Archives for April 2022

LONDON:  British Prime Minister Boris Johnson returned to the UK on Saturday after a two-day visit to India amidst reports of more fines being issued by Scotland Yard for lockdown-breaching parties at 10 Downing Street in here.

During his final press conference in Delhi on Friday, Johnson, 57, declined to be drawn on the issue of partygate and insisted he was focused on getting on with the job by strengthening ties with a friendly democracy.

“What we’re talking about today, is the ways in which the situation, not just in Ukraine, the situation around the world is obliging the UK and India to do more together,” Johnson told UK reporters in response to their flurry of partygate questions.

“I think that what people want in our country is for the government to get on and focus on the issues on which we were elected, and that’s what we’re going to do,” he said.

The British Prime Minister has been issued with one fixed penalty notice of a fine over his birthday party in the Cabinet Room of Downing Street in June 2020, which he paid up immediately.

Now, ITV News has quoted sources as saying that UK government officials have started receiving fines for another “bring your own booze” event in the garden of Number 10 Downing Street, which Johnson is known to have attended during a lockdown.

A spokesperson for the Prime Minister said he has not received a second fine as of now and the public is unlikely to find out whether he does until after local elections coming up on May 5.

“While the investigation will continue during the pre-election period due to the restrictions around communicating before the May local elections, we will not provide further updates until after May 5,” the Met Police said in a statement.

If Johnson does receive another fine, it will be double his first one which was worth 100 pounds (USD 128) but reduced to 50 pounds (USD 64) because he paid it within 14 days.

The coronavirus lockdown rules meant people who repeatedly breached the rules against gatherings would have their fines doubled with each subsequent offence, up to a maximum of 6,400 pounds (USD 8,217).

ITV News claimed its sources had confirmed that some officials who attended the May 2020 “bring your own booze” Downing Street garden party have received police fines.

An email invite seen by the UK television news channel confirmed the garden party took place, with the invite reportedly sent by the Prime Minister’s former Principal Private Secretary Martin Reynolds to over a hundred employees at Downing Street.

In January this year when the reports first emerged, Johnson confirmed he had joined the event for about 25 minutes, saying that the No.

10 Downing Street garden was being used as “an extension of the office. “With hindsight, I should have sent everyone back inside,” he said, while arguing that the event “could be said, technically, to fall within the guidelines.”

While the Opposition Labour Party prepares for the Commons Privileges Committee probe into whether Johnson misled Parliament, there is growing disquiet on the backbenches of the Prime Minister’s own Conservative Party over the scandal.

Many Tory MPs have started speaking out over the issue but with the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict, there isn’t a strong appetite for a full-blown rebellion. However, the local council and mayoral election results on May 5 could embolden them to act if the Tories fare badly at the ballot box.

MUMBAI:  Amid power outages in parts of Maharashtra mainly due to coal supply disruption, a blame game has started with the Opposition BJP locking horns with the state government over “mismanagement” of energy generation and supply. 

“The Centre wants us to clear the Rs 2,200-crore dues before resuming the coal supply. We have limited coal stocks and have requested the Centre to provide us with enough numbers of train wagons to transport coal, but they are not doing that,” Raut said. 

Deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar said Maharashtra would soon buy coal from Chhattisgarh and abroad.
Senior BJP leader Ashish Shelar alleged that the ruling MVA had created an artificial shortage so that “power tenders are inflated to earn big money in coal import”.

The death toll has climbed to 5,22,149 with 33 fatalities, the data updated at 8 am stated.

The active cases comprise 0.04 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has been recorded at 98.75 per cent, the health ministry said.

An increase of 838 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.

The daily positivity rate has been recorded at 0.56 per cent and the weekly positivity rate at 0.50 per cent, according to the health ministry.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease has surged to 4,25,17,724, while the case fatality rate has been recorded at 1.21 per cent.

The cumulative doses administered so far under the nationwide COVID-19 vaccination drive has exceeded 187.46 crore.

India’s COVID-19 tally had crossed two crore cases on May 4 and three crore cases on June 23 last year.

The 33 new fatalities include 31 from Kerala and two from Delhi.

The health ministry said that 5,22,149 deaths have been reported so far in the country including 1,47,831 from Maharashtra, 68,781 from Kerala, 40,057 from Karnataka, 38,025 from Tamil Nadu, 26,164 from Delhi, 23,502 from Uttar Pradesh and 21,200 from West Bengal.

It said that more than 70 per cent of the deaths occurred due to comorbidities.

