauseshops do not usually open before 9 am. “The issue also came up for discussion during theCabinet meeting, and there was consensus that the timings should be changed in public in-terest,” an official spokesperson said.

AGENCYNEW DELHI, MAY 2

The death toll due to COVID-19 rose to1,223 and the number of cases climbed to37,776 in the country on Saturday, regis-tering an increase of 71 deaths and a recordjump of 2,411 cases in 24 hours, accordingto the Union health ministry.

The number of active COVID-19 cas-es stood at 26,565, while 10,017 peoplehave recovered and one patient has migrat-ed, the ministry said.

"Thus, around 26.52 per cent patientshave recovered so far," a senior health min-istry official said.

The total number of cases includes 111foreign nationals.

A total of 71 deaths were reportedsince Friday evening -- 26 from Maharash-tra, 22 from Gujarat, eight from MadhyaPradesh, four from Rajasthan, three fromKarnataka, two each from Delhi and UttarPradesh and one each from Bihar,Haryana, Punjab and Tamil Nadu.

f the 1,223 deaths, Maharashtra accounts for the maximum with 485 fatalities, followed by Gujarat (236), Madhya

Pradesh (145), Rajasthan (62), Delhi (61),Uttar Pradesh (43) and West Bengal andAndhra Pradesh at 33 each.

The death toll reached 28 in TamilNadu, 26 in Telangana, while Karantakahas reported 25 fatalities due to the dis-ease.

Punjab has registered 20 COVID-19deaths, Jammu and Kashmir eight, Keralaand Haryana have reported four deathseach, and Jharkhand and Bihar haverecorded three COVID-19 deaths each.

Meghalaya, Himachal Pradesh, Odishaand Assam have reported a fatality each,according to the ministry data.

According to the health ministry dataupdated in the evening, the highest numberof confirmed cases in the country is fromMaharashtra at 11,506, followed by Gu-jarat (4,721), Delhi (3,738), MadhyaPradesh (2,719), Rajasthan (2,666), TamilNadu (2,526) and Uttar Pradesh (2,455).

The number of COVID-19 cases hasgone up to 1,525 in Andhra Pradesh and1,057 in Telangana.

It has risen to 795 in West Bengal, 772

in Punjab, 639 in Jammu and Kashmir, 598in Karnataka, 498 in Kerala and 471 in Bi-har.

Haryana has reported 360 coronaviruscases, while Odisha has 154 cases. A totalof 111 people have been infected with thevirus in Jharkhand and 88 in Chandigarh.

Uttarakhand has reported 58 cases, As-sam and Chhattisgarh have 43 cases each,while Himachal Pradesh has registered 40cases so far.

Thirty-three COVID-19 cases havebeen reported from the Andaman andNicobar Islands, while Ladakh has record-ed 22 cases of the infection.

Meghalaya has reported 12 cases,Puducherry eight while Goa has sevenCOVID-19 cases. Manipur and Tripurahave two cases each, while Mizoram andArunachal Pradesh have reported a caseeach. "Our figures are being reconciledwith the ICMR," the ministry said on itswebsite, adding, "179 cases are being as-signed to states for contact tracing." State-wise distribution is subject to further veri-fication and reconciliation, it said.

Biggest Single-day Jump In India As COVID-19Cases Cross 37,000; Death Toll Reaches 1,223

YUGMARG, CHANDIGARH, SUNDAY, MAY 3, 2020

NEWSPAGE2

BRIEFNEWS

Over 100 BJP workers donates blood during lockdown

I've worked too hard and too long to let anything stand in the way of my goals. I will not let my teammates down and I

will not let myself down.

Mia Hamm

CHANDIGARH : As the Nation faces an unprecedented challenge, true to its vision and mission SBI Foundation, the CSR arm of State Bank of India, has committed Rs.30 cr to implement various COVID relief programmes all across India. SBI Foundation has geared up to assist in the war against COVID and has planned the following interventions: Food relief support, Strengthening healthcare infrastructure, Capacity building of healthcare workers,Research on COVID related projects in tie up with IISc. To implement these initiatives, SBI Foundation has set up a new flagship program on Health theme. Distribution of ventilators, PPEs etc to critical hospitals and supply of 10000 freshly cooked meals daily in 4 centres of India have already been initiated. SBI Launching of Project Echo India in partnership with ECHO India and MoHFW to provide training and mentoring to 50000 healthcare professionals across various states, has been another achievement by SBI Foundation.

SBI Foundation announces slew of measures to fight COVID-19 battle

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Chandigarh, Prime Minister Narendra Modi retweeted a tweet of city based advocate Deepak Malhotra which expresses the society gesture towards a Covid warrior. Deepak Malhotra who is also the office secretary with BJP Chandigarh tweeted from his tweeter handle @deepak_bjp regarding a ICU health worker came after giving her services of exhaustive 20 days. The message touches the notions of family and society gesture at reception on her homecoming. Deepak said nearly 1.75 lakh accounts saw the tweet by PM while 96 thousand people liked it. Nearly 15 thousand people retweeted this social message. According to Arun Sood, president, BJP Chandigarh despite Prime Minister’s busy schedule, he stay connected with social media to convey messages of public interests and it is our duty to live up to his expectations by abiding the norms.

AGENCY present at the railway station to Thereafter, all the workers were on the migrant workers are being PATNA, MAY 3 oversee the arrangements on the sent to their home districts in buses sent to their respective districts

arrival of the migrant workers. which were arranged by the transport where they will be living in The first 'Shramik Express' special The migrant workers belonging department of the state government. quarantine centres for 21 days," said train carrying 1,187 stranded to various districts of the state were Patna Divisional Commissioner Sanjay Agarwal, Patna Divisional migrant labourers from Jaipur first taken to the railway school for Sanjay Agarwal informed all the Commissioner.reached in Patna on Saturday medical examination and thermal migrant workers who were sent to Agarwal, who is also the afternoon. Elaborate security screening. their respective districts they they Principal Secretary of the Transport arrangements were made at Danapur "I used to sell ice cream in Jaipur would be kept in quarantine centres Department, said two more trains railway station for the train's arrival. but got stranded there due to situated in the block where they live from Kerala with migrant workers Patna Divisional Commissioner lockdown. I am happy finally I have in for 21 days. will be departing on Saturday night. Sanjay Agarwal, Patna DM Kumar come back," said a migrant worker "After carrying out thermal Both trains are expected to reach Ravi and SSP Upendra Sharma were who returned to Bihar. screening and medical examination Patna on Monday morning.

Mastercard and Mahendra Singh Dhoni Take Team Cashless India Further by Thanking Merchants for Their Services

CHANDIGARH. MAY 2 merchant in India, Mastercard has released a new television commercial featuring the legendary cricketer

India and the world have been going through an Mahendra Singh Dhoni. In the video, Dhoni strikes an unprecedented timedue to the COVID-19pandemic. The emotional chord with every Indian by reliving how lockdown has forced a large merchants have been at the forefront population to stay at home. In such of India’s fight against COVID-19, trying times, neighborhood merchants maintaining a delicate balance such as kirana stores owners, between social distancing and their pharmacies, milkmen and vegetable societal commitment. The video also vendors have emerged as the true dep ic t s peop le o f d i ffe ren t warriors by ensuring the supply of backgrounds sharing their favorite essential commodities tomost memories ofneighborhood merchants households in the country. There are and thanking them for their support. It 63.4 million small merchants and concludes by urging viewers to do the traders in India who account for nearly same by calling+91-9319138139 or 30% of India’s GDP, employing about 460 million by tweeting their thank you messages along with the people1. As an expression of gratitude towards every hashtag #ThankYouVyapaariyo.

CHANDIGARH: The COVID-19 lockdown is making Indian turn back the time when it comes to entertainment. Nostalgia has emerged as the biggest trend on Airtel Xstream app - an India-first video network for premium digital content. The popular app from Airtel offers over 10,000 shows and 400 plus TV channels. While overall streaming volumes have increased by 50% on the app since middle of March 2020, it is shows and movies from yesteryears that have seen the biggest surge in demand from users. · Cult TV shows like Malgudi Days, Dekh Bhai Dekh, Zabaan Sambhal Ke, Rajani and many more have witnessed 300% surge in streaming volumes· Bollywood Classics from Chaudhavin Ka Chand, Mother India, Don, Padosan, Andaz Apna Apna and Raja Babu have seen streaming volumes growth of 100% underlining the strong demand of content from the decades gone by.· And close to 80% of the demand surge for Retro content is driven by users from non-metros and smaller towns in states such UP, Bihar, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. This highlights the growing adoption of OTT in these markets as smartphones and 4G penetration increases.

RETRO is the new flavor as Airtel Xstream users go back in time during COVID-19 lockdown

CHANDIGARH: Prof Sir Ralf Speth, Jaguar Land Rover Chief Executive, has been elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. The honour is in recognition of Sir Ralf’s advocacy for UK research and development and his commitment to STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) education.Sir Ralf joins a worldwide cohort of exceptional scientists, who have been selected by the Royal Society for their outstanding contributions to scientific understanding. Their ranks include six Nobel laureates, as well as internationally recognised leaders in industry and science policy. Active since 1660, the Royal Society is a fellowship of many of the world's most eminent scientists and is the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence.Sir Ralf said: “I am honoured to have been elected to the Royal Society for activities that are close to my heart and fundamental to the society.”“Mobility will see more change in the next ten years than the last century. Through collaboration and continuous investment in R&D we can lead the transition into connected, seamless integrated private-public mobility systems. We will do this with a clear focus on our Destination Zero mission: zero emissions, zero accidents and zero congestion. Our ambition is to make societies safer and healthier, and our environment cleaner.

Jaguar Land Rover CEO Prof Sir Ralf Speth Elected Fellow of the Royal Society

First special train carrying nearly 1,200 migrant labourers reaches Patna

Toni protest against the shop keeper’s list released by administration

KULWINDER BHATIANANGAL, MAY 2

Due to corona virus pandemic government imposes lockdown and after that Captian Amrinder Singh gives 4 hours relaxation. On this, today again there is not agreement is has been made in the matter of opening the shops and today also no shop was opened. It is mentioned that, today a list has been released which contain the names of the shops, after this some trust issue has been made among the shopkeepers of the city and a

opening the shops in Nangal. He lots of gathering has been said that here also apply made outside the SDM office procedure like in morinda that which was controlled by SHO they give every day to every field. Nangal. After that trade After that they also had a meeting association nangal’s leader with SDM Nangal HS Attwal Toni Sehgal, Lovely Agra, which will become fruitless and Manmohan Singh Mohni and the decision has been taken that Dharinder Singh, Sandeep today evening trade union has Mittal, Jaswinder Singh made a policy in the meeting held Ghullu, Tarsem Lal, e.t.c. were in evening. In this concern SDM reached and it was seems for a Nangal said that Trade union said while that these congress leaders that they themselves give policy. started agitation against He said that Trade union claims administration. On this occasion that instead of opening shops, with full arms toni Sehgal said corona fight is priority. that he is against the procedure of

CHANDIGARH, Aimed at providing relief to ailing patients, a total of 101 BJP workers donated blood at PGI and GMCH – 32 during the ongoing lockdown. Twelve party volunteers namely - Saurabh Sharma, Sahil Kumar, Simon Dureja, Lakhwinder Singh, Ganesh Jha, Jitender Pandey, Amit Kumar, Surinder Singh, Mann Singh, Arsh Kaushal, Dinesh Bhardwaj and Surinder Singh donated blood at GMCH 32 on Saturday which completes the 100 figure mark. Party president Arun Sood himself donated the blood on April 14 to mark the beginning of this campaign and thereafter after 11 rounds of donation, party accomplished 100 donors figure mark. Sood affirmed that party will continue with this movement till the end of Covid crisis.

PM retweets city advocate Deepak Malhotra’s tweet

Need help during COVID-19 lockdown, just log onto citywoofer.com

MOHALI, MAY 2 privileged brothers and sisters. NGOs have led the charge here. A lot of good

A Mohali based digital media startup work is taking place but there has to be citywoofer.com which is a popular a one-stop source of information of the platform that has made a name for NGOs as well as other aspects itself in the field of an event's listing, connected with COVID-19 services. ticketing, online marketing, etc., has CityWoofer's helpline will be that one-come up with an exclusive helpline stop digital shop. Apart from Tricity, www.citywoofer.com/corona/helplin NGOs of Ludhiana are also listed and e connected with COVID-19. This soon more NGOs of Punjab are going internet address will act as a holistic to be added to the list.ready-reckoner for any type of information that a needy resident of Tricity might require in these difficult times.CityWoofer is a business vertical of Mohali based MNC ZapBuild which is into IT enabled services; the helpline is a Corporate Social unprecedented situation a large Responsibility (CSR) initiative of section of our community has come up ZapBuild. Sumeet Soni, Founder & with different ways to serve our less CEO, Zapbuild said, "In this

HDFC Bank, A.R. Rahman & Prasoon Joshi present #HumHaarNahiMaanengeCHANDIGARH: HDFC Bank today Singh, Jonita Gandhi, Neeti Mohan, stronger. Right now, every contribution, released #HumHaarNahiMaanenge (we Javed Ali, Sid Sriram, Shruti Haasan, bolsters the nation’s effort to fight the will not give up), a collaborative song of Shashaa Tirupati, Khatija Rahman and pandemic. We salute the undying spirit of hope. The single is a tribute to the Abhay Jodhpurkar. India's premier our countrymen and reiterate our indomitable spirit of India and millions of percussionist Sivamani, sitarist Asad commitment to help and support to defeat Indians who are standing together to fight Khan and bass prodigy Mohini Dey are COVID-19.” Through this track, HDFC the COVID-19pandemic.Click here to also part of this esteemed project. “As a Bank wants to show its solidarity and watch the video. The song is composed socially responsible corporate citizen we support to the nation by encouraging by Oscar and Grammy Award-winning want to do the best that we can for our more and more people to donate to PM-musician A.R. Rahman, and the lyrics are nation,” said Ravi Santhanam, Chief CARES Fund. Every donation makes a penned by noted lyricist and poet, Marketing Officer, HDFC Bank. “Music difference and the bank appeals to one Prasoon Joshi. The track also brings is universal; it lifts the spirit and soothes and all to contribute. It will also contribute together an ensemble of musicians from the soul. Through this tribute we want to Rs 500/- each time the song is shared via all over India. The featured artists include touch the heart of every person in the social media as this small action will have renowned names such as Clinton Cerejo, country and let them know that they are a multiplier effect on the amount that is Mohit Chauhan, Harshdeep Kaur, Mika not alone. Together, we will emerge being contributed towards.

