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Indian HorizonRNI NO: DELENG/2013/51507

Published from New Delhi & Hyderabad

UNION MINISTER ACCUSES CONGRESS OF TRYING TO SAVE

NIRAV MODI

P-3

BHAKER, MOUDGIL & RANA HEADLINE NRAI’S NOMINATION

FOR SPORTS AWARDS

P-11P-8

PAKISTAN, IRAN RESUME TRADE ACTIVITIES AT BORDER

AMID PANDEMIC

Hyderabad, May 14 (IANS)The State health authorities on Thursday reported 47 coronavirus positive cases of which 40 persons were from areas under GHMC, five from Rangareddy district and two migrants.The total number of Covid-19 posi-tive cases in Telangana now

stands at 1,414. On Thurs-day, 13 Covid-19 positive patients who had recovered were discharged from Gan-

dhi Hospital taking the over-all number of discharged cases to 952.

The recovery rate of coro-navirus patients in the State has continued to hover at around 67 per cent. As on date, the health offi-cials said that 37 migrants, who came here from other

States, have tested positive for Covid-19. At present, there are 428 active Cov-id-19 positive cases admit-ted to Gandhi Hospital.

In the last 14-days not a single coronavirus posi-tive case has been re-ported in 26 districts that include Karimnagar, Ra-

janna Sircilla, Kamareddy, Mahabubnagar, Medak, Bhupalpally, Sangareddy, Nagarkurnool, Mulugu, Peddapally, Siddipet, Ma-habubabad, Mancherial, Bhadradri, Vikarabad, Na-lgonda, Asifabad, Kham-mam, Nizamabad, Adila-bad, Suryapet, Narayanpet, Warangal Urban, Jangaon, Gadwal and Nirmal.

COVID 19: 47 TEST POSITIVE IN TELANGANA ON THURSDAY

FM’S ANNOUNCEMENTS WILL BENEFIT FARMERS, MIGRANT WORKERS: PMNew Delhi, May 14 (IANS)

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday lauded the announcements of Finance Minister Nirmala Sithara-man for the welfare of farm-ers and migrant workers, saying it will benefit them.

“Today’s announcement by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will especially

benefit our farmers and migrant workers. The an-nouncements include a series of progressive measures and will boost food security, cred-it to farmers as well as street vendors,” Modi tweeted.

His remarks followed Sith-araman’s second tranche of economic stimulus pack-age announced here to ben-

efit migrant workers, street vendors and small farmers. Sitharaman tried to assuage the economic concerns of farmers, workers and street vendors on Thursday with a mega package offering every-thing - loans, interest sub-ventions and cheap housing.On the second day of detail-ing the mega Rs 20 lakh crore

economic package (nearly 10 per cent of GDP) under the Centre’s ‘Self-Reliant India Movement’ which was ear-lier announced by the Prime Minister, the Finance Min-ister doled out massive loan components for agriculture and the housing sector.This included a Rs 1.7 lakh crore package comprising free

foodgrains and cash to the poor for three months an-nounced in March, and Rs 5.6 lakh crore stimulus pro-vided through various mon-etary policy measures by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).The remainder of the Rs 20 lakh crore package is be-ing announced in tranches -- Sitharman had in the first

tranche on Wednesday un-veiled a Rs 5.94 lakh crore plan that mostly comprises off-budget items such as Rs 3 lakh crore of credit line to small businesses as support to shadow banks and elec-tricity distributors.

New Delhi, May 14 (IANS)Only 19 passengers, who re-fused to undergo the 14-day institutional quarantine in the city after arriving in a special train earlier in the day, left for New Delhi in the return train, an offi cial said on Thursday.

“An extra AC 3-tier coach has been attached to the spe-cial train (#02691) to take the 19 passengers who refused the mandatory 14-day quarantin-ing on returning to the city earlier in the day,” Bengaluru railway divisonal manager A.K. Verma told IANS after the train chugged out of the city station at 8:30 pm.

Though initially about 160 returnees wanted to go back to Delhi by the night train, about 141 withdrew later and recon-ciled to undergo the manda-tory quarantine, as about 500 returnees did during the day, albeit very reluctantly.

“Sending the passengers unwilling for quarantining in the return train was decided by the Karnataka government in consultation with the Rail-way Police Force (RPF), as they cannot go home for the

next 14 days and to avoid a law and order problem in the station, as many of them re-sorted to protests in the sta-tion since they arrived earlier in the day,” said Verma.

Though 920 passengers boarded the superfast train in New Delhi on Tuesday night, 680 arrived in this tech city earlier in the day, as 240 of them alighted at 5-6 stations en route to their destination.About 200 of the returnees protested against institutional

quarantining in hotels and hostels and insisted on going home for same to ensure they are free from coronavirus.

When the state health and civic offi cials told the return-ees, including women, chil-dren and senior citizens that they have to be in compulsory institutional quarantine for 14 days before going home in the city or other places in the southern state, fi nally 660 of them opted for quarantining as they had no other place to go.

19 returnees refuse quarantine in Bengaluru;

go back to Delhi

GOVT DECODES TDS/TCS RATE REDUCTION,

LEAVES MANY OUT

New Delhi, May 14 (IANS) Taxpayers who have not furnished PAN or Aadhaar while fi ling tax returns will not get the benefi t of lower rates of the tax collection at source (TCS) and the tax deduction at source (TDS).

Also, the TDS has not been reduced on salary in-come, cash withdrawal of over Rs 1 crore from bank accounts and foreign remit-tances, according to a top Finance Ministry offi cial, here on Thursday.

As part of the Rs 20 lakh crore economic package, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday announced 25 per cent reduction in TDS/TCS for the non-salaried specified payments made to resi-dents for balance period of FY21 -- from May 14 to March 31, 2021.

It was done to provide more money into the hands of taxpayers to deal with the economic situation amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

"The TDS on salary has not been reduced to pre-vent the salaried people from facing a heavy tax bur-den at the end of the year, at the time of fi ling returns and paying the full quota of taxes for the year.

"Similarly, cash withdraw-als and foreign remittances have also been kept out of the rate reduction ambit to promote digital transactions and restrict larger outfl ow of money," Finance Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey clarify-ing the position after second instalment of economic re-lief package was announced by the Finance Minister.

He said the reduction in TDS/TCS rates was largely to facilitate businesses get that much extra in this diffi cult period. The benefi t would ac-crue to TDS on all kind of in-terest on securities, dividend, bank savings accounts where the rate will come down to 7.5 per cent from 10 per cent.

New Delhi, May 14 (IANS) Amid the migrant crisis, Con-gress leader Rahul Gandhi ex-tended support to people who are walking to their homes.

He said "in darkness and tough times keep your strength and we will not let you down. We will raise your voices that government lis-tens to it as they are not ordi-nary citizens but they are na-tion's self respect and we will not let you down."

Congress lashed out at the government for not giving priority to migrants walking on roads.

While Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi said that "this is the biggest human tragedy and people are walking on roads hungry with their children and dear ones. People are dying on

roads and tracks."She demanded that UP gov-

ernment should start plying 20,000 buses so that these people could reach their homes safely.

"All the city and district units of the Congress will help these people with full might as this is time of service and Congress workers should stand with the countrymen," added Priyanka Gandhi.

WE WILL NOT LET PEOPLE DOWN : RAHUL GANDHI ON MIGRANTS New Delhi, May 14 (IANS)

Delhi Lt Governor Anil Bai-jal on Thursday directed the transfer of North Delhi Municipal Corporation's Commissioner Varsha Joshi with "immediate effect" and directed her to report

to Chief Secretary Vijay Dev.In an order, the Delhi Services Department said Gyanesh Bharti, the Com-missioner, South Delhi Mu-nicipal Corporation, will hold the additional charge of Commissioner, North

MCD.Bharti, a 1998-batch IAS officer, has been asked to take care of the North MCD "till further orders". Meanwhile, Joshi, a 1995 batch IAS officer, has been asked to report to the Chief Secretary.

NORTH MCD COMMISSIONER TRANSFERRED OUT

New Delhi, May 14 (IANS) The Haryana government on Wednesday apprised the Delhi High Court that it will "not restrict the movement of people who man essential services"."Movement of people who man essential services as mentioned in the notifi cations issued by the Union of India, including but not limited to government as well as private doctors, nurses, paramedics, sanitation workers, staff of Delhi

Police, Delhi Transport Corpo-ration, Delhi Jal Board, Munici-pal Corporations, High Courts, trial courts etc., shall be allowed between Delhi and Haryana on production of e-passes and they shall not be quarantined unless and until they test posi-tive for Covid-19 or have been found to be in contact with Co-vid-19 patients," Anil Grover, Additional Advocate General of Haryana, submitted before the court.Grover further submitted

that e-passes shall be issued to all the said individuals within 30 minutes of receipt of the appli-cations.

"Each e-pass shall be valid for the entire duration of the lockdown and could be used for multiple visits," he said.The submissions were made before a division bench of the high court presided over by Justices Manmohan and Sangita Dh-ingra Saihgal.The bench was hearing a plea which said that a

number of Delhi residents have to travel to Sonipat for essential work and similar is the situation for Sonipat residents and they are being stopped by the Hary-ana authorities at the borders.Grover told the court that free movement of trucks carrying both essential as well as non-essential goods between Delhi and Haryana (except to and fro between containment zones) as well as transiting through Hary-ana shall be allowed.

Won’t restrict those engaged in essential services: Haryana Government to HC

Hyderabad, May 14 (IANS) A major fi re that broke out on the University of Hyderabad campus Wednesday night led to the death of several wild animals, students and wildlife activists said.

Students and the university security staff battled for two hours to douse the fl ames, which started simultaneously at three places, killing wild ani-mals in an area of 8-10 acres.

The fi re, the second in 15 days, left the students puzzled about its cause and they de-manded that the university authorities immediately pro-cure fi re-fi ghting equipment and deploy security guards on the rocks to keep an eye on the trespassers.

A university offi cial said the fi re broke out at 9.30 p.m. near the boundary towards Nal-lagandla side. "About 20 secu-rity guards and 15-20 students reached and put out the fi re by 11.15 p.m. with the help of portable fi re extinguish-

ers. A fi re engine also was called from Gachibowli which helped in completely put-ting out the fi re," a university spokesman said.

When the place was in-spected on the morning, it was found that some people were trying to cook inside the uni-versity as stones to balance the utensils and ashes were found at the site. It is suspected that some labourers from the Nal-lagandla side would have come inside the university to cook food, he said.

The university authorities said they were trying to pro-cure additional fi re-fi ghting equipment to tackle such situations.Students say the central university witnesses

6-7 fi res every year but the second incident in two weeks has raised concerns about the safety of wildlife.

"Last week, the fi rst had burnt dry grass on 6-8 acres but this time it was a huge fi re. It started from three points," B. Rohit Kumar, a research schol-ar, told IANS.

He said he along with other students and activists saved two pythons. Many wild ani-mals are believed to have per-ished in the fi re.

He said they were puzzled by two fi re incidents in 15 days. They suspect it could have been lit by cattle-herders who enter from outside and burn the old dry grass so that new grass grows in its place.

Wildlife concerns rise after second fire in Hyderabad varsity campus

City2

New Delhi, May 14 (IANS) Former Chief Minister of Maharashtra Ashok Chavan is now the PWD Minister in the Ud-dhav Thackeray cabinet. The Congress leader from Nanded was instrumental in stitching the three-party alliance, the Maha Vikas Aghadi, and persuading the party leadership to tie up with Shiv Sena. He is the son of Shankarrao Cha-van, also the state's for-mer Chief Minister. They father-son are the first in history to have stewarded the state. In an exclusive interview with IANS, Ashok Chavan speaks on a host of issues - the Centre's eco-nomic package, migrant crisis and the tackling of Covid-19 in the state worst affected by the pandemic in terms of number of cas-es and deaths.

Excerpts from the inter-view:

Q: How is your state go-ing to benefit from the financial package an-nounced by Finance Min-ister Nirmala Sitharaman?

A: This has to be ana-lyzed properly as to what benefit it would accrue to the state at the ground level. I would welcome the financial package for the MSME (Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises) sec-

tor, but its impact has to be analysed in the state.

Q: What do you think about the migrant crisis?

A: Lakhs of people are on roadse the Maharashtra government has depos-ited 100 per cent fare to the railways on behalf of the state migrants for whom Shramik Specials trains have been allowed. Our party chief Sonia Gandhi has said the Congress will bear the fare cost. But this has to be done in an organ-ised manner because those who are on road don't have money to buy foode so the need is for micro-manage-ment. We should devise a strategy to minimize the pain of the migrants.

Q: Has the Maharashtra government failed to han-dle the migrant crisis?

A: No. The government is doing everything pos-sible for the migrants, but the Central government has left us in the lurch by not cooperating with us in handling the migrant crisis. If they support the state government, it can do much more. As of now, the state government is doing whatever it can by provid-ing food and even taking NGOs' help. But the num-bers are so huge that state government alone can't manage without the Cen-

tral support.Q: But what happens

if all migrants go home-- your state being an indus-trial hub, how will it get labourers for industries and provide support to the system?

A: This is a crisis per-sisting for more than 3-4 months. People want to come back, they will come back to work because they have to earn to live. To-day, the prolonged spell of lockdown has made them homesick because they are out of job. But I think this is a temporary phase. Peo-ple will come back to earn their living as the situation normalizes and lockdown is fully lifted.

Q: Don't you think a pol-icy is needed for interstate migrants so that in case of an emergency such as the present one, enough care can be taken?

A: I pray no such cri-sis ever comes up. There should be a national policy on the migrants and there should be a database so that the whereabouts of the migrants and their movement could be as-certained and they could be provided relief. I think there is a need for micro-planning so that migrants can be reached effectively through mobile phone and

other means of technol-ogy.

Q: You were the Chief Minister of the state. How would you facilitate the return of the migrants and what steps would the government take after the situation normalizes?

A: The corona crisis has also been a learning expe-riencee there has to be a sound policy. The medi-cal infrastructure, number of doctors and hospitals, should be enhanced. The state government has al-located more funds to strengthen the medical infrastructure. Such facili-ties have to be scaled up in cities like Mumbai which is congested and has many slums. The attempt should be to improve the living condition of the people.

Q: Why is the situation in Maharashtra so bad and what is the status of the co-vid-19 management in the state?

A: The situation in Ma-harashtra appears bad because we have a high number of tests. We have improved testing facili-ties -- there are more labs and hospitals. That's why so many cases are being detected. So, compared to the situation in other countries, Mahatashtra is better.

