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Centre asks states to restart monitoring ILI, SARI cases amid Covid surge in southeast Asia

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NEW Citing the resurgence of coronavirus cases in southeast Asia and parts of Europe, the Centre has asked the states to restart monitoring influenza-like illness and severe acute respiratory infections so that no early warning signals are missed and Covid is controlled.

Testing for influenza-like illness (ILI) and severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) cases has been the pillars of Covid management for the government.

However, the testings were stopped recently as India has been recording a steady decline in COVID-19 cases.

As part of intensified surveillance, patients being hospitalised with ILI and SARI will again be tested for COVID-19 and positive samples will be sent for genome sequencing.

In a letter, Union Health Secretary Rajesh Bhushan has asked all states and Union Territories to ensure an adequate number of samples are submitted to the INSACOG network for timely detection of new Covid variants.

He also stressed on maintaining testing according to protocols, observing all precautions and not letting the guard down while resuming economic and social activities.

“Effective surveillance by monitoring of emerging clusters of new cases, if any, testing as per norms and monitoring of ILI and SARI cases shall be taken up on a continued basis to ensure no early warning signals are missed and spread of infection can be controlled,” Bhushan said in the letter.

He further said the state machinery should create required awareness and ensure adherence to Covid-appropriate behaviour and practise effective hand and respiratory hygiene.

With a spike in COVID-19 cases across Southeast Asia and some countries of Europe, a high-level meeting was chaired by Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya on March 16 where the states were advised to focus on aggressive genome sequencing, intensified surveillance and overall vigil on the Covid situation, Bhushan said in the letter.

He also emphasised continued focus on the five-fold strategy of test, track, treat and vaccination and adherence to Covid-appropriate behaviour.

“All the states and Union Territories must observe all precautions and not let the guard down while resuming economic and social activities,” Bhushan stated.

“It is also vital that states may ensure all eligible people are motivated to get vaccinated against COVID-19 as per the recent expansion of vaccination drive,” he added.

Fans bring late mega star Puneeth Rajkumar to life with ‘James’ release

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BENGALURU: “Paramaathmanige saavilla” (There’s no death to the Supreme Lord)! That is what came out strongly on Thursday as emotional fans of late Kannada actor Puneeth Rajkumar — fondly called Appu — celebrated the day for two reasons. 

‘James’ has set records not just all over Karnataka, but worldwide too. The film was released in 286 single screens, and 180 multiplexes across Karnataka.  Bengaluru alone had over 1,000 shows, and a total of over 2,000 shows across Karnataka. Worldwide, ‘James’, released in five languages, recorded over 4,000 shows.

The film bagged first day collection of over Rs 10 crore in Karnataka alone; and made an approximate collection of Rs 30 crore worldwide. With houseful shows, and tickets booked till this weekend, the team is expecting to join the Rs 100 crore club within a week.

Puneeth ‘raj’ on fans, streets become dance floors

The celebrations began at the stroke of midnight as March 16 gave way to Puneeth Rajkumar’s birthday. His brother Raghavendra Rajkumar, and his sons Vinay Rajkumar, Yuvarajkumar, Sriimurali celebrated with fans, and later, at 6 am on Thursday, the entire Rajkumar family watched ‘James’ at Veeresh theatre. The theatre saw a floating population of at least 20,000 fans who came only to see the 30 cutouts of Appu put up there.

On the opening day, several theatres across Karnataka kept seats, numbered 17, vacant in all the rows in honour of the late star as March 17 is his birthday. Mysuru saw a whopping 110-plus shows across the district, setting a new record. Several fans erected a 70-ft cutout of Puneeth Rajkumar in front of DRC Cinemas at BM Habitat Mall and hired a helicopter to shower flower petals on it.

Similarly, Puneeth fans got together and installed a statue in a temple-like structure at Paduvarahalli in Mysuru earlier and milk abhishekham was performed. Interstingly, an entire extended family of 150 members booked an entire hall at PVR Cinemas to watch the movie in Mysuru. Puneeth’s wife Ashwini Revanath paid a visit to her husband’s memorial at Kanteerava Studios in Nandini Layout, which witnessed over 30,000 people paying their tributes to their beloved star through the day.

Puneeth’s eldest brother and ‘Hattrick Hero’, Shivarajkumar, arrived at Gayathri theatre on 100-Feet Road to watch the film along with Puneeth’s fans. Charity, blood donation drives, installation of statues, fireworks, showering of flowers, distribution of food, rallies was the order of the day across Karnataka. Lakhs of fans, young and old, commemorated the 47th birth anniversary of the Power Star in their own ways. Fans also organised eye donation camps in honour.