BJP President Nangal Rajesh Choudary also release a press note and take step forward against the administration and he also against the shops list released by administration. He said that administration has not called the presidents of Trade union in meeting. President from Ajoli morh Parveen duvedi and from Naya Nangal sector 2 Anil Aggrawal, Naresh Chawala Pahadi Market and I am also president of trade union adda market and even they don’t called me. He also said that we have write letter to the center for this discrimination made by administration.

NEWS BRIEFS

3NEWSDelhi minority panelchairman booked forsedition over social

media post


Delhi Minority Commission chair-man Zafarul Islam Khan has beenslapped with a case of sedition bythe Special Cell of Delhi Police fora controversial social media post,while another plea has been movedin the Delhi High Court seeking hisremoval.

An FIR was registered againstKhan on April 30 under section 124A (sedition) and 153 A (promotingenmity between different groups ongrounds of religion, race, place ofbirth) after police received a com-plaint by a resident of Vasant Kunj.

In the FIR, the complainant al-leged that Khan’s post was“provocative”, “deliberate” andseditious and intended to causedisharmony and create a rift in thesociety, police said, adding that thecase is being investigated by the cy-ber cell.

The remarks were posted byKhan on Tuesday but deleted aftersometime.

Later, Khan also sought anapology. “I realise that my tweetwas ill-timed and insensitive inview of our county facing a medicalemergency and fighting an unseenenemy. I apologise to all whosesentiments were hurt,” Khan said ina statement.

He said that his tweet on April28, thanking Kuwait for taking noteof the “persecution” of Indian Mus-lims, in the context of the northeastDelhi violence, has “pained” somepeople which was never his inten-tion.

The BJP has demanded thatChief Minister Arvind Kejriwal andLt Governor remove Khan fromthe post of Delhi Minorities chair-man.

Delhi resident Manoranjan Ku-mar moved the high court seekinglodging of another FIR againstKhan and also his removal from thepost of chairman of the Delhi Mi-norities Commission for his alleged“inflammatory” and “threatening”statements against the Hindu com-munity. Meanwhile, a group of civ-il society members expressed soli-darity with Khan. They termed himas a leading Indian intellectualwhose niche area is Islamic studiesand Arab world and alleged mediatrial of Khan. “A few politicianswith ulterior motives and newschannel anchors known for spread-ing bigotry and Islamophobia havemischievously sought to misinter-pret his statement and ridiculouslylabel him as anti-Hindu and anti-In-dia,” said a statement of the group.The signatories included SwamiAgnivesh, Arun Kumar, Zafar Jung,John Dayal, Kamal Faruqui, AnnieNamala, Anil Chamadia and sever-al others.

Amid cash crunchdue to Covid-19,

CSIR imposesmoratorium on

new projectsCHANDIGARH: While extend-ing financial and technical supportto the industry as well as its ownlaboratories for taking up researchand development projects to com-bat the COVID-19 pandemic, theCouncil for Scientific and Industri-al Research (CSIR) has imposed amoratorium on the approval and fi-nancial allocation for new projectsin other domains.

“After due consideration of theavailability of funds and need forexpenditure management, the Di-rector General, CSIR has approvedimposition of a moratorium of threemonths on approval and financialallocation to different categories ofresearch projects and infrastructurebuilding projects during the 2020-21 financial year,” a communiquésent by CSIR Headquarters to all itsestablishments on April 30 states.

The moratorium comes in thewake of revised guidelines issuedby the Ministry of Finance lastmonth regarding cash managementsystem in central governmentwhich state that in view of the situ-ation arising out of COVID-19 andthe consequential lock down, it isexpected that the cash position ofthe government may be stressed inthe first quarter of this fiscal.

Pointing out that it is essentialto regulate government expenditureand to fix the quarterly expenditureplan and monthly expenditure planof all departments, the commu-niqué states that CSIR has to re-strict the overall expenditure within15 per cent of the 2020-21 budget-ary estimates in the April-Junequarter, amounting to Rs 796.


127 new COVID-19 cases detected in UPLUCKNOW: With 127 more people testing positive for COVID-19 in Uttar Pradesh onSaturday, the number of confirmed cases in the state has risen to 2,455, officials saidhere.COVID-19 cases have so far been reported in 64 of the 75 districts in the state. Sixamong these 64 districts have no active cases at present, Amit Mohan Prasad, Princi-pal Health Secretary, said. The number of active cases in the state stands at 1,756,he added.As many as 43 deaths have so far been reported with a total of 656 patients treatedand discharged from hospitals, Prasad said. A detailed government order for screen-ing of migrant labourers and workers returning to the state was also issued on Friday,added.

CHANDIGARH, MAY 2

Health Minister Anil Vij on Saturdayordered for opening all kinds of OPDsin all government hospitals in thestate. Earlier, due to Covid scare, theOPDs were closed.

“I have ordered for opening allkinds of OPDs in government hospi-tals. A protocol is being prepared forit. The norm of social distancing hasto be followed,” said Vij.

“Earlier, we had started OPDs inPrimary Health Centres (PHCs) andCommunity Health Centres (CHCs).We will open OPDs in a phased man-ner,” said Dr Suraj Bhan Kamboj, Di-rector General Health Services

(DGHS). Meanwhile, Vij clarified that

there would be no relaxation in strict-ness along borders with Delhi andother states. There are 163 entry orexit points in Haryana with neigh-bouring states. “All the recent casesare due to infection spread from Del-hi. If we continue to close borders forthe next 15-16 days, situation will be-come normal in the state,” he said.

Recently, the central governmenthas issued orders for allowing mi-grants and those stranded to return totheir native states. Haryana govern-ment is gathering details on migrantsin the state and also on others who arestranded in other states. “But whoso-

ever enters Haryana has to undergotest,” said Vij.

On allowing the sale of liquor ingreen, orange and red zones, that isnot under containment, Vij said tav-erns wouldn’t be allowed to operate.He added that the police caught 2 lakhbottles of illicit liquor in the state.

Vij has ordered a documentationof Covid pandemic under Post Grad-uate Institute of Medical Sciences,Rohtak. “A group of doctors woulddocument what is the disease, expen-diture, what kind of medicines aregiven, problems, challenges, success-es so that it would be a guide to man-age a similar situation in future,” hesaid.

Vij orders for opening allOPDs across Haryana AGENCY

NEW DELHI, MAY 2

Fearing spread of deadly COVID19, aman from Mumbai has moved theSupreme Court seeking stay on burial atthree cemeteries in densely populatedBandra West area of the metropolis.

Petitioner Pradeep Gandhy has chal-lenged a Bombay High Court order datedApril 27 dismissing his plea against thepermission given by BMC for the use ofBandra West cemetaries to bury dead bod-ies of COVID19 victims.

Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind---a prominentIslamic body in India---has sought to jointhe issue, contending that burial is an inte-gral part of Islam. It has urged the topcourt to give it a hearing in the matter.

The high court had directed the BMCto remove three locks put up by local res-idents on April 13 at the gates of the ceme-tery.

The petitioner contended before SC

that the present "unprecedented health sit-uation" should to take precedence over theright to religion of COVID-19 victims'family members.

Maintaining that his demand was pre-cautionary in nature, he said it was imper-ative to be safe rather than sorry in theseextraordinary times as there was no cure toCOVID19.

Gandhy---whose house is situatednear Konkani Muslim Kabrastan---con-tended that local residents were afraid ofcommunity spread of COVID19.

Citing guidelines issued by UnionMinistry of Health and Family Welfare forlast rites COVID 19 victims, Jamiat Ula-ma-i-Hind said the disease is mainly trans-mitted through droplets.

"...there is unlikely to be an increasedrisk of COVID infection from a dead bodyto health workers or family members whofollow standard precautions while han-dling body," it contended.

Coronavirus: Petition in SC seeks stayon burial in three Mumbai cemeteries


Prime Minister Narendra Modi onSaturday held a series of meetingswith key ministers, includingHome Minister Amit Shah and Fi-nance Minister Nirmala Sithara-man, and officials of economicministries to firm up the secondstimulus package for sectors im-pacted by lockdown to curbspread of coronavirus, sourcessaid.

The prime minister held dis-cussions with Shah and Sithara-man and would have follow-upmeetings with ministers of keyeconomic ministries such as Mi-

cro, Small & Medium Enterprises(MSME), sources said.

Follow latest updates on coro-navirus here

The finance ministry, whichdeferred release of monthly GSTcollection numbers on Friday, isalso scheduled to make a detailedpresentation to the prime ministerlater in the day on the state ofeconomy and several initiativesthat it plans to undertake to stim-ulate Indian economy.

The prime minister alreadyhad meetings with different min-istries, including civil aviation,labour and power on Friday. Hehad detailed deliberation withcommerce and MSME ministries

among others on Thursday withfocus on attracting both domesticand overseas investment and re-vival of small businesses in thecountry so that the recoveryprocess is hastened.

During these meetings boththe home minister and the financeminister were present.

To mitigate hardships facedby the bottom of the pyramid, thegovernment in late March had an-nounced a Rs 1.7 lakh crore stim-ulus package comprising freefoodgrains and cooking gas topoor and cash doles to poorwomen and elderly.

Sources said the governmentis considering announceing a sec-

ond dose of relief measures forthe segment and a stimulus pack-age for India Inc shortly. Thegovernment had first imposed a21-day nationwide lockdown be-ginning March 25 and later ex-tended it till May 3. The lock-down shut businesses, stopped airand rail travel and restrictedmovement of people and goods.Beginning May 4, the govern-ment has decided to ease certainrestrictions, including opening ofindustries for green and orangedistricts which either have nil orlow number of cases. The easingof restriction in specified districtsis till May 17 with strict vigil bylocal administration.

Modi meets Finance Minister to discusssecond economic stimulus package

AGENCYTHIRUVANANTHAPURAM, MAY 2

The Indian Council for Medical Re-search (ICMR) on Saturday lauded thecontainment strategy and the robust pub-lic healthcare system of Kerala and saidit would “continue referring to the Ker-ala model” for testing and containmentstrategies.

Dr Raman R Gangakhedkar, chief ofEpidemiology and Communicable Dis-eases at ICMR, said India has evolved astrong COVID-19 testing regime overthe last three months.

He was responding to queries frommediapersons at an online interaction,which was streamed live on Facebook byDepartment of Health and Family Wel-fare, Government of Kerala, here.

“Kerala is offering one of the bestcontainment strategies and it is unparal-leled. So we will continue to refer to Ker-ala Model as far as testing and contain-ment strategies are concerned,”Gan-

gakhedkar said.He said the country was now in a po-

sition to ramp up tests up to 1.25 lakh aday in the government sector.

“We have expanded the criteria oftesting as much as we could. After start-ing from scratch three months back, thelast test we have done was 72,000 today.This is a significantly high number. Weare in a position to ramp up testing up to1.25 lakh a day,” he added.

The interaction was an initiative bythe state Health Department to explainthe technical aspects of the widely-de-bated COVID-19 testing.

A high-level team of the state led byHealth Minister K K Shailaja, HealthSecretary Rajan Khobragade, Dr B Ek-bal, who heads the expert panel that ad-vises the government on prevention ofthe coronavirus and National HealthMission state director, Dr Rathan UKelkar among others participated.

When asked about the certain test re-sults coming up with false negative or

positive, Ekbal said such results were“rare instances” of human error.

“We have conducted as many as over35,000 tests in Kerala. Only two or threewent wrong. That kind of an average ex-ists even in missions that are less press-ing,” he said.

Health Secretary Khobragade saidthe tests were being carried out in accor-dance with certain protocol.

“Any minute variation in the processinvolving swab collection, its transporta-tion and the manner of reception at thelab also may impact test,” he said, andexplained how efficiently the govern-ment facilitates the flow of communica-tion to the patient about the result of thetest for COVID-19.

Kerala on Saturday reported twopositive cases of coronavirus taking thetotal number of cases in the state to 499.

The state has till now cured 400 pa-tients but lost three. There are 96 peopleunder treatment in Kerala, as per the lat-est medical report.

India can ramp up Covid testsup to 1.25 lakh a day: ICMR

AGEN CYSURAT, MAY 2

Hundreds of migrants from Surat, Gu-jarat, who were on their way to UttarPradesh, were left stranded in transit de-spite necessary permissions, as UttarPradesh government is not allowing entryof their buses, Surat Police Commission-er RB Brahmbhatt said on Saturday.

He said Gujarat and Uttar Pradeshgovernments were in talks to resolve theconfusion caused by some “technical is-sues”. Some migrants were returning toSurat amidst the confusion, Brahmbhattadded.

“About 40-50 buses carrying mi-grants were on their way to UttarPradesh. They were provided passes fromSurat. However, the buses were laterstopped (due to the lack of permissionfrom the UP government), leading to con-fusion,” said Brahmbhatt.

“People are restless. Several busesare in transit in Madhya Pradesh, as UttarPradesh is not allowing them the entry,”

he said, adding that some buses had man-aged to enter Uttar Pradesh.

The Centre Government recently al-lowed movement of stranded labourers,tourists and students from one state to an-other with the permission of local author-ities amidst the nationwide Covid-en-forced lockdown, which has been ex-

tended till May 17.Up to Friday evening, about 50,000

people had left for Rajasthan, MadhyaPradesh and Odisha in about 4,000 vehi-cles, including buses, cars, tempo, trucksetc.

