NEWS DIGEST EVENING
13 JUNE
2020: 20 SHAWWAL 1441:Vol: 12,No:231
* CORONAVIRUS- LOCKDOWN*
States bust rumours about lockdown extension after June
15: In tune with Centre’s plans, Delhi, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu say will not re-impose
restrictions
India may have added
over 100,000 new cases of coronavirus disease in the past 10 days but there are
no plans to impose a stringent nationwide lockdown again, top officials
involved in managing the pandemic said on Friday. Their comments came even as
the three states worst hit by the pandemic, Maharashtra, Delhi, and Tamil Nadu,
ruled out any reimposition of lockdown measures. After 68 days of a nationwide
lockdown, India is now in a phased exit from restrictions on movement and
businesses, a period the home ministry terms Unlock 1.0.On Friday, Delhi health
minister Satyendar Jain said that the lockdown will not be reimposed in Delhi.
Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray too ruled out re-imposing a hard
lockdown. And the Tamil Nadu government told the Madras High Court that there
are no plans to impose a complete lockdown either in Chennai or the rest of the
state.There has been buzz on social media that all three states could see a
reimposition of the lockdown because of the spiraling cases. On Thursday, India
registered 11,199 cases, the highest ever on a single day till then. Of this, 66%
of the cases came from the three states. On Friday night, out of India’s total
cases of 309,324, the 3 states accounted for 178,663.
No further lockdown due to coronavirus, says
Maharashtra government as cases cross 1L
Mumbai: Amid the
speculation of imposition of lockdown in Maharashtra, the state government on
Friday made it clear that there is no such proposal in the pipeline. However it
reiterated that the people should refrain from crowding as the threat of
coronavirus is not over yet.Stating that some media reports were creating
confusion in the minds of people, Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said the
government was easing the lockdown restrictions in phases to restart the
economy. “We are easing lockdown restrictions in phases to restart the economy.
But lifting of restrictions does not mean unnecessary crowding and violating
discipline of physical distancing and hygiene,” he said in a statement, issued
by the CMO. Thackeray also urged the media to verify news before publishing it.
Lockdown Extension After June 15? List of States
That Rule Out Complete Shutdown
Two-thirds of cases from 5 states: PM Modi holds
review meeting on coronavirus situation
Prime Minister
Narendra Modi held a review meeting on Saturday. Union Home Minister Amit Shah,
Union Health Minister Dr Harsh Vardhan, Principal Secretary to PM PK Sinha,
Cabinet Secretary Rajiv Gauba, Health Secretary Preeti Sudan and ICMR DR Balram
Bhargava were among the attendees. During the meeting, PM Modi reviewed
pandemic projections for the next two months and directed officials of the
Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) to undertake emergency planning
in consultation with states and union territories. The Prime Minister also
advised the Health Ministry to review preparedness for the monsoon season.The
Prime Minister also took stock of the Covid-19 outbreak in states/UTs where
Covid-19 numbers are rising rapidly despite a nationwide lockdown. A
presentation was also made on the current status and likely scenario of
Covid-19 cases in India in the 'medium-term' by Dr Vinod Paul, Member NITI
Aayog and Convener of the Empowered Group of Medical Emergency Management Plan
Experts told PM Modi that two-thirds of the total number of confirmed cases of
infection have been reported from five states with an overwhelming proportion
of cases in big cities. Measures were also discussed to augment testing as well
as ramp up the number of hospital beds to effectively handle the situation when
the infection peaks.
‘They’re being treated worse than animals’: SC issues notice on COVID-19 treatment and disposal of bodies
The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice to the Centre and state governments in the suo motu case on proper treatment of COVID-19 patients and disposal of bodies of persons who have succumbed to the virus, legal news website BarandBench.com has reported.The matter was heard by a Bench of Justices Ashok Bhushan, Sanjay Kishan Kaul and MR Shah. At the outset, the court noted that there was a decrease in COVID-19 testing in the capital. "We are more concerned with living than dead. Look at the condition of hospitals. Bodies are there in the wards. Mumbai is testing 16,000 to 17,000, whereas in Delhi it is falling below 7,000. Media has highlighted this issue," it said.
Hydroxychloroquine does not reduce mortality,
RECOVERY trial finds
The RECOVERY trial,
a large randomised controlled trial in the U.K. to test five drugs, including
hydroxychloroquine, has found no clinical benefit from use of hydroxychloroquine
in hospitalised patients with COVID-19. The trial investigators found that
there was no significant benefit in mortality reduction in the intervention
group, which was the primary objective.The RECOVERY trial began in March. It is
a dynamic trial assessing five candidate drugs and convalescent plasma therapy
for treating COVID-19 in patients in U.K. hospitals. The trial has enrolled
over 11,000 patients.On June 4, following the retraction of The Lancet paper on
use of hydroxychloroquine, the U.K. Medicines and Healthcare Products
Regulatory Agency wanted the independent Data Monitoring Committee of the
RECOVERY trial to carry out an additional review. It also asked the
investigators to look at the unblinded data in the hydroxychloroquine arm.
