Archives for July 2020

Gurdwara Shaheedi Asthan Bhai Taru Ji is a historical place where “Bhai Taru Ji made a supreme sacrifice in 1745”, the spokesperson said

India has lodged a protest with Pakistan over a famous gurdwara in Lahore.

India on Monday lodged a protest with the Pakistan High Commission over reports that attempts are being made to convert a famous gurdwara in Lahore into a mosque.

“A strong protest was lodged with the Pakistan High Commission today on the reported incident whereby Gurdwara Shahidi Asthan, site of martyrdom of Bhai Taru Singh ji at Naulakha Bazaar in Lahore, Pakistan has been claimed as the place of Masjid Shahid Ganj and attempts are being made to convert it to a mosque,” Foreign Ministry spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said in a statement.

Gurdwara Shaheedi Asthan Bhai Taru Ji is a historical place where “Bhai Taru Ji made a supreme sacrifice in 1745”, the spokesperson said. It is a place of reverence and considered sacred by Sikhs and the incident has been viewed with grave concern in India, he said.

There have been calls for justice for the minority Sikh community in Pakistan. Manjinder Singh Sirsa, spokesperson of the Akali Dal, tweeted to ask Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan to take action against “extremists”.

“Pak extremists want to obliterate this Shaheedi Asthan completely. This is against basic human rights- no one can deny a person freedom to practice their religion Pls warn such extremist elements & take immediate action to save Shaheedi Asthan from illegal squatters,” Mr Sirsa tweeted.

“Pakistan was also called upon to look after the safety, security, well-being of its minority communities including protection of their religious rights and cultural heritage,” the Foreign Ministry spokesperson said.

Today, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh tweeted: “Strongly condemn attempts being made to convert holy Gurdwara Sri Shaheedi Asthan in Lahore, site of martyrdom of Bhai Taru Singh Ji, into mosque. Urge @DrSJaishankar to convey Punjab’s concerns in strongest terms to Pakistan to safeguard all Sikh places of reverence.”

This is an essential step because it is necessary to have data within the country before the vaccine is administered to Indians, Secretary of Department of Biotechnology said.

The Oxford COVID vaccine appears safe, induces strong immune response, scientists said

Five sites across the country are ready for the third and final phase of human trials of the Oxford-AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine, Secretary of Department of Biotechnology (DBT) Renu Swarup said on Monday.

This is an essential step because it is necessary to have data within the country before the vaccine is administered to Indians

The Serum Institute of India, the largest vaccine maker in the world, has been chosen by Oxford and its partner AstraZeneca to manufacture the vaccine once it is ready. Trials results for the first two phases were published earlier this month.

According to Ms Swaroop, the DBT is part of any COVID-19 vaccine effort in India “… whether it is funding, whether it is facilitating the regulatory clearances or whether it is giving them access to different networks which exist within the country”.

“The DBT is now setting up Phase 3 clinical sites. We have already started working on them and five sites are now ready to be available for Phase 3 trials,” Ms Swarup told PTI in a telephonic interview.

The Pune-based SII has also sought permission from the Drugs Controller General of India (DCGI) for conducting Phase 2 and 3 of human clinical trials of the potential vaccine.

It had said earlier it will start manufacturing the vaccine even before the final nod so it is ready with sizable volumes once the vaccine gets all permissions.

“DBT is closely working with every manufacturer and Phase 3 trial of Serum (institute) is important because if the vaccine has to be successful and it has to be given to the Indian population we need to have the data within the country.

“For that a Phase 3 trial has been proposed. Five sites are ready. Within some more weeks, they should be ready for manufacturers to take them up for clinical trial studies,” the DBT secretary said.

On July 20, scientists announced that the coronavirus vaccine developed by Oxford University appears safe and induces a strong immune response within the body after the first phase of “promising” human trials against the deadly disease that has infected over 1.45 crore people across the world and claimed more than six lakh lives.

Doses of the vaccine were given to 1,077 healthy adults aged between 18 and 55 in five UK hospitals in April and May as part of the Phase 1 clinical trial and results, published in The Lancet medical journal.

The results show they induced strong antibody and T-cell immune responses for up to 56 days after they were given.

Scientists behind the trials found the response could be even greater after a second dose.

In Phase 1 of human trials, a vaccine is given to a small number of people to test safety. It is also given to check if it stimulates the immune system.

In the second phase, it is administered to hundreds of people split into groups such as children and the elderly to see if the vaccine acts differently in them. The two phases focus on safety and immunogenicity in humans.

In the third phase, the vaccine is administered to thousands of people.

In India, two indigenous vaccines – one by Zydus Cadila and the other by Bharat Biotech – have reached phase one of human trials.