Others organised food distribution camps which are expected to continue till the weekend. Meanwhile, hospitals like Fortis used the opportunity to spread awareness on heart conditions and organised free cardiac check-ups for people. The entire Sandalwood fraternity and politicians took to Twitter to express their sentiments on the actor’s birthday and on his last movie.

The scenes were no less in parts of Chamarajanagar district, Hassan, Hubbali, Kolar as several fans celebrated his birth anniversary, and paid tributes. Fans have an emotional connect with ‘James’. The movie, a firsttime collaboration between Puneeth Rajkumar and director Chethan Kumar, is an action entertainer backed by producer Kishore Pathikonda.

It is about an Army officer, Santhosh Kumar, played by Puneeth Rajkumar, who decides to quit his job to run a security agency. What is his purpose? What is the intention behind the title ‘James’? The answers to these questions make up the second half of the film, which ends up becoming a revenge drama. In the US, a host of events have been lined up in California, New York, New Jersey area, Los Angeles and other places.

Award ceremony after talks with Puneeth family: CM

Bengaluru: As the state celebrated the birth anniversary of Power Star Puneeth Rajkumar, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said the late actor’s life, conduct in public and helping nature towards the poor are “exemplary and inspiring.’’ The CM said, “We should remember his huge achievements and good work at such a young age.

We would have been celebrating his 47th birthday today if he were alive. His life is an inspiration to us, though we all are in grief after losing him.” He also wished success for the Puneet starrer ‘James’, which hit the screens on Thursday.

“The date to present the ‘Karnataka Ratna’ award to Puneeth posthumously will be decided in consultation with his family members. A committee will be formed to organise the award presentation function in a befitting manner,” he said. Opposition leader Siddaramaiah reiterated that the government should give Puneeth a Padma Shri.

Mixed response to Karnataka bandh call over hijab verdict

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The bandh call given by some Muslim organisations to mark their protest against the Karnataka High Court verdict on the hijab issue evoked mixed response across the state. While in some places, business continued as usual, at other places commercial establishments owned by members of the community were completely shut.

The State Government, meanwhile, has taken serious note of the bandh, terming it as ‘contempt of court’. Law Minister J C Madhuswamy told the Assembly on Thursday, “We will take action against them accordingly.” He added that those unhappy with the judgment can appeal in the Supreme Court.

In the state capital Bengaluru, there was mixed response. Shops and businesses in areas like Shivajinagar, Commercial Street, Tannery Road, Frazer Town and Kalasipalya remained closed through the day. In many other areas, Muslim traders had kept their establishments open.

At the epicentre of the controversy in Udupi, there was good response from the community as most shops were shut. In Dakshina Kannada district, a majority of Muslims shut their business establishments. In Hubballi, Belagavi and Kalaburagi, there was poor response. However, the communally sensitive Bhatkal town in Uttara Kannada district turned into a fortress with businesses closed. 

Ukrainian actor Oksana Shvets killed in Russian rocket attack in Kyiv

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KYIV: Ukrainian actress Oksana Shvets has been killed in a Russian rocket attack on a residential building in Kyiv.

Confirming the demise of Oksana, her troupe, the Young Theater, issued a statement that read, “During the rocket shelling of a residential building in Kyiv, a well-deserved artist of Ukraine Oksana Shvets was killed.”

As per The Hollywood Reporter, Oksana was 67. She had been awarded one of Ukraine’s highest artistic honors, the title of which roughly translates as ‘Honored Artist of Ukraine’.

On February 24, Russia began a military operation in Ukraine, responding to calls for help from the breakaway republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in countering the aggression of Ukrainian troops.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the special operation is targeting Ukrainian military infrastructure only. According to the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, almost 600 civilians have been killed and more than 1,000 injured in Ukraine since the start of the conflict. 

Tamil Nadu BJP chief Annamalai indulging in ‘dead body’ politics and creating nuisance: Congress MP Manickam Tagore

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Congress MP Manickam Tagore (L) and Tamil Nadu BJP chief Annamalai

Congress MP from Virudhunagar, Manickam Tagore accused Tamil Nadu BJP chief Annamalai, without taking his name, of trying to communalise the recent death of minors in Madurai, Thanjavur.