Meanwhile, Surat Collector DhavalPatel issued an order stating that no

checkposts would issue offline permits tovehicles leaving for other states. “Mi-grant labourers will have to seek onlinepermission only,” he added.

Patel said no permits would be issuedfor vehicles carrying migrant workers toUttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Ma-harashtra, Delhi, Assam and other north-

eastern states. Vehicles leaving for otherstates would have to register online athttp://www.digitalgujarat.gov.in andwww.digitalgujarat.gov.in for an onlinepermit, he said, adding “the migrants willhave to take a printout of the online per-mit as a valid pass for their vehicles.” Hesaid people leaving for other states wouldbe screened at three checkposts by med-ical teams for any COVID-19 symptomsbefore being allowed to leave the district.The Uttar Pradesh government has issuedadvertisements in Gujarati papers inwhich Chief Minister Yogi Adityanathhas appealed to workers from his state,living in Surat, to keep patience. “Effortsare being made to coordinate with allstate governments to ensure that all work-ers and youths from Uttar Pradesh aresafely transported to their homes. Wehumbly appeal to you to keep your pa-tience and stay wherever you are. Do notwalk back home. The Uttar Pradesh gov-ernment is making arrangement for yoursafe return in a phase-wise manner,”reads the advertisements.

‘Technical issues’ leave migrants stuckmidway between Gujarat and UP


The Railways has used the lockdown pe-riod for executing some complex andlong-pending maintenance works such asremodelling of the railway yard, and re-doing tracks fromwhere a train canswitch from a track toanother one. Severalbridges have been re-paired and the long-disused foot over-bridge at Ludhiana hasalso been removed.

In Ludhiana, the100-year-old twin footoverbridges were closedto passenger use since 2014. However, dis-mantling of the bridge, which had overheadelectric supply line running under it, meantthe closure of 10 to 12 hours for severaldays, which was not feasible on the NewDelhi- Amritsar route. Now, during thelockdown, the dismantling of these FOBshas been planned to complete traffic blocksof 8 to 10 hrs. Apart from ensuring supply

chains of all essential commodities runningthrough parcel trains and freight trains, theIndian Railways executed these long-pend-ing maintenance works during the lock-down period when passenger services weresuspended due to the COVID-19 pandem-ic, the Railways said in a statement. The In-

dian Railways focusedon several long-pendingoverdue maintenanceworks requiring trafficblock of long durations.These works were pend-ing for several years andwere posing as severebottlenecks. Indian Rail-ways planned theseworks during the lock-down period considering

it ‘once in a lifetime opportunity’ to wipeout these maintenance arrears and take upthe execution of work without affecting thetrain service. Around 500 modern heavy-duty track maintenance machines alongwith the track, signal and overhead equip-ment (OHE), maintainers have worked reg-ularly to complete overdue track mainte-nance of 12,270-km of the track.

Railways uses lockdownto remove bottlenecks

US President DonaldTrump said on Thurs-day his hard-fought

trade deal with China wasnow of secondary importanceto the coronavirus pandemicand he threatened new tariffson Beijing, as his administra-tion crafted retaliatory meas-ures over the outbreak.

Trump’s sharpened rhet-oric against China reflectedhis growing frustration withBeijing over the pandemic,which has cost tens of thou-sands of lives in the UnitedStates alone, sparked an eco-nomic contraction and threat-ened his chances of re-elec-tion in November.

Two US officials, speak-ing on condition of anonymi-ty, said a range of optionsagainst China were under dis-cussion, but cautioned thatefforts were in the earlystages. Recommendationshave not yet reached the lev-el of Trump’s top national se-curity team or the president,one official told Reuters.

“There is a discussion asto how hard to hit China andhow to calibrate it properly,”one of the sources said asWashington walks a tightropein its ties with Beijing whileit imports personal protectionequipment (PPE) from thereand is wary of harming a sen-sitive trade deal. Trump madeclear, however, that his con-cerns about China’s role inthe origin and spread of the

coronavirus were taking pri-ority for now over his effortsto build on an initial tradeagreement with Beijing thatlong dominated his dealingswith the world’s second-largest economy. “We signeda trade deal where they’resupposed to buy, and they’vebeen buying a lot, actually.But that now becomes sec-ondary to what took placewith the virus,” Trump toldreporters.

“The virus situation isjust not acceptable.” TheWashington Post, citing twopeople with knowledge of in-ternal discussions, reportedon Thursday that some offi-cials had discussed the ideaof canceling some of themassive U.S. debt held byChina as a way to strike atBeijing for perceived short-falls in its candidness on theCovid-19 pandemic.

Trump’s top economicadviser denied the report.

“The full faith and credit ofUS debt obligations is sacro-sanct. Period. Full stop,”White House economic ad-viser Larry Kudlow toldReuters.

Asked whether he wouldconsider having the UnitedStates stop payment of itsdebt obligations as a way topunish Beijing, Trump said:“Well, I can do it differently.I can do the same thing, buteven for more money, just byputting on tariffs. So, I don’thave to do that.”

Seeking to quell a dam-aging trade war, Trumpsigned a first phase of amultibillion-dollar trade dealwith China in January thatcut some U.S. tariffs on Chi-nese goods in exchange forChinese pledges to purchasemore American farm, energyand manufactured goods andaddress some U.S. com-plaints about intellectualproperty practices.

Editorial

Donald Trump threatens newtariffs on China as US mulls

retaliatory action over coronavirus India’s migrant workerscan now go home in busesinstead of having to walk

hundreds of kilometres underthe scorching sun while dodg-ing police barricades and risk-ing death.

How prepared is rural In-dia for their homecoming?No one really knows. In thecoming days, much of thehealth and economic actionwill have to move to rural In-dia. The National Institute ofRural Development and Pan-chayati Raj is launching anawareness initiative to helpgram panchayats across thecountry deal better with theCovid-19 outbreak.

But in the minds of the re-turning migrants and their rel-atives, the risk of Covid-19infection pales in comparisonwith lack of money and liveli-hood options back home. Itwas perfectly natural for mi-grant workers to want to gohome when they lost theirjobs in the cities in one fellswoop. Now they may actual-ly get home, what do they dofor a living?

The winter rabi harvesthas been affected by untimelyrain and the lockdown thatkept the migrant workersfrom getting home when theyshould have.

At best, the returning mi-grants can help get to marketwhatever their wives andaged parents and childrenhave managed to harvest. Buteven that will not be easy inthe absence of transport de-

spite delayed directives by thehome ministry. Most migrantswho are headed home have nomoney. What little they hadby way of savings is over.Right now, they cannot evenbuy seeds and fertilisers forthe main kharif crop of theyear. They desperately needremunerative work.

There is a lot of talk aboutwork being given to the re-turning migrant workers un-der the Mahatma Gandhi Na-tional Rural EmploymentGuarantee Act But the groundreality is not encouraging.

The Centre gave its nodfor MGNREGA workers totake up jobs from April 20.By April 30, just over 30 lakh

people were provided workunder MGNREGA, accord-ing to official data. In somestates, MGNREGA work hasnot even started.

Two-thirds of India’s 1.38billion population is rural,spread over about 650,000villages.

Hunger already stalks vil-lages. Many civil society lu-minaries like Jean Drèze havesuggested that the Centre uni-versalise the food public dis-tribution system (PDS) acrossthe country for the next fewmonths. Universal PDS isfeasible, they say, becausethere are enough foodgrainstocks. An added complica-tion is that all states are af-

fected, but not equally so.“There is no work,” says

Marianus Tirki, a communityactivist in Jhakra in Jhark-hand’s Simdega district ––one of the most backwardpockets in the country. “Ihave received the salary forMarch. but I don’t know whatwill happen in future.”

It is imperative for Cen-tral and state governments toplan long-term, but there is noevidence they are doing so.Right now, all the talk isabout the logistics of gettingthe migrant workers home.The cacophony on that doesnot augur well for long-termplanning. The Centre wantsstate governments to run spe-

cial “sanitised” bus servicesto get migrant workers backto their home states. Manystates want special trains in-stead.

The Centre has quite cor-rectly said everyone must bescreened for Covid-19 infec-tion before they board thebuses and when they getdown. Its directive that all buspassengers should quarantinethemselves at home for a fort-night is unexceptionable, as isits directive that anyone get-ting off a bus and showingCovid-19 symptoms shouldbe in institutional quarantine.But several states like UttarPradesh, Odisha, Rajasthan,Bihar and Jharkhand alreadyhave plans to not only bringthe migrant workers back butalso to set up quarantine facil-ities. Other states are firmingup blueprints.

But not all are on thesame page. The experiencewith migrant workers whodid manage to return over thelast month shows very un-even application of homequarantine.

This cannot really bedone just by policing. There isan urgent need for every stategovernment to clearly explainto every section of the popu-lation how the Covid-19 virusspreads and what needs to bedone.

Despite blanket mediacoverage of the pandemic,there is serious lack of under-standing among large sec-tions of the population.

4I AM NOT ADVOCATING BEEF EATING.BUT I AM ADVOCATING FREEDOM TO

HAVE AN OPINION AND A VOICE.

RISHI KAPOOR

IT WAS A STROKE OF LUCK WHEN I WORKED IN'AGNEEPATH.' IT WAS A GREAT ROLE, SOME-

THING DIFFERENT FOR ME.

RISHI KAPOOR

STARS TALKSSeemaa Singh, Vedic as-

trologer known for heraccurate predictions of

winning BJP minister KirronKher, as well winning of Punjab

elections byCongress. Shehas many lec-tures on astrol-ogy in Indiaand Abroad.

ARIES :- Asalways, honesty is the best pol-icy, even though Mars' ener-getic movements may encour-age you to cut corners.

Lucky Color :- PurpleLucky No :-2

TAURUS :- The Sun, Mercuryand Venus are powerful alliesand I honestly doubt if there isanyone who can get the better

of you. Lucky Color :- White

Lucky No :-1GEMINI :- You must realizethat fear of failure is frequentlythe result of disapproval fromparents or teachers whenyou were young.

Lucky Color :-Green

Lucky No :-4CANCER :- Agroup of planetspressuring the so-cial areas of yourhoroscope suggestthat one way or anoth-er suggest that one wayor another you are about to besurprised.

Lucky Color :- WhiteLucky No :-6

Leo :- There is much that you

can do to put other people intheir place, especially at work.

Lucky Color :- GoldLucky No :-8

VIRGO :- Lightning neverstrikes twice in the

same place, or sothey say.

Lucky Color:- Green

Lucky No:- 5

LIBRA :-In domesticmatters you

should nowbe devoting all

your time and en-ergy to what is new, ex-

perimental and difficulties. Trust your own instincts and

don't be slow to look your ownexperience for inspiration.

Lucky Color :- PinkLucky No :-7

SCORPIO :- The burningquestion now is how you canmake the most of partners'clearly favourable attitudes andgood fortune without throwingyour own proposals away.

Lucky Nov:- HazelLucky Color :-9

SAGITTARIUS :- Whentranspires now must not induceyou to permit those who are lessgifted, talented or experiencedthan you to dominate yourprogress.

Lucky Color :- YellowLucky No :-3

CAPRICORN :- Now that anumber of planets have changeddirection, you may begin to feelas if you are fighting an uphillbattle and may not be sure who

to turn to. Lucky Color :- Black

Lucky No :-8AQUARIUS :- Be positiveand face awkward situationshead -on.

Only when grumbles and dis-content at home have been dealtwill you be free to make much-needed improvements.

Lucky Color :- RedLucky No :-1

PISCES :- You are not undertoo much planetary pressure atthe present time, although itdoes seem likely that, as emo-tional tensions build up over thenext few days, you will bedrawn into an arguments ofsorts.

Lucky Color :-BlueLucky No :- 7

The migrants homecomingstory, watch in months ahead

Biden’s VP audition process kicks offGovernor Gretchen

Whitmer wore a T-shirt on television

emblazoned with the words“that woman from Michi-gan,” a cheeky reference toPresident Donald Trump’sdismissal of her. MinnesotaSenator Amy Klobucharjoined her onetime neme-sis, Pete Buttigieg, for afriendly virtual chat on alate-night show. AndStacey Abrams speaks ofher political ambition to al-most anyone who will lis-ten.

The audition to becomethe next vice president hasbegun. And while the Coro-navirus has upended virtu-ally every aspect of Ameri-can life, there’s one con-

stant: The veepstakes com-petition that unfolds everyfour years is one of themost unpredictable, oftenawkward, rituals of poli-tics.

That’s especially truethis time as the pandemichas overtaken the presiden-tial campaign, forcingthose thought to be in therunning for the No. 2 spotto be even more creative ingetting noticed.

Presumptive Democrat-ic nominee Joe Biden be-gan the process of selectinga running mate in earneston Thursday by announcinga committee to vet poten-tial candidates. The panel’swork will likely lastthrough July, he said,

meaning months in whichsome candidates will ap-pear up one day only tofade and potentially be re-placed with someone whoisn’t on anyone’s radar thenext.

Scott Reed, who man-aged Bob Dole’s 1996 pres-idential campaign, said thesearch for a running mateoften takes twists and turnsbecause it’s one of the fewthings a nominee can con-trol after a primary spentlargely reacting to sur-rounding political forces.

He said reverberationsfrom the choice can last foryears. “This is the first timein the campaign that thecandidate is back in chargeof something,” he said.

It was the last day of whathas been a truly terriblemonth in more ways than

one. We lost two stupendousactors in under 48 hours: firstto go was Irrfan Khan (53).Then came the news early onThursday morning about Rishi(Chintu) Kapoor (67) suc-cumbing. Both died of cancer,despite getting the best possi-ble international treatment –Irrfan Khan in London andRishi Kapoor in New York.The battles fought by the twomen were well documentedand it was indeed their respec-tive courageous decision toshare details of their fightagainst the Big-C with theirmillions of fans across theworld, that provided responsi-ble information in place ofugly rumours.

