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Archives for April 2022

Indian Diaspora keeping identity of India alive wherever they are: Rajnath Singh

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WASHINGTON: The people of Indian origin keep the identity of India alive wherever they are in the world, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh has said, applauding the Indian-Americans for maintaining the “complete identity” of their culture thousands of miles away from their home country.

Describing his five-day trip to the US as fruitful, Singh said he had a wonderful meeting with his American counterpart Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin.

On Monday, Singh held bilateral talks with Austin and reviewed the entire gamut of bilateral defence cooperation and the regional security situation, including in the Indo-Pacific and the broader Indian Ocean Region.

“I congratulate you for maintaining this complete Indian identity,” Singh told a group of Indian-Americans during a public reception hosted in his honor by the Indian Consulate in San Francisco on Thursday.

“This is not a small thing. People lose their (cultural identity) when they stay at some place for a long time,” he said.

Indians living outside India always feel pride in calling themselves Indians. Singh said he was making his fourth trip in his political career to the United States and the first in San Francisco.

The Indian community in the United States has established itself here. This is a result of the efforts of the community, he added.

“Had I come here as a political leader, not on my official tour, I would have met the Indian community in all the places I visited here,” he said.

India and the United States, being the largest democratic powers, have the potential to establish global “peace and prosperity”.

The relationship between the United States and India is multifaceted, economic, strategic, and defence as well, he said.

“Today the entire world knows that India and the US are natural allies,” Singh said, asserting that this relationship has stability and continuity and at the same time the two countries have an important role to play in maintaining this stability and continuity.

“This ground reality cannot be ignored,” Singh said. He is scheduled to leave San Francisco for India on Friday.

The Indian Diaspora, which keeps on climbing to new heights in the US, plays a key role in this relationship, Sigh said.

People in India are always proud of the achievements that the people of Indian origin or its diaspora achieve here.

For instance, when Parag Agarwal became the Twitter CEO, people in India felt that someone among their own has become the head of Twitter, he said amidst applause.

Similarly, there are several tech leaders in the US from among us, be it Satya Nadella of Microsoft or Sunder Pichai of Google, he said.

Disgruntled Hardik gets AAP invite to the party

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AHMEDABAD:  After Gujarat Congress working president Hardik Patel’s outburst against his party, the Aam Aadmi Party has given him an open offer to join its fold. AAP’s Gujarat unit chief Gopal Italia told Patel not to “waste” his time in the grand old party. 

He should not waste his time putting his case before the Congress leadership as it would not yield any results, Italia added. The AAP, in order to expand its footprints in Gujarat ahead of the Assembly elections in December, has been aggressively wooing leaders from both Congress and BJP and Italia’s offer to Hardik is part of the move. 

Hardik, however, has denied he had any plans of leaving the Congress. After lashing out at the Congress leadership for “sidelining” him, he said there would be “small fights and blame games” in a big party, “but we have to work together to make Gujarat a better place”.While Hardik denied leaving Congress, AAP leader Nikhil Savani, one of his associates from the Patidar movement, hinted that he might “choose to grab the broom”. 

The Congress has been facing trouble in Gujarat. Senior party leaders and workers are increasingly turning to BJP and AAP. On Thursday itself, two senior Congress leaders — Indranil Rajguru and Vashram Sagathia from the Saurashtra region — gave a big blow to the grand old party by decamping to the AAP while former MLA from Gadhda reserved seat, Praveen Maru, has joined the BJP.

PM opens Gujarat hospital built by Patels

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AHMEDABAD:  Better health facilities are not limited to only treatment of diseases; they also encourage social justice, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi after inaugurating KK Patel Super Speciality Hospital in Bhuj, Gujarat, via video-conferencing on Friday.

Speaking after dedicating the 200-bed facility to the nation, the PM said, “When cheap and best treatment is available to the poor, his faith in the system is strengthened. If they get freedom from worrying over the cost of treatment, they work hard to get out of poverty with more determination.”