We need national policy on migrants: Ashok Chavan

PM CARES fund for migrants will go to state govts: Chidambaram

New Delhi, May 14 (IANS) A day after the PM-CARES Fund trust an-nounced Rs 1000 crore for the migrants, former Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has said that the money will go directly to the state gov-ernments, and not in the hands of the migrants.

In a statement former finance minister said, "PM-CARES has allocated Rs 1000 crore for migrant workers. Please don't

make the common mis-take. The money will not be given to the migrant workers but to the State governments to meet the expenses on travel, ac-commodation, medicine and food for the migrant workers. But nothing will go into the hands of the migrant workers." Chi-dambaram said that a migrant worker who has crossed all hurdles and returned to his village has no jobs. He has no work

and no income. How will he survive and support his family?

The Congress has been demanding package for the migrant labourers who have been walking across the country to reach their villages.

Earlier, on Wednesday, Chidambaram, while ad-dressing a press confer-ence in Delhi, said, "There is nothing in what the FM said for the lakhs of poor, hungry and devastated

migrant workers who have walked and many thou-sands are still walking back to their home states. This is a cruel blow dealt to those who toil every day." "There is also nothing by way of cash transfer to the bottom half of the popu-lation (13 crore families) who have been pushed into destitution. Only yesterday, Prof Thomas Pikketty pleaded for cash transfers to the poor," added Chidambaram.

Indian HorizonFriday, May 15, 2020

New Delhi, May 14 (IANS) Two days after the Indian Railways started to run the Special Rajd-hani trains, the national transporter on Wednes-day indicated that it might soon start mail or express trains as chair-car services in the com-ing days as well.

The Railway Board on Wednesday issued an order introducing the provision of waiting list not only in its presently operational special trains for journeys starting May 22, but also for all its forthcoming services.

It has, however, capped the waiting list on these trains -- up to 100 for AC 3 tier, 50 for AC 2 tier, 200 for Sleeper Class, 100 for chair-cars, and 20 each for First AC and Execu-tive Class -- truncating

the queues for confirmed tickets significantly.

The chances will come into effect for tickets booked from May 15 for journeys beginning May 22. Special trains, ones to be notified later, will have waiting lists from May 22 onwards, the Railways said.

The order also stated that there shall be no res-ervation against cancel-lation (RAC) in the spe-

cial trains.The order from the

railway board to the zones indicates that the railways is planning to run mixed services in-stead of the presently all air-conditioned trains.

The fresh order from the railways also indi-cates that the national transporter might begin services to smaller towns along with the major cit-ies that its Rajdhani spe-

cials cater to now.Almost 48 days after

suspending all passen-ger, mail and express train services, the rail-ways has started 15 pairs of Special Rajdhani trains from Tuesday.

The railways has also started to run Shramik Special trains to trans-port stranded.

migrant workers, stu-dents, pilgrims and tour-ists from May 1.

Railways hints at introducing more trains in service

THE MINISTER OF STATE FOR DEVELOPMENT OF NORTH EASTERN REGION (I/C), PRIME MINISTER’S OFFICE, PERSONNEL, PUBLIC GRIEVANCES & PENSIONS, ATOMIC ENERGY AND SPACE, DR. JITENDRA SINGH INTERACTING WITH THE STAFF AND OFFICIALS UP TO THE LEVEL OF SECTION OFFICERS OF ALL THE THREE DEPARTMENTS OF DOPT, DARPG AND DOPPW THROUGH INTERACTIVE VIDEO CONFERENCING, IN NEW DELHI.

New Delhi, May 14 (IANS) Warning that the coming time will be dif-ficult for the city and its people, Delhi Chief Min-ister Arvind Kejriwal on Thursday said he received more than five lakh sug-gestions for the relax-ations in lockdown 4.0, to be implemented from next week. Addressing the media, Kejriwal said the lockdown was announced on March 24.

"It has been 1.5 months and in this period almost the entire country and city was shut. Closing every-thing was easy but opening the economy will be very difficult. We need to work very hard now. The coming time will be very difficult

for us," he said.Kejriwal said his gov-

ernment received more than five lakh suggestions from the public and after analysing them, he will send the suggestions to the Centre. "We will have different rules from Mon-day as per Centre's guide-lines," he said.

The Chief Minister said he will have a meeting with

Delhi Lt. Governor at 4 p.m. on Thursday to discuss the suggestions. "We are aim-ing to send the response by Thursday evening to the Centre. When Centre de-manded a response from us on the relaxations, I felt this should not be decided in an AC room and so I wanted the suggestions from the public. More than 5 lakh suggestions were

received till Wednesday evening." Sharing what the people have demanded, Kejriwal said most of the people are saying that edu-cational institutes should remain closed at least till the summer break.

"The takeaway of food should be allowed while dining at the restaurants should remain shut. Ma-jority of people are de-manding that salons, barber shops, cinema halls should remain shut. Almost all said that heart patients, sugar or cancer patients and the senior citizens should remain in-doors." He said the people also demanded that wear-ing masks and social dis-tancing should be a must.

Received over five lakh suggestions for lockdown 4.0: Kejriwal

New Delhi, May 14 (IANS) Former Chief Jus-tice of India Ranjan Gogoi has cleared the air from the controversy relating to the Ayodhya judgment, which did not name the author judges. He said, "Can you not imagine a system where the five judges have agreed on a conclusion... where they do not want to take credit?" Speaking at a We-binar on Judicial Indepen-dence on Wednesday, host-ed by the Confederation of Alumni for National Law Universities (CAN) Foun-dation, Gogoi said, "Why does a judgment need to have an author? It (Ayodhya judgment) is signed by five judges. The five judges are the authors... Can you not imagine a system where the five judges have agreed on a conclusion... where they do

not want to take credit?"Gogoi was one of the

five judges of a constitu-tion bench of the Supreme Court, which had in No-vember last year ruled unanimously in favour of building a Ram Temple at the disputed site in Ayod-hya. It had also granted a five-acre land to the Muslim

parties for the construction of the mosque elsewhere in Ayodhya.

A controversy had then erupted over who authored the unanimous judgement on behalf of the Constitu-tion Bench. "On the bal-ance of probabilities, there is clear evidence to indicate that the worship by the

Hindus in the outer court-yard continued unimpeded in spite of the setting up of a grill-brick wall in 1857. Their possession of the outer courtyard stands es-tablished together with the incidents attaching to their control over it," the verdict had said.

The bench, which also comprised the sitting Chief Justice Sharad Ar-vind Bobde, Justice Ashok Bhushan, Justice S. Abdul Nazeer and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, had said the Central government would be at liberty to make suit-able provisions with respect to the rest of the acquired land by handing it over to the trust or body for man-agement and development in terms of the scheme framed in accordance with the above directions.

Can't you imagine a system where no one wants credit: Ex-CJI on Ayodhya verdict

New Delhi, May 14 (IANS) While the Indian Railways ferried over 30,000 passengers in the first two days of the resumption of partial train services, in the absence of the public transport, reaching their homes proved horrendous task for passengers. Most of them were forced to walk to their homes.

Ejaz Husaain, who arrived here in the special Rajdhani from Mumbai with four family members, told IANS: "I de-boarded at New Delhi station. I want to go to Seelampur. But there is no public transport, like bus or auto

or taxi, to go home."Looking at his luggage on 5-6 trol-

lies, he said, "I don't know how to reach home." Sonu Shrama, who ar-rived here from Varanasi, UP, in an-other Rajdhani train on Wednesday, said he really felt homeless as he had to spent night on street. "I came to Delhi on Wednesday in the special train. My train to Jammu is on Thurs-day. I hunted for space to spend the night, but there was none as all hotels and rest houses are shut," he said. On Thursday, several Rajdhani specials arrived at the New Delhi stations as

the railways had announced to run 15 pairs of such trains from May 12.

On Wednesday, the railways fer-ried over 20,000 passengers and on Thursday over 25,000 more are ex-pected to travel in these Rajdhani specials. After suspending passen-ger trains from March 25 amid the nationwide lockdown to combat the Covid-19 pandemic, the rail-ways started Shramik Special trains on May 1. Till date, it has operated over 800 such trains and transported 10 lakh migrant workers across the country.

Rail passengers find reaching home tough without transport

3StateIndian Horizon Friday, May 15, 2020

New Delhi, May 14 (IANS) Fi-nance Minister Nirmala Sithar-man on Thursday announced that the Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme (CLSS) for middle in-come groups to buy affordable housing units will be extended till March 31, 2021. The scheme was last extended till March 2020.

Addressing the media here, Sitharaman said that the ex-tension would benefit 2.5 lakh middle income families. So far, the scheme has benefitted 3.3 lakh middle class families, she added. The Finance Min-ister said that it will lead to an

investment of Rs 70,000 crore in the housing sector and also create jobs. As per the govern-ment, the decision will stimu-late demand for steel, cement, transport and other construc-

tion materials.The decision is part of the

Rs 20 lakh crore economic package announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday. Further, the Centre

will also launch a scheme un-der the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana for migrant labour and urban poor to building afford-able rental housing facilities for them. Under the scheme, government funded housing in cities will be converting to affordable rental housing complexes under the public private partnership mode. Further, the government will also incentivise manufactur-ing units, industries, institu-tions, associations to develop affordable rental housing complexes on their private land and operate them.

New Delhi, May 14 (IANS) Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Thursday alleged that the Con-gress was trying to save fugitive dia-mantaire Nirav Modi by assigning a former judge to defend the busi-nessman in court.

The Minister claimed that Con-gress leader Rahul Gandhi of at-tending a function of Nirav Modi on September 13, 2013 after which, he added, the firms of the abscond-ing businessman were lent loans by banks. Addressing the media through a videoconference, Prasad said that a Congress leader, who is a former judge, has been tasked to defend Nirav Modi in court.

Prasad, who is a senior BJP leader, also questioned at whose behest was the former judge work-ing to save Nirav Modi. "He is the same judge who had been trans-ferred from Mumbai to Allahabad on administrative grounds while he was in service. He did not join at

the new place and preferred to take retirement and join the Congress," the Minister said. He said that at a time when the central government had confiscated the property of Ni-rav Modi and was trying to get him extradited from abroad, this move of the Congress was condemnable and brought forth the true face of the opposition party.

The jeweller was arrested by the Scotland Yard in the UK in March 2019 on the basis of an extradition

warrant issued by an India court on charges of fraud and money laundering. He has been denied bail five times so far. The business-man has also applied for politi-cal asylum in the UK, sources had earlier told IANS. On December 5 last year, a special PMLA court in Mumbai had declared Nirav Modi, one of the prime accused in the Rs 13,500-crore Punjab National Bank scam of 2017, as a 'fugitive econom-ic offender'.

Union Minister accuses Cong of trying to save Nirav Modi

Subsidy for affordable housing to be extended till March 2021: FM

New Delhi, May 14 (IANS) Two days after Prime Minister Nar-endra Modi announced a mas-sive financial package to revive the country's economy by out-lining a total stimulus of Rs 20 lakh crore, or 10 per cent of the country's GDP, the Indian Medi-cal Association (IMA) has now suggested that the government should invest 5 per cent of GDP in the healthcare sector.

"IMA bats for cash transfer to the poor, investment of 5 per cent of GDP in health by gov-ernments and provide stimulus to clinics, small and medium hospitals run as professional medical practice." said Dr R.V. Asokan, Secretary General of the IMA. The Association said it be-lieves that India will slide down in health parameters including lifespan, infant mortality and

maternal mortality if issues of unemployment and poverty are not addressed on a war footing.

The Association said that if timely measures are not taken then the conquered and forgot-ten diseases are bound to re-emerge. "TB that kills over 2,200 Indians daily, in today's sce-nario, is expected to upscale at least by 15 per cent. The road to Health begins by taking poverty head on and the clock starts with an appropriate response to the migration crisis both in scale and quality," it said.

The Association said that the Universal Basic Income and Uni-versal Health Coverage have now become affordable and are no longer a luxury, but in fact a tool of survival. While the sophisti-cated response of the healthcare insurance model seems to be a

failure, public health infrastruc-ture and human resources re-main the insurance against any exigencies. Dr Rajan Sharma, National President of the IMA, said "The current lockdown has partitioned us horizontally between haves and have nots. Looking at the scale of migration and the tales of human miser-ies, the uncertainties hanging over their lives are heartrend-ing." "Providing for the hapless migrants today and for their to-morrow is our top most priority. Instead of increasing shifts to 12 hours we should focus on imple-menting 4 shifts of 6 hrs each to accommodate more people. Creation of low-tech jobs in ag-riculture, road construction and irrigation invest into the disem-powered section of the society," he added.

New Delhi, May 14 (IANS) All over the world at least 2.97 lakh people have lost their lives due to the COVID-19 pandem-ic. While novel coronavirus has equal potential to penetrate and spread irrespective of gender and age, but common notions that males are more susceptible to COVID-19 as compared to women and even fatalities among the males are more, have been seen in the worldwide data of COVID fa-talities and India is no excep-tion.

On March 17, Dr Randeep Guleria, Director, AIIMS Delhi, had told IANS that a trend that is quite conspicuous in the worldwide data of COVID-19 is that males are more vulner-able to COVID 19 as compared to women but the reason for the trend was not ascertained. "One interesting trend is also that it has occurred more in men compared to women," he had said adding "the reason is yet to be found behind such a trend."

Well, it seems that the mys-

tery has been decoded by the health community of the world. In a report published on May 10 in 'European Heart Journal' it was found that more concentration of Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 or ACE2 in males as compared to fe-males could be responsible for such a trend. The report said, "The current pandemic coro-navirus SARS-CoV-2 infects a wide age group but predomi-nantly elderly individuals, es-pecially men and those with cardiovascular disease." The study also said that "patients with heart failure, plasma ACE2 concentrations were higher in men than in women, possibly reflecting higher tissue expres-sion of this receptor for SARS coronavirus infections. This could explain why men might be more susceptible to infec-tion with, or the consequences of, SARS-CoV-2."

The sample size for the study was 1,485 men and 537 women with heart failure and the results were validated in 1,123 men and 575 women.

However none of them were COVID patients. But the re-searchers involved in the study believed that other research on how ACE2 interacts with the virus can help explain the vari-ance in death rates between men and women.

ACE2 is an enzyme, pres-ent in most organs and is at-tached to the cell membrane of mainly lung type II alveolar cells. It binds with coronavi-ruses like the one which causes COVID-19, and allows them to more easily infect healthy cells.