An earlier generation ofmovie stars would have keptsuch news under wraps. Eventhough a decade separatedthese two actors, their remark-able spirit was the same. Tillthe very end, they “enter-tained” their admirers, RishiKapoor through his wildlypopular, often acerbic, entirelypolitically incorrect tweets,and Irrfan through regularblogs which provided philo-sophical insights and accurateupdates about his treatment.During the initial phase, RishiKapoor’s family chose to bediscreet, when he left abruptlyfor America. Their statementsaid he had gone there for

“further investigations”. Theirneed for privacy was respectedby all and India prayed for hisspeedy recovery. It was a littledifferent in Irrfan’s case. Themoment his diagnosis came in,he shared the dire news open-ly with fans, without conceal-ing any medical details aboutthe rare neuroendocrinal tu-mor lodged in his brain. In away, that bold declaration pre-pared everybody to expect theworst. It was only when hecame back to India to bravelycomplete his last film -- An-grezi Medium -- that hopeswent up and fans assumed hewas on his way to full recov-

ery.In Rishi Kapoor’s case, his

long absence (two years) be-came less painful when hisdoting wife Neetu started post-ing jaunty images of their rent-ed apartment in New York,with her hosting Bollywoodcolleagues who were visitingthe Big Apple. It was terrific tosee the film fraternity standingby and making it a point to goacross and cheer up the much-loved star as he recuperated.Kapoor’s medical updateswere not as precise as thoseposted by Irrfan, but the happypics of the Kapoor clan eatingat posh restaurants in Manhat-

tan (Rishi, like all theKapoors, was a diehard food-ie), brought a smile to manyfaces. And when Alia Bhatt(who is dating RanbirKapoor), was also pho-tographed with the family, thehappy parivar picture complet-ed the story and in a waysealed the romance. Once boththe stars (Irrfan and Rishi)came back to Mumbai, thefilm industry made much ofthem – and deservedly so. Notonly because the two of themhad earned the respect of theiraudiences over the years(close to 50, in Rishi’s case),through performances that

were consistently top-notch,but their personal equationswithin the film fraternity werevery strong. This is a greattribute to their individualityand immense goodwill, in anindustry that is defined byjealousy, insecurity and com-petitiveness.

Both stars were taken bycancer. And here’s my humbleargument, while extendingheartfelt sympathy to theirgrieving families. I just wantall of us to understand thatright here in India, we haveworld-class oncologists andthe highly prestigious TataMemorial Hospital sees pa-tients from across the globewho come with enormoushope in their hearts to avail ofthe best cancer treatment pos-sible. Some would say whatour doctors offer cancer pa-tients is not just comparablebut often far superior to thetreatment offered at cancer fa-cilities overseas. I have beenassociated with two prominentcancer care associations forover 30 years. Though I haveyet to visit the Devi PrasadShetty: Narayana MedicalCentre in Bengaluru, I havemet patients who have trav-elled across continents to re-ceive expert and very kindtreatment there. Most of thesesuccess stories are so heart-warming! Particularly thoseinvolving senior citizens whohave responded wonderfullywell to the more personalised

approach in our hospitals afterother international clinics havegiven up on them and packedthem home to die. Despondentand resigned to their fate, la-belled as terminal cases whoare unlikely to pull through,they go to desi hospitals as thelast resort. And survive! Whatif they had gone there to startwith? It is these stories weneed to project to convincesome of our high-profile,celebrity cancer patients.Those who take the first flightout, believing they stand a bet-ter chance in foreign hospitals.This is not always true! Somewealthy and fortunate familiescan afford to pay the astro-nomical costs involved intreating their loved ones at re-puted global hospitals. Tothem I would say -- please dosee the remarkable work beingdone by our superb surgeonsright here in India. Have faithin their competence and skills.Give yourself the chance ofbeing looked after by yourown. See the difference itmakes to your morale whenyou are treated like more thanjust a number on a bed. Unlikeforeign doctors who strictlyadhere to protocol, since theyare so afraid of facing mal-practice suits if things don’twork out, our doctors are farmore sensitive and think out ofthe box, often going beyondthe rulebook, beyond the callof duty, to reassure patientsand their anxious families.

Farewell, Rishi & Irrfan, twoicons India will saluteThe government’s decision on Friday to extend the na-

tional lockdown for a second term of two weeks fromMay 4 must be seen as a statement that India has entered

a decisive stage in the fight against coronavirus and that thenation can look forward to a day when it opens itself up to nor-mal life and activity. The latest announcement that comes witha comprehensive package, including a fresh set of guidelinesto categorise districts as red, orange and green based on casesof Covid-19, doubling rate, extent of testing and surveillancefeedback, offers the first signs. The 130 red districts, which in-clude almost all the metropolitan cities, will continue to be onlockdown while there will be phased relaxations in the 284districts of the orange and 319 of the green zones. The gov-ernment has also decided to run special non-stop trains thatwill carry home the lakhs of migrant labourers who have beentrapped at their places of work thousands of kilometres awayfrom their villages. The six Shramik special trains started serv-ice on Friday, the day of the announcement, with the promisethat the fleet will be expanded if the experiment is found suc-cessful.

There has been general agreement that the lockdown, a de-bilitating but unavoidable measure, has paid dividends. Thespread of infection has refused to follow the pattern manyworst-affected nations took, though there are still apprehen-sions about the rate of testing. The rising rate of recovery,which today stands at 25 per cent, is another reassuring pieceof data. The government has reminded states to focus on thework left incomplete in the red zones by initiating necessaryaction for containment so as to break the chain of transmissionof the virus. It is now evident that the Union government hasa definite gameplan against the virus and that it will assumethe role of the key strategist and coordinator, which is the rightway forward. One sore point in India’s battle against the pan-demic is its neglect of the real poor. The government had an-nounced relief for them in the form of grains, pulses and cashbut reports from various parts of the country say only a tinyfraction of the intended people have received the aid. The an-nouncement of lockdown gave millions of people no time toget prepared for the ordeal; they were fully at the mercy of thegovernment. The failure on the part of the government to reachout to them is unacceptable. Even the latest package easing re-strictions does not address them. True, the government has tofocus on the containment of the virus, but it cannot be done atthe cost of human lives, which should be at the centre of itsscheme of things. The government must immediately take cor-rective action and ensure that the benefits it had announcedreach the needy with no time to spare. Containment strategiesand long-haul lockdowns will make sense only if they are ableto help save humans from misery, inflicted not only by a virusbut also by hunger.

There’s a gameplan, butpoor not counted


NEWS AT AGLANCE

UP Cabinet Minister’s Facebook accounthackedPRATAPGARH: A case was registered against unidentified persons forallegedly hacking the Facebook account of Uttar Pradesh CabinetMinister Moti Singh, police said on Saturday. “After hacking the Facebookaccount of Moti Singh, the hackers sought Rs 25,000 from two personsciting illness of the Minister’s sister,” Station House Officer Surendra Nathsaid. A complaint was filed with the police by an aide of the Ministerabout the matter, following which a case was registered under variousSections of the IPC and the IT Act against the unidentified persons, hesaid.

AAP's Karol BaghMLA Vishesh Ravitests coronaviruspositiveNEW DELHI: Member of LegislativeAssembly from Karol Bagh, VisheshRavi has tested positive for COVID-19,the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) MLAinformed on Saturday. Ravi, who is thethird-time MLA from the party, wrote onTwitter, “I had fever from last one ortwo days, as per doctor’s advice I wentfor COVID-19 test. The report onFriday said I have tested positive.”“With god’s blessings, the health isfine but due to mild symptoms I havehome quarantined myself,” Raviadded. In recently conducted Delhielections, Ravi won against BJP’sYogender Chandoliya from Karol Baghby a margin of 31,760 votes. In 2014Assembly elections Ravi won from thesame constituency with a margin of32,880.

2 cops probingTablighi Jamaat casetest Covid-19 positiveNEW DELHI: Two policemen of DelhiPolice crime branch associated withthe probe into the allegations ofnegligence by the members of TablighiJamaat and its chief Maulana Saadhave tested positive for thecoronavirus (COVID-19). A member ofthe crime branch provided thisinformation to IANS on Friday on thecondition of anonymity. According topolice sources, the two policementested positive for the virus two-threedays ago. Following this, at least 10-12 other policemen have also beenkept in home-quarantine.20 people from Nanded's GurdwaraLangar Sahib test COVID-19 positive

122 men from singleCRPF battalion inDelhi test coronaviruspositiveNEW DELHI: The number of COVID-19 personnel in a Delhi-basedbattalion of the Central Reserve PoliceForce, the country's largestparamilitary, has risen to 122, officialssaid on Saturday. The men belong tothe 31st battalion of the paramilitary,based in Mayur Vihar Phase-III area ofthe national capital, that has beenentirely sealed after the huge numbersof the COVID-19 infection startedbuilding up over the last few days. "Atotal of 122 troopers of this battalionhave tested positive for the virus.Results for over 100 more areawaited," a senior official said. Thebrighter side is that the maximum ofthese infected troopers areasymptomatic, he said. The personnelare admitted to an isolation facility ofthe Delhi government at Mandoli.Twelve troopers had tested positive onFriday and a 55-year-old Sub-Inspector of this unit had succumbedto the disease earlier this week. Thesehuge numbers in a single battalion (ofover 1,000 troopers) has rung alarmbells in the establishment after it wasfound that "dichotomous" orders wereissued to check the spread of COVID-19. While the general order in theforce was a mandatory quarantine of14 days for personnel joining back theunit from leave or having suspectedexposure to a coronavirus-infectedperson, CRPF officers said it recentlycame to light that the medical wing ofthe paramilitary issued a separateorder in April stating that doctors andparamedics can be taken off thequarantine if they do not show anysymptom after five days. Officials haveindicated that the primary source ofthe COVID-19 infection in this unitcould be a constable (nursingassistant) who joined this battalionafter finishing his leave period at hishome in the NCR. The jawan is postedin another CRPF battalion deployed inKupwara of Jammu-Kashmir and it isnot clear as to how he contracted theinfection. The family members of thisjawan had also tested negative. Itcould be possible that some otherasymptomatic personnel from the 31stbattalion was the primary source ofinfection for the unit, they said. Theforce is investigating all these anglesapart from an instance where it wasclaimed that the nursing attendant wasnot kept under strict quarantine in thebattalion camp leading to the spread ofthe infection.

Owing to weather,sugar production,sale goes downNEW DELHI: The sugar production inthe country is less this year largelydue to weather conditions, firstdrought and then floods, in two majorcane producing states Maharashtraand Karnataka. While the Covid-19lockdown does not appear to havehad much effect on processing bymills, the offtake/bulk buying bymanufacturers of ice creams, juicesand beverages is down. The IndianSugar Mills Association (ISMA)expects the sales and also the exportto pick up as soon as the lockdown isover. Sugar mills across the countryproduced 258.01 lakh tonnes of sugarbetween October 1, 2019 and April30, 2020, which is 63.70 lakh tonnes(LT) less than 321.71 LT produced inthe same period last year. Ascompared to 90 sugar mills whichwere crushing sugarcane on April 302019, 112 sugar mills were crushingsugarcane on April 30 this year, saysthe ISMA. India’s annual consumptionis around 260 LT but there are plentyof stocks available so that’s not reallyan issue, it adds.


Apps don face masks to promote healthy practices amid COVID-19These brands are also inviting more companies to join the initiative

NEW DELHI, MAY 2

Internet companies like UrbanCompany, MakeMyTrip,Dunzo, HealthifyMe andZomato are changing theirsocial media handles and appicons to promote wearing facemasks as a hygiene practiceamid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Apna Mask initiative—aneffort by StartUpVsCOVID (astartup community with over1,000 members)—is promotinghomemade masks and aims todrive behavioural change toensure that people wear masksand stay protected as they stepout of their homes.

The #ApnaDeshApnaMaskcampaign was kicked off bystartup industry stalwarts likeRajan Anandan of Sequoia

India, Paytm's Vijay ShekharSharma, Alok Mittal (Indifi),Vishal Gondal (GoQii) andothers. They were later joinedby celebrities like Vidya Balan,

Dia Mirza, Juhi Chawla, DivyaKhosla Kumar, Juhi Parmar,Deepshika Deshmukh, SonuSood, Shama Sikander, PreetikaRao and others.

Within a span of two weeks,the initiative has garnered 100million outreach across digitalplatforms, including WhatsApp,Twitter, Facebook andInstagram.

The team working on thecampaign also reached out tovarious organisations to supportthe initiative, especially as partsof the country get ready to comeout of the lockdown which hasbeen extended till May 17.

"Urban Company,MakemyTrip, Dunzo,HealthifyMe, Zomato, Redbus,Ixigo, MoneyTap, MyUpchaar,Bounce, RazorPay, Medanta,WittyFeed, LBB, Porter, Meesho,Daily Hunt, 1mg, Paytm Gameshave changed their social mediahandles while some are changingthe app icons as well," a statement

said.These brands are also inviting

more companies to join theinitiative.

"Given the immense responsewe have received, we will havemore brands join #ApnaMask inthis critical initiative. We believesome of these steps will behelpful in building habit-changing behaviour towardswearing homemade masks,"Poonam Kaul, co-founder ofApnaMask, said.

In a separate statement,Crowdera—an online fundraisingplatform—said it is offering itspremium syndicated fundraisingtechnology solutions for free tocompanies and NGOs workingto help the COVID-19 affectedindividuals, families and healthworkers.

"Crowdera will beextending its support throughoffering its products andservices worth almost USD150,000 (Rs 1 crore) free toorganisations aiding theaffected...The solution will helpcorporations and NGOs toquickly syndicate with theirown employees, influencers,other foundations, or charitypartners to raise funds 10Xmore than through a regularcrowdfunding campaign," itsaid.

Under this pledge,Crowdera has already extendedits support to companies likeRapido, Repos, BYJU'S,SirfTaxi, and Tartl to engagetheir employees and partners infundraising for the COVID-affected workforce.

Labourers stuck in Mandi,Kullu seek govt help

MANDI, MAY 2

A large number of labourersstuck in Mandi and Kulludistricts due to the ongoinglockdown are desperate tomove towards theirrespective destinations.