The first charitable multi-speciality hospital in Kutch region has been built by Bhuj Leva Patel community with help from donors in India and abroad. This is Modi’s third outreach to the powerful Patel community in poll-bound Gujarat in recent days. 

KGF: Chapter 2 shatters all box office records

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Prashanth Neel’s period action drama KGF: Chapter 2 is all the rage across the country. The sequel to the 2018 blockbuster, KGF: Chapter 1, was highly anticipated since its announcement and box-office figures confirm that the new film, the second in eight years for director Prashanth Neel and actor Yash, has exceeded all expectations.

Hombale films, the production house of KGF: Chapter 2, confirmed that a whopping Rs 134.5 crore was collected on Thursday, the opening day. The Hindi version of the film has grossed `53.95 crore, making it the highest ever first-day collection for any film in the language, ahead of War and Thugs of Hindostan. 

“The success isn’t a surprise,” said  S R Prabhu of Dream Warrior Pictures, the Tamil Nadu distributor of the film. “We foresaw it even before we bought the rights of the film and were confident that the audience would love the second part even more than the first.” He went on to share an impressive statistic: “The second part has recovered the lifetime collection of the first film in Tamil Nadu, and it has done this in just one day. I am confident that this is the same in other languages as well.” 

Manoj Desai, executive director of G7 Multiplex and Maratha Mandir Cinema in Mumbai, painted a picture of happiness. “Almost 1,000 seats, across both our screens, are already sold out for the weekend. The film has performed exceedingly well and the positive reviews have helped too.” 

A reduction in Covid cases, relaxation of mask mandates and early morning shows have all combined to result in increased footfalls. “The shows on our property began as early as 4 am and we have scheduled nine shows in all. The early shows have a higher fare because of the flexible ticket pricing option,” shared Kavitha, manager of Mukta A2 Cinemas, Bengaluru. 

KGF dethroned Mohanlal’s Odiyan in First day collection

Meanwhile, the Malayalam dubbed version of the film, distributed by actor Prithviraj Sukumaran, has reportedly dethroned Mohanlal’s Odiyan to become the highest-grossing film in the language by grossing Rs 7.2 crores on the first day.

And yet, distributor and the president of the Tamil Nadu Theatres’ Association president, Tirupur Subramaniam, stated that Vijay’s Beast continues to lead the box office race in Tamil Nadu for the moment.

“KGF 2 is undoubtedly a massive success, but it hasn’t won over Beast, simply because of the sizeable difference in the number of screens allotted. Beast got over 800 screens overall, while KGF 2 got only around 250 screens.”

KGF: Chapter-2 will face competition in the form of Bollywood releases like Shahid Kapoor’s Jersey (April 22), Tiger Shroff’s Heropanti 2 and Ajay Devgn’s Runway 34, during the coming days. However, going by the massive online pre-booking numbers and the strong word-of-mouth publicity, stakeholders are convinced that the film about ‘India’s biggest criminal’ is on track to becoming India’s biggest blockbuster.

Food delivery to be hit as partners log off till Sunday

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BENGALURU: Ordering food online is going to be difficult over this weekend as food delivery partners (FDPs) have logged off in protest until Sunday against a new system of time slots introduced by the food delivery apps for them to log in. The new system threatens to affect the earnings of FDPs as it changes from peak to non-peak hours.

United Food Delivery Partners’ Union President, Vinay Sarathi told that FDPs are unhappy with the new system brought in by the companies, including Zomato, and is not acceptable.

“Unlike usual, time slots have been created for FDPs to join and operate. These slots are fixed like 7-11am, 11am-1pm and on on. Also attendance to these slots is being reserved for company’s preferred FDPs. This directly effects earnings as service charges change during peak and non-peak hours,” he said. Most FDPs are on strike protesting against the food delivery apps. Members of the Union announced a three-day strike starting from April 15.  