Italy, Germany, France and Netherlands Sign
Contract with Astrazeneca for Covid-19 Vaccine
Italy, Germany,
France and the Netherlands have signed a contract with Astrazeneca to supply
European citizens with a vaccine against the coronavirus, Italy's health
minister said on Saturday.The contract is for 400 million doses of the vaccine,
which was developed with the University of Oxford and whose experimentation
phase is already advanced and expected to end in autumn, Roberto Speranza said
in a Facebook post.He added that a first batch of doses would be made available
by the end of this year.The European Commission received a mandate from EU govts
on Friday to negotiate advance purchases of promising coronavirus vaccines, the
EU's top health official said, but it was unclear whether there would be enough
money available.
Ex-Pak PM
Yousuf Raza Gilani tests positive for virus
Former Pakistan
prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has tested positive for coronavirus, as
revealed by his son on Saturday, the Dawn reported. Gilani on Thursday had
appeared in a NAB hearing in Rawalpindi and had requested the judge that since
a number of lawmakers had tested positive for Covid-19, he may be given
permanent exemption from personal attendance in the court.
SOUTH
ASIA- INDO-PAK & J&K
Nepal Parliament’s lower house passes bill to
redraw political map that includes Indian areas
Escalating its row
with India over territorial claims to the Lipulekh-Kalapani-Limpiyadhura
region, the Lower House of Nepal’s Parliament on Saturday unanimously voted to
amend the Constitution, seeking to make alterations, additions to the country’s
political map and national emblem.Nepali Congress (NC), Rastriya Janata
Party-Nepal (RJP-N) and Rastriya Prajatantra Party (RPP) were among the major
opposition parties that voted in favour of the government bill to amend
Schedule 3 of the Constitution, news agency PTI reported.In the 275-member
House of Representatives or the Lower House, a two-thirds majority was required
to pass the bill. Now, the bill will be sent to the National Assembly, where it
will undergo a similar process. The ruling Nepal Communist Party commands a
two-thirds majority in the National Assembly. The NA will have to give
lawmakers 72 hours to move amendments against the bill’s provisions, if
any.After the National Assembly passes the bill, it will be submitted to the
President for authentication, after which the bill will be incorporated in the
Constitution.The relations between India and Nepal came under strain after
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated a 80-km-long strategically crucial
road connecting the Lipulekh pass with Dharchula in Uttarakhand on May 8. India
controls Lipulekh, Kalapani, Limpiyadhura and its maps show the area as part of
its territory — this is contested by Nepal.indianexpress
Nepal border
guards open fire at Bihar crossing, Indian killed
An Indian national
was killed and two others were injured when the Nepal Armed Police Force, responsible
for border security, opened fire on a group during a clash at a border point
near Sitamarhi in Bihar Friday morning.Senior police officers of Nepal and
Bihar and the Sashastra Seema Bal called it a local incident and said it had
nothing to do with the border row between Delhi and Kathmandu over territorial
claims to Kalapani, Lipulekh and Limpiyadhura in Uttarakhand — Nepal’s House of
Representatives will vote Saturday on a Bill seeking to include the areas in
the country’s new map.
Artificial enlargement of claims untenable: MEA
after Nepal Parliament clears new map
Nepal's Parliament
passed an amendment on Saturday to include a new political map to the country's
Constitution. This map includes Lipulekh, Kalapani and Limpiyadhura, areas
Nepalese PM KP Sharma Oli claims belong to Nepal.In response, the official
spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), Anurag Srivastava said,
"We have noted that the House of Representatives of Nepal has passed a
constitution amendment bill for changing the map of Nepal to include parts of
Indian Territory. We have already made our position clear on this
matter.""This artificial enlargement of claims is not based on
historical fact or evidence and is not tenable. It is also violative of our
current understanding to hold talks on outstanding boundary issues," MEA
spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said on Saturday evening.
India-China
border: Differences will be settled through dialogue, says Army Chief
A week after Indian
and Chinese army commanders sat across the table for more than three hours to
find ways to resolve the tense situation along the Line of Actual Control in
eastern Ladakh, Army Chief General MM Naravane on Saturday said he was hopeful
that “through the continued dialogue, all perceived differences will be set to
rest,” ANI reported.Naravane emphasised that the situation along the border
with China was under control. “I would like to assure everyone that the entire
situation along our borders with China is under control. We’re having a series
of talks which started with Corps Commander level talks and has been followed
up with meetings at local level between Commanders of equivalent ranks,” he
added.