The report however cat-egorically said, "The conclu-sions drawn in this analysis are mainly restricted to heart fail-ure, albeit a group of patients at high risk for COVID-19." However experts in India at-tribute men's lifestyle re-sponsible for such a trend. Dr Vichar Nigam working at the Internal Medicine Department at the Columbia Asia Hospi-tal in Pune, told IANS that the reason behind such a trend ap-pears to be more logical than scientific. "The reason why

more and more males are test-ing positive is the fact that they tend to move out in search of household items and involve in general social talk more than the women. Also women, while taking care of household activities tend to wash hands more often. Specially during social lockdown, men would always be interested in going out for whatsoever reason. Whereas women, understand-ing their responsibility to take care of the household and chil-dren mostly remain indoors." Echoing the same rationale, Dr Manoj Goel, Director, Pul-monology at Fortis Memorial Research Institute, told IANS that males were more prone for this infection due to more social exposure. "Males are at a higher risk factor of Covid infection than females possi-bly because their social expo-sure is happening more than females. It is seen mostly men leaving their houses to get the essential things which makes them more exposed to the vi-rus than females."

Mystery decoded: Why men are dying more from COVID-19 than women

IMA suggests 5 per cent of GDP spending on healthcare

10 vaccine candidates under

development: Govt body

New Delhi, May 14 (IANS) A total of ten vaccine candidates for novel coronavirus are under development, said the Biotech-nology Industry Research Assistance Coun-cil (BIRAC) on Thursday.

The BIRAC, a Section 8 Company set up by the Union Government's Department of Bio Technology (DBT) to nurture and promote the biotechnology industry in India, tweeted on Thursday, "10 Vaccine candidates are under development with support from DBT under the A@DBTIn-dia @BIRAC_2012 #COVID-19 Research Consortium."

It also said that the ten proposals have been recommended for funding under the COVID-19 Research Consortium Call. BIRAC thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modi for allocating funds for the vaccine development. "Thank you Hon'ble Prime Minister for special fund for Vaccine Devel-opment.@DBT and @BIRAC have support-ed over 10 vaccine candidates."

The tweets were also retweeted by Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan. In the fight against COVID-19, the Indian Coun-cil of Medical Research (ICMR) has fast-tracked the roll out of global 'Solidarity' trial launched by the World Health Organisation (WHO), to help find an effective treatment for the virus. With 3,722 new cases report-ed in the last 24 hours, the COVID-19 tally in India reached 78,003, the Union Health Ministry stated on Thursday. Of the total cases, 49,219 are active and 2,549 are fatali-ties while at least 26,234 people have recov-ered from the disease.

Right to minimum

wages on govt agenda: Thakur

New Delhi, May 14 (IANS) The central govern-ment is contemplating to do away the wage dispar-ity through the right to minimum wages, which is pending in Parliament, ac-cording to Minister of State for Finance Anurag Thakur, here on Thursday.

As only 30 per cent work-ers got minimum wages, the inter-state disparity would be removed and everyone would get employment let-ters, he said. "The ESIC for workers in hazardous indus-try and health check-up once a year will be mandatory," the minister said. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the government was committed to re-skill work-ers retrenched due to the Covid-19. Reskilling of work-ers and equal opportunity to women with proper se-curity and safeguards would be ensured, she added. The government was committed to help migrants, shifting to their respective states, she said. The government would give free grain -- 5 kg rice wheat and one kg pulse -- to non-ration card holders for the next two months and Rs 3,500 crore had been pro-vided for that, she said. The state government would be the implementing agency for 8 crore migrant labourers.

New Delhi, May 14 (IANS) In the wake of grow-ing threat from emerging zoonotic diseases, like the deadly coronavirus, an ani-mal right organisation has urged Union Minister Giri-raj Singh to ban elephants from being exhibited or trained for performances, as high prevalence of tu-berculosis among them can pose a threat to public health.

People for the Ethi-cal Treatment of Animals (PETA) knocked on the doors of the Union Min-ister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying and called for his atten-tion to another imminent zoonotic threat -- tubercu-losis -- faced by captive el-ephants in the country.

In a letter, Giriraj Singh was apprised that tubercu-losis, which can be trans-mitted from elephants to humans, has been detected in elephants in the country.

"Many captive elephants in the country suffer from TB," the letter stated. PETA noted that captive elephants who have tested reactive for TB have been used for rides at Amer Fort near Jaipur and that those used in circuses, films, TV

shows, festivals, parades, and other spectacles could also be putting the public at risk. "It is high time we un-shackle all elephants and allow them to live freely, as nature intended. Banning their use in performances would bring us closer to that goal and protect the public from this source of tuberculosis. COVID-19 has shown us that zoonotic disease risks must be taken seriously," says PETA India CEO and veterinarian Dr Manilal Valliyate.

Continued use of el-ephants could have severe consequences for public health, tourism, and the overall economy, as the nation has rightly learned from the current pandem-

ic. "The Ministry can issue a central notification in the official Gazette of India banning the exhibition and training of elephants as performing animals," the letter written to the minis-ter stated.

Although protected un-der the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, elephants are unreasonably excluded from the ban imposed by the central government which prohibits the use of various wildlife species, including bears, monkeys, tigers, panthers, and lions, for performances.

The letter also alluded to various studies which time and again have pointed to-wards the imminent threat of transmission. An April

2018 evaluation report of captive elephants in Jai-pur by the Animal Welfare Board of India - a central government statutory body - revealed that 10 per cent of the elephants, which are used for rides and other tourist attractions near Jaipur, were found to be reactive in a rapid sero-logical test for TB. Another scientific study conducted on 600 elephants in Kar-nataka, Kerala, and Tamil Nadu published in 2012 found "evidence for high prevalence of asymptom-atic tuberculosis infection in Asian elephants in a cap-tive Indian setting".

A study published in 2013 discovered "two prob-able cases of cross-species

transmission of M. tuber-culosis between mahouts and captive elephants. First is the case of human-to-elephant (transmission) and second is a case of ele-phant-to-human transmis-sion of M. tuberculosis".

Besides this, a paper published in 2016 stated, "There is evidence to sug-gest cross-species tubercu-losis transmission," based on one-time screenings of nearly 800 elephants and their mahouts over a pe-riod of three years. In 2008, the Ministry of Defence had decided to prohibit the use of elephants during Republic Day parades by concluding that there are serious safety concerns as-sociated with the risk that frustrated elephants could become violent - and that uncertainties exist regard-ing the legality of their own-ership. In 2010, the govern-ment declared elephants a National Heritage Ani-mal in order to strengthen measures to protect them. Based on a detailed study report that highlighted the suffering endured by cap-tive elephants in India in 2016, AWBI had then rec-ommended that the central government ban.

Govt warned of another COVID-like zoonotic disease from elephants

South4 Indian HorizonFriday, May 15, 2020

Bengaluru, May 14 (IANS) Two treasure hunters aiming to find gold dust in the Kolar Gold Fields mines drowned in a pit and died, an official said on Thursday.

“Three persons, including a rescuer, have died in KGF. We have taken out two bodies. They could be thieves,” Kolar district Deputy Commissioner C. Sathy-abhama told IANS.

On Wednesday evening at around 7:30 p.m., Kanda, 55, Jo-seph, 45, and Richard went in search of gold dust in the KGF mines. “Kanda and Joseph went down into a pit with the help of a rope as Richard waited above. Both of them did not return, prompting Richard to go back home and inform Kanda’s fam-ily,” a police officer said.

Kanda’s son Santosh, 20, then went in search of his father and got down the pit where the trio had hoped they could find gold flakes mixed in dust. “While Kan-da and Joseph went inside the

pit and died, Santosh went into a deeper place and died,” said the officer. Police are yet to find the body of Santosh.

According to the officer, the deceased did not know that there was water inside the pit, which led to their drowning and death.

“We have completed the post-mortem and returned the bod-ies of Kanda and Joseph to their families,” he said.

The officer said that gold dust hunting has been happening stealthily for a while as the seek-ers aim to salvage gold flakes by sieving the dust to sell them. The officer said that gold dust hunt-ing has been happening stealthily for a while as the seekers aim to salvage gold flakes by sieving the dust to sell them.

The police have registered a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder under Sec-tion 304 of the IPC. The officer said the deceased duo were history-sheeters with police record.

2 deaths, 28 corona cases raise Karnataka tally to 987

Bengaluru, May 14 (IANS) Hundreds of passengers returning from New Delhi in the first special train to Ben-galuru on Thursday protested against 14-day institutional quarantining in hotels and hostels and insisted on go-ing home.

Though 920 passengers, including women, children and senior citizens, boarded the superfast train in New Delhi on Tuesday night, 680 arrived here earlier in the day, as 240 of them alighted at 5-6 stations en-route.

To the shock and anger of returnees, the Karnataka health and civic officials told them, they would have to be in 14-day compulsory institutional quaran-tine before going home in the city or other places in the state.

“I was taken aback when the state

officials insisted on me checking into a hotel or hostel for 14-day quarantine before going home after testing nega-tive again,” a 26-year-old techie told IANS on phone from the city station.

The passengers are among thou-sands of Karnataka citizens, stranded over 50 days in other cities/states since the lockdown was enforced on March 25. The lockdown was extended twice on April 15 and May 4 to May 17 to contain the pandemic.

“I booked the ticket through the IRCTC website on May 11 to return home (Bengaluru) in the first available train on May 12 from Delhi. There was no alert or intimation by the railways or the state government till I arrived at the station that I would have to un-dergo 14-day quarantine though I am

virus-free,” the techie said. Echoing the techie, another passenger said he couldn’t afford to stay in a star or other hotel for 14 days at Rs 2,000 a day for the quarantine period as it would cost him Rs 28,000 and more for food and other expenses.

“As the railways and the state gov-ernment had all our details, including name, age, gender and mobile number with IRCTC, its officials could have called or messaged us about the 14-day quarantine while we were in train to Bengaluru from New Delhi,” said Jayram Prasad, who too was stranded in the NCR due to the lockdown.

Declining to respond on officials’ failure and the communication gap, a zonal railway official said even the ticket checking staff told them (return-

ees) in the train that they would have to fill a self-declaration form with the state government on arrival in Benga-luru for the 14-day institutional quar-antine even if they were asymptom-atic.

“The 14-day institutional quarantine applies to all returning to the state by train, bus or flight. Train passengers are no exception to the standard op-erating procedure, issued by the Min-istry of Home Affairs to all entering or exiting a state. Even migrant workers are going through the process,” a state health official told IANS.

Protests, sit-ins, demonstrations and heated exchanges were witnessed on the station platform between re-turnees and state officials over the mandatory quarantine.

Bengaluru, May 14 (IANS) Its not a science fiction movie set, but the office of Bengaluru’s Deputy Com-missioner of Police (South), which now sports a thermal imaging sur-veillance system at its entrance to detect Covid suspects amid the pandemic.

“Thermal imaging based sur-veillance system to alert against

anyone with fever in public places was installed in my office,” DCP, South, Rohini Katoch Sepat said in a tweet.

Powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI), the thermal imaging system will detect individuals suffering from fever, a Covid symptom, by measuring their body temperature from afar and sounding an alarm if

a visitor’s temperature indicates a possible infection from the virus.

“As of now for demo purpose, this has been installed in my of-fice. A lot of people are vising my office for passes and everything. The DCP office is having a lot of public turnover in the lockdown,” Sepat told IANS on the need for a system like this.

Bengaluru South MP Tejasvi Surya had referred the company offering the imaging solution to the DCP’s office, considering the public epicentre it has become.

Sepat said: “We have to do all these things. It is the need of the hour, the more contactless things are the better. We have to move to contactless policing.”

Citing how police the world over are using drones for assistance in their operations, she said that thermal imaging systems would be also of use.

Perched at the entrance of Sepat’s office, the temperature detection system will scan every visitor for signs of fever to im-mediately alert and avert contact

with that person. “This is more of a safety precaution. We are handling a huge amount of public interface. We can’t avoid it. I can’t say that I cannot allow people,” said the DCP, underscoring her need to be in regular touch with people.

“This is how we have to live for the next few months or years,” she said.

Incidentally, Bengaluru South DCP office is yet to encounter a Covid patient as only a few visitors with borderline temperature were found hitherto.

Sepat said contactless thermal imaging surveillance systems can be extended to major centres of public activity such as airports, railway stations, bus station and others.

The DCP said the police depart-ment is creative and has to find a way out of every problem even as she aims to keep her subordinate officers safe and protected from Covid exposure.

Armed forces across the world are some of the earliest adopters of thermal imaging solutions.

Bengaluru, May 14 (IANS) Only 19 pas-sengers, who refused to undergo the 14-day institutional quaran-tine in the city after ar-riving in a special train earlier in the day, left for New Delhi in the return train, an official said on Thursday.

“An extra AC 3-tier coach has been at-tached to the special train (#02691) to take the 19 passengers who refused the manda-tory 14-day quarantin-ing on returning to the city earlier in the day,” Bengaluru railway di-visonal manager A.K. Verma told IANS after the train chugged out of the city station at 8:30 pm.

Though initially about 160 returnees wanted to go back to Delhi by the night train, about 141 with-drew later and recon-ciled to undergo the mandatory quarantine, as about 500 returnees did during the day, al-beit very reluctantly. Though initially about 160 returnees wanted to go back to Delhi by the night train, about 141 withdrew later and reconciled to undergo the mandatory quar-antine, as about 500 returnees did during the day, albeit very re-luctantly.

“Sending the passen-gers unwilling for quar-antining in the return train was decided by the Karnataka govern-ment in consultation with the Railway Police Force (RPF), as they cannot go home for the next 14 days and to avoid a law and or-der problem in the sta-tion, as many of them resorted to protests in the station since they arrived earlier in the day,” said Verma.

Though 920 passen-gers boarded the su-perfast train in New Delhi on Tuesday night, 680 arrived in this tech city earlier in the day, as 240 of them alighted at 5-6 stations en route to their desti-nation.

About 200 of the re-turnees protested against institutional quarantin-ing in hotels and hostels and insisted on going home for same to en-sure they are free from coronavirus. When the state health and civic of-ficials told the returnees, including women, chil-dren and senior citizens that they have to be in compulsory institutional quarantine for 14 days before going home in the city or other places in the southern state, finally 660 of them opted for quarantining as they had no other place to go.

Chennai, May 14 (IANS) The DMK Parliamentary Party leader and former Union Minister T.R. Baalu alleged that Tamil Nadu Chief Secretary K. Shan-mugam humiliated a team of Members of Parliament on Wednesday. Baalu has threatened to take up the issue with the Parliament Privileges Com-mittee.

Refuting Baalu’s charge, Shanmu-gam said it was “painful to read the twisting” of facts related to the inci-dent.

In a statement issued on Wednes-day night, Baalu said a group of DMK MPs --Baalu, Dayanidhi Maran, Ka-lanidhi Veerasamy and Tamizhachi

Thangapandian -- had been to the state Secretariat to meet Shanmugam to submit one lakh petitions seeking COVID-19 relief.