Impact of strike felt across B’luru

Its impact was already seen in most parts of Bengaluru on the first day where services was hit in areas like BTM Layout, HSR, RR Nagar, Katriguppe, Jalahalli and Kenergi. Members of the union are gradually extending their strike to across Karnataka. The Union has one lakh workers and most of them have shown solidarity to be a part of the strike.

Chetan a food delivery partner, who is finding it difficult to make ends meet said: “The imbroglio is prompted by the new payment system introduced around a month back. The new system called as gigs has brought down the earnings by 30 per cent and has increased the working hours. Despite repeated requests this was not addressed, so now we decided to go on a strike,” he said. Sarathi said earlier an FDP could log off when it was not a suitable time, but now after slots have been introduced, the dynamics change. 

Swiggy spokesperson said, “Although we have heard rumours of an upcoming strike, we have been assured that our partners are not going to take part and the strike is limited only to Zomato partners. We are not planning on implementing anything related to time slotting for FDPs and will not be reducing earnings of the partners.” 

A spokesperson from Zomato said revisions have been introduced and it seems to a be case of misunderstanding. The changes have been introduced to help students and those in other streams. The issues will be clarified with the FDPs, the spokesperson said.

Bengaluru airport ops grind to halt due to heavy rains, 29 flights affected

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BENGALURU:  Heavy rain near the Bengaluru airport area caused stoppage in flight operations for over an hour on Friday evening. Nine arriving flights to Bengaluru were diverted to Chennai. A total of 20 departing flights from Kempegowda International Airport suffered delays.

According to a spokesperson of airport operator, Bangalore International Airport Limited, flight operations were impacted between 6.35 pm and 7.38 pm. 

Landing of flights as well as departures  commenced normally after 7.38 pm, she said. “There was some traffic congestion in arrival flights. This got eased by 8.26 pm,” the spokesperson added

India records 975 fresh COVID-19 cases, 4 more deaths

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NEW DELHI: India’s COVID-19 tally climbed to 4,30,40,947 on Saturday with 975 more people testing positive for the viral disease, while the active cases increased to 11,366, according to Union health ministry data.

The death toll reached 5,21,747 with four more fatalities, the data updated at 8 am stated.

The active cases comprise 0.03 per cent of the total infections.

The national COVID-19 recovery rate remained at 98.76 per cent, the ministry said.

An increase of 175 cases has been recorded in the active COVID-19 caseload in a span of 24 hours.

The daily positivity rate was recorded at 0.32 per cent and the weekly positivity rate was recorded at 0.26 per cent, the ministry said.

The number of people who have recuperated from the disease surged to 4,25,07,834.

The case fatality rate stands at 1.21 per cent, it added.

The total number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the country so far under the nationwide vaccination drive has exceeded 186.38 crore.

India’s COVID-19 tally had crossed the 20-lakh mark on August 7, 2020, 30 lakh on August 23, 40 lakh on September 5 and 50 lakh on September 16.

It went past 60 lakh on September 28, 70 lakh on October 11, crossed 80 lakh on October 29, 90 lakh on November 20 and surpassed the one-crore mark on December 19.

India crossed the grim milestone of 2 crore on May 4, 2021, and 3 crore on June 23.

COVID cases continue to surge record high in Shanghai amid growing public anger

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BEIJING: China on Friday reported more than 3,400 positive and 20,700 asymptomatic coronavirus cases, majority of them in Shanghai city which is reeling under prolonged lockdown, and where hospitals have been ordered not to delay treatment of non-COVID patients after an elderly woman died waiting for emergency care, sparking a public outcry.

China’s economic hub Shanghai reported 3,200 confirmed locally transmitted COVID-19 cases and 19,872 local asymptomatic carriers on Thursday, the municipal health commission said on Friday.

The city has already conducted many rounds of testing and built temporary hospitals, including in stadiums and swimming pools to treat both positive and asymptomatic cases.