J&K
Police warn of ‘One Ring Phone Scam’ as missed calls rob residents of phone
balance
Srinagar: The cyber
cell of the Jammu & Kashmir Police has warned residents against answering
late-night missed calls from unknown numbers following hundreds of complaints
that point towards a racket aimed at robbing unwitting users of their phone
balance. In what is being referred to as the “One Ring Phone Scam”, alleged
racketeers make phone calls to their potential victims, mostly in the middle of
the night, but cut the call after one ring.
*INDIA- ISLAMOPHOBIA, HUMAN RIGHTS & OTHERS*
More Muslims are killed in riots, then more of them
get arrested, it’s not new: Mahmood Madani
New Delhi: The
arrests in connection with the Delhi riots have been one-sided and made with
the intention to target one community, according to Mahmood Madani, general
secretary of the Jamiat Ulama-i-Hind (JUH). But it’s nothing new, he said,
alleging that the general trend has been that more Muslims are killed in a
riot, and then more members of the community are later arrested.“It is natural
that any type of violence will lead to arrests. But the nature of the arrests
show that that they have been one-sided, and targeting only one community,”
Madani said in an interview to ThePrint.“Whether it is riots that have taken
place under the rule of BJP or Samajwadi Party or Congress, the one thing
that’s common is that more Muslims get killed, more Muslims’ property is
destroyed, and more Muslims are arrested,” he said.Madani also questioned Delhi
Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal’s silence over the arrests. Kejriwal was earlier
criticised for keeping his distance from the Shaheen Bagh protest, centre of
anti-CAA demonstrations in the national capital, and had also later drawn flak
for saying the protest site should be cleared.theprint
Amulya Leona
gets default bail as police fail to file chargesheet
Amulya Leona (19),
arrested in February on sedition charges for allegedly raising pro-Pakistan
slogans at an anti-CAA protest site, has been granted default bail by the
magistrate court after the police failed to file the chargesheet within the
stipulated 90 day period.The college student is likely to be released after
being behind bars for over three months."The 90 days period for filing the
chargesheet lapsed on May 20. We had soon after moved the court seeking default
bail. However, since the trial courts were closed due to the lockdown the
matter was not taken up. On June 2, we again preferred the application and an
order was passed on June 10, the same day when Amulya's regular bail
application came to be rejected by the sessions court," said her
counsel.The order of the magistrate is yet to be made available on the court
website.
Viral video of ‘Sanskrit letter’ from Ayodhya
excavation is actually a ‘Hebrew’ artefact
New Delhi: A fake
video of a ‘Sanskrit letter’ kept inside a copper vessel, which is claimed to
have been excavated from the Ram Janmabhoomi site in Ayodhya, has gone viral on
social media.Political commentator Puspendra Kulshresth shared the short
28-second video on microblogging site Twitter Thursday. In his tweet,
Kulshresth claimed that a copper vessel has been recovered from the Ram
Janmabhoomi excavation site and contains a letter.His tweet has received more
than 2,000 retweets and 9,000 likes. Many other users have also shared the same
video on Twitter as well as social media platform Facebook, with some calling
it a “time capsule” with details of the “original temple”.Some users have also
claimed that the text on the document is in ‘Sanskrit’.
*WORLD*
Top Saudi cleric: Jews, Muslims need to join
forces to fight antisemitism
Muslim World League, a Saudi Arabian
government-funded NGO, is prepared to fight “shoulder-to-shoulder” with Jews
from around the world to defeat antisemitism, head of the group Sheikh Dr.
Mohammed Al-Issa said. “We in the Muslim World League are proud to stand
shoulder to shoulder with our Jewish brothers and sisters to build
understanding, respect, love and interreligious harmony,” said al-Issa from
Mecca in a virtual conference organized by the Combat Anti-Semitism Movement
and the American Sephardi Federation.He said that Jews and Muslims need to work
together to rebuild ties and create “bridges of dialogue” between their
communities. “Whereas Jews and Muslims lived centuries together, in these last
decades we have sadly grown apart,” al-Issa said. “Now, we must rebuild the bridges
of dialogue and the bonds of partnership between our communities... Since
taking over the Muslim World League, it has been my mission to fight the forces
of hatred and violence.”jpost.com
*views, Articles, FEATURES*
What govt could have done differently
to deal with pandemic. What it can still do now:Harsh Mander
Court must look within, address asymmetries
of justice that are causing disquiet in stakeholders:Kapil Sibal
Compiled
and edited by Anwarulhaq (Released at: 8:17 PM)
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment