Archives for June 2021

VIJAYAWADA:  The State reported more than 2,600 new Covid infections in the past 24 hours ending Monday 9 am with a positivity rate of 4.8 per cent, taking the cumulative cases to more than 18.53 lakh. The caseload has come down to less than 59,000 while 44 deaths were reported in the 24-hour span.The less number of new cases can be attributed to the number of tests conducted on the day. Only 55,000 samples were tested in the 24-hour span as against the one lakh samples tested on Saturday.

According to the media bulletin released by the State Command Control Room, the highest number of 531 new infections were reported from Chittoor and it is the only district with more than 500 cases. All the other districts logged less than 500 cases with the lowest of 88 in Vizianagaram. This is after two months that a district reported less than 100 new infections. With the spike in new cases, the overall infections in Visakhapatnam went past 1.47 lakh. Vizianagaram and Krishna are the only districts with less than one lakh overall cases while two districts — Chittoor and East Godavari — have more than two lakh cases.

Another 7,504 more patients have been cured, taking the total recoveries to 17.82 lakh with a rate of 96.2 per cent. The caseload came down to 58,140. East Godavari has the highest of 11,932 active cases followed by 8,765 in Chittoor. Anantapur has the lowest of 1,207 active cases. Meanwhile, 44 people succumbed to the virus taking the overall deaths to 12,363 with a mortality rate of 0.67 per cent. Chittoor reported the highest number of 10 deaths followed by five each in Guntur and Srikakulam, four in East Godavari, three each in Anantapur, Kurnool, Prakasam, Vizag and West Godavari, two in Krishna and one each in Kadapa, Nellore and Vizianagaram.

SRINAGAR: The Jammu and Kashmir Apni Party has hailed the political outreach of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and hoped that the June 24 all-party meet will facilitate commencement of a political process in the union territory that will lead to genuine empowerment of its people.

The party headed by Altaf Bukhari also demanded that concrete confidence building measures be taken by the Centre to address woes of the people of J-K.

The party held a meeting on Monday in which the leaders “hailed the political outreach of the prime minister and hoped that the June 24 meeting will facilitate commencement of a political process in Jammu and Kashmir that will eventually pave the way for genuine empowerment of its people”.

Party general secretary Rafi Ahmad Mir on Tuesday said Bukhari has been authorised by the party to “represent the wishes and aspirations of the people of Jammu and Kashmir in the meeting.

BHUBANESWAR: Keeping pace with the national trend, the COVID-19 test positivity rate (TPR) fell below five per cent (pc) in Odisha after more than two months. The State recorded 3,031 new cases from 61,000 tests in last 24 hours bringing down the TPR to 4.96 per cent from 5.23  per cent a day before. 

The last time the infection rate of less than five per cent (4.35 pc) was reported on April 10 when 1,379 people were found to be positive out of 31,651 samples tested. Of the 30 districts, the positivity rate in 18 districts has fallen below 5 per cent. The TPR is more than 10 per cent in three districts with Jajpur having the highest rate of 10.6 per cent followed by 10.1 per cent each in Khurda and Puri.

Health department sources said the new cases have declined significantly in western and southern Odisha as seven of the 15 districts have a positivity rate of below two per cent and the rest below five per cent.

The coastal districts have been fuelling the tally with Khurda registering the highest 381 fresh cases followed by Cuttack (295), Balasore (290), Jajpur (226), Puri (180) and Mayurbhanj (167). Eighteen districts reported less than 100 cases each.

With 4,587 more patients recovering on Monday, the active cases came down to 32,046. Twenty districts with less than 1,000 active cases each have turned green. With more than 2,500 cases each, four districts – Khurda (5,127), Cuttack (3,134), Jajpur (3,138) and Balasore (2,805) continue to be under the red zone.

However, there is no let up in fatalities as the disease claimed 43 more lives. The maximum seven deaths were reported from Khurda and five each from Bargarh and Cuttack taking the death toll to 3,633.

The health authorities claimed that the infection has dropped as expected and the cases will come down below 2,000 per day by the end of this month. The stress is now on to ramp up vaccination besides preparing for the third wave as anticipated.

Director of Public Health Dr Niranjan Mishra said everybody needs to be doubly cautious as it is difficult to ascertain the impact of the third wave now.  Appealing to people not to lower the guard, he said efforts are being made to complete the vaccination of all age-appropriate people as soon as possible.

KOLKATA: Several ethnic groups, which has spearheaded agitations for creation of separate states in north Bengal over the past few decades, have now rejected a BJP MP’s controversial demand for an union territory comprising all districts of the region, calling it an “unrealistic” and “vindictive” move.

Barla, during an interaction with the party’s north Bengal leaders, also said he would take the matter up in Parliament during the upcoming Monsoon session.

His views were endorsed by BJP MP from Alipurduar Jayanta Roy and some other leaders.

The state unit of the BJP, however, distanced itself from the demand and said “it was not the official stand of the party and more of a personal opinion of Barla”.

Ironically, Barla’s demand did not find resonance among the prominent identity-based groups in the region – the Gorkha Jana Mukti Morcha (GJM), Greater Cooch Behar People’s Association (GCPA) and those backing the Kamtapur movement.

They said it was an attempt to create unrest ahead of the next Lok Sabha polls in 2024.

Barla, who had earlier led an agitation for an autonomous tribal area in the region, reasoned that north Bengal has long been neglected and its separation from the TMC-led state could be the only way to usher in development.

“There have been movements here in the past for a separate Kamtapuri, a greater Cooch Behar and Gorkhaland. That prompted me to raise this demand. And to be honest, north Bengal region has faced neglected for a long time. It should be made into a separate union territory,” the BJP MP, who has stayed firm on his stance, said.

The tribal leader from Terai-Dooars also said he and other leaders from the region would be meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah on this issue.

His remarks have kicked off a political storm in the state, with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and the ruling TMC vehemently opposing it.

“We are opposed to any division of Bengal. We will never allow any such thing,” she said.

The TMC, which had used the sub-nationalism card to trounce the BJP in the March-April assembly polls, was quick to brand the saffron party as an “anti-Bengali” organisation which wants to divide the state to avenge its defeat.

North Bengal, with its eight districts including picturesque Darjeeling, is both economically important for West Bengal as it houses the money-minting tea, timber and tourism industries.

The place is strategically important for the country for its Siliguri corridor, commonly known as ‘chicken neck’, as it connects the mainland with the northeastern states.

The region, which shares border with Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh, has witnessed several violent statehood movements since the early eighties by various ethnic groups such as Gorkhas, Rajbanshis, Koch and Kamatapuri communities.

GJM general secretary Roshan Giri, rejecting Barla’s stance, said, “What purpose would a union territory or a separate state comprising all north Bengal districts serve? We wanted a separate state of Gorkhaland.

We have been fighting for it since the 1980s.

We don’t trust the BJP; they have fooled us since 2009.

” The demand for Gorkhaland was first made in the 1980s, with the Subhas Ghisingh-led GNLF launching a violent agitation in 1986, which dragged on for 43 days, resulting in the deaths of hundreds.

The movement led to the formation of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council in 1988.

After the TMC took over the reins in Bengal in 2011, the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) was formed with GJM supremo Bimal Gurung as its chief.

But peace was short-lived in the region as Gurung rekindled the agitation in support of Gorkhaland in 2013, and engineered a 104-day-long strike in 2017, accusing the TMC government of trying to “wipe out” Gorkha identity.

Giri, who belongs to the Gurung faction of the GJM, claimed that the BJP was making “false promises” and his outfit, which joined hands with the TMC just ahead of the assembly polls after years of rivalry, now, has full faith in Banerjee as she has promised a permanent political solution.

Echoing him, Bangshi Badan Barman of GCPA said a separate UT was not the same as the demand for an independent state for Rajbanshis, who make for the largest chunk of Scheduled Caste population in the state.