“Our figures are being reconciled with the Indian Council of Medical Research,” the ministry said on its website, adding that state-wise distribution of figures is subject to further verification and reconciliation.

BENGALURU: With the R value crossing 1 in India, Karnataka is among the top five states that is inching towards the national average. Renowned epidemiologist Dr Giridhara Babu on Friday took to Twitter and warned states to be prepared to handle the rise in Covid cases.

Dr Babu, who is part of the state Covid Technical Advisory Committee, tweeted, “R is 1.29 for India. Not to panic, but to prepare depending on the proportion of severe illness requiring hospitalisation,” He said R is nearing 1 in Manipur (0.99), Himachal Pradesh (0.96), Karnataka (0.95), Maharashtra (0.94), Bihar (0.94), Rajasthan (0.93), Goa (0.93), Tamil Nadu (0.92) and Mizoram (0.92).

He said that states should track infections and severity by monitoring clinical symptoms, looking for clusters or atypical symptoms and increasing testing levels in the states. States and union territories that need immediate attention as their R value is above national average (1.09) are Uttar Pradesh (1.38), Delhi (1.39), Haryana (1.28), Punjab (1.13), Uttarakhand (1.04) and Chandigarh (1.05). Health and Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar said in Mysuru, “People should not now think that Covid is far away and we don’t have to worry. It is important to follow Covid-appropriate behaviour especially masking up and vaccinations.”

Vaccines for age group 5-12 soon

He said the state has information that the Union government is making arrangements to vaccinate even children from 5-12 years of age.

What is R value?
The R value is a way of rating coronavirus or any diseases ability to spread. R is the number of people that one infected person will pass on a virus to, on average. SARS-CoV02 would have a reproduction number of about three.

How is R value calculated?
Scientists work backwards to calculate R. Certain data such as the number of people dying, admitted to hospital or testing positive for the virus over time is used to estimate how easily the virus is spreading.

R value above 1 dangerous?
If the R value is higher than one, then the number of cases keeps increasing. But if the value is lower, the disease will eventually stop spreading, because not people are being infected to sustain the outbreak.

NEW DELHI: Delhi’s R-value, which indicates the spread of COVID-19, was recorded at 2.1 this week, implying that every infected person is infecting two others in the national capital, according to an analysis by IIT-Madras.

The preliminary analysis by computational modelling was done by IIT-Madras’ Department of Mathematics and Centre of Excellence for Computational Mathematics and Data Science headed by Prof Neelesh S Upadhye and Prof S Sundar.

India’s R-value, at present, stands at 1.3, the analysis found.

Asked if it can be deduced that this is the beginning of the fourth wave of COVID-19 in Delhi, Dr Jayant Jha, Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics, IIT-Madras, said it would be too early to declare an onset of another wave.

“We can only say right now that every person is affecting two others…. but we need to wait a bit to declare onset… we don’t know about the immunity status and whether the people who got affected during the third wave in January are getting affected or not again,” he told PTI.

For other metro cities — Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata, Jha said the number of cases are too low to ascertain a trend.

Delhi is witnessing an uptick in the number of COVID-19 cases.

The city logged 1,042 fresh Covid cases with a positivity rate of 4.64 per cent on Friday.

The Omicron sub-lineage BA.2.12 has been detected in a majority of the samples sequenced from Delhi in the first fortnight of April and it could be behind the recent surge in COVID-19 cases in the city, sources said on Thursday.

However, an Indian SARS-CoV-2 Genomics Consortium (INSACOG) source has claimed that Omicron variant derivative BA.2.12.1 has also been found in a few samples in Delhi which is said to be contributing to the recent rise in cases in the US.

But officials have not confirmed that it indeed was found in some samples in Delhi.

An official source said, “New sub-variants BA.2.12 (52 per cent samples) and BA.2.10 (11 per cent samples) are showing high transmission and have been found in over 60 per cent of the total samples from Delhi sequenced recently.”

New Delhi: A “propagandist” newspaper distributed on board the Bangalore-Chennai Shatabdi Express has snowballed into a controversy, drawing political reactions and prompting the IRCTC to initiate an enquiry in the matter.

The IRCTC has admitted that the paper — “The Aryavarth Express” — was “unauthorised”.

The matter was raised by passenger Gopika Bakshi, a gender justice campaigner, on Twitter.

“This morning I boarded the Bangalore-Chennai Shatabdi Express only to be greeted by this blatantly propagandist publication on every other seat – The Aryavarth Express. Had never even heard of it. How is @IRCTCofficial allowing this?” Bakshi wrote on the microblogging site on Friday.