Mamata Banerjee was apparently targeting West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar, who has been at loggerheads with the state government over a host of issues ever since taking office in July last year.

Mamata Banerjee thanked PM for holding several discussions (with CMs) on Covid.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his cooperation in tackling the COVID-19 crisis in West Bengal but alleged that “a few people holding constitutional posts’ are disturbing the state government regularly.

Ms Banerjee was apparently targeting West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar, who has been at loggerheads with the state government over a host of issues ever since taking office in July last year.

Both the state and the central governments are elected bodies and they should work together, she said during an online programme where the prime minister inaugurated new COVID-19 testing facilities in West Bengal, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh.

“I would like to thank the prime minister for holding several discussions (with chief ministers) on the COVID crisis. And so far, there has been no non-cooperation from his end. I want to thank him for that. But a few people, who are holding constitutional posts, are regularly disturbing the state government. This is not acceptable,” Ms Banerjee said without naming anyone.

Reacting to Ms Banerjee’s comment on Monday, state BJP president Dilip Ghosh said the governor did the right thing by pointing out the mistakes of the state government.

“The way the governor has been insulted by ministers of the TMC government is unprecedented,” he said.

The face-off between the West Bengal government and the Raj Bhavan had escalated during the COVID-19 pandemic, with Ms Banerjee accusing Dhankhar of repeatedly interfering in the functioning of the state administration, and the latter asserting that a state cannot be governed as someone’s “personal fiefdom”.

Expressing concern over the alleged deterioration of law and order in West Bengal, Dhankhar had last week said the state police were not functioning according to rules and urged the chief minister to find time and interact with him on the matter.

On July 16, after the governor said that the education system in West Bengal is “politically caged”, Ms Banerjee alleged that the governor was acting “more dangerously” than a BJP mouthpiece and that doesn’t suit someone holding a constitutional post.

Mizoram Coronavirus Cases: Aizawl district has reported the highest number of COVID-19 cases at 205, followed by Lunglei (71), Siaha (26) and Lawngtlai and Mamit (21 each), they said.

Aizawl, Mizoram: COVID-19 cases: The fresh infections have taken the northeastern state’s caseload to 384.

Twenty-two Assam Rifles personnel are among 23 more people testing positive for COVID-19 in Mizoram, officials said on Tuesday.

The fresh infections have taken the northeastern state’s caseload to 384, they said.

Twenty-two Assam Rifles personnel posted at Zokhawsanga near Aizawl and a civilian who had recently returned from Nepal have tested positive for COVID-19 at the Zoram Medical College on Monday night, a statement issued by the State Information and Public Relation Department said.

Of the 384 cases, 191 are active while 193 people have recovered, officials said, adding the recovery rate of patients in the state stands at 50.26 per cent.

Aizawl district has reported the highest number of COVID-19 cases at 205, followed by Lunglei (71), Siaha (26) and Lawngtlai and Mamit (21 each), they said.

As of now, Hnahthial, Saitual and Khawzawl districts are coronavirus-free, the officials said.

Mizoram has tested 20,053 samples for COVID-19 till Monday, they added.

While the government has asked people to buy and sell goats online, many are left confused as the guidelines don’t clearly mention any online portal that they can use.

The Maharashtra government has asked for a symbolic celebration of Bakri Eid this year

Unhappy with the Maharashtra government’s guidelines for Bakri Eid celebrations, now less than a week away, a section of Congress leaders have urged Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray to review the rules for the Islamic festival.

Congress leader Naseem Khan, whose party rules in the state in coalition with Mr Thackeray’s Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party, has written to the Chief Minister to call an urgent meeting of ministers to review the guidelines.

According to the Standard Operating Procedures released by the government last Friday, online buying and selling of sacrificial goats as well as symbolic celebration of Bakri Eid, also known as Eid al-Adha, is being encouraged.

But Mr Khan said there cannot be any symbolic celebration for the festival, set to be observed around the world on Friday, and buying goats online is not possible.

“We want the government to rethink and call for an urgent meeting. This has hurt sentiments,” the Congress leader said.

Normally, the Deonar market in Mumbai is the biggest hub where goats are bought or sold. But since the outbreak of the coronavirus and the nationwide lockdown, the market has been closed.

While the government has asked people to buy and sell goats online, many are left confused as the guidelines don’t clearly mention any online portal that they can use. Many buyers are not technology savvy enough to carry out such transactions either.

“Government says we have to buy goats online but there isn’t any portal mentioned anywhere. Guidelines are confusing. They should clear it,” a Mumbai resident Zameer Shaikh said.

Meanwhile, a drastic drop in supply and the closure of the Deonar abattoir has spiked prices of goats for slaughter in the city, news agency PTI reported. This, at a time when sellers in other parts of the country have complained that they are not able to find buyers for their goats.