Baalu said Shanmugam insulted the MPs “by not even extending the basic courtesies and was focussed on watch-ing the television without listening to our plea to take action on the one lakh petitions”.

As the television volume was very high, Veerasamy had requested a staffer of Shanmugam’s office to re-duce it, but the latter prevented it, Baalu alleged.

Baalu said Shanmugam declined to commit any timelines on the action to

be taken on the petitions and “forget-ting that he was the Chief Secretary of the state and the MPs were represen-tatives of over one crore people” in a loud voice said: “This is the problem with you people.”

A senior DMK leader Baalu con-demned Shanmugam for allegedly insulting the MPs, saying the matter would be taken up with the Parliament Privileges Committee if the official did not express regret for his behaviour and offer an apology.

Responding to the charge, Shanmu-gam said he had welcomed the MPs’ delegation and seated them on a sofa “from where the television is not vis-

ible”. The Chief Secretary said about 10-20 persons had brought big bundles of petitions into his room and that dur-ing Covid-19, such a gathering in the room made him tense.

Shanmugam said he had told Baalu that a timeframe for action taken on the petitions cannot be committed as the staff was limited.

According to Shanmugam, DMK leader Baalu further queried whether he could convey that to Leader of the Opposition M.K. Stalin.

“This is the problem with you peo-ple, you don’t understand our diffi-culties -- was all that I had said then,” Shanmugam recalled.

Bengaluru, May 14 (IANS) Two Co-vid-19 patients, an 80-year-old woman from Dakshina Kannada and a 60-year-old man from Andhra Pradesh suc-cumbed to the virus, even as 28 new cases emerged in Karnataka, raising the state’s tally to 987, an official said on Thursday.

“Positive case 507, an 80-year-old female resident of Dakshina Kannada, got admitted in a private hospital with a complaint of stroke, on confirmation for Covid, she was shifted to ICU. She died on Thursday due to septic shock,” said a health official. She is Karnataka’s 34th Covid-19 death.

Dakshina Kannada is 300 km west of Bengaluru on the West Coast of India by the Arabian Sea.

Similarly, a 60-year-old man from Ananthapur in Andhra Pradesh also died of the virus on Thursday.

“Positive case 796, a 60-year-old man was admitted at a dedicated hos-pital in Bengaluru Urban with features of severe pneumonia and respiratory

distress with hypotension. He died on Thursday due to cardiac arrest,” said the official.

The deceased man, Karnataka’s 35th Covid-19 death, also suffered from dia-betes mellitus.

Ananthapur is 214 km north of Ben-galuru. Karnataka recorded four deaths in two days, two each on Wednesday and today. Meanwhile, 22 new positive cases emerged in the past 19 hours. “As of 6 p.m. Thursday, cumulatively 987 positive cases have been confirmed in the state which include 35 deaths and 460 discharges,” said the official.

Out of 491 active cases, 482 are iso-lated at designated hospitals and are stable except nine in ICU.

On Thursday, nine patients got dis-charged, two each in Mysuru, Kalabura-gi, Bengaluru Urban and Dakshina Kan-nada and one in Vijayapura. Of the new cases, Bidar contributed seven cases, followed by Bengaluru Urban and Man-dya contributed five cases each, Gadag, four, Davangere three, Kalaburagi, two

and Belagavi and Bagalkote with one each. All Mandya cas-es and one from Bidar had a travel history to Mumbai, India’s top Covid hotspot. Three more Bidar cases emerged from the Bidar containment zone while another three were contacts of earlier case 959.

Similarly, all Gadag cases had a travel his-tory to Ahmedabad, Gujarat, another state severely affected by the virus. Six of the new cases were contacts of earlier cases while one person from Davangere is also suffering from Influenza Like Ill-ness (ILI). Four of Benglauru Urban’s five cases and the two Kalaburagi cases were contacts of earlier positive case 554 and 959 respectively.

Among the new cases, 22 are men and six women. ‘Green zones’ increased in

Karnataka from five to eight in the past 24 hours with more discharges.

Udupi, Kodagu and Bengaluru Rural joined Raichur, Koppal, Chikkamaga-luru, Ramanagara and Chamarajanagar as the green zones with zero active cases.

Of the 987 cases, 12 per cent patients were senior citizens, 65 per cent men and 35 per cent women and a discharge rate of 47 per cent.

Returnees protested against institutional quarantine

Thermal imaging at Bengaluru DCP office to trace Covid suspects

State health and Civic officials told the returnees for

compulsory quarantine for 14 days

DMK MPs were humiliated by TN Chief Secy: Baalu

2 K’taka gold dust hunters die in Kolar

Gold Fields

Nation 5Indian HorizonFriday, May 15, 2020

Bengal Governor writes to CM, seeks KMC

notification info

Finally, Uddhav Thackeray elected Maharashtra MLC

Spike in corona cases in Guwahati, 22 more test positive

Punjab allows Ludhiana tiny, cottage units to open

Six more Covid-19 pa-tients discharged from

PGI-Chandigarh

TN corona count at 9,674, Koyambedu cluster ac-counts for over 2,500

COVID-19: Odisha to increase bed capacity to 10,000

Central team in Tripura to study Covid-19 cases among BSF men, kin

Kolkata, May 14 (IANS) Invok-ing Article 167 of the Constitution, West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar, here on Thursday, wrote to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee seeking information regarding the May 6 Kolkata Municipal Corpora-tion (KMC) notification.

“I still await the information sought vide my communication dated May 7, 2020, sent to you. The Chief Secretary, West Bengal, failed to make available the information sought from him. There are vari-ous representations, including from the opposition parties, as regards the KMC notification and to take a call on them, it’s imperative at your end that you impart the informa-tion forthwith as sought in my com-munication dated May 7,” the letter said, which the Governor shared on his twitter handle.

The Banerjee government had issued an order to appoint a board of administrators to run the day-to-day work of the KMC, the state’s largest civic body. The decision came into play in the wake the na-tionwide Covid-19 pandemic.

Elections to various urban local bodies of West Bengal, including the KMC, scheduled in April-May, were postponed for an indefinite period due to the shutdown.

The new board of administrators, led by ex-mayor Firhad Hakim, took charge on May 8. The Governor had earlier tweeted the KMC notifica-tion was issued in his name, but he was not aware of it.

The letter also said make avail-able the notification dated May 6, the entire decision making process that culminated in promulgation of it and the authority that had taken the decision regarding the notifica-tion. “The information sought by in-voking Article 167 is germane to the issue of the notification about KMC, which has huge ramifications to the entities - local bodies, municipali-ties and municipal corporations, that are subject to Part XI-A of the Constitution, which as part the rep-resentations, is a death knell of con-stitutional prescriptions,” Dhankar said, urging the Chief Minister to perform the duty under Article 167 of the Constitution.

“Your continuous non-respon-sive stance when it comes to per-formance of duties under the Con-stitution towards the Governor in terms of Article 167 is unfortunate and contrary to your oath under Article 164 and against the essence and spirit of the Constitution and surely can’t be countenanced,” the Governor said.

Mumbai, May 14 (IANS) In a huge relief to the ruling Maha Vikas Aghadi, Maha-rashtra Chief Minister and Shiv Sena President Uddhav Thackeray was elected un-opposed as state Legistative Council member here on Thursday.

Uddhav’s election to the Council will provide stabil-ity to the 6-month-old Shiv Sena-Nationalist Congress Party-Congress alliance government in the state.

Thackeray, 59, has now become the second mem-ber from the state’s numero uno political family to enter the state legislature.

In October 2019, his son became the first one to win

the Assembly elections from Worli segment. He is now the Environment and Tour-ism Minister.

Besides senior Thacker-ay, eight others elected on Thursday included Sena’s Dr Neelam Gorhe, Con-gress’ Rajesh Rathod, NCP’s Shashikant Shinde and

Amol Mitkari. From the op-position Bharatiya Janata Party, those elected are Ran-jitsinh Mohite-Patil, Pravin Datke, Gopichand Padalkar and Ramesh Karad.

Thursday was the last date of withdrawal of nomina-tions and since no addition-al candidate was in the fray,

all nine candidates whose applications were found in order were declared elected unopposed.

Thackeray took oath as Maharashtra Chief Minis-ter on November 28, 2019, when he was not a mem-ber of either house of the state legislature and needed to get elected within six months.

The Shiv Sena had plans to nominate him for the April biennial elections to the Legislative Council but owing to the Covid-19 pan-demic, all polls were post-poned by the Election Com-mission of India.

Later, the MVA govern-ment resolved to propose

his name for one of the two vacant seats from the Gov-ernor’s quota to the Coun-cil.

However, as there were certain technicalities, Thac-keray spoke with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the crisis situation.

Thereafter, the Shiv Sena cited an emergency and urged Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari to impress upon the ECI to conduct Council polls, to prevent a potential constitutional cri-sis in the state.

The poll schedule was an-nounced thereafter and the MVA and opposition BJP ensured that it was conclud-ed without a contest.

Guwahati, May 14 (IANS) Amid a sudden jump of 22 fresh COVID-19 positive cases in Assam’s main city of Guwahati in the past 24 hours, the state’s main health center -- Guwahati Medical College and Hos-pital (GMCH) -- would be opened for the admission of the new patients from Friday after a week, As-sam’s Health Minister said on Thursday.

The GMCH was closed for new patients after a

doctor, who is also a post-graduate student at the GMCH, tested Covid-19 positive on May 7. Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma while briefing the media said that 22 more fresh coronavirus cases were reported in Guwahati on Wednesday and Thurs-day, taking the total CO-VID-19 positive cases in the state to 86, though ac-tive cases are 43 and while 40 people were discharged from hospitals after they

recovered from the con-tiguous virus and a patient migrated to Bihar.

In Assam, two people have so far died of the dreaded disease. These in-clude a 16-year-old girl in Guwahati, who was found to be infected a day after her death on May 7. Sarma said that seven persons, including three cancer pa-tients and a 13-year-old girl who recently underwent heart surgery in Mumbai, recently returned to Guwa-

hati and tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday. The other three are the pa-tients’ attendants.

He said that after the central government with-drew the travel restric-tions, 4,700 Assam resi-dents and 6,412 people bound for other north-eastern states entered into the state by road from dif-ferent parts of the coun-try leading to the 18 CO-VID-19 positive cases in Assam.

“Without classifying the areas as Red Zone or Or-ange Zone or Green Zone, the Assam government specifies the areas as con-tainment zone in the ex-act areas where COVID-19 positive cases are found. If we declare a Red Zone or Orange Zone in big areas then business, economic activities would be af-fected and people would suffer more,” said Sarma, who also holds the Assam Finance Department.

Chandigarh, May 14 (IANS) To facilitate the much-needed economic revival, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, here on Thursday, allowed tiny and cottage industries in non-con-tainment mixed-use areas of Ludhiana to resume operations as part of re-opening of bigger industries that depended on small units for components.

The resumption of opera-tions in these small units, which normally have labourers

living in the vicinity or on the premises, would be subject to requirements of access con-trol and strict compliance with Covid-19 standard operating procedures, the Chief Minister said.

The Chief Minister said sev-eral requests had been received from industry associations for allowing opening of industries in mixed land-use areas, with access control in non-contain-ment zones of the Ludhiana

district, subject to adherence to Covid-19 guidelines.

Industry Minister Sunder Sham Arora had said first small units should be allowed to open to enable the bigger industries to start operations, he added.

The Chief Minister said he had come to know that indus-try in certain industrial areas in Ludhiana had not opened de-spite permission to operate.

Despite permission, only 6,900 unit in Ludhiana had re-

sumed operations, he said and added, many couldn’t start works as they were dependent on small and tiny cottage in-dustries for components.

Ludhiana, an industrial city, has around 95,000 MSMEs that offer more than 10 lakh skilled and non-skilled industrial jobs. The micro and tiny units in the mixed land-use areas consti-tute 50 per cent of the indus-tries and employed around 5-6 lakh workers.

Chandigarh, May 14 (IANS) It was a development of hope and positivity as six more persons un-dergoing treatment at PGIMER’s COVID Hospital here were dis-charged after being declared cured on Thursday, doctors said.

These were the highest num-ber of recoveries in a single day till date and with their discharge, the total number of people who have successfully recovered and discharged from Postgraduate In-stitute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER) rises to 37.

Out of six, the four recovered

people were from Sector 30 clus-ter; one male was from Sector 26 and another male, a healthcare worker with the PGIMER, be-longed to Mullanpur in Punjab.

As has become almost the norm, PGIMER Director Jagat Ram was personally present at the send off ceremony.

He was flanked by Vipin Koush-al, in-charge of Covid Hospital, Ashok Kumar, Additional Medi-cal Superintendent, Mahesh Dev-nani, Department of Hospital Ad-ministration, besides healthcare workers.

Chennai, May 14 (IANS) Tamil Nadu on Thursday registered a slightly lower number of corona-virus positive cases with as many as 447 persons testing positive over the past 24 hours, said the state Health Department.

With this the total tally of coro-navirus positive persons in state goes up to 9,674 and the share of the Koyambedu Market corona cluster in the overall tally is over 2,500 persons (primary and their contacts), officials said.

Two Covid-19 patients lost their lives taking the death toll to 66.

The Koyambedu market is one the Asia’s largest wholesale mar-kets where about 20,000 persons frequent daily during normal days. A number of positive cas-es in the neighbouring state of Andhra Pradesh have also been linked to this market as their travel history points out.

The Tamil Nadu government has closed the market after per-sons associated with the market - traders, customers, delivery persons, truck drivers and oth-ers- tested positive for corona-virus.

Further hundreds of those who were associated with the market have gone back to their native places in Tamil Nadu

where they tested positive for the virus resulting in a huge spike in infection numbers in different districts.

The number of Covid-19 pa-tients who were cured and dis-charged on Thursday was 64, and the total is 2,240.

According to the government a total of 11,965 samples were tested taking the total to over 2.80 lakh till date. Testing of 757 samples is under process.

The state capital Chennai con-tinued to see the highest num-ber of infections at 363 taking the total tally to 5,637.

The number of infected chil-dren in the age group 0-12 went up to 555. The total number of active cases in Tamil Nadu stands at 7,365.

Meanwhile a committee of medical experts has recom-mended to the government not to reduce the number of sample tests so that remedial action in those pockets could be taken.

The committee had earlier met Chief Minister K. Palaniswami.

Speaking to reporters Prabh-deep Kaur, Deputy Director, Na-tional Institute of Epidemiology said the biggest achievements of Tamil Nadu is testing of large number of persons and the low Covid-19 deaths.