Amid growing public anger over the hospitals refusing treatment for non-COVID patients, health officials in Shanghai on Friday ordered hospitals not to delay treatment of patients over COVID-19 restrictions after an elderly woman died.

The order came after Larry Hsien Ping Lang, a prominent economist, said on his social media Weibo account that his 98-year-old mother, who had kidney failure, was asked to wait for the test result before admission to the emergency room at a hospital in the eastern Chinese city.

“She waited for four hours, and the result had not yet come back,” Lang said, adding that: “She then left us.” In principle, public hospitals are required to keep medical services operational during the fight against COVID-19, a Shanghai official said, adding that this is especially the case for emergency and fever outpatient services, official media reported.

China, where the coronavirus first emerged in Wuhan in December 2019 before turning into a global pandemic, is significantly experiencing late surge of Omicron cases just as when the rest of the world began relaxing all the controls after bringing the virus under control.

The situation in Shanghai is so disquieting that even the official Chinese media started highlighting the public discontent.

As the city of Shanghai is going through the most difficult time in its fight against the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, doubt, anxiety and fatigue are noticeable among local residents and some heart-wrenching stories could easily arouse the public mood, the state-run Global Times reported on Friday. It is indeed the most difficult time for Shanghai as intensive public anger flooded the internet, the report said.

Millions of people in Shanghai faced various difficulties in the past weeks such as food shortage, delayed transfer of their infected neighbours to collective quarantine places, and the chaotic handling of residents’ daily requests in some neighbourhoods, the Post report said.

The worst affected are the elderly population. Shanghai is one of China’s first cities to develop a large ageing population.

According to the 2019 Shanghai Elderly Population and ageing Business Monitoring Statistics, Shanghai’s elderly population of 60 and over is approximately 5.815 million, suggesting that one in every three people is an elder.

The number of elderly people living alone among them reached 317,400, the South China Morning Post reported. This group of people became one the most vulnerable ones during Shanghai’s indefinite lockdown because the majority of them suffer from chronic diseases, it said.

China’s zero-case policy runs contrary to global trends. People’s livelihoods, and their spirits, have been put to the test; both will affect public trust in the government, the Post report said.

But Chinese President Xi Jinping continued to insist on the country following the zero-case policy. “Given that the global COVID pandemic situation is still grave, we must never relax our response. Victory comes from perseverance,” Xi said during a tour of Hainan province on Thursday.

“We must always put the people and their lives first, adhere to the principle of guarding against imported cases and domestic resurgences, and follow a science-based, targeted approach and zero-COVID policy,” he said.

People must not drop their guard, lose drive, take chances or slacken efforts, he said.

Punjab government announces 300 units of free electricity from July 1

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CHANDIGARH: The Bhagwant Mann-led AAP government in Punjab announced 300 units of free electricity to households from July 1.

The announcement was made in advertisements published by the state’s information and public relations department in various newspapers on Saturday.

It was related to a 30-day report card of the AAP government in Punjab.

A formal announcement is expected to be made later on Saturday.

Giving 300 units of free electricity was one of the major poll promises of the Aam Aadmi Party in the Punjab assembly election.

Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had on Thursday said in Jalandhar that “good news” would be announced on April 16.

Punjab was already providing free electricity to the farming sector.

It also provides 200 units of free power to all Scheduled Castes, backward castes and the below poverty line households.

Bypoll trends: RJD leads in Bihar, TMC in Bengal and Congress in Chhattisgarh

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KOLKATA/RAJNANDGAON/MUZZAFARPUR: Trinamool Congress candidates have taken the lead over their rivals in both the Asansol Lok Sabha constituency and the Ballygunge assembly segment, after initial rounds of counting for by-polls to the two seats, election officials said Saturday.

In Ballygunge, Babul Supriyo is ahead of CPI(M)’s Saira Shah Halim by 4,676 votes, after three rounds of counting at David Hare Training College here, they said.