The price of goats in Mumbai has increased from around Rs 20,000 earlier to Rs 30,000 now, making it out of reach for several families who want to carry out the traditional sacrifice during the festival, it said.

With animal markets closed due to the pandemic, sellers have set up makeshifts stalls in Muslim-dominated areas, and the extra effort on their part to operate the business is resulting in exorbitant prices being demanded.

The country’s seventh largest private sector lender by market capitalisation had raised Rs 15,000 crore by issuing shares at the price of Rs 12 per share.

Ye Bank: The shares shed 54 per cent from the level of Rs 26.65 touched on July 9, 2020.

Shares of Yes Bank were locked at the lower circuit of 10 per cent at Rs 12.30 on the BSE after the listing of fresh shares that were allotted in the follow-on public offer (FPO). The country’s seventh largest private sector lender by market capitalisation had raised Rs 15,000 crore by issuing shares at the price of Rs 12 per share.

“12,504 million equity shares of Yes Bank are listed and admitted for trading on the exchange with effect from July 27, 2020. These shares rank pari-passu with the existing equity shares of the company,” the BSE said in its release.

Yes Bank has already announced that the funds raised through FPO will be used for growth and expansion, including enhancing its solvency, capital adequacy ratio and evolving regulatory requirements.

Yes Bank was on the brink of collapse earlier this year due to its past history of providing easy loans, which ended up as non-performing assets – or bad loans – on its books. Since then, SBI has stepped in to acquire a stake in the private lender and to keep it afloat.e shares of the private sector bank have fallen consistently since the pricing announcement of the FPO. The stock has shed as much as 54 per cent from the level of Rs 26.65 touched on July 9, 2020.

The BSE Sensex was quoting at 37,908.80, higher by 222 points or 0.5 per cent and the NSE Nifty was at 11,127.30, up 72 points or 0.6 per cent at the time.

Rajasthan Crisis: The Congress has a narrow lead over the opposition and has only two more than the majority-mark of 101 in the 200-member assembly.

Rajasthan Crisis: The Sachin Pilot camp had challenged their disqualification notices in High Court No action can be taken against Sachin Pilot and other rebel Congress leaders for now, the Rajasthan High Court said today, in a reprieve for the group against immediate disqualification. The verdict has been delayed after the court accepted team Pilot’s eleventh-hour request to add the centre to the case so it can weigh in on whether the anti-defection law applies to them. Yesterday, the Supreme Court had refused to stop the High Court from delivering the verdict, saying the “voice of dissent” cannot be suppressed in a democracy. Soon after the High Court ordered “status quo”, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot sought an appointment with Governor Kalraj Mishra, whom he met last evening.

Here’s your 10-point cheatsheet to the Rajasthan crisis:

1. Ashok Gehlot will take all Congress MLAs with him to the Governor in a show of strength, and is expected to call for an assembly session soon.
2. The Chief Minister moved after the Rajasthan High Court deferred its decision on the petition of 19 rebel MLAs including Sachin Pilot challenging disqualification notices served to them by Speaker CP Joshi last week. The court has made the centre a party to the case to seek its views on the validity of the anti-defection law in the case of the rebels.
3. This is the third time that the Speaker has been asked by the High Court to defer action against the rebels. No court can ask him to do that, the Speaker had argued in the Supreme Court yesterday, but there was no decision on it.
4. The Supreme Court said the issues raised in the Speaker’s petition required “prolonged hearing” as it involved a “larger question” related to the democracy and how it will survive. But the high court’s ruling will be subject to the top court’s final decision.
5. Hours after team Pilot scored in the Supreme Court, Ashok Gehlot told reporters that an assembly session would be called “very soon”. He also met the Governor for the third time since the rebel crisis broke out. “We have a majority,” he reportedly told the Governor.
6. “We will call the assembly session soon. We have a majority. All Congress MLAs are united,” the Chief Minister told reporters, reflecting the Congress’s strategy to prepare for a test of strength.
7. If the rebels escape disqualification, they can vote in the assembly and pose a serious threat to Mr Gehlot’s government. If they don’t, their disqualification will help the Chief Minister by bringing down the majority mark.
8. The Congress has a narrow lead over the opposition and has only two more than the majority-mark of 101 in the 200-member Rajasthan assembly. Team Pilot has 19 MLAs and the BJP has 72. Including smaller parties and independent members, the opposition has 97 at the moment.
9. Mr Pilot has emphatically denied his former boss Mr Gehlot’s allegation that he was conspiring with the BJP to bring down the Congress government in which he was Deputy Chief Minister until he was sacked last week. He and other rebels have argued in court that they do not intend to quit the Congress; they only want a change in the leadership.
10. The Rajasthan police’s Special Operation Group, ordered by Mr Gehlot to investigate what he calls “horse-trading” of MLAs, has been trying to track down two rebel MLAs in Mr Pilot’s camp. The Congress alleges these MLAs were caught on audio making deals with Union Minister Gajendra Singh Shekhawat of the BJP.