The condition oflabourers is quite pitiable asthey neither have money northe food to survive the crisis.Though the districtadministration is providingration to needy, it isinsufficient as per thestranded labourers.

According to officialsources, there are 30,000labourers from other states inMandi district, while another

13,000 are in Kullu district.Many of them have beenworking here as constructionworkers and domestic help.But after COVID-19outbreak in India, they losttheir source of earning.

A few works have beenstarted in Mandi and Kulludistricts by the districtadministration to provide anearning source to theselabourers, but they are intenton going back to theirrespective homes.

A majority of thelabourers is from Bihar andUttar Pradesh and they saythat harvesting season isgoing in their native placesand they want to return to

their lands to harvest thecrop.

Nakshe Ali a native ofMoradabad in Uttar Pradeshsaid, “I have been working inMandi district as a migrantlabourer along with 12 otherpeople from my place.Harvesting of crops hasbegun in Moradabad so wewant to move to ourrespective destinations.”

“Private taxi operatorsare demanding Rs 25,000 tocarry us to Moradabad,which quite difficult for us topay. We have no money topurchase food, how can wepay such a huge amount toreach our destinations,” Aliadded.

Armed forces make preparations to say'thank you' to 'corona warriors' on SundayNEW DELHI, MAY 2

The armed forces have madeelaborate arrangements to conductaerial fly-pasts, light up ships at seaand shower flower petals on severalhospitals across the country onSunday to express gratitude to lakhsof doctors, paramedics, sanitationstaff and other front-line workersengaged in fighting the coronaviruspandemic.

Chief of Defence Staff GenBipin Rawat on Friday announcedthat the three services will carry outa series of activities to thank the"corona warriors".

The thanks-giving activities willstart with laying of wreaths at thepolice memorial in Delhi and inseveral other cities on Sundaymorning to honour the policepersonnel deployed in theenforcement of the nationwidelockdown, officials said.

It will be followed by fly-pastsby fighter and transport aircraft ofthe Indian Air Force, covering asizeable number of cities and townsacross the country between 10 AMto 11 AM, officials said.

"These aircraft will cover majortowns starting from Srinagar toThiruvananthapuram and Dibrugarhto Kutch. Helicopters from the IAFand Indian Navy will fly overhospitals treating coronaviruspatients and shower petals as atribute to the corona warriors," ArmySpokesperson Col Aman Anandsaid.

He said some of the aircraft will

be flown as low as 500 metres sothat people can witness the fly-pastsfrom the safety of their homes.Military bands will play "patriotictunes" outside various civil hospitalstreating coronavirus patients toexpress gratitude to doctors, nursesand paramedics, he said. Separately,Indian Navy helicopters wouldshower petals on hospitals treatingcoronavirus patients at Mumbai,Goa, Kochi and Vizag between 10AM to 10:30 AM.

Navy officials said the WesternNaval Command will illuminate fivenaval ships from 7:30 PM to 11:59PM off Gateway of India inMumbai.

They would display banners like"India Salutes Corona Warriors" andwill sound the siren of the ships andfire flares at 7:30 PM at anchorage.Additionally, the Naval air stationsat Goa would organise a human

chain on the runway to honour the'corona warriors'.

The Eastern Naval Commandwill illuminate two ships atanchorage from 7:30 pm to midnightat Visakhapatnam coast.

Anand said Indian Coast Guardships will be seen at 24 placesincluding in Porbandar, Okha,Ratnagiri, Dahanu, Murud, Goa,New Mangalore, Kavarati, Karaikal,Chennai, Krishnapatnam,Nizamapatanam, Puducherry,Kakinada, Paradip, Sagar Island,Port Blair, Diglipur, Mayabundur,Hut bay and Campbel Bay.

"The nation stood together andshowed resilience in dealing withthe coronavirus pandemic. On behalfof armed forces, we want to thank allthe corona warriors -- doctors,nurses, sanitation workers, police,home guards, delivery boys andmedia," Gen Rawat said on Friday.

Coronavirus lockdown is an exam wehave to pass: Vice President Naidu

NEW DELHI, MAY 2

The "pressing need" totrigger resumption ofeconomic activities has beenaddressed in 'lockdown 3.0'in a manner that fits with theprevailing situation on theground, Vice President MVenkaiah Naidu said onSaturday.

He also said theannouncement of extensionof coronavirus-inducedlockdown by two moreweeks from May 4, withattendant relaxations drivenby economic concerns,"marks a landmark" in thenation's collective fightagainst COVID-19. "In myview, this decision puts the

onus of taking forward thefight against the virus morein the hands of stakeholders,including the people, stategovernments and concernedagencies, commercial andindustrial establishments,"Naidu said in a Facebookpost. The way all of usconduct during lockdown3.0, Naidu opined, will laythe ground for further courseof action aimed at returning

to total pre-corona normalcy."This window of two

weeks will decide the timeframe for it. This is a kind ofpreliminary examination andas a nation, we need to passin it. I have reasons to believethat we would, as we don'thave the option to fail," theVice President asserted.

So far, the Centralgovernment has been at theforefront of formulating thebattle strategy in consultationwith the states with focus onlives of the people, saidNaidu. "It has yieldedpositive results...," he said.

The modalities of'lockdown 3.0', Naidu said,were a clearacknowledgment of the need

to balance the twin concernsof lives and livelihoods bykick-starting the economy.

"The pressing need totrigger resumption ofeconomic activities has beenaddressed in a manner thatfits with the prevailingsituation on the ground,"wrote the Vice President.

The green zones to alarge extent and the orangezones to some degree shouldhopefully witness the start ofmuch needed economicrevival. This is where thepeople, state governmentsand other concernedstakeholders should put theirbest foot forward whileseizing the opportunity, heopined.

Pilgrims from Uttarakhand can visitKedarnath from May 4: CM

DEHRADUN, MAY 2

Pilgrims from Uttarakhand can visitKedarnath and other Himalayantemples in the state from May 4,Chief Minister Trivendra SinghRawat said on Saturday.

As inter-district movement ofpeople is being allowed with certainrestrictions from May 4, especiallyin districts which fall in the greenzone, pilgrims from the state canvisit Kedarnath, said Rawat.

However, the Chief Ministerappealed to the people to maintain

social distancing while payingobeisance at the temples as theirsafety is of utmost importance. Theportals of Kedarnath were opened onApril 29 in the absence of pilgrimsdue to the extended lockdown.Asked when devotees from outsideUttarakhand will be allowed to visitthe shrines in the hill state, Rawatsaid the COVID-19 situation was aroadblock and his government waswaiting for things to normalise."After the Kedarnath tragedy in2013, a similar mood of despairgripped people but we overcame it

and the yatra was put back on track.I am confident corona will bedefeated in the end and the usualglow will return to the temples," saidRawat. All the three districts inGarhwal region where the fourHimalayan shrines, also known aschardham, are located fall in thegreen zone with not a singleCOVID-19 positive case reportedfrom there as yet. While Gangotriand Yamunotri temples are locatedin Uttarkashi district, Kedarnath issituated in Rudraprayag district andBadrinath in Chamoli district.

Dream holiday to J&K turns intonightmare for West Bengal family

JAMMU, MAY 2

A 14-member group from West Bengal,on a trip to Jammu and Kashmir, hasbeen stuck at a hotel here for over amonth now due to the lockdown and aresurviving on contributions from locals,police and NGOs after running out ofmoney. The group, comprisingmembers of an extended family,including six women and four children,reached Jammu on its maiden trip to theunion territory on March 15 and werescheduled to return by train on March30. But hopes of a memorable holidayquickly turned into a nightmare whenthe Central government put the countryunder lockdown on March 25 to containthe spread of COVID-19. Resourcesexhausted, the group now desperatelywants to be evacuated at the earliest."The announcement by the Centre toallow movement of stranded personscame as a big relief for us. We have

been stranded here for a long time nowand need to be evacuated to our homeswithout any further delay," said ArijitDas (48), a resident of NabapallyBarasat in North 24 Parganas. Das, aprivate tutor, said two days have passedsince the government made theannouncement but "we do not knowhow to get shifted from here to ourhome state". He appreciated theresidents of Jammu for their hospitalityand philanthropic approach towardsthem. "They ensured that we stayalive!"

Accused held in Palghar lynchingcase tests COVID-19 positive

PALGHAR, MAY 2

One of the persons arrestedin connection with thePalghar lynching case, whowas lodged in a police lock-up, has tested coronaviruspositive, an official said onSaturday.

Police have so fararrested 115 persons,including nine minors, inconnection with the lynchingof three men, including twoseers, at Gadchinchale

village in Palghar last month.The accused tested

positive for the infection onFriday night, the official said.

“He was kept in a policelock-up at Wada in thedistrict along with 20 others.After testing positive, he wasadmitted to a governmenthospital in Palghar,” districtcivil surgeon Dr KanchanWanere said.

“Twenty others kept inlock-up with him have beenquarantined along with

around 23 police personnel,who came had come incontact with him,” she said.

The health department isnow trying to find out how hecontracted the infection,Wanere said.

According to sources, onApril 18, a test wasconducted on all the accusedarrested in the case till thento know whether they wereinfected. However, all ofthem had tested negative atthat time.

First special traincarrying nearly 1,200migrant labourersreaches PatnaPATNA: The first 'Shramik Special'train carrying 1,187 stranded migrantlabourers from Jaipur reached theDanapur railway station here onSaturday afternoon. The 24-coachtrain departed at 10 pm on Friday fromJaipur and reached the Danapurrailway station around 2 pm, saidRajesh Kumar, Chief Public RelationOfficer (CPRO), East Central Railway,Hajipur. Medical screening of all thepassengers will be carried out first forwhich 20 medical teams have beendeployed. "After medical examination,they will be served food and sent totheir respective districts by buses,"said Patna Divisional CommissionerSanjay Kumar Agarwal. Around 100buses have been stationed at theDanapur railway station for thepurpose, Agarwal added. The seatingarrangements in buses have beenmade keeping in mind socialdistancing norms. Buses will ply half oftheir seating capacity, Agarwal pointed.This is the first run of a special train toBihar to bring back migrants strandedduring the nationwide lockdown tocontain the coronavirus spread.

Shelve Central Vista, similarprojects and use money toimprove public health infra:Anand SharmaNEW DELHI: Senior Congress leaderAnand Sharma on Saturday urgedPrime Minister Narendra Modi toshelve the Central Vista project andthe proposed mega centralsecretariats in 17 state capitals, sayingit will be a “criminal waste” of publicmoney in times of a pandemic. Hesaid India should instead invest all thismoney in filling the “glaringshortcomings” in the public healthcaresystem. “Urging PM to shelve thewasteful Central Vista project andproposed mega central secretariats at17 state capitals. Spending over Rs25,000 crore on grand buildings at atime of unprecedented national crisiswill be a criminal waste of publicmoney,” he said on Twitter. The deputyleader of Congress in Rajya Sabhasaid the country faces a severeresource crunch and is acceptingloans from the World Bank and theAsian Development Bank. “Indianeeds hospitals and commit theresources there,” Sharma said. Notingthat all Indians are proud of the braveCOVID-19 warriors — doctors, healthcare workers and security personnel,he said the nation stands together tosalute them for their commitment toduty and courage. Sharma said thecoronavirus pandemic has exposedglaring shortcomings in India’s publichealth care system and a “flawed”insurance-linked private hospital over-dependence. “Shocking thatgovernment hospitals have only 30%beds whereas private hospitals have70% of ICU beds and 80% ofventilators,” he said. It is the less-equipped government hospitals thatcarry most the COVID patients’burden, though short of resources,equipment and PPE gear for healthworkers, he noted. “It is time for PM toreflect and revisit public healthcarepolicy. In UK, the robust NHS is savinglives including PM Boris Johnson. “India must urgently invest publicmoney in public healthcare and buildwell equipped public hospitals. Let thepandemic crisis become anopportunity for course correction. Thatwill be truly celebrating the coronawarriors,” he said in a series of tweets.His remarks came a day after thecentral government gave its go-aheadto the Central Vista project.

Jaipur’s 20-day-oldinfant one of theyoungest to die of CovidJAIPUR: Twenty-day-old male infant,the youngest coronavirus case in theworld, died at a hospital here onFriday. Two other patients died ofCOVID-19 in Jaipur and Jodhpursince Friday night taking the death tollin the state to 65. In the ongoingpandemic, Jamnagar in Gurjratreported the death of a 45-day-oldand a 42-day-old died in the US, DrAshok Gupta, renowned childspecialist and superintendent of JKLHospital, said on Saturday. The malechild (Shuban) of Jaipur was admittedin a critical condition to the hospital inthe wee hours of Friday withsymptoms of diarrhoea, vomiting,dehydration, and septicaemia. He wastaken to the Influenza Like IllnessCentre in the hospital where hesuccumbed to the illness at 9 am.Post-death test found him coronaviruspositive, Dr Gupta said. His mother isreported to be 'hale and hearty' afterdelivery in a local hospital. A 55-year-old man of Jaipur's Ramganj area,and 67-year-old man of Nagauri Gatein Jodhpur also died of the virus, astate medical bulletin said.

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Shamli district on path to become green zoneMUZAFFARNAGAR: The last one of 17 patients in Shamli district, Uttar Pradesh, was on Saturdaydeclared negative for the COVID-19 infection, an official said. Jasjit Kaur, Magistrate, Shamli district,said since outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, a total of 17 patients were found infected with thevirus, but all of them have been cured and discharged. The last patient was discharged onSataurday, she said, adding this had put the district on the path of turning into a green zone fromorange one. If no one was found infected in the district in the next 14 days, the district would becomea green zone, she added.

Lockdown has badly hit working class: MamataKOLKATA, MAY 2

West Bengal Chief MinisterMamata Banerjee said theongoing lockdown to combatthe COVID-19 pandemic hasbadly hit the working class.

She greeted all workersand their families on"international workers day"and said that all "have tostand shoulder to shoulderwith our brothers and sisters"during this tough times.