Former Union minister and popular yesteryear actor Shatrughan Sinha is also leading by 10,989 votes over BJP’s Agnimitra Paul, the official said.

The by-polls, which took place on April 12, were necessitated as Supriyo resigned as the MP of Asansol after switching over to the TMC from the BJP, while state minister Subrata Mukherjee, who represented Ballygunge, died last year.

The counting exercise began at 8 am amid tight security.

Congress leading in bypoll to Chhattisgarh’s Khairagarh Assembly seat 

Counting of votes for the bypoll to Khairagarh Assembly seat in Chhattisgarh began on Saturday morning and as per the early trends, the Congress candidate is leading by a margin of 1,242 votes, officials said.

Both the ruling Congress and opposition BJP in the state are eyeing to win the seat that falls in the Naxal-hit Rajnandgaon district, where by-election was necessitated after Janata Congress Chhattisgarh (J) MLA Devvrat Singh died in November last year.

“The counting of votes in the bypoll held on April 12 in Khairagarh seat began at 8 am at the godwon of state seeds development corporation here,” a poll official said.

As per the early trends, Yashoda Verma of the Congress was leading by a margin of 1,242 votes against his nearest rival Komal Janghel of the BJP after three rounds of counting, he said.

Verma secured 4,436 votes, while Janghel bagged 3,194 votes after the initial rounds of counting.

JCC (J) candidate Narendra Soni has secured 49 votes, he said.

The voter turnout in the bypoll for the seat located in state’s Naxal-affected Rajnandgaon district, was 77.88 per cent.

Postal ballots were first taken up for counting followed by votes cast in the EVMs, the official said, adding that the entire process will be done in 21 rounds.

A total of 10 contestants were in the fray, but political experts feel that this time the fight is virtually between the ruling Congress and opposition BJP as the JCC (J) has lost its appeal after the demise of Ajit Jogi in 2020.

Devvrat Singh, who belonged to the erstwhile royal family of Khairagarh, quit Congress in 2017 and joined former JCC (J) the next year.

He contested the 2018 Assembly polls on the JCC(J) ticket from Khairagarh.

He defeated BJP candidate Komal Janghel by a thin margin of 870 votes.

This time, the BJP has once again fielded Komal Janghel, a former MLA, for the bypoll, while Yashoda Verma, the Khairagarh block unit chief of Congress, is the ruling party’s nominee.

Janghel and Verma both belong to the Lodhi caste, a numerically powerful OBC community in the Khairagarh area.

However, stakes are high for the ruling Congress, as it is fighting to retain this seat, which was once considered as its bastion.

Congress has promised the people to make Khairagarh a district if it wins the seat.

In the 2018 assembly polls in Chhattisgarh, the Congress registered a landslide victory winning 68 seats in the 90-member House decimating the BJP to 15.

The JCC (J) and Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) had bagged 5 and 2 seats respectively.

Subsequently, the state witnessed bypolls to three assembly seats which were won by Congress, improving its tally to 70 in the assembly.

RJD candidate leads by 11,620 votes in Bihar’s Bochahan 

Rashtriya Janata Dal candidate Amar Kumar Paswan was on Saturday leading by over 11,620 votes over his nearest rival Baby Kumari of the BJP in the bypoll to Bihar’s Bochahan assembly constituency, an Election Commission official said.

Paswan secured 26,623 votes, while Kumari got 15,003 after the eighth round of counting, he said.

Vikassheel Insaan Party’s Geeta Kumari was in the third position with 13,512 votes.

The counting of votes for the assembly constituency in Muzaffarpur district is underway.

By-poll to the seat was necessitated by the death of MLA Musafir Paswan, who had won on the ticket of the Vikassheel Insaan Party.

Around 59.20 per cent of 2,90,544 voters had exercised their franchise in the by-election to the assembly segment on April 12.

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