Bhubaneswar, May 14 (IANS) The Odisha government has decided to increase the bed ca-pacity in the COVID hospitals to 10,000, said Health Minister Naba Kishore Das on Thursday.

“While we had earlier target-ed to keep 6,000 beds ready in the state, additional 4,000 will be added in coming days,” said Das.

It was decided at the CO-VID-19 inter-ministerial meet-ing held on Thursday through a video conference.

As per direction of Chief Min-ister Naveen Patnaik to ramp up COVID-19 testing capacity

upto 15,000 per day, steps are being taken to start testing fa-cility in Bolangir, Koraput and Baripada Medical College and Hospital.

The number of swab samples testing for COVID-19 in Odisha will soon be increased to 15,000 per day and that ICMR has now given permission to private lab-oratories in the state to perform the tests, said the minister.

Odisha has reported 611 CO-VID-19 positive cases so far. While 158 persons have recov-ered so far, three died of the disease. The active cases stood at 450.

Agartala, May 14 (IANS) A three-member central team arrived here on Thursday to study the corona-virus infection among the Border Security Force (BSF) troopers and their kin, as the positive cases in Tripura climbed to 152.

The central team, led by G.K. Medhi, Professor and Head of the Department of Community Medi-cine of the Shillong-based North Eastern Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health & Medical Sci-ences (NEIGRIHMS), will study the source and other aspects of the coronavirus infection among troopers, officials and their family members.

“Soon after arrival, the team held

discussions with officials of the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry and the National Cen-tre for Disease Control (NCDC) through video link,” a senior Tri-pura Health Department official told IANS.

on Friday, the central team would visit two BSF battalions headquarters in Ambassa, the dis-trict town of Dhalai, 82 km north of Agartala. The NCDC and the ICMR (Indian Council of Medical Research) officials would help the team, he said.

The other two members of the central team are Bhupen Barman, Associate Professor of the Depart-ment of Medicine at NEIGRIHMS

and S.D. Majumder, Regional Di-rector of the Health and Family Welfare Ministry.

Since May 2, 152 people -- 126 BSF troopers, including officers in two battalions (86th and 138th), and 25 of their family members (14 children and 11 women) as well as a civilian mess worker -- were found Covid-19 positive.

According to health officials, 14 BSF jawans were cured and dis-charged on Wednesday from the state-run Govind Ballabh Pant Medical College and Hospital, a dedicated Covid-19 hospital.

The health officials have tested 2,172 samples, comprising BSF personnel, their family members

and civilians residing near two BSF battalion headquarters.

Additional Chief Secretary

(Health and Family Welfare) San-jay Kumar Rakesh said the state government had requested for ex-

perts from the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) to study the Covid-19 infection among the BSF jawans and their family mem-bers.

The NCDC is an expert body un-der the Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry.

The health officials said Am-bassa, the headquarters of 86th and 138th Battalions, was earlier declared a red zone by the Union Health Ministry after reporting of large number of Covid-19 cases.

Two persons, a woman and a Tripura State Rifles jawan, had been cured of the infection and discharged from the hospital be-fore April 25.

EDIT6

Countering Chinese moves

Opening up the economy

Govt wary of community compliance

Mystery decoded: Why men are dying more from COVID-19 than women

By G ParthasarathyIndian cricket teams have tradition-

ally been sponsored by leading Indian business houses. And cricket has never been played in China. One was, there-fore, surprised to learn that the sponsor for the Indian team this year was to be OPPO, a Chinese smartphone maker. OPPO had just won a five-year sponsor-ship worth over Rs 1,000 crore for the Indian cricket team, for 34 matches at home and abroad. The Indian smart-phone market is rapidly expanding at 7% annually, at a time when smart-phone sales elsewhere in the world have fallen by 6%. But it is not OPPO alone that sells Chinese cellphones in India. India’s smartphone industry is domi-nated by three other Chinese brands — Xiaomi, Vivo and Huawei, with some competition from South Korea’s Sam-sung. The combined sale of Chinese smartphones in India is estimated to exceed Rs 50,0000 crore. Chinese tele-com companies openly and aggressive-ly operate and compete in India. India’s

concerns, however, arise from moves led by Huawei, for domination of its en-tire communications infrastructure.

Huawei is Beijing’s principal instru-ment to increasingly dominate global communications by promoting its 5G telecommunications networks. Huawei has over 3,000 employees in its Research and Development Centre in Bengaluru. The higher management and planning structures of Huawei, in India and else-where, are exclusively Chinese. As an Indian scientist remarked, Huawei, like other Chinese companies, uses Indi-ans as ‘cyber coolies’ doing the routine legwork, while Chinese management personnel control, work out and imple-ment policies. This is not surprising. It is an exploitative practice the Chinese use worldwide, particularly in devel-oping countries. Their policy is one of ‘zero transfer of technology’. Cheap In-dian labour will be used for high-priced Chinese 5G smartphones, while China makes ‘smart’ money! Huawei also has an agenda of promoting its expertise in

AI in India, doubtless in a similar man-ner.

The Chinese are now in a no-holds-barred struggle with the US and some of its European allies for promoting their 5G networks and appliances worldwide. India is caught in the crossfire. It is time India understood and acknowledged that all its aspirations of being a sig-nificant high-tech player globally will remain a pipedream, unless it devel-ops a self-reliant electronics industry, spearheaded with indigenous research and manufacture of semi-conductors and computer chips. We are unduly worried about Chinese expressions of concern at our cooperating with Taiwan in such areas. Moreover, it is time to see that we do not close any options, while seriously building a high-tech industri-al base. We surely do not need a setup, where Chinese companies use India as a base for their assembling components and devices, and producing goods with Chinese brand names, while marketing them as ‘Made in India’. Lauding the

concept of international ‘supply chains’ does not mean we become cyber coo-lies. It remains to be seen how we han-dle the introduction of 5G.

China’s economic interests in India are not confined to electronics and communications. It has also taken a keen interest in entering other key spheres like construction, transporta-tion and energy. There has been sub-stantial involvement in the power sec-tor, too. Chinese companies appear set to provide an additional 20,000 MW across India. Chinese companies are now moving significantly into the solar energy sector in Andhra Pradesh. These companies have pledged investments of $3 billion in wind and solar energy development. While there is presently no reason to deny China a legitimate share in projects, when the bids are competitive, India should insist on giv-ing preference to equipment designed and manufactured by its engineers and entrepreneurs.

IANS

Reviving the economy and support-

ing the vulnerable sections remain a

challenge as the nationwide lockdown

to combat the pandemic enters its fi-

nal phase. Clarity on the next course

of action will unfold only in the com-

ing days, but it would be naïve to ex-

pect much, for even as PM Modi urged

for protecting jobs and income earlier,

the opposite has happened in both the

government and private sector. There

is no final word yet on the stimulus for

industry and the silence of the Minister

for Micro, Small and Medium Enter-

prises has been eloquent. The Railways,

meanwhile, has decided on gradual re-

sumption of train services after hav-

ing ferried foodgrain and other essen-

tials besides undertaking maintenance

work.

The Visakhapatnam incident, on the

other hand, where gas leaked from an

industrial plant, is an instance where

maintenance work and safety proto-

cols were found wanting. That indus-

trial safety is imperative for national

security cannot be understated. Even

as the Centre consults the states on the

action plan, they are trying to face the

problems in their own way. While Pun-

jab has announced that it is advanc-

ing the date for sowing paddy, Hary-

ana has asked its industries to register,

issue passes to workers and work in

shifts. In Himachal, labour shortage is

hampering construction work, despite

the state having given the nod for it as

input costs have gone up.

There has been a ruckus in the Baddi-

Barotiwala-Nalagarh area, with work-

ers demanding entry to join work,

throwing social distancing norms to

the wind.

The MHA has asked units to treat the

first week of the opening of plants as a

trial period, but the government does

not seem to be sure of what it says is

community compliance, the crowds

at liquor shops being a case in point.

India has been clear in choosing be-

tween life and livelihood. With the Co-

vid death rate relatively low, it’s time

to open up the economy gradually. It is

best done in a manner that is reassur-

ing and transparent.

BY SFOORTI MISHRA All over the world at least 2.97

lakh people have lost their lives due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While novel coronavirus has equal potential to penetrate and spread irrespective of gender and age, but common notions that males are more susceptible to COVID-19 as compared to women and even fa-talities among the males are more, have been seen in the worldwide data of COVID fatalities and India is no exception.

On March 17, Dr Randeep Gule-ria, Director, AIIMS Delhi, had told IANS that a trend that is quite con-spicuous in the worldwide data of COVID-19 is that males are more vulnerable to COVID 19 as com-pared to women but the reason for the trend was not ascertained. “One interesting trend is also that it has occurred more in men compared to women,” he had said adding “the reason is yet to be found behind such a trend.”

Well, it seems that the mystery has been decoded by the health community of the world. In a report published on May 10 in ‘European Heart Journal’ it was found that

more concentration of Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 or ACE2 in males as compared to females could be responsible for such a trend. The report said, “The current pandemic coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 infects a wide age group but predominantly elderly individuals, especially men and those with cardiovascular dis-ease.”

The study also said that “patients with heart failure, plasma ACE2 concentrations were higher in men than in women, possibly reflecting higher tissue expression of this re-ceptor for SARS coronavirus infec-tions. This could explain why men might be more susceptible to infec-tion with, or the consequences of, SARS-CoV-2.”

The sample size for the study was 1,485 men and 537 women with heart failure and the results were validated in 1,123 men and 575 women. However none of them were COVID patients. But the researchers involved in the study believed that other research on how ACE2 inter-acts with the virus can help explain the variance in death rates between men and women.

ACE2 is an enzyme, present in

most organs and is attached to the cell membrane of mainly lung type II alveolar cells. It binds with coro-naviruses like the one which causes COVID-19, and allows them to more easily infect healthy cells.

The report however categorically said, “The conclusions drawn in this analysis are mainly restricted to heart failure, albeit a group of patients at high risk for COVID-19.” However experts in India attribute men’s lifestyle responsible for such a trend.

Dr Vichar Nigam working at the Internal Medicine Department at the Columbia Asia Hospital in Pune, told IANS that the reason behind such a trend appears to be more logical than scientific. “The reason why more and more males are testing positive is the fact that they tend to move out in search of household items and involve in general social talk more than the women. Also women, while tak-ing care of household activities tend to wash hands more often. Specially during social lockdown, men would always be interested in going out for whatsoever reason. Whereas women, understanding

their responsibility to take care of the household and children mostly remain indoors.”

Echoing the same rationale, Dr Manoj Goel, Director, Pulmonol-ogy at Fortis Memorial Research Institute, told IANS that males were more prone for this infection due to more social exposure. “Males are at a higher risk factor of Covid infec-tion than females possibly because their social exposure is happening more than females. It is seen mostly men leaving their houses to get the essential things which makes them more exposed to the virus than fe-males.”

Dr Goel also said, “Various risk factors in the form of co-morbidi-ties like heart diseases, hyperten-sion, diabetes, chronic lung disease and habit of excessive smoking and drinking are also more common in men as compared to women. These co-morbidities are responsible for more deaths due to Covid-19 in men than women. Whoever is step-ping out of the house be it male or female, even to buy essentials, should ensure to follow all neces-sary precautions.”

IANS

By Luv PuriIn the midst of the rising death

toll globally due to Covid-19, the United Nations Security Coun-cil (UNSC) impasse over a draft resolution on the pandemic is indicative of a wider institu-tional breakdown of the most important global body which is becoming hostage to the rivalry between the US and the People’s Republic of China.

The council has seen three presidencies since a pandemic was declared by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on March 11. In March, the People’s Republic of China was the presi-dent, in April, it was the Domini-can Republic and for the month of May, it is cyber security leader Estonia. After an initial suspen-sion, the council continues to meet through video telecon-ferences to transact its routine business.

However, what has also gone in parallel is the US and China bickering over a draft resolution on the pandemic. The council’s action is important as the im-pact of the pandemic is not just in the context of public health but also has multi-dimensional global implications, including economic, social and political.

In this context, the US has stated that it either wants a

broader resolution that calls for reforms and accountability of the WHO or a narrow resolution that reiterates UN Secretary-General António Guterres’ ap-peal for a global ceasefire during the pandemic period. China, on the other hand, is leading the efforts to insist that apart from covering other elements, the res-olution should call for support to the WHO. This is inimical to the US position as it has accused the WHO of becoming ‘literally, a pipe organ for China’. The broad principle at the council is that nothing is agreed until every-thing is agreed.

In actual practice, the nego-tiations over any draft resolution are a task performed by the mid-dle-level and junior diplomats of the council member-states and are mostly done outside the formal premises of the council chambers. Diplomats negotiate on the basis of broad guidance and redlines given to them by their respective capitals. In this process, at times, diplomats keep the relevant UN staff mem-bers informed about the prog-ress. Various drafts of the reso-lution are exchanged amongst each other in order to arrive at a consensus on the text and the potential outcome before the senior diplomats or ambas-

sadors formally approve in the chambers. At a practical level, every member-state is fighting its own battle against Covid-19. However, the council’s failure to adopt an innocuous resolution in a situation of global health crisis speaks volumes of the council’s present structural and institutional inability to respond to such crises. Under Article 24, Chapter 5 of the UN Charter, the Security Council is responsible for the maintenance of interna-tional peace and security. Strict-ly speaking, public health issues surrounding Covid-19 do not belong to the council’s mandate. However, the council passed Resolution 2177 in 2014 on the West African Ebola outbreak.

The 13-point resolution em-phasised the need for a compre-hensive support from the mem-ber-states to the crisis affected member-states, namely, Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. The resolution called on member-states, including those from the region, to lift general travel and border restrictions, imposed as a result of the Ebola outbreak. There was also a call on mem-ber-states, especially of the re-gion, to facilitate the delivery of assistance, including qualified and specialised trained person-nel besides supplies.

Obviously, the Ebola crisis was limited to a particular region, but it created a precedent as the coun-cil acknowledged a health issue as threat to peace and security. In the same vein, the council’s unity this year would have sent an ef-fective signal to the international community to demonstrate unity and cooperation in the ongoing fight against Covid-19. This could have created a normative frame-work to make a tangible progress in creating a political will to help vulnerable countries by stream-lining global supply lines of the personal protection equipment (PPE) and test kits.