The DGHS referred to the advisory on the use of homemade protective cover for face and mouth available on the website of the Ministry of Health.

The advisory stressed such face covers must be washed and cleaned each day.17

The Centre has written to all states and union territories warning against the use of N-95 masks with valved respirators by people, saying these do not prevent the virus from spreading out and are “detrimental” to the measures adopted for its containment.

The Director-General of Health Services (DGHS) in the Ministry of Health, in a letter to the Principal Secretaries of health and medical education of states, said it has been observed that there is “inappropriate use” of N-95 masks, particularly those with valved respirators, by the public other than designated health workers.

The DGHS referred to the advisory on the use of homemade protective cover for face and mouth available on the website of the Ministry of Health.

“It is to bring to your knowledge that the use of valved respirator N-95 masks is detrimental to the measures adopted for preventing the spread of coronavirus as it does not prevent the virus from escaping out of the mask. In view of the above, I request you to instruct all concerned to follow the use of face/mouth cover and prevent inappropriate use of N-95 masks,” DGHS Rajiv Garg said in the letter.

The government had in April issued an advisory on the use of homemade protective cover for face and mouth, asking people to wear it, particularly when they step out of their residences.

The advisory stressed such face covers must be washed and cleaned each day, as instructed, and stated that any used cotton cloth can be used to make this face cover.

The colour of the fabric does not matter but one must ensure that the fabric is washed well in boiling water for five minutes and dried well before making the face cover. Adding salt to this water is recommended, it said.

It also listed the procedures of making such homemade masks, asking to ensure it fits the face well and there are no gaps on the sides.

It urges people to wash hands thoroughly before wearing the face cover, switching to another fresh one as the face cover becomes damp or humid, and never reusing it after single use without cleaning it.

“Never share the face cover with anyone. Every member in a family should have separate face cover,” the advisory stated.

India’s COVID-19 case tally crossed the 11-lakh mark on Monday, while the total number of recovered patients increased to over seven lakh, according to Union health ministry data.

The death count due to the disease rose to 27,497 with 681 fatalities reported in one day.

The ministry data updated at 8 am on Monday showed that a record single-day jump of 40,425 COVID-19 cases had taken the total number of cases to 11,18,043.

Desperate to resume construction work, builders in Chennai are spending up to Rs 15,000 to being back each migrant worker in sleeper buses from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, among other states.

Even though Tamil Nadu has 1.80 lakh COVID-19 cases, builders and workers are desperate to resume work.

Thousands of migrant construction workers, who had returned home after a countrywide lockdown necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic, are being brought back in chartered sleeper buses to resume construction in Chennai.

Even though Tamil Nadu is the second worst-hit state by COVID-19 with 1.80 lakh cases, the desperation to start work is mutual for builders and workers.

Migrant workers are happy to return as most have raked up huge debts in absence of a steady income for months. Builders are focused on cutting losses incurred on account of delay, bank interest and inflated cost of material. They are spending up to Rs 15,000 on bringing back each worker, most of whom are from Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, as state-run road transport services remain suspended in Tamil Nadu.

At Asta Arise, a Rs 500-crore, 18-storeyed luxury apartment project in Chennai’s Alwarpet area, work has resumed with 26 of the nearly 150 workers back. Another group is expected soon.

Bahadur, a worker from Uttar Pradesh’s Gorakhpur who left in March, said, “We have had to borrow a lot. We haven’t been able to nourish our child well. I’m happy I’m back here to start earning.

Saravana Kumar, a bar bender from Bihar, said he’s desperate to get his salary. “I have to send money home for food and my children’s education. I am not scared of Corona; I don’t go out unnecessarily and I take precautions.”

Asta Arise Managing Director Tamanna Aggarwal is excited that they have been able to resume construction. The delay and escalation in price of materials has led to losses, she said, adding, “Payment of interest and delay in handover to customers are our major concerns. With no public transport, we have no option but to make travel arrangements for our workers.”

Industry experts said that before the lockdown, there were around 2 lakh migrant construction workers in Chennai.

“Only 40% workers are back. We are waiting for trains to resume so a larger number can return. This could lead to a rise in property prices for new buyers,” S Sridharan, Chairman of CREDAI Tamil Nadu, said.

For now, builders just hope Chennai’s COVID count would decline or remain stable.