In the Lok Sabha, Manickam Tagore said, “Tamil Nadu has always been a state which is very peaceful and (maintained) communal harmony and faith. But for the past few years, there is a new kind of politics called ‘dead body politics’ has started in Tamil Nadu. And particularly there is a retired IPS officer (Tamil Nadu BJP chief Annamalai) who has come to Tamil Nadu from Karnataka. His work is to create tension with each death of young kids who commit suicide. He connects (these incidents) with minority communities, Christians and Muslims. They create a lot of nuisance and try to divide the society, spread lot of wrong information about the death of the kid. He is putting a lot of divisions in society. It has happened in Madurai, Thanjavur.

Manickam Tagore also requested PM Narendra Modi’s intervention and asked him to advise his party men to not indulge in cheap politics.

I request through you (Rajendra Agrawal) sir  that the Honourable Prime Minister (Narendra Modi) should intervene and ask his party men not to do these kinds of cheap politics.”

The speech of Manickam Tagore went viral on social media, following which BJP leader Annamalai on Twitter claimed that Congress which is getting extinct from the country wants to waste the time of PM Narendra Modi.

He wrote, “Very funny to see one Honourable MP from Tamil Nadu complaining about Tamil Nadu BJP and me in the Parliament today. Congres which is getting extinct from our country now wants to waste Honourable PM Narendra Modi’s precious time by complaining to the Honourable Speaker. Hope they grow up soon!”

Ukraine joins European electricity grid US works to ‘seize and freeze’ wealth of Russian oligarchs

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BERLIN: Engineers have linked Ukraine to an electricity grid spanning much of continental Europe, allowing the country to decouple its power system from hostile Russia, officials said Wednesday.

“This is a significant milestone,” the group said.

Grid operators had been preparing such a move after Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, but the large-scale Russian military assault on Ukraine last month prompted an emergency request by Kyiv to speed up a process that was expected to take years more to complete.

ENTSO-E, whose 39 members operate the world’s largest interconnected electrical grid, said the move means they will be able to help maintain the stability of the Ukrainian and Moldovan power systems.

The two countries were previously part of the Integrated Power System which also includes Russia and Belarus.

This made Ukraine dependent on Russia’s grid operator despite there having been no electricity trade between the two countries for years.

“This step will give Ukraine the opportunity to receive electricity if (Russia) continues to destroy our power infrastructure, and thus to save our power system,” said Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, who chairs the management board of Ukraine’s grid operator Ukrenergo.

“We are sincerely grateful to our European partners for their great support and assistance during these difficult times.”

Georg Zachmann, an expert with the Brussels-based think tank Bruegel, said the switch will allow energy suppliers in the continental grid that stretches from Portugal to Poland to supply electricity to Ukraine if necessary.

This could allow Ukraine to turn off some of the coal-fired power plants it currently keeps running to ensure grid stability, saving precious fuel in wartime, he said.

In the long, term, Ukraine could export surplus electricity generated by its nuclear power plants to the rest of Europe.

“It’s a nice win-win situation,” said Zachmann.

“It might even be good for the climate. Announcing tough sanctions against Russian oligarchs over the war in Ukraine was step one. Now the US and its allies are creating new teams to act on their vow to “seize and freeze” the giant boats, estates and other pricey assets of Russian elites.”

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Attorney General Merrick Garland on Wednesday for the first time convened a multilateral task force known as REPO, one of several new efforts dedicated to enforcing sanctions.

REPO, short for Russian Elites, Proxies and Oligarchs, will work with other countries to investigate and prosecute oligarchs and individuals allied with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The group is now looking into 50 individuals, with 28 names publicly announced.

The effort faces several challenges, including varying laws across countries that could make legal discovery difficult and the risk of penalizing innocent people whose property may be tied up in an oligarch’s seized assets.

And time presents a problem: Investigations can drag on for months and years.

Germany, the U.K., France, Italy and other counties are involved in trying to collect and share information against Russians targeted for sanctions, the White House said when it announced the formation of the task force.

It will work alongside another group called KleptoCapture, led by the Justice Department to enforce the economic restrictions within the U.S. imposed on Russia and its billionaires, working with the FBI, Treasury and other federal agencies.

The government says the sanctions imposed already have had a biting effect on the Russian economy.

Russia lost access to vital imports for its military gear and more than $600 billion in assets held by its central bank, and faces ongoing rounds of targeted sanctions against companies and the wealthy elite who are tied to Putin.