In the recent past, this is not the first time that the council has failed to respond promptly to an emerging crisis. The Rohingya crisis, which started in August 2017, was another instance when the council continued to negoti-ate a resolution for over a month. Ultimately, there was consensus on a non-binding presidential statement that was issued on No-vember 6, 2017, where it called on ‘Myanmar to end excessive military force, inter-communal violence in Rakhine State.’ But till then, over 700,000 Rohingya had already been displaced from Myanmar to Bangladesh. At that point, it was China, with its P-5 status, which opposed bid for a

binding resolution against the alleged military action. Last year, the renewal of the council’s man-date for the UN Assistance Mis-sion in Afghanistan (UNAMA), which was established in 2002, became an issue of intense ne-gotiations between the US and China. Interestingly, in 2017 and 2018, in the context of its support to various regional initiatives, the mandate mentioned the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In August-September last year, at the time of negotiations for the renewal of UNAMA mandate, the US and its allies opposed the inclusion of the BRI trade initia-tive. Ultimately, a compromise draft did not mention the BRI. China registered its protest dur-ing the concluding remarks at the adoption of the resolution of the mandate.

With this background, the present failure of the council, comprising the Permanent-5 and Elected-10, to agree on a consensual resolution, is a con-tinuation of the progressively increasing geo-political rivalry between the US and China. Sometimes, it is just a manifesta-tion of a clash of egos or tenden-cies towards hyper-nationalism of the ruling elite of the two countries.

IANS

UNSC impasse on Covid due to US-China row

Indian HorizonFriday, May 15, 2020

Thursday, March 26 2020

Readers Response and contribution Welcome

Indian Horizon

In a historic order upholding the right

of women to equal opportunity in the

Indian Army, the Supreme Court has

paved the way for all serving Short

Service Commission (SSC) women

officers to be eligible for permanent

commission (PC) on a par with their

male colleagues. The verdict opens

the avenue for meritorious women of-

ficers to get command postings, pro-

motions, rank and pension. Reeking

of gender discrimination and violative

of Article 14 that guarantees equality,

these benefits were till now denied

to them as the women were allowed

a tenure of up to only 14 years. Sig-

nificantly, this restriction not only pre-

vented them from reaching the pinna-

cle in their career, but also disqualified

them from pension, which starts only

after 20 years of service.

History is witness to a number of awe-

inspiring and brave women leading

thousands of men in battles, includ-

ing the famous Joan of Arc and our

very own Rani of Jhansi. Recognising

the valour and capability of women

in military matters in the past couple

of decades, countries such as the US,

Israel, North Korea, France, Germany,

Netherlands, Australia and Canada

have allowed women in groundbreak-

ing combat positions. While stopping

short of granting this role to the Indian

women, the Supreme Court judgment

notably rubbished the patriarchal con-

cept that portrays women as weak by

pointing out the fact that 30 per cent

of our women officers are deployed in

conflict zones. This effectively expos-

es the government stance that wom-

en are physiologically unfit for higher

Army ranks as farcical and hollow.

In the light of the forward-looking

order that bestows dignity on able

women, it is now a question of time

before women officers in the Indian

Army acquire positions of command.

In the meanwhile, the rank and file of

the military would do well to throw

outdated perceptions of male superi-

ority out of the window that are gen-

erally proffered to keep them down

and be prepared to take orders from

them. The mission is of utmost impor-

tance and women are equally capable

of helming it.

Lady in command post

Landmark SC order on perma-nent commission to women

6 EDIT Indian HorizonThursday, March 26 2020

By Jayshree SenguptaNo one expected that Finance

Minister Nirmala Sitaraman would go out of her way to opt for generous gender budgeting. She was busy pointing out that the economy has sound macro-eco-nomic fundamentals and there is little fear of a severe slowdown or recession. Micro sectors did get their due attention and the allo-cation of Rs 28,600 crore for wom-en and child development may sound great, but is it enough for the 500 million women of India? It is not adequate gender budgeting which involves the government to allocate funds to women-spe-cific schemes so that the benefits of growth are enjoyed fully by women. It is also not the alloca-tion that is important but how the money is spent that is crucial. There are so much unspent funds and women are not able to ben-efit from the allocation.

There are a number of prob-lems which need to be focused upon for gender budgeting. One is the age of marriage: 27 per cent girls are married off by the age of 18 which makes them vulner-able to patriarchy and torture by mothers-in-law and leads to early childbirth. India has the highest number of child marriages. Em-powering women would require that girls are given higher educa-tion and training in some skills to enhance their earning power. There has to be a policy to incen-tivise parents to let their daugh-ters study further or learn some skills before marriage. The com-mittee set up for determining the

right age of marriage is a welcome move.

Women work very hard in rural households which is unpaid work. Making women earn from doing work other than housework is im-portant. The government should start light industries like food processing which can give jobs to rural women. This should be a priority of the government but it seems not to be the case in Bud-get 2020. Women making home-made products and snacks in ru-ral areas can sell in nearby towns, but because of lack of mobility, they are restricted from doing so. Making transportation easy and safe ought to be a priority.

Unequal wages is another im-portant source of low earnings for women. Very skilled embroider-ers near Kolkata are paid a pit-tance while big designers make a killing making garments out of those fabrics. Women painters from Madhubani and Raghura-jpur, Orissa, can be trained to make products that can fit into contemporary interiors. They have skills but lack innovation. All this requires detailed atten-tion.

While the government doesn’t seem to think that our unemploy-ment problem is serious enough, it is also paying scant attention to the fact that our women’s par-ticipation in the workforce at 34 per cent is one of the worst in the world. The world average is 50 per cent. Women drop out of the workforce for various reasons. Urban women fear for their safe-ty and sexual harassment at the

workplace. Rural women find it difficult to work outside home for lack of help at home. Creche facil-ities for construction workers will enable more women to join the work- force. Also, equal wages in farm work is important for wom-en to draw them into agricultural activities. Garment factory work-ers are paid low wages in order to let owners remain competitive. Instead, their productivity should be enhanced through better equipment and working condi-tions. Many more working wom-en’s hostels are needed from the increase in allocation for it. Safety for women is the most important thing, especially in cities. In rural areas, too, women are vulnerable to rape and molestation.

The maternal mortality rate is high in India. Women’s health is not of importance, specially in rural areas. Rural women die dur-ing childbirth because of com-plications. If primary health cen-tres were better equipped with medicines and doctors, many lives could have been saved. Also, inadequate pre-natal care is re-sponsible for women developing complications. Unfortunately, the allocation on health remains a meagre two per cent of the GDP. Some state governments are re-furbishing primary health cen-tres, but it is not universal. India also has a large number of female suicides. Women’s mental health is increasingly a problem and has to be tackled.

Small-scale women entrepre-neurs are growing. They need ac-cess to easy credit. The Budget

2020 has allocated larger funds to self-help groups and it provides for easier access to bank finance, yet more needs to be done be-cause women are afraid of han-dling the bank paper work by themselves. It’s a good thing that the Finance Minister has thought of promoting beekeeping. Simi-larly, poultry and silkworm be-sides agriculture and organic farming should be promoted.

Some rural women make beau-tiful products from bamboo and grass, but have no proper out-let to sell them. Middlemen take huge cuts and exploit them. Mar-keting outlets are needed in vil-lages known for their crafts.

If India wants to be a $5 tril-lion economy, the contribution by women to the GDP is of ut-most importance. India cannot call itself a developed country if the women remain shackled by archaic traditions and patriarchy. Gender budgeting should aim at empowering women and making them stand on their own feet and make their own choices and deci-sions.

Also, to give a bigger market to products made by women, han-dloom and handicrafts that are mostly made of natural material by women should be promoted by people who matter in the world of style, interior decoration and fashion like Bollywood stars and top designers. Aiming at all these problems and resolving them call for careful gender budgeting which addresses all the problems that women are facing in 2020.

IANS

Gender budgeting fails to address all problems

By P StobdanUS officials rarely visit Central Asia,

but amidst the coronavirus outbreak in China, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo paid a stealthy visit to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan with a bag full of intersecting agendas, primarily to convey that the re-gion remains independent of the malign influence of ‘external actors’, an obvious tug to China and Russia. The visit came ahead of the State Department’s unveil-ing of the ‘US strategy for Central Asia 2019-25: Advancing sovereignty and economic prosperity’.

Americans are not known for under-standing Central Asia well as compared to Europeans who coined the Eurasia and Silk Route phrases and traversed along its various paths. During the So-viet period, only a few American tourists travelled to Tashkent from Moscow. The US struggled to make a workable foot-print in the geopolitically crucial Cen-tral Asia that prompted the Congress to adopt the Freedom Support Act in 1992. In 1991, Secretary of State James Baker flew to Kazakhstan to denuclearise the Muslim majority state.

Washington’s desire to forge a part-nership was constrained by the dilem-ma confronted by the Soviet-trained residual leaders for defining their des-tinies. The regional context changed

once Moscow signed a special strategic partnership with China. The US then took a pause, waiting for the situation to evolve, while maintaining the posture of supporting the independence and terri-torial integrity of Central Asian nations. In the 90s, Zbigniew Brzezinski sug-gested the need to wait for the next gen-eration Central Asians overcoming their inherited, unsure self-ambivalence and orienting themselves towards America.

After 30 years since, Central Asia has changed and Washington seems set to reap the fruit of its investments. The new policy lists $9 billion funding support for democracy programmes, security cooperation, economic governance and private sector-led economic growth. Be-sides, the US has supported $50 billion in credit and loans to the region. The US private sector invested over $31 bil-lion in commercial ventures and funded over 40,000 student and professional ex-changes, among others.

Clearly then, Washington still treats Central Asia as an open book and the last chapter is not yet written. The fresh stra-tegic opportunity assessment defines the region important in its own right, lays out new milestones for strengthen-ing sovereignty, fighting terrorism and helping to make economies attractive to US businesses.

Uzbek leader Islam Karimov’s death in 2016 and Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan stepping down in 2019 opened a win-dow of opportunity that prompted Mike Pompeo to visit Nursultan in Tashkent. New Uzbek leader Shavkat Mirziyoyev is now a reformer and potential partner for the US, who it believes, has taken steps to initiate reforms. Mirziyoyev’s busi-ness offers could spin off opportunities for the US firms.

Pompeo also visited Nursultan to cul-tivate new Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev to profit from his recent political reforms. Pompeo lauded ‘real improvements’, urged Kazakhs to resist excessive engagement with China and instead consider America as a reliable business partner.

Conversely, Kazakhs now see the US as a source of investment, new technol-ogies, education and global standards. After Chevron and ExxonMobil, Ameri-can Tyson Foods is preparing to enter Kazakhstan’s agriculture sector.

In the C5+1 format, Pompeo pointed to enlarging American influence, by snaring Uzbekistan into its Afghan pol-icy and by exploring ways to counter Chinese influence. Tashkent’s regional plans for improving relationship with its neighbours and efforts to nix the peace process in Afghanistan, impress the US.

The critical point is that Uzbekistan en-dorses the Taliban movement and sup-ports direct talks between the US and militia. It hedges a bet on Washington than on Moscow’s ability to end the Af-ghan stalemate, crucial for Uzbekistan’s security.

Uzbekistan is becoming a linchpin state in the US success to get the Afghan war to an end. We don’t know the details for the post-Afghan settlement, but the aim would be to avoid the mistake of hastily withdrawing US troops from Syr-ia resulting in Turkey’s military assault against the Kurds. The bigger picture is how the US may be subtly using the Afghan factor as a means to nudge Cen-tral Asia into accepting a certain option or use cues to direct them away from overly depending on Russia and China. The US has offered a $100-million aid to increase cross-border trade and connec-tivity between Uzbekistan and Afghani-stan. For the first time, the US told the regional states to push China and Russia out of the region, be wary of predatory Chinese lending, and avoid falling into the debt trap under the pretence of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) projects. The debt finance impacting sovereignty is acute in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan that are unable to repay.

IANS

US wants Central Asia to oust China, Russia

By Saba NaqviThere were always good reasons for

the BJP to be defeated in the Delhi As-sembly elections. First, the party is in power in the three municipal corpora-tions in the Capital that have a shabby record. Indeed, one could say that they are a blot on the Swachh Bharat campaign of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Second, the BJP could offer no local leadership or face to take on Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, whose approval ratings always remained high. Third, the BJP had no youth alternative to AAP whose core team is packed with young faces. Fourth, large sections of the youth were, in any case, alienated from the BJP at the spectacle of violence on two universities in Delhi, Jamia Mil-lia and JNU, in the weeks preceding the elections (after voting day, came reports of sexual assault on girl students of Gargi College in South Delhi by goons shout-ing Jai Shri Ram).

In the end, the AAP moved far more deftly and creatively than the older party. It was light on its feet in evading the BJP’s attempt to make this election about Hindu versus Muslim as opposed to issues of local governance. Partly be-cause the BJP had nothing positive to of-fer at the local level, it decided to make the election about its ideological na-tional issues. In the process, in full view of the national and international media in the Capital, the BJP dropped all pre-

tence at civility in public life and ramped up the hate speech. The desperation to also stick to its CAA agenda in the face of spreading protests in the Capital and across the country also drove the BJP to the point where we can state that in January 2020, the BJP completely aban-doned its mukhauta (mask) model that has a place in the party’s history.

Mukhauta was the phrase that gained currency after a high-ranking RSS-BJP functionary described former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee as the mask/plausible pleasant face who gave cover to an ideo-logical agenda. Vajpayee helmed a suc-cessful coalition in an age where num-bers demanded moderation.

The BJP has a majority on its own at the national level but is losing power in states at a time when the economy is in crisis. There is now a palpable sense of economic despair in the air. In the week preceding Delhi’s February 8 voting day, a diplomat from a country with large investments in India revealed that their internal political assessments show a cycle of endemic social unrest leading up to 2024; they do not see the country as a safe destination to invest in infra-structure and do not expect the Indian economy to grow at a healthy rate. They were even factoring in a simulated war with Pakistan! This shockingly bad eco-nomic projection means that the BJP cannot use traditional means to engage the young in a future that has hope. The

current BJP and its ideological family have, therefore, made the shift to invok-ing enemies here, there, everywhere. In doing so, the BJP gives some youth the pretext to abuse, blame others for their misfortune and feel a sense of belong-ing to an ideology, some even picked up guns as was witnessed in three cases of shooting that took place in Delhi. In the past, polarisation was part of the strat-egy; in the future, it seems likely to be the main plank of the strategy along with the continued cult of the Great Leader.

The language of urban warfare and civil war was spoken in Delhi and hate speeches made by lawmakers without any real apology from the nation’s pre-eminent party. This is because they do not see themselves as replacing any middle ground — as the BJP of the Va-jpayee era did — but in creating an en-tirely new ground and reality in India.