“The Cooch Behar princely kingdom was merged with India after Independence with a promise of a C-category state.

But that promise was not fulfilled, and part of the Cooch Behar kingdom was divided between Assam and West Bengal.

Barman also questioned the timing of Barla’s proposal and sought to know why the BJP leadership did not raise the matter during the assembly polls.

The leaders of the Kamatapuri movement in north Bengal, which also led to the formation of militant outfit Kamtapur Liberation Organisation (KLO), feels the demand is “unrealistic” and an attempt “to settle scores after assembly polls drubbing”.

“It is not only diversionary but also unrealistic.

The needs of people in north Bengal vary from district to district.

“We will not back this call for a UT status.

We want a separate state for Kamatpuris.

The TMC government has carried out various developmental projects in the region since 2011.

Even then, there is a lot that is left to be done,” said Nikhil Roy, president of the Kamtapur Peoples’ Party (United).

Once dreaded for its aggression, the Kamatapuri movement, which sought a separate state consisting of parts of north Bengal and a few districts of Assam, is just a pale shadow of its former avatar as several of its top leaders are either behind bars or have returned to the mainstream under the TMC regime.

Even the GCPA and GJM, too, are in disarray over factional feuds and have lost their past influence.

Barla’s remarks, although, failed to evoke any response among the separatist leaders, it led to churning in the BJP’s rank and file in the region.

Several leaders openly spoke against it and have expressed their desire to leave the party.

The party’s Alipurduar district president, Ganga Prasad Sharma, switched over to the TMC on Monday.

Slamming the saffron camp, TMC leader and minister of state for north Bengal development Sabina Yeasmin said, “The BJP cannot digest the humiliating defeat it faced in the last assembly polls.

It is now trying to break Bengal.

But the people of this state and the TMC will never allow their sinister plans to succeed.

” Sensing that the Union territory narrative would harm the party’s support base in the state, BJP state president Dilip Ghosh clarified that no such plan was in the offing.

“Barla’s comment is not the official stand of the party.

The BJP has no such plans,” he said.

Among leaders of other parties, Congress MP Pradip Bhattacharya pointed out that “such a proposition would only divide the masses and never become a reality” as the proposal has to be first passed in the assembly.

Political analyst Biswanath Chakraborty said both the TMC and the BJP have adopted “double standards” over separate statehood demands in the region.

“This time, the BJP is at the receiving end, and the UT demand by John Barla will harm the the party both politically and electorally,” he said.

North Bengal, which sends eights MPs to Lok Sabha, had voted hands down for the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha polls as the party bagged seven seats.

MUMBAI: Any anti-BJP front is not possible without the Congress, Maharashtra state party president Nana Patole said on Monday even as he extended his “best” wishes for a likely “Shiv Sena-NCP alliance” for the 2024 elections.

Patole was responding to a query on the likely tie-up between the Sena and the NCP if Congress decides to go solo in the 2024 elections.

All these three parties are constituents in the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) which came to power in November 2019 with Sena president Uddhav Thackeray as the chief minister.

Patole had recently caused a flutter saying the Congress will contest future elections on its own.

In a veiled jibe at the Congress, CM Thackeray on Saturday said that people would “beat with footwear” those who only talk about contesting elections alone without offering solutions to people’s problems.

On Sunday, Patole clarified the Congress will stand strong with the CM with all its might until the government completes its full five-year term.

Earlier on Monday, Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut said the coordination among the allies of the MVA was a model example of how a coalition government should function.

Meanwhile, reacting to Shiv Sena MLA Pratap Sarnaik’s letter to CM Thackeray suggesting “reconciliation” with the BJP to save some leaders of the Sena, including him, from “harassment by Central investigating agencies,” Patole said the BJP has been using these agencies to target and destabilize governments headed by opposition parties since the last 18 months.

“But this strategy won’t work in Maharashtra. We are standing firm with Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray. This government will not succumb to any pressure,” he said.