"On #InternationalWorkersDay, my humblegreetings to all workersaround the world & theirfamilies. The COVID-19pandemic and the subsequentlockdown have hit theworking class hard. We haveto stand shoulder to shoulderwith our brothers and

sisters," Banerjee tweeted .The chief minister referred tothe two new schemesannounced by hergovernment to help themigrant labourers and those

working in the unorganisedsector who are badly hit bythe lockdown. "To stand bythe working class during thelockdown, our Govt in#Bangla announced two new

schemes - 'Sneher Porosh'for migrant labourers, and'Prochesta' for workers in theunorganised sector, sheadded.

Under the 'SneherPorosh' scheme the WestBengal government isproviding Rs 1000 financialassistance to migrant workswho are stuck in differentparts of the country due tothe lockdown. The'Prochesta' scheme waslaunched to help dailyworkers who are affecteddue to the COVID-19 crisis.Under this scheme the stategovernment would give Rs1000 financial assistance todaily workers. May 1 iscelebrated as InternationalWorkers' Day or Labour Dayacross the world.

MUMBAI, MAY 2

The 60th foundation daycelebrations of the state ofMaharashtra were subdued due tothe coronavirus pandemicwithGovernorB S Koshyarihoisting the national flag at theRaj Bhavan here instead of ShivajiPark in central Mumbai, where theceremony is annually held.

The governor unfurled thetricolour at the Raj Bhavan thismorning, after which the nationalanthem was sung.

Officers and staff of the RajBhavan, personnel of the MumbaiPolice and the State ReservePolice Force (SRPF) were present.

No ceremonial parade washeld on the occasion.

In a separate ceremony held atthe Mantralaya, the statesecretariat, Chief Minister UddhavThackeray unfurled the nationalflag and garlanded the portraits of

Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, B RAmbedkar, Rajmata Jijabai.

Mumbai Mayor KishoriPednekar, state Chief SecretaryAjoy Mehta and others werepresent on the occasion.

Thackeray himself drove his

car from his residence 'Matoshree'in suburban Bandra and took astop at Hutatma Chowk beforeproceeding to Mantralaya.

He paid floral tributes at themartyrs' memorial at HutatmaChowk built in honour of the 105members of the SamyuktaMaharashtra Samiti, who lost theirlives while fighting for a separateMaharashtra state.

This is for the first time thatthe flag-hoisting functions on thestate's foundation day were held atShivaji Park and Mantralaya.

As per the general practice, thechief minister hoiststhe tricolourat Mantralaya on theIndependence Day, while thegovernor hoists the flag at RajBhavan in Pune on that day.Governor hoists the tricolor atShivaji Park on Republic Day andMaharashtra Day. The present-dayMaharashtra came into being onthis day in 1960.

Maha foundation day celebrationssubdued due to COVID-19

AGENCYAMARAVATI, MAY 2

More than 12,700 migrantsfrom across the country, whohad come to work in differentsectors in Andhra Pradesh,are ready to go back to theirnative states as therestrictions on movementduring the ongoingcoronavirus lockdown havebeen eased.

The Andhra Pradeshgovernment has set up aninter-state control room inVijayawada with a helplinenumber and appointed anodal officer to ensurehassle-free departure of the

migrant workers stranded inthe state, a senior official said. Also, it has written to ChiefSecretaries of all statesseeking necessary clearancesfor sending the migrant

workers back to theirrespective home states.

We have mapped 13,255migrants working in varioussectors in different districtsof AP. Of them, 12,794

expressed willingness toreturn to their home state andonly 461 wanted to stay back.

"Accordingly, we havewritten to the ChiefSecretaries for permission tofacilitate the migrantsjourney, state TransportPrincipal Secretary M TKrishna Babu said. Thegovernment would initiatefurther action based on theresponse from various states,he said. Of the total, as manyas 10,696 migrant workerswere lodged in government-run relief camps whileanother 2,098 in camps runby non-governmentalorganisations.

12,794 migrant workers in AP willing to return home

INDORE/BHOPAL, MAY 2

A large number of Kashmiristudents stranded in parts ofMadhya Pradesh due to thec o r o n a v i r u s - i n d u c e dlockdown have been waitingfor their safe return to thenative places. SeniorCongress leader DigvijayaSingh recently wrote a letterto Union Home MinisterAmit Shah, requesting him tomake necessaryarrangements for the nearly400 Kashmiri students stuckin Madhya Pradesh. Singhsaid that as Jammu andKashmir is under the centralrule, it is the Centre's duty tohelp the people from thatregion stranded in differentparts of the country. Anassistant professor at aprivate college in Indore,Javid Ahmad Mir, is runninga campaign for the return of

the students from Jammu andKashmir. "In Indore alone,nearly 55 students fromJammu and Kashmir havebeen stranded since over amonth due to the lockdown,"Mir told PTI. Apart fromcollege students and PhDscholars, an 80- year-oldwoman from Kashmir is alsostuck in Indore, he said. Inhis letter, Digvijaya Singh

said that 32 students fromJammu and Kashmir arestranded in Bhopal and 17others in Gwalior. He saidthey should be taken back toJammu and Kashmir andquarantined as per theprotocol. So far, 1,485COVID-19 positive patientshave been found in Indore, ofwhom 68 have died duringtreatment, officials have said.

Lockdown: Students from J&Kstuck in MP wait for return home

Mayawati urges Centre, states to protectlivelihood of labourers amid lockdown

NEW DELHI, MAY 2

On the occasion of Labour Day, BahujanSamaj Party (BSP) chief Mayawatiappealed to the Central and stategovernments to take steps to protect thelivelihood of poor labourers and takecognizance of companies arbitraryreducing salaries of employees amidlockdown. "The International LabourDay, which is celebrated as May Day bythe labourers and working-class everyyear, but due to the current Coronaepidemic and the lockdown, there is anunprecedented crisis of their livelihood.In such a situation, the role of the Centreand states as welfare government is veryimportant," Mayawati tweeted (translated

from Hindi). "Therefore, it is an appeal tothe Central and state governments to takemeaningful steps to protect the interestsof crores of poor labourers and families ofworking-class and also take cognizanceof the big private companies which arearbitrarily reducing the salary ofemployees for their profits," she said inanother tweet.

RJD organises symbolic protest in Biharto bring back migrant labourers

PATNA, MAY 2

Bihar RJD legislators andparliamentarians staged a symbolicprotest here on International Labour Dayto bring back stranded migrants.Earlier yesterday, CongressRajya Sabha MP from Bihar,Akhilesh Prasad Singh hadappealed to Prime MinisterNarendra Modi and UnionHome Minister Amit Shah toarrange trains for migrants fromBihar who are stranded acrossthe country. Speaking to a newsagency Singh had said, "In sucha difficult time, this is not amatter of the Union Governmentversus the State Government. TheDeputy CM of Bihar is saying that we donot have enough resources and trainsshould be sent for the stranded migrants.""I appeal to the PM and Union Home

Minister to arrange trains for Biharmigrants so that they can get back to theirnative places," he added. The MHA onWednesday issued fresh directivesallowing states to transport stranded

students, migrant labourers, tourists andpilgrims to their home states ordestination by strictly followingguidelines meant to contain the spread ofthe coronavirus in the country.

PM Modi holds meeting to discussways to boost agriculture sectorBringing appropriate reforms in the context of rapid agricultural development

NEW DELHI, MAY 2

Prime Minister Narendra Mod onSaturday held a meeting todeliberate on the issues andreforms required in theAgriculture sector

A special emphasis was givenon the reforms in agriculturemarketing, management ofmarketable surplus, access offarmers to institutional credit andfreeing agriculture sector ofvarious restrictions withappropriate backing of the statute,according to a statement by thePMO.

The use of technology in theagriculture sector is of paramountimportance as it has the potentialto unlock the entire value chainfor the benefit of our farmers.

The PM emphasised on thedissemination of technology untilthe last mile and making ourfarmers more competitive in theglobal value chain.

It was decided to furtherstrengthen the role of FPOs tobring vibrancy in the agrarianeconomy, transparency inagriculture trade and enablemaximum benefits to the farmers.

"Overall emphasis was onrevisiting the existing laws

governing market for better pricerealisation and freedom of choiceto the farmers", it said.

Officials said the focus was onmaking strategic interventions inthe existing marketing eco-systemand bringing appropriate reformsin the context of rapid agriculturaldevelopment.

Concessional credit flow to

strengthen agricultureinfrastructure, special KisanCredit Card saturation drive forPM-Kisan beneficiaries andfacilitating inter and intra-statetrade of agriculture produce toensure the fairest return to farmerwere some of the important areascovered.

"Developing e-NAM into a

platform of platforms to enable e-commerce was among importanttopics of discussion", they said.

The discussion also emanatedon the possibilities of the uniformstatutory framework in thecountry to facilitate new ways forfarming which will infuse capitaland technology in the agrarianeconomy.

The pros and cons ofbiotechnological developments incrops or enhancement ofproductivity and reduction ininput costs were also deliberated.

The challenges of model landleasing act and how to protect theinterest of small and marginalfarmers were discussed in detail.

It was also deliberated how itis pertinent to make EssentialCommodities Act compatible withpresent times so that large scaleprivate investment in post-production agricultureinfrastructure is incentivised andalso has a positive effect oncommodity derivative markets.

Developing Brand India,creation of commodity-specificBoards/ Councils and promotionof Agri-Clusters/Contract Farmingare some of the interventions thatwere deliberated to boostAgriculture commodity export.

COVID-19 PANDEMICParties should shun

communal politics & workfor economy: Shiv Sena

MUMBAI, MAY 2

Expressing deep concernover the long-term economicrepercussions of the COVID-19 crisis and the lockdown,the Shiv Sena, on Saturday,said all political partiesshould stop playingcommunal politics in futureand instead work towardsbringing the economy backon track.

The party said therecently talks held betweenCongress leader RahulGandhi and former RBIGovernor Raghuram Rajanover the impact of theCOVID-19 shows how gravethe crisis was for theeconomy. Time had nowcome to grow wiser, it added.

“Congress leader RahulGandhi held talks witheconomist Raghuram Rajanthrough a digital medium.Rajan said the governmentneeded to spend Rs 65,000crore to help the poor facinghardships due to the COVID-19 lockdown. He said theentire country will have toface the economicconsequences of thelockdown,” the Sena said.

“Rajan said thegovernment’s presentdefinition of the poor willchange after lockdown.Middle class and upper

middle class will alsobecome poor and startdemanding certificate ofeconomic backwardness.Even a developed nation likethe US is staring at a graveproblem of unemployment,”it added

“In the US, there issystem of unemploymentallowance, which Indiadoesn’t have. Rajan’sobservation is that 10 crorepeople in India will becomejobless, which is a matter ofconcern,” the party said.

Through their talks, onething became clear thatcontinuing lockdown forindefinte period will provecostly for the economy. Thegovernment would have towork beyond the set norms.Power and authority to takedecisions cannot remainlimited with only a couple ofpeople, the UddhavThackeray-led party said.

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Pregnant woman walks over 100kmBHUBANESWAR: In an unfortunate incident, a seven-month pregnant woman, along with 12 oth-er migrant workers and little children, walked over 100 km and reached Nuapada Railway stationon Friday morning en route her native place in Chhattisgarh. According to sources, these workers,residents of Haradi village under Pithora police limits in Mahasmund district of Chhattisgarh wereworking in Titlagarh of Odisha’s Bolangir district.

Due to lockdown, the agency they were working for stopped paying them. With no money, notransportation and no food, the migrant workers decided to return back to their village. On April 28,they started their journey and were forced to walk on their way home for over 100 km and on Fri-day morning they reached Nuapada railway station. Apart from the pregnant woman, the group hadfour minor children, all below 8 years of age, who also walked for miles.


The Ministry of Home Af-fairs on Friday allowed themovement of migrant work-ers, tourists, students and oth-er persons stranded at differ-ent places due to lockdown,by special trains to be operat-ed by the Ministry of Rail-ways.

The decision was takentwo days after the govern-ment approved their move-ment through buses to trans-port them from one state toanother.

The order came as the ex-tended lockdown is slated toend on May 3. These peopleare those who have beenstranded at various places indifferent states due to the on-going nationwide lockdownthat is in place to fight thecoronavirus pandemic sincethe beginning of the firstphase of restriction fromMarch 24 midnight. After theend of the first 21-day lock-down the restriction was ex-tended for another 19 days tillMay 3. Considering the prob-

lems being faced by thesestranded people, the HomeMinistry issued the ordermentioning that the Ministryof Railways will designatenodal officers for coordinat-ing with state and Union Ter-ritories (UTs) for the move-ment of the stranded people."As per the guidelines issuedby Ministry of Home Affairs,

it has been decided to run“Shramik Special" trainsfrom “Labour Day" today, tomove migrant workers, pil-grims, tourists, students andother persons stranded at dif-ferent places due to lockdown," the Indian Railwayssaid in a statement. Thesespecial trains will be run frompoint to point on the request

of both the concerned Statesovernments as per the stan-dard protocols for sendingand receiving such strandedpersons. The Railways andstate governments shall ap-point senior officials as nodalofficers for coordination andsmooth operation of these“Shramik Specials".The pas-sengers have to be screened

by the sending states and onlythose found asymptomaticwould be allowed to travel."State governments will haveto bring these persons inbatches that can be accom-modated in the train to thedesignated railway station insanitized buses following so-cial distancing norms andother precautions. It will bemandatory for every passen-ger to wear face cover. Mealsand drinking water would beprovided to the passengers bythe sending states at the orig-inating station," Railwayssaid further

The Railways will en-deavour to ensure social dis-tancing norms and hygienewith the cooperation of pas-sengers. On longer routes, theRailways will provide a mealenroute during the journey.

The order issued to allstates and the UTs as well asministries informs that theMinistry of Railways will is-sue detailed guidelines forsale of tickets and for socialdistancing and other safetymeasures to be observed atstations, platforms.