Besides, there is no one left in the na-tional BJP who can pull off the kind of deft positioning that is required when a party pushes a hard ideological agenda and then tries to pass it off as reason-able. In the past year, the more plausible pleasant faces of the BJP passed away. Sushma Swaraj would have watched her Ps and Qs while talking about other women, be they protesters or leaders; she even maintained excellent rela-tions with Sonia Gandhi although the two had contested an election against each other. Manohar Parrikar who man-

aged to peacefully rule Goa with a large Christian population without any social upheaval is gone too. The most signifi-cant is the passing away of Arun Jaitley who determined the media spin given to events and was brought out as a trouble-shooter when the script went haywire.

Half the second rung of the BJP has passed away while the other half has been rendered powerless. This includes Union minister Nitin Gadkari, former chief ministers Shivraj Chouhan and Raman Singh, who have all been cut to a size, smaller than their potential. What are left are the Big Two and yes-men and women, none of whom can muster the courage to speak up even if they thought errors were being made (and some do). And there are new entrants who are ab-solutely committed to this goli maaro tone and tenor without any pretense of being part of polite politics.

There is no turning back from the hard ideological line for the BJP. It’s also important to understand why Shaheen Bagh, the anti-CAA protest site in Delhi, that became a template for similar pro-tests across the country, was made the main election issue by the BJP. It upset the believer for a multiplicity of reasons that lie beyond the Delhi poll. Shaheen Bagh marks the resurrection of the power of the nation’s largest minority supported by the large percentage of In-dians who did not vote for the BJP.

IANS

BJP had nothing positive to offer at local level

Readers Response and contribution Welcome

Friday, May 15, 2020

OPED7Who does Boris Johnson speak for?

By Mick O’ReillyThe political fallout from leaving the

European Union was always going to negatively impact the unity of the United Kingdom but no one could have guessed that it would happen so quickly.

Barely four months into its new inde-pendent course and free of the shackles of Europe after 45 years of a loveless mar-riage, the government in London now faces the prospect of the devolved govern-ments in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast each going their own way when it comes to looking after the health and well-being of the 12 million or so who live on the pe-riphery of what is fast becoming a disunit-ed kingdom.

After the turmoil of Brexit these past four years, who could have imagined that these past four months would cause far greater disruption to the health, wealth and psyche of Britons yet it is indeed the coronavirus that hasn’t as much deep-ened the rift between the provinces and London, more exposed the fault lines that divide them.

And much of it is the doing of Boris Johnson.

From a distance and by that I mean

looking farther than the provincial press in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast to cover-age beyond Britain the analysis and com-mentary is that the Johnson government has done an amateur job in dealing with Covid-19 when all of the professionals were screaming for quicker and sterner action in fighting this pandemic.

The commentary from newspapers across Europe is scathing, rating the UK’s performance as poor and lower league.

“In Great Britain, the infection has

spread unchecked longer than it should have,” notes German daily Die Zeit. “The wave of infections also spread from the hospitals to the old people’s homes, which could also have been avoided. The government is now trying to pretend to the public that it has the situation under control.”

Ahh, I can hear Boris backers say “that’s just typical German spite”.

Really? “According to many, testing, testing, testing is the motto,” chimes in Dutch outlet De Volkskrant. “That has hardly happened in the UK for weeks, los-ing sight of the spread of the virus.

This gap shows that the British were insufficiently prepared for the pandemic, despite the presence of expertise in this area. The country has been catching up in recent weeks. Much of the harm has al-ready been done.”

If you think I’m being too harsh, consid-er that Health Secretary Matth Hancock made a solemn pledge that the UK would conduct 100,000 daily tests of National Health Service staff by the end of April. It managed that total just once on April 30.

Was there an outcry? Yes.And the reaction of Johnson? To double

down and promise 250,000 tests daily. Is it any wonder then that the leaders of the devolved governments in the provinces considered the leadership from Whitehall on Covid-19 to be just bluster?

Put yourself in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland and you’re dealing with the terrible daily death tolls, the anguish of a citizenry crippled by coronavirus, unable to mourn, to work, to travel, to plan, to know what the next day, week, or month will bring, where the infirm in care homes are unprepared for the illness, where hospitals are short of personal pro-tective equipment, do you adhere to the hot air coming from London?

Of course the same sentiments hold true in England too but the provinces have the benefit now of devolved powers.

This growing rift between all became obvious on Sunday when Johnson aired a pre-recorded video message to the na-tion laying out his road map for getting the UK back up an running. Let’s just say that it went over like a lead balloon in Ed-inburgh, Cardiff and Belfast.

In England you will be asked to “stay alert” from Aberdeen to Aberystwyth, Portmadoc to Portstewart, the devolved

message is simply to “stay home”. John-son believes that schools should be back up and running by June 1, with classes of 15 pupils operating in the words of the UK government, not me “in bubbles”.

Bubbles? More like the Johnson govern-ment is living in a bubble. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland can’t see schools opening until early September and then some.

The advice from Johnson’s government is that people can sunbathe and have pic-nics in parks. Try that in the mountains of Mourne, Snowdonia or the Cairngorms and you and your picnic plans will be quickly curtailed by the local constabular-ies.

Now, if this dangerous division between the disparate provinces of the kingdom isn’t bad enough, consider what will hap-pen soon if Johnson decides that he’s had enough of talking to Brussels in trying to reach a deal on the UK’s future relation-ship with the UK he must give notice by the end of June if he wants to extend the transition time beyond December 31.

Coronavirus might the lesser of prob-lems facing the UK then.

Gulf News

By Laila Mostafa AbdullatifThe COVID-19 crisis has shown us, in

ways which leave us in no doubt, that human health equals economic health equals planetary health. The three are in-tricately linked, as witnessed by the pro-found domino effect continuing to trans-form the world we live in.

There is a dangerous dichotomy emerg-ing: do we prioritise human health or cli-mate change? This is misleading; it is not an either/or situation. It is critical that society works together as we enter a new era of radical, collaborative action to cut emissions and reverse nature loss.

As the UAE prepares its national strat-egy for the post-COVID-19 recovery, it’s important to reflect on the fact that the UAE is home to a myriad of natural land-scapes and rare species. Over the years, it has become clear that Emirati culture and customs are deeply entrenched in nature.

This is also reflected in the nation’s long-term strategies for economic growth and development, which showcase com-mitment towards diversifying the econo-my and supporting technological innova-tion with business ideas for the future.

This can be seen in the AED50 billion ‘Ghadan 21’ stimulus package for Abu Dhabi announced by His Highness Shai-

kh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi Crown Prince and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, last year.

The UAE’s founding father, the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, once said, “On land and in the sea, our forefa-thers lived and survived in this environ-ment. They were able to do so because they recognised the need to conserve it, to take from it only what they needed to live, and to preserve it for succeeding genera-tions.”

This principle is implemented till this day, with the direction and guidance of the UAE’s wise leadership, helping to en-courage and promote the conservation of the nation’s natural habitats and wildlife.

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai embedded these values in his re-cently published best-seller ‘My Story’, a detailed selection of anecdotes chroni-cling the life and times of the Ruler in honour of his 50 years of service to the nation.

Many people are wondering when life will get back to normal after the COV-ID-19 crisis. What we should be asking is: can we use this opportunity to learn from

our mistakes and build something better? A focus on nature can help us understand where pandemics come from and how the socioeconomic fallout from the cri-sis could be mitigated. As governments around the world move from “rescue” to “recovery” mode, key sectors could pro-vide particularly strong returns in terms of rebooting economies, creating jobs and advancing climate goals.

Highlighting the UAE’s commitment to future generations, Sheikh Mohammed has always stressed the government’s role in working towards maintaining a secure future for the people and focusing on ensuring the prosperity of future genera-tions. The UAE has taken important steps to mitigate climate change and its devas-tating consequences.

Our failure to protect nature and miti-gate climate change will deprive future generations from adequate and quality natural resources as basic as air and wa-ter.

To encourage the preservation of the environment, we have to continue to work in line with the government to bring conservation science closer to policymak-ers, initiating and encouraging dialogue on these issues across all sectors of soci-ety and youth, the future decision mak-

ers of tomorrow, need to be a part of the conversation.

Youth from across the UAE can now shzre their insights, predictions and rec-ommendations as part of a series of live dialogues organised by ‘Connect with Na-ture’ titled the ‘Reimagine Series’; a plat-form of virtual youth majlis’ focusing on reimagining life following the pandemic.

The Connect with Nature programme, cofounded by Emirates Nature-WWF and Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi with the International Fund for Houbara Conser-vation as a strategic partner, will provide

youth with the opportunity to share their insights with key decision-makers and ex-perts from across various sectors.

Free for all participants, young resi-dents of the UAE aged 15 to 30, can regis-ter and join the ‘Reimagine Series’ youth majlis’ through the Connect with Nature website for a chance to contribute their thoughts and insights towards the criti-cal question of how society can emerge from the crisis and start to build the path towards a more resilient and sustainable future.

Gulf News

By Jason Gale, Robert Langreth and John Lauerman

The best minds in virology are trying to unravel a mystery: How did a lethal coro-navirus jump from the wilds of rural China to major human population centers? And what chain of genetic mutations produced a pathogen so perfectly adapted for stealth and mass transmission?

Deciphering the creation story of SARS-CoV-2, as the virus now rampaging around the globe is known, is a crucial step toward arresting a pandemic that’s killed 290,000-plus and triggered what could be the worst economic collapse since the Great Depres-sion.

While crash vaccine programs are un-derway in the US, Europe and China, an inoculation to ward off the virus may not be ready for months, and the jury’s out on potential treatments.

In the meantime, to reduce the risk of deadly secondary outbreaks or the emer-gence of an entirely new strain, disease chasers need to retrace the pathogen’s journey around the globe. That means heading back to China, where it all started sometime in 2019.

Last week, the World Health Organisa-tion sought permission from Beijing to send a new scientific mission for more epidemiological work. China, which let a WHO team into the country in early Febru-ary as its epidemic raged, hasn’t yet signed

off. Nearly half a year into a historic global health crisis, there are still enormous gaps in our knowledge. Those unanswered questions are hampering our ability to contain the outbreak and to prevent future pandemics, while fuelling a war of words between the US and China over the origins of the virus.

Roughly 70% of emerging infectious dis-eases in humans are zoonotic, or transmit-ted from animals to people. Genome se-quencing of SARS-CoV-2 shows it’s related

to two other deadly coronaviruses that originated in bats.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome, which started in China in 2002, and Mid-dle East respiratory syndrome a decade later spread to humans via a secondary animal source. In the case of SARS, ex-perts pointed to civet cats — small, sleek nocturnal mammals used in wildlife dishes in China — as the probable con-duit. With MERS, camels are believed to be the carrier.

It’s presumed that SARS-CoV-2 has made a similar journey, yet investigators have yet to identify an intermediate ani-mal host, according to Peter Ben Embarek, a WHO food safety and animal diseases expert. “We have some kind of a missing link in that story between the origin of the virus and when it started to circulate in hu-mans,” he said.

That raises the disturbing possibility that an unknown animal source is still spread-ing the disease, known as Covid-19. WHO researchers reported Friday that house-hold cats can transmit the virus to other felines, though there’s no evidence yet that pets can pass it along to humans.

Scientists who have studied the genet-ics of the virus are convinced it’s of natural origin rather than designed in a lab. An ac-cidental release from the research Centre in Wuhan is possible in theory, but “just so implausible,” according to Stanley Perl-man, a professor of microbiology and im-munology at the University of Iowa, who has visited the facility and rates it highly.

One reason is the reputation of Shi Zhengli, a 56-year-old deputy director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology. In 2004, Shi found a natural reservoir of coronavi-ruses in bat caves near Kunming, a city in China’s southern Yunnan province.

In February she published a paper in the journal Nature saying that the genomic se-quence of the new pathogen was 96% identi-

cal to that of a coronavirus identified in Yun-nan. Shi told Scientific American that a revizw of genetic characteristics of viruses she’s worked with in the lab didn’t match those of the coronavirus spreading in humans.

In a social media post the virologist said she would “swear on my life” the pathogen causing havoc had nothing to do with her lab. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo has backed off earlier claims of “enormous evi-dence” that the virus escaped from a Wu-han laboratory.

That still leaves scientists asking where and how the virus did jump into humans. So-called wet markets that sell live ani-mals, like one in Wuhan to which many of the first cases of the illness were traced, have previously been implicated in the spread of disease.

In this case, however, experts aren’t sure whether the outbreak actually started at the market, or was just discovered there.

Peter Daszak, a disease ecologist at non-profit EcoHealth Alliance, said it’s likely that covid-19 began before the December starting point currently assumed, perhaps even outside of Wuhan.

He estimates that 1 million to 7 million people every year in Southern China and Southeast Asia may get infected with bat viruses. Most don’t spread readily between people and many fizzle out before reach-ing major population centers, he said.

Gulf News

Reimagining life in UAE after coronavirus

What we still don’t know about coronavirus origins

Indian HorizonFriday, May 15, 2020

The views expressed in these columns are the writers’ own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Indian Horizon or its management.-Editor

Governments in Edinburgh, Cardiff and Belfast no longer listen to London on Covid-19

8internatiOnaLindian HorizonFriday, May 15, 2020

america faces 'darkest winter', has no master plan: US whistleblower

Seoul, May 14 (IANS) North Korea was estimat-ed to have spent $620 mil-lion on its nuclear weap-ons program last year, an international anti-nuclear weapons group said.

The International Cam-paign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a Nobel Peace Prize-winning organiza-tion, made the estima-tion in a report about the expenditures that nine

countries, including the North, made on nuclear development, Yonhap News Agency reported on Thursday.

The figure was drawn based on a South Korean think tank's estimate that the North spent 35 per cent of its gross national income (GNI) on its mili-tary in 2009, as well as data from Global Zero, another anti-nuclear weapons

group, that the North was believed to have spent 6 per cent of the military budget on nuclear devel-opment in 2011.

Citing data from the Bank of Korea, this week's report said the North's GNI for 2018 was esti-mated at 35.895 trillion Korean won.

The North spent an es-timated 753 billion won ($620 million) on its nu-clear program in 2018, and a similar amount is believed to have been spent last year too, the re-port said.

North Korea is esti-mated to have 35 nuclear weapons, and is develop-ing nuclear-capable mis-siles that can be launched from the ground and from submarines, the report said.

n.Korea spent estimated $620mn on n-weapons in 2019

Ramallah, May 14 (IANS) Pal-estine will reconsider the deals and understandings reached with both Israel and the US amid the former's annexation plans, President Mahmoud Ab-bas has announced.

"We extended our hands to a just and comprehensive peace based on the resolutions of the international legitimacy. We still have a hope to achieve this but this won't last for too long," Abbas said on Wednesday.