Congress MP B Manickam Tagore also questioned how such a newspaper found its way on board a train.

“Will Hon’ble Rail minister order an inquiry into it? Whether it’s the proved policy of the @RailMinIndia to allow propaganda material in the Shatabdi express? Will write and raise the issue in Loksabha.#IndiaAgainstHate,” he tweeted.

Another Congress MP, Karti Chidambaram, also questioned how such a newspaper got into the list of the publications subscribed by the IRCTC.

Sources said the IRCTC, the ticketing-and-catering arm of the railways, has approved Deccan Herald and one other local paper as the two publications to be distributed on board trains in the region. These newspapers are distributed on board by IRCTC licensees.

“We have ordered an enquiry into this and action will be taken against those found responsible. This paper is not among the IRCTC-approved publications,” IRCTC spokesperson Anand Jha said.

The divisional railway manager, Chennai said an enquiry in the matter is being conducted by the DRM Bangalore.

“The latest update is that DRM Bangalore is investigating the issue on how an unauthorised newspaper found its way into the train. We like to inform everyone that the train belongs to Bengaluru division and the incident happened there. We are sure they would take appropriate action,” he said in a tweet.

In a tweet later, IRCTC said the newspaper in question was found inside the regular, approved newspapers as an insert.

“The newspaper vendor has been strictly advised to avoid any such inserts in future. Onboard monitoring staff will keep a strict vigil of the same. The licensee of the train has also been counselled,” it said.

In a reply to the IRCTC tweet, Bakshi countered the claim made by the rail subsidiary, saying “it was not an insert – it was on my seat when I boarded. Deccan Herald was on the next seat”.

Niti Aayog VC Rajiv Kumar

New Delhi: Niti Aayog Vice Chairman Rajiv Kumar has stepped down, sources said.

The reason behind his move could not be immediately ascertained.

Kumar, an eminent economist, took over as vice chairman of Niti Aayog in August 2017 after the then VC Arvind Panagariya exited the government think-tank to return to academics.

Kumar holds a DPhil in economics from Oxford University and a PhD from Lucknow University. He was also a senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research (CPR).

Mumbai: Jos Buttler smashed his third century in the ongoing IPL to power Rajasthan Royals to the highest team total of the season, 222 for 2, against Delhi Capitals here on Friday.

Buttler, enjoying the form of his life, smashed 116 off 65 balls with the help of nine boundaries and as many hits over the fence to lay the foundation of the imposing total in the company of Devdutt Padikkal, who hit 54 off 35 balls with seven fours and two sixes.

DC skipper Rishabh Pant’s decision to field first backfired big time as the duo of Buttler and Padikkal struck 155 runs in 15.5 overs for the opening stand.

After reaching 50 in 6.5 overs, the duo opened up. Buttler started slowly before picking up the pace and dealt mostly in fours and sixes against the DC spin duo of Kuldeep Yadav and Axar Patel to bring up his fifty in 36 balls.

It was raining fours and sixes for both Buttler and Padikkal as both the batters played confidently to deny success to DC bowlers.

Buttler looked in ominous form and was particularly severe on Yadav, hitting the off-spinner for two sixes and one four to pick up 18 runs from the 13th over.

DC’s spin attack cut a sorry figure as Axar and Kuldeep too leaked runs with Buttler and Padikkal going hammer and tongs.

Padikkal brought up his fifty in 31 balls with a boundary, cutting Axar behind square on the off side.

High on confidence after two centuries in the ongoing edition of the IPL, Buttler continued his onslaught, smacking in-form Kuldeep Yadav for two maximums in consecutive balls and a four in the 15th over.

Power-hitting was at its best display as Buttler, in particular, treated all the DC bowlers with disdain.

Padikkal soon perished, caught plumb in front of the wicket by Khaleel Ahmed in the 116th over as DC got their first breakthrough, albeit late in the innings.

Buttler finally got out in the penultimate over, holing out to David Warner at long-on off Mutafizur Rahman.

Towards the end, skipper Sanju Samson (46 not out off 19 balls) played a little cameo to help RR cross the 200-run mark and register the highest score of the season.

Brief Scores:

Rajasthan Royals: 222 for 2 in 20 overs (Jos Buttler 116, Devdutt Padikkal 54, Sanju Samson 46 not out; Khaleel Ahmed 1/47, Mustafizur Rahman 1/43).