Shramik trains to therescue of migrants

May Day a low-keyaffair in lockeddown Bengal KOLKATA: The Left parties and thetrade unions in West Bengal observedthe historic May Day by askinglabourers via social media to takeprecautionary measures during theCOVID-19 induced lockdown, insteadof informing them of workers' rights inlarge meetings. Leaders of the LeftFront and trade unions underlined theneed for an economic package forboth the organised and unorganisedsector and urged the government toensure job security of workers oncethe lockdown is over. Due to thelockdown this year, neither the Leftparties nor the trade unions organizedany central rally in the heart of the city,which is held every year. "It is a low-key affair in Bengal this year. A fewworkers maintaining social distancingnorms and other precautionarymeasures organised flag hoistingprogrammes outside factories. We alsoaddressed the workers via FacebookLive," said Anadi Sahoo, statepresident of the CITU, the CPI (M)'strade union wing.Apart from the CPI(M), other Leftparties modestly observed the MayDay, taking help of the social media toaddress their supporters. West BengalLeft Front chairman Biman Boseparticipated in a flag hoistingprogramme at the CITU stateheadquarters. "Till the lockdown islifted, the central government shouldtransfer a considerable amount ofmoney to the account of labourers sothat they can survive.

NEW DELHI, MAY 2

Chief of Defence Staff(CDS) Gen Bipin Rawat saidon Friday at that in order toexpress gratitude towardsthose involved in fightagainst coronavirus, thearmed forces will undertake anumber of activities on Sun-day including flypast by In-dian Air Force aircraft, show-ering of petals on hospitalsfrom helicopters and displayof light by Navy ships amongothers.

Army will also conductmounted band displays alongsome of the Covid-19 hospi-tals in almost every district ofthe country.

In order to express soli-darity with police force, GenRawat said Indian Army willlay wreath at police memori-

als across the country on Sun-day morning.

“On behalf of defenceservices we have decided toexpress our gratitude to allthe corona warriors, everyperson involved to providesupport to the nation and itspeople to ensure all of us re-main safe and we are able toovercome this problem,” saidGen Rawat at a press confer-ence which was also attendedby chiefs of Army, Navy andAir Force.

This was the first jointpress conference by GenRawat along with three serv-ice chiefs after creation of thepost of CDS.

Indian Air Force willconduct flypast from Srinagarto Trivandrum and from Di-brugarh in Assam to Kutch inGujarat.

IAF flypast to saluteCorona warriors

on Sunday

Tens of thousands ofChinese PPE kits failIndia safety testNEW DELHI: India continues to see ashortfall in the availability of personalprotection equipment (PPE) forhealthcare even as the governmentsignificantly ramps up domesticproduction and some kits from Chinafailed quality tests. Many kits made inChina, the world’s main supplier, thatwere donated to the Indiangovernment, were found unusablebecause they failed safety checks, aperson aware of the matter told ET. Of170,000 PPE kits that arrived in Indiaon April 5, about 50,000 failed qualitytests. “Two small consignments with30,000 and 10,000 PPE kits, too, failedtests,” the person said. The kits weretested at the Defence Research &Development Organisation laboratoryin Gwalior. While government officialssaid they are procuringCE/FDAcertified PPE kits only, someconsignments received as donationsfailed the quality tests and cannot be used.

CBI custody ofWadhawan brothersextended till May 8 MUMBAI : A special court on Fridayextended the Central Bureau ofInvestigation (CBI) custody of KapilWadhawan and Dheeraj Wadhawan,promoters of Dewan Housing FinanceCorporation Limited (DHFL) arrested inconnection with the Yes Bank fraud, tillMay 8. The Wadhawan brothers havebeen in custody since April 26 afterthey were arrested by the centralagency from Mahabaleshwar.On Friday, the CBI officials, afterproducing the brothers before thecourt, sought an extension of custodyfor seven days saying they wanted toinvestigate the role of other directors ofDHFL and employees of Yes Bank tofind if any of them had received anykickbacks from the accused or ifmoney was laundered into any of theshell companies floated by theWadhawans. The agency alleged thatthere are more than 150 shellcompanies controlled by theWadhawans, which they want toexamine.

Uttarakhand: Coronaviruspositive woman dies atAIIMS Rishikesh

DEHRADUN : A COVID-19 positivewoman died at AIIMS, Rishikesh onFriday with the state health departmentin Dehradun attributing the death to"suddenly reduced blood flow to theheart". The 56-year-old woman fromNainital was admitted to AIIMS on April22 after suffering a brain stroke andhad tested positive for COVID-19 onApril 28, nodal officer for coronaviruscases at the facility Madhur Uniyalsaid. The state health department in abulletin in Dehradun said the deathwas not caused by a coronavirus."The woman died of ventriculartachycardia secondary to ACS (acutecoronary syndrome). In simple terms, itmeans suddenly reduced blood flow tothe heart," it said. After sufferingstroke, the woman was admitted to ahospital in Nainital and later shifted toa hospital in Bareilly, Uttar Pradesh.She was then referred to AIIMS,Rishikesh. Earlier in the day, Uniyalhad said that the woman died ofmultiple organ failure. When askedwhether the woman died of COVID-19,Uniyal did not give a direct reply sayingshe was also suffering from otherdiseases and several of her vitalorgans had stopped working beforeher death.

BHOPAL, MAY 2

In a significant move, theMadhya Pradesh govern-ment on Friday announcedto deregulate procurementof farm produce in thestate to ensure remunera-tive price to the peasantsof their products.

Announcing the deci-sion in a video conference,chief minister ShivrajSingh Chouhan said it hasbeen decided to amend theAgriculture Produce Mar-keting Committee(APMC) Act seeking towaive all restrictions onsale of farm produce byfarmers in the state.

Accordingly, the ex-isting mandatory provi-sion of sale of farm pro-duce by peasants in the lo-cal “mandis” (govern-mentcontrolled agricul-ture markets) would bedone away with, givingliberty to the farmers tosell their produce to busi-nessmen directly at placesof their choice. “This willhelp the farmers to get re-

munerative prices of theirproduce,” Mr Chouhansaid. He added that thefarmers can always availthe existing facility ofselling their produce tothe government at the re-spective

CHIEF MINISTERShivraj Singh Chouhansaid it has been decided toamend the AgricultureProduce Marketing Com-mittee (APMC) Act seek-ing to waive all restric-tions on sale of farm pro-duce by farmers in thestate ? STATE GOVERN-

MENT has also an-nounced to deregulatemarketing of fruits andvegetables minimum sup-port prices (MSPs) oftheir produce.

Under the current pol-icy, the farmers are need-ed to bring their produceto the local ‘mandis’ tosell them to the business-men by paying some roy-alty to the “mandis.” Thefarmers are also allowedto sell their produce to pri-vate procurers outside thestate and even to the ex-porters of food grains.

MP deregulates procurementof farm produce

Assam IIT Guwahati designs bamboofurniture range for hospitals

GUWAHATI, MAY 2

Department of Design at theIndian Institute of Technolo-gy Guwahati (IIT-G) has de-signed bamboo furniture tomeet the requirements of Pri-mary Health Centers (PHC's)in rural villages of Assam.

Bamboo craft forms animportant economic driver inthe northeast region of India.However, for a craft that is soprevalent in the region, its ef-fective utilisation for publiccommunity facilities such ashealth centres in rural areaswas limited and this particu-lar project by IIT-G demon-strated the potential.

The project is aimed for asustainable and participatorydesign approach by utilisa-tion of locally available ma-terials, craft skill manpowerled by the active participationof local government depart-ments to achieve these goals.

Prof. Ravi MokashiPunekar, Department of De-sign, IIT Guwahati, said,"The current pandemic crisis

has brought to the fore, theneed for seeking self-relianceon sustainable solutions thatare contextually appropriatefor meeting the needs of thecommunity."

The IIT Guwahati teambelieves that the designs thatthey have developed are an"appropriate and sustainablesolution" to meet local infra-structure needs and concur-

rently creating job opportuni-ties for craft-persons usingbamboo and cane available inthe region. Around 200 bedscan be manufactured per day,according to the IIT-G designdepartment

Given the current pan-demic situation, if the situa-tion arises, the bamboo furni-ture range will help in meet-ing the high demand required

for patients admitted fortreatment, the departmentsaid.

The team has offered toshare the designs with Guwa-hati Medical Hospital inGuwahati. The design team isalready in touch with two lo-cal entrepreneurs who haveagreed to undertake the man-ufacture of a simpler versionof the hospital bed.

Newspapers seek stimulus,relief to tide over crisis

MUMBAI, MAY 2

Facing its worst crisis indecades due to the Covid-19pandemic, India’s newspa-per industry has sought a fi-nancial stimulus along witha clutch of immediate reliefmeasures from the govern-ment in order to help mediacompanies tide over the un-precedented crisis. In a pres-entation to the government,the Indian Newspaper Soci-ety (INS) has estimated thatthe industry has already suf-fered a loss of ?4,000-4,500crore in March and April

since economic activity hasnearly collapsed, resultingin nil advertising during thecrucial months.

INS, which representsover 800 newspapers, hassaid that the losses are ex-pected to continue at thesame rate for the next six toseven months, implying anadditional loss of ?12,000-15,000 crore, unless a strongstimulus is announced andthen acted upon soon by thegovernment. INS PresidentShailesh Gupta has pointedout that due to these severelosses and choking of cash

flows, newspaper establish-ments are finding it very dif-ficult to even disburse em-ployee salaries and vendorpayments.

As per INS estimates,over 9-10 lakh people are di-rectly employed, while an-other 18-20 lakh people areindirectly employed by thenewspaper industry acrossIndia. “Newspapers havebeen at the forefront of pro-viding life-saving credibleinformation across the coun-try, with its personnel — in-cluding journalists, produc-tion, press and distribution

vendors — at the front linesof the fight against the pan-demic,” Gupta said. INS hasonce again stressed the ur-gent need for relief meas-ures including removal ofthe 5% import duty onnewsprint and a two-yeartax holiday.

The government hadimposed 10% customs dutyon newsprint last year,which was then halved inthe last budget. Prior to that,newsprint — which ac-counts for a large share ofnewspapers’ cost — hadbeen duty free.

NEW DELHI, MAY 2

The Supreme Court on Fridaysought status report on the in-vestigation by Maharashtrapolice into lynching of twosadhus by a mob at Palghar inthe presence of police person-nel who allegedly did not actto disperse the crowd andsave the lives.

Seeking the status reporton the investigation into thelynching incident, a benchcomprising Justice AshokBhushan and Justice SanjivKhanna did not stay the in-vestigation and sought re-sponse on the plea for transferof investigation to SIT/CBI.The court asked the PIL peti-tioner lawyer Shashank

Shekhar Jha to serve the copyof his petition on the standingcounsel of Maharashtra gov-

ernment. The PIL petitionerShashank Shekhar Jha – apracticing advocate – has

sought court monitoredSIT/CBI probe into the inci-dent, transfer of trial fromMaharashtra to a fast-trackcourt in Delhi and registrationof FIR against Maharashtrapolice personnel for their al-leged inaction to prevent thelynching.

Two sadhus — ChikneMaharaj Kalpavrukshagiriand Sushilgiri MaharajKalpavrukshagiri — associat-ed with Shri PanchdashnaamJoona Akhada were killed bya mob of around 200 peoplewhile they were on their wayto Surat in Gujarat to attendthe funeral of their Guru ShriMahant Ram Giri.

The incident took placeon April 16, 2020.

Sadhus’ lynching: Plea in SC seeks SIT probePM reviews strategies for making India'scivil aviation sector more efficient

NEW DELHI, MAY 2

A meeting chaired byPrime Minister NarendraModi on Friday decidedthat the Indian air spaceshould be effectively usedin a manner that flyingtime for travellers is re-duced and airlines alsosave costs. That will bedone in close cooperationwith the Department ofMilitary Affairs, an offi-cial statement said afterModi held a comprehen-sive meeting to review thestrategies that could helpin making India's civil

aviation sector more effi-cient. "For generation ofmore revenue as well as tobring in more efficiency atthe airports, the Ministryof Civil Aviation has beenasked to expedite theprocess of handing over

of six more airports onPPP basis by commencingthe tender process withinthree months," it said. Themeeting, which was at-tended by Home MinisterAmit Shah, Finance Min-ister Nirmala Sitharamanand Civil Aviation Minis-ter Hardeep Singh Puriamong others, also re-viewed the e-DGCA proj-ect, aimed at bringing inmore transparency in theDGCA's office and help-ing all stakeholders by re-ducing the processingtime for various licencesand permissions.

Lockdown restrictions in Maharashtra tobe lifted zone-wise: Uddhav Thackeray

MUMBAI, MAY 2

Maharashtra CM UddhavThackeray on Friday said thatthe coronavirus-induced lock-down restrictions will be liftedin the state in a zone-wise man-ner and the rules will be relaxedcautiously. In a live webcast, hesaid the lockdown rules willnot be relaxed in haste.

"We will tread cautiously.It is in nobody's Interest to liftthe lockdown in the (COVID-19) red zones like Mumbai,Pune region, Nagpur and Au-rangabad where the number ofpositive cases is on the rise," hesaid. Thackeray said that in or-

ange zones, even though thereare no new positive cases,some active cases do exist,while in green zones there areno cases."Even in green zones,we can't take chances. Relax-ations will be implementedstep-by-step and cautiously,"he said. Admitting that people

were facing hardships due tothe lockdown, he said, "But thereal wealth of any country isthe good health of its people.

If people are safe then allis well." The chief minister saidthat there is fear about COVID-19 in people's mind, which hetermed as 'Covid syndrome'."We have to get out of it. Weshould know that the illness iscurable if detected early, hesaid.

Thackeray said that thelockdown has acted as a "speedbreaker" in the virus chain, andadded that the number of posi-tive cases in the state increaseddue to aggressive testing.


NEWSBRIEF

NEWSVirus pandemic could last till 2022: US researchers

Do the one thing you think you cannot do. Fail at it. Try again. Do better the second time.

The only people who never tumble are those who never mount the high wire.

This is your moment.