The Russian stock market has yet to reopen since the sanctions began, while the ratings company Fitch said Russia would likely default if it used rubles to repay dollar-denominated debt due this week.

The Institute of International Finance estimates that the Russian economy will shrink by 15% this year, instead of the 3% growth that was expected pre-invasion.

Andrew Adams, a federal prosecutor who is leading the KleptoCapture task force, stressed property seizures must be conducted within the law.

“You cannot just walk up and grab somebody’s yacht. You have to walk through the facts that link the property to a crime,” he told MSNBC in an interview this week.

“You have to be able to describe not only what crime was committed with a degree of probable cause, but you have to trace the property to the condition of the crime.”

Ryan Fayhee, a former Justice Department prosecutor and current sanctions attorney at Hughes Hubbard & Reed in Washington, D.C. said “the challenge and the time involved with it is going to be demonstrating probable cause to actually justify a seizure.”

“This isn’t like a bank robbery,” Fayhee said, adding that the U.S. government is going to have to tie any potential actions to a U.S. criminal offense.

“That’s going to be the challenge and it will take months or years, not days.”

On top of this, the complicated financial instruments that oligarchs invest in will inevitably draw everyday people into seizure actions, says Jonathan C.

Poling, a former Justice Department prosecutor who works on sanctions and international trade issues for Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld in D.C. The concern is how do governments impose sanctions “in a way that doesn’t punish innocent people” Poling said.

Both the REPO and KleptoCapture groups will use data analytics, cryptocurrency tracing, intelligence, and data from financial regulators to track sanctions evasion, money laundering and other criminal acts.

Dariya Golubkova, an international trade attorney at Holland & Knight said cooperation between countries will be a benefit to sanctions enforcement, but there are countries that may be “missing from the international cooperation.”

Golubkova said countries that serve as havens to oligarch’s property will have to cooperate in REPO’s effort, or else sanctions will be less impactful.

The EU Tax Observatory think tank, associated with the Paris School of Economics, has called for a European Asset Registry to assist in sanctions efforts.

Golubkova also predicted that because countries have different search and seizure laws “some of these requirements may so mounting that you can’t get over them.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s ‘Servant of the People’ series returns to Netflix

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WASHINGTON: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s series ‘Servant of the People’, which inspired him to enter into politics, is back for streaming on Netflix in the US. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the satirical series originally streamed on Netflix from 2017 to 2021.

The show ran for three seasons and ended when Zelenskyy decided to run for President of Ukraine in 2019 under the banner of a new political party floated by him ‘Servant of the People’.

After much demand from the public due to ongoing Russia’s military operations in Ukraine and the heroism of Zelenskyy in defending his country, Netflix is currently streaming the series for its US subscribers.

Russia launched military operations in Ukraine on February 24 which was condemned by the Western nations. Zelenskyy, recently addressed the US Congress, virtually. The President called on the United States to do more to help Ukraine in its “darkest time”, according to a media report.

“In the darkest time for our country, for the whole Europe, I call on you to do more. New packages of sanctions are needed, constantly, every week until the Russian military machine stops. Restrictions are needed for everyone on whom this unjust regime is based.

The Ukrainian President received a standing ovation from the US lawmakers both at the beginning and the conclusion of his address. 

Bandh over HC’s hijab ruling brings positive response in Karnataka’s Bhatkal town

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KARWAR: The Karnataka bandh called by Muslim organisations in view of the High Court judgement upholding the Government order banning Hijab has evoked positive response with shops and other business establishments being closed in many parts of the Bhatkal town in Uttara Kannada district.

Bhatkal town has turned into a fortress with shops, restaurants and other business houses being closed and the police seen on the twon’s main streets.

“The town had also imposed self bandh since yesterday morning. It has continued since then. The Bhatkal Tanjim has called for a total bandh. It has been responded positively by both muslms and a section of non muslims too,” said senior journalist Inayathulla Gawai.

The closed shitters greeted people at the business hubs like Marikatta, main road, Mohammed Ali Road, Nawayath Colony, Madina colony, Azad Nagar, Port Road and other places. Bhatkal Tanzim general-secretary Abdul Rafiq said that the Muslim Community is not happy with the High Court order. “We are ready to support those who have gone to Court in any way they want,” he said.

Police have been stationed all over the town and the reserve police have been called in to maintain law and order. “Considering this as a sensitive place, we are fully prepared to ensure there is peace here,” a senior officer said.

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