Own it. Oprah Winfrey

NEW DELHI: ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company on Saturday reported a 23.8 per cent rise in net profit at Rs 282 crore for the March quarter.The non-life insurer had posted a net profit of Rs 228 crore in the corresponding period of 2018- 19. The gross direct premium income (GDPI) of the company stood at Rs 3,181 crore in Q4 FY20, compared to Rs 3,485 crore in Q4 FY19, ICICI Lombard said in a regulatory filing. For the full year 2019-20, the profit after tax or net profit increased 13.8 per cent to Rs 1,194 crore from Rs 1,049 crore in the preceding fiscal. GDPI of the company stood at Rs 13,313 crore in FY20 compared to Rs 14,488 crore in FY19, a degrowth of 8.1 per cent, it said.

ICICI Lombard Q4 net rises 24%to Rs 282 crore

NEW DELHI: A day after the Modi government announced extension of the coronavirus-induced lockdown till May 17, the DGCA on Saturday said all commercial passenger flights will remain suspended till midnight of May 17. "It is reiterated that foreign and domestic airlines shall be suitably informed about the opening of their operations whether international to/from India or domestic, respectively, in due course," a circular of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) stated.India has been under lockdown since March 25 to curb the spread of coronavirus. All commercial passenger flights have been suspended for this period. However, cargo flights, medical evacuation flights and special flights permitted by the DGCA are allowed to operate.

AGENCYSEOUL,MAY 3

South Korea -- North Korean leader Kim Jong Un made his first public appearance in 20 days as he celebrated the completion of a fertilizer factory near Pyongyang, state media said Saturday, ending an absence that had triggered global rumors that he may be seriously ill.

The North’s official Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA, reported that Kim attended the ceremony Friday in Sunchon with other senior officials, including his sister Kim Yo Jong, who many analysts predict would take over if her brother is suddenly unable to rule.

1, 2020.” decision-making Political Bureau of raised troubling questions about the State media showed videos and There was no definite sign that the party’s Central Committee. That future of the secretive, nuclear-armed photos of Kim wearing a black Mao suit

Kim was in discomfort, although there move confirmed her substantial role in country that has been steadily building and constantly smiling, walking around were moments where his walking the government. North Korea has said it an arsenal meant to threaten the U.S. facilities, applauding, cutting a huge red looked a bit stiff. He was shown moving hasn't had a single virus case, but the mainland while diplomacy between ribbon with a scissor handed by his without a walking stick, like the one he claim is questioned by many outside Kim and President Donald Trump has sister, and smoking inside and outside used in 2014 when he was recovering experts. stalled.of buildings while talking with other from a presumed ankle surgery. It wasn’t immediately clear what Some experts say South Korea, as officials.However, he was also seen riding a had caused Kim’s absence. well as its regional neighbors and ally Seemingly thousands of workers, green electric cart, which appeared Speculation about his health Washington, must begin preparing for many of them masked, stood in lines at similar to a vehicle he used in 2014. It swirled after he missed the April 15 the possible chaos that could come if Kim the massive complex, roaring in was Kim’s first public appearance since birthday celebration for his late is sidelined by health problems or even celebration and releasing balloons into April 11, when he presided over a ruling grandfather Kim Il Sung, the country’s dies. Worst-case scenarios include North the air. A sign installed on a stage where Workers’ Party meeting to discuss the most important holiday, for the first Korean refugees flooding South Korea Kim sat with other senior officials read: coronavirus and reappoint his sister as time since taking power in 2011. The or China, or military hard-liners letting “Sunchon Phosphatic Fertilizer an alternate member of the powerful possibility of high-level instability loose nuclear weapons.Factory; Completion Ceremony; May

Videos of attacks on Mah policemenemerge; Minister assures action

AGENCY who are at the forefront of the battle MUMBAI, MAY 2 against the COVID-19 along with

doctors, nurses and sanitation VIDEOS of some policemen being workers, will not be tolerated under attacked, apparently while trying any circumstances. The Minister said to enforce the coronavirusinduced he had already spoken to Mumbai’s lockdown, emerged on Saturday, Commissioner of Police Param Bir p rompt ing t he Maha ra sh t r a Singh on the issue and asked the latter Governmen t t o a s su re t ha t to take action immediately.“Our police a t t a c k e r s w i l l b e a r r e s t e d were asking the people there to follow i m m e d i a t e l y . M a h a r a s h t r a the lockdown rules. But some people Minister of State for Home attacked our police staff at three to four Shambhuraj Desai said that some places in Mumbai,” Desai told ‘ABP people had a t tacked pol ice Majha’ news channel. He said the personnel at three to four places in police have the footage of the incidents Mumbai. and that the attackers have been He said that attacks on policemen, identified.

NEW DELHI: Yes Bank on Saturday said it has appointed Neeraj Dhawan as its chief risk officer with immediate effect. The board of directors, vide their resolution dated May 1, 2020, appointed Neeraj Dhawan as the chief risk officer of the bank for a period of three years, Yes Bank said in a regulatory filing.He will assume charge from Saturday in place of Ashish Agarwal, the current chief risk officer, who will be transitioning to a new role in the bank, it added.Prior to this, Dhawan was holding the position of chief risk officer for retail and business banking at Yes Bank. He has 29 years of experience in financial services and banking industry.

Yes Bank appoints Neeraj Dhawan as Chief Risk Officer

NEW DELHI: Along with moving the entire purchasing process online, test drives and deliveries will take place at the customer’s address, with the usual sanitisation processes in place. Joining the ranks of Honda, Tata, Hyundai, BMW, Volkswagen and Mercedes-Benz, now Jeeps can be bought online via FCA India’s new digital retail platform. In a similar vein to the other carmaker’s platforms, prospective buyers can now book and buy the Jeep Compass, Wrangler, Grand Cherokee and Grand Cherokee SRT without having to visit a Jeep showroom. Even test drives and deliveries will take place at the customer’s doorstep.The Book My Jeep module on Jeep India’s website helps the prospective customer through the initial process of choosing the model, variant, engine and gearbox option, colour and other details such as location of the customer and documentation. Only after this can a booking amount be paid for through a credit card, internet banking or the other available online payment options.The customer will then be contacted by a sales representative (via phone or video call) to help set up a test drive in a fully sanitised vehicle at the buyer’s doorstep. Then the final payment can be made on the Book My Jeep online retail platform. Following this, the new Jeep will be delivered to the buyer’s doorstep with all the due cleaning and sanitisation processes. Jeep is also offering special benefits for customers who choose to book their SUV online. Commenting on the new retail strategy, Dr. Partha Datta – President and Managing Director, FCA India said, “Our commitment is to ensure customers can still continue to access Jeep at their fingertips. To ensure health, safety and convenience, we are making the Jeep retail experience as touch-free as possible. We are already live with ‘Book My Jeep’, which is being dovetailed into a 360-degree digital retail architecture that will deliver an intelligent, easy-to-use and fascinating experience for customers. Prospects will be able to book and own a Jeep, from their screens, without leaving the safety of their homes.”

FCA India launches online retailing for Jeep vehicle

Kim reappears in public, endingabsence amid health rumours

US announces relaxations for H-1Bvisa holders, Green Card applicants

AGENCY granted theWASHINGTON, MAY 2 privilege of residing

permanently. The US Citizenship IN A major re l ie f for and Immigration Services professionals and immigrants (USCIS) on Friday said the 60-from countries like India, the US day grace period for responding Government has given a grace to its requestsperiod of 60 days to H-1B visa will include requests for holders and Green Card evidence; continuations to applicants, who have been served request evidence (N-14); notices notices for submission of various of intent to deny; notices of intent documents, taking into account to revoke; notices of intent to the massive novel coronavirus rescind and notices of intent to outbreak in America. The H-1B terminate regional investment visa is a non-immigrant visa that centers; and filing date allows US companies to employ requirements for Form I-290B, foreign workers in speciality Notice of Appeal or Motion. occupations that “USCIS will consider a response

require theoretical or to the above requests and notices technical expertise. Companies received within 60 calendar days depend on it to hire tens of after the response due date set in thousands of employees each the request or notice before year from countries like India and taking action,” it said in a China. A Green Card, known statement. The USCIS said it will officially as a Permanent consider a Form I-290B received Resident Card, is a document up to 60 calendar days from the issued to immigrants to the US as date of the decision before it takes evidence that the bearer has been any action.

WASHINGTON: The coronavirus pandemic could continue till 2022 and will not be under control until most of the world population becomes immune, said a report released by some experts in the United States, the epicentre of the outbreak."The length of the pandemic will likely be 18 to 24 months, as herd immunity gradually develops in the human population," the researchers wrote in a report from the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.Citing the most recent flu pandemic, the report pointed out the highly transmissible coronavirus that causes COVID-19 will likely keep spreading for as long as two years and will likely not stop spreading until 60 to 70 percent of the population is immune, The Hill reported"Because of a longer incubation period, more asymptomatic spread and a higher R0, COVID-19 appears to spread more easily than flu," the report said.Researchers recommended that the US prepare for a worst-case scenario, including no vaccine availability or herd immunity. "Risk communication messaging from government officials should incorporate the concept that this pandemic will not be over soon and that people need to be prepared for possible periodic resurgences of disease over the next two years," they said.

‘Commercial passenger flights to remain suspended till May 17 midnight’

US commits over $775 mn to help other countries fight COVID-19AGENCY In South Asia, Afghanistan ($18 these populations.WASHINGTON, MAY 2 million), Pakistan ($15 million) and It has provided more than $150

Bangladesh ($12.3 million), have received million from the Economic Support Fund Since the Covid-19 outbreak, the US has more in Covid-19 health assistance from (ESF). These funds will promote committed over $775 million in the US, it said. American foreign policy interests by emergency health, humanitarian and America's Covid-19 assistance to- supporting shorter-term mitigation efforts economic assistance that will help over date includes nearly $200 million in and addressing second-order impacts 120 countries, including India, in fighting emergency health assistance from from the pandemic in the long term, across the pandemic, the State Department has USAID's Global Health Emergency a variety of sectors.said, as the deadly disease claimed over Reserve Fund for Contagious Infectious- More than $130 mil l ion in 230,000 lives and infected over 3.3 million Disease Outbreaks and Global Health humanitarian assistance from the people. Programs account. Migration and Refugee Assistance

According to a fact sheet released by These funds prioritised interventions (MRA) account, provided through the the US State Department on Friday, the to mitigate and prepare communities in S ta te Depar tment ' s Bureau o f over $775 million assistance is developing countries affected and at a risk Population, Refugees, and Migration. spec i f i c a l l y a imed a t he lp ing of Covid-19. These funds will help international governments, international organisations, It has provided nearly $300 million in organisations and NGO partners address and NGOs to fight the pandemic. humanitarian assistance from USAID's challenges posed by the pandemic in

This funding, provided by Congress, International Disaster Assistance (IDA) refugee, IDP, and hosting communities will save lives by improving public health account. as well as other migrants and other education, protecting healthcare facilities, These funds prioritise populations vulnerable people in both global and and increasing laboratory, disease- affected by the ongoing humanitarian local humanitarian responses.surveillance, and rapid-response capacity crisis, particularly displaced people, This new assistance is in addition to in more than 120 countries, it said. because of their heightened vulnerability, the over $100 billion in global health affected, disseminating essential public This builds on a foundation of nearly

India has received $5.9 million in the elevated risk of severe outbreaks in funding and nearly $70 billion in overseas health messages to communities and $2.8 billion in total assistance to India over health assistance to hinder the spread of camps and informal settlements and humanitarian assistance provided by the strengthen case-finding and surveillance, the last 20 years, which includes more than the disease by providing care for the anticipated disproportionate mortality in US in the last decade alone.it said. $1.4 billion for health.

Cancer patients may face high mortality from COVID-19: StudyAGENCY journal Cancer Discovery, the research team NEW DELHI, MAY 2 involved 218 cancer patients who tested positive for

COVID-19 from March 18 to April 8 at Montefiore AN Indian-origin team of researchers in the US has Medical Centre in New York City. A total of 61 cancer claimed that people with cancer who develop patients died from COVID-19, a dramatically high coronavirus (COVID-19) are much more likely to die case-fatality rate of 28 per cent. According to the from the disease than those without cancer. The researchers, a key element is that mortality appears to mortality rate for COVID-19 in the US is 5.8 per cent, be more closely related to frailty, age, and co-according to the World Health Organisation. morbidities than to active therapy for cancer.

“Our findings emphasise the need to prevent cancer “Our data suggest that we should not stop patients from contracting COVID-19 and - if they do - lifesaving cancer therapies, but rather develop to identify and closely monitor these individuals for strategies to minimize potential COVID-19 exposures dangerous symptoms,” said study co-lead authorVikas and re-evaluate therapies for our most vulnerable Mehta from Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the cancer populations,” explained co-senior author Amit US. For the study, published in the Verma.

PAGE8

BEIJING: RUSSIA and Pakistan reported their biggest one-day jumps in new coronavirus infections as some other countries and U.S. States where case numbers are stabilising allowed businesses and public activities to reopen. China, where the pandemic began in December, reported a single new infection Saturday,extending a steady decline in confirmed cases. South Korea reported six new cases on Saturday, none of them in the hard-hit city of Daegu in the southeast. Both countries are easing anti-virus controls and reviving economic activity. Russia reported 7,933 new cases on Friday, raising itstotal to 1,14,431. Pakistan announced 1,297 new cases, raising the total in the country of 220 million people to 18,114.

Russia, Pak viruscases spike, othersease controlsAGENCY

KOLKATA, May 2

THE NIA on Saturday arrested an absconding property manager of the outlawed terrorist outfit CPI (Maoist) here for his alleged involvement in an arms case of Jharkhand, an official said. Manoj Choudhary (48), a resident of Jharkhand’s Giridih district, was arrested in the early hours fromWest Bengal’s Hooghly and several incriminating documents showing immovable properties related transactions were seized from his possession, the official said. He was produced before a Special NIA Court in Ranchi which sent him to five days of custody, the premier investigation agency said. Chaudhary, an active member of the banned outfit CPI (Maoist).

NIA arrests absconding property manager ofterror

outfit CPI(Maoist)

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