He referred to the "ongoing violations that the Israeli gov-ernment is practicing, besides continuing the crimes of settle-ment, which is a war crime un-der international law", reports Xinhua news agency.

He accused Israel of turning its back to the signed agree-ments that had been reached with the Palestinian side.

Abbas also noted that "Israel, which is encouraged by the US",

was planning to annex lands in Palestine, mainly in East Jerusa-lem and the Jordan Valley.

"This fact will compel us to reconsider all the agreements, treaties and understandings which had been either reached with the state of occupation or with the US," said Abbas.

He warned that the Palestin-ians won't consider or abide by

all these agreements and under-standings "if the Israeli govern-ment declares the annexation of any part of our lands".

Also on Wednesday, Palestin-ian Prime Minister Mohammad Ishtaye warned of a difficult stage the region will go through, if the Israeli government imple-mented its plan of annexing Palestinian lands.

Ishtaye unveiled that the Pal-estinian leadership will hold an important meeting on Saturday "to study facing Israel's decision of annexing parts of the West Bank territories and imposing its sovereignty on it".

Last month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanya-hu signed an agreement with Benny Gantz, the leader of Blue and White Party, to form a unity government.

They both agreed to impose Israeli sovereignty on the ter-ritories, which they called as "part of the historic lands of Is-rael" as of July 1.

On May 7, US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman said that American President Don-ald Trump's administration supports Israel's application of sovereignty over the Jordan Val-ley and the settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Palestine to reconsider deals with israel, US: Prez abbas

Japan lifts COViD-19 emergency for 39 of 47 prefectures

Tokyo, May 14 (IANS) The Japanese government on Thursday decided to lift a nationwide state of emergency for 39 of the country's 47 prefectures where the COVID-19 has been less prevalent, with the move coming ahead of the planned deadline of May 31.

"Japan will lift a state of emergency for 39 of the country's 47 prefectures ahead of its planned ex-piration at the end of the month, as the spread of the novel coronavirus in these areas has been kept in check," Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced.

The areas remaining un-der the state of emergency comprise urban areas such

as Tokyo and the wider metropolitan area and Osa-ka prefecture, among oth-ers, that have been harder-hit by the virus.

Abe first declared a month-long state of emer-gency for Tokyo and six other prefectures on April 7, but this was expanded to cover the entire nation on April 16, in part to dissuade large numbers of people crossing prefectural lines during the five-day Golden Week holidays.

The state of emergency was originally scheduled to end on May 6, the last day of the Golden Week holidays. As of Thursday, the number of coronavirus cases in Japan increased to 16,049, with 687 deaths.

Canberra, May 14 (IANS) Al-most 600,000 Australians lost their jobs in April with thou-sands of businesses closed due to the ongoing COVID-19 restrictions, official figures re-vealed on Thursday.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) figures showed that the seasonally adjusted employment fell by 594,300 people between March and April, while the unemployment rate rose from 5.2 per cent to 6.2 per cent, reports Xinhua news agency.

The underemployment rate, which measures the percent-age of the work force that have jobs but were being under-utilized, rose 4.9 per cent to a record-high 13.7 per cent.

The total number of hours worked by Australians fell by 9.2 per cent between March and April.

Approximately 2.7 million people, or 20 per cent of the workforce, either became un-employed or had their hours reduced between March and April, which was much greater than in previous years.

Responding to the figures, Prime Minister Scott Morrison described it as a "tough day for Australia" but said the nation could bounce back.

"Almost 600,000 jobs have been lost, every one of them devastating for those Austra-lians, for their families, for their communities. A very tough day. Terribly shocking, although not unanticipated," he told report-ers in Canberra. Morrison has announced a three-stage plan

to ease Australia's coronavirus restrictions by July, and more than 850,000 jobs will be re-stored by stage three, accord-ing to the Treasury.

However, Morrison said on Thursday that the challenges in restarting the economy in a safe way should not be under-estimated. He urged people not to underestimate the scale of that task.

"The task we have now is to reopen these businesses to get

employees back into their jobs and to do so in a COVID-19 safe way so that it's sustainable for many years, potentially, if that is what is required."

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg who said that unemployment was still expected to reach around 10 per cent and with-out the JobKeeper program it would have hit 15 per cent.

Earlier on Thursday Anthony Albanese, the leader of the Op-position Labor Party, described the figures as "devastating", saying that unemployment be-ing lower than forecast was not a cause for celebration.

He reiterated his criticism of the JobKeeper scheme, saying that it left casual workers and those in the art and entertain-ment industries behind.

"That's a devastating figure, they're all people with families with a need to put food on the table," he said. "They're people who are our friends, our rela-tives our neighbours."

As of Thursday, the total number of COVID-19 cases in Australia stood at 6,989, with 98 deaths.

Jerusalem, May 14 (IANS) Israeli Prime Min-ister Benjamin Netanyahu formally notified Presi-dent Reuven Rivlin that he was able to form a gov-ernment, after 18-month-long political deadlock.

In a letter to President Rivlin on Wednesday, Ne-tanyahu informed them that he has "succeeded in forming a government", which he will present to Parliament on Thurs-day, reports Xinhua news agnency.

Netanyahu was tasked by Rivlin to put together a new government after Benny Gantz, leader of the Blue and White party, failed to do so following the March 2 elections, the third in 12 months.

Netanyahu and Gantz, two former bitter rivals, signed a deal to form a power-sharing govern-ment in April.

Under the unprecedent-

ed agreement, Netanyahu will serve as Prime Minis-ter for at least 18 months before being replaced by Gantz.

Gantz will serve as De-fence Minister and "al-ternate Prime Minister", a title which did not exist before in Israeli politics.

He resigned as Parlia-ment Speaker on Tuesday night, ahead of the swear-ing-in of the new govern-ment. In place of Gantz, Yariv Levin, tourism min-ister and Netanyahu's close associate, will be ap-pointed as the speaker.

Netanyahu's long-time pro-settler ally, the Yam-ina party, apparently will not join the unity govern-ment. Both Yamina, head-ed by Education Minister Naftali Bennett, and Ne-tanyahu's Likud party an-nounced on Wednesday that they could not reach an agreement over which portfolios will be held by

Yamina.The new government

will be inaugurated af-ter three rounds of elec-tions that produced in-conclusive results and some 18 months during which Israel did not have a permanent government, paralyzing Israel's politi-cal arena. It is slated to be the largest in Israel's his-tory with between 34 to 36 ministerial portfolios.

The excess comes at a time when the projections for the Israeli economy were that it will shrink in 2020 and there are ap-proximately one million unemployed people.

According to the deal reached between Gantz and Netanyahu, Israel could begin to move on annexation of parts of the West Bank as early as July as part of the implementa-tion of the US peace plan for Israelis and Palestin-ians.

almost 600,000 jobs cut in australia last month netanyahu announces success in forming new govt

London, May 14 (IANS) UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak warned the country faced "significant recession" after official figures showed that the economy shrank by 2 per cent in the first quarter of this year. "Technically a recession is defined as two quarters of negative GDP, we've now had one... So yes, it is now very likely that the UK is fac-ing a significant recession at the moment and this year," Xinhua news agency quoted Sunak as saying on Sky News on Wednesday.

The GDP was estimated to have fallen by 2 per cent in Q1 2020, compared with the last three months of 2019, the largest quarterly fall since the last quarter of 2008, ac-cording to data released by the Office for National Sta-

tistics (ONS). Meanwhile, when compared with the same quarter a year ago, the country's GDP shrank by 1.6 per cent in Q1 2020, with the biggest drop since the fourth quarter of 2009.

"This release captures the first direct effects of the CO-VID-19 pandemic, and the government measures taken to reduce transmission of the virus," said the ONS.

Earlier in the day, Prime Minister Boris Johnson told MPs in the House of Com-mons that 144 National Health Service (NHS) staff and 131 care staff have died from COVID-19.

He then unveiled an extra 600 million pounds ($733.8 million) for infection control in care homes to fight the dis-ease.

"The number of outbreaks is down and the number of fatalities in care homes is now well down. We are mak-ing progress," he told MPs.

Chairing the Downing Street daily press briefing, Secretary of State for Hous-ing, Communities and Local Government Robert Jenrick told reporters that it was "es-sential" that care homes were given the support they need and deserve.

"I don't underestimate the challenge" faced in them, he said, adding "there is more we can do".

As of Thursday, the UK ac-counted for the second high-est number of COVID-19 deaths in the world at 33,264, while with 230,985 cases, it was the third highest glob-ally.

UK faces 'significant recession' after economy shrank 2%

Islamabad, May 14 (IANS) The trade activities between Pakistan and Iran at the Taftan border cross-ing have resumed after remaining suspended for more than two months as Islamabad closed its bor-der due to the COVID-19 pandemic, officials said on Thursday.

The trade activities re-sumed on Wednesday after two trade crossing points, the Pakistan gate and zero-point trade gate, were reopened at the Taf-tan border, Xinhua news agency quoted Zahoor Baloch, a government offi-cial in Taftan, as saying to the media.

The trade activities be-tween the two countries would continue thrice

a week according to the standard operating proce-dures, the official said.

After the opening of the trade gates, some Iranian trailers loaded with food items and liquefied petro-leum gas tankers arrived in Pakistan, according to the reports. The decision regarding resumption of trade between the two countries was taken by the National Command and Operations Center of

Pakistan in a recent meet-ing held in federal capital Islamabad, according to government officials.

Earlier in a telephone conversation last month, Pakistani Prime Minis-ter Imran Khan and Ira-nian President Hassan Rouhani emphasized the necessity for the resump-tion of cross-border trade, reopening of the border markets, and strengthen-ing the trade ties in con-formity with the health regulations.

"The resumption of commodities exchange between the two countries will greatly help Pakistan's economy, which has en-countered many problems due to the coronavirus," Khan had said.

Pakistan, iran resume trade activities at border amid pandemic

Moscow, May 14 (IANS) The sin-gle day increase in the number of COVID-19 cases in Russia fell blow the 10,000 mark to 9,974, taking the overall tally to 252,245, the country's coronavirus response centre said on Thursday.

The single-day increase fell for the first time over the past 12 days, Xin-hua news agency reported.

The death toll climbed by 93 to 2,305, while 53,530 people have now recovered, including 5,527 over the last 24 hours, the centre said.

Moscow, the country's worst-hit region, confirmed 4,712 new cases in the past 24 hours, taking its total to 130,716.

Russia's consumer rights and hu-man well-being watchdog said on Thursday that 259,198 people were under medical observation as of Wednesday.

More than 6.1 million lab tests for COVID-19 have been conducted across the country so far, it added.

Single day COVID-19 cases in Russia falls below 10k

New York, May 14 (IANS) Rick Bright, a US government whistleblower recently fired by the Trump administration, delivered a chilling testimony in the Congress on Thursday about the country hurtling into the "darkest winter in modern history" unless there is strong leadership and a master plan to tackle the Covid-19 pan-demic -- both of which he said were absent right now.

Bright's testimony came barely 48 hours after Amer-ica's top infectious diseases expert Anthony Fauci warned in a Senate testimony of suf-fering and death if US states reopen too quickly. Bright tes-tified before a Congressional panel on Thursday by which time Covid-19 has killed more than 84,000 people in the US. America now accounts for the

world's highest caseload with more than 1.4 million sickened by the virus since the first case was reported in January.

Bright painted an alarm-ing picture of organisational chaos in the US government after he warned of insufficient

mask supply back in January. According to Bright, America's biggest mask manufacturer was ready to crank up produc-tion, but it took five full weeks for the bureaucracy to move.

"The undeniable fact is that there will be a resurgence of

(Covid-19) this fall, greatly compounding the challenges of seasonal influenza and put-ting an unprecedented strain on our health care system," he said. "Without clear planning and implementation of the steps that I and other experts have outlined, 2020 will be the darkest winter in modern his-tory," Bright said.

Bright tore into America's re-sponse and urged the govern-ment to allow scientists to be allowed to speak without "fear of retribution". During his tes-timony, Bright contradicted nearly every major claim that US President Donald Trump has made so far on pandemic planning and testing in the US.

Bright warned Americans that there is neither a "vaccine plan" nor a "master plan" in the US at the moment.

He called for increasing pub-lic education around "simple things" like hand washing and mask wearing in public. "Frankly, our leaders must lead by modelling the behavior," Bright said, without naming US leaders who continue to go maskless in public. "We need a national testing strategy. The virus is here, it is everywhere. We need to be able to test and isolate," he said in a sobering, five-minute opening state-ment. "Pages from our pan-demic playbook have been ig-nored by leaders," Bright said. "Our window of opportunity is closing," Bright said, adding, "If we fail to develop a national coordinated response, based on science, I fear the pandemic will get far worse and be pro-longed, causing unprecedent-ed illness and fatalities."

9businessindian HorizonFriday, May 15, 2020

New Delhi, May 14 (IANS) The reduction in tax deduc-tion at source (TDS) and tax collection at source (TCS) will benefit self employed, professionals and senior citi-zens with sources of rental or interest income but will not benefit the salaried class.

Following the announce-ment by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on re-ducing these rates as part of the fiscal package announced yesterday, the Finance Minis-try has announced new slabs which have been reduced by 25 per cent in all categories.

The rates of TDS/TCSin re-spect of specified payments/receipts shall be reduced by 25%. This concession in the rate shall be available for the

tax deducted or collected be-tween May 14, 2020 till March 31, 2021.

According to Taxmann, this relief shall not be available to a salaried and non-resident taxpayer. By reducing the rate of TDS/TCS, the govern-ment helps taxpayers to have more liquidity in their hands. In this difficult time, this an-nouncement will benefit self-employed,professionals and senior citizens earning inter-est income or rental income. It does not provide any relief to the salaried persons, ac-cording to Taxmann.

"However, it should be noted that the relaxation in the rate of TDS/TCS will not have any impact on the ulti-mate tax liability of a taxpay-

er. Thus, any deficit in tax li-ability, due to reduced rate of TDS/TCS, should be payable through advance-tax instal-ments", it added.

Any short-fall in the deposit

of advance tax will attract in-terest under section 234B and 234C. The first instalment of advance-tax is due on 15 June 2020. A taxpayer should re-calculate his advance-tax li-

ability to be deposited next month to avoid any payment of interest.

As per the new slabs of TDS rates, the interest on securi-ties has been reduced from 10% 7.50%, on dividend from 10% to 7.50%. For this cat-egory, the threshold limit for deduction of tax is Rs 5,000 in case of individual.

On interest other than in-terest on securities, the rate of 10% has been cut to 7.50%. For this category, the thresh-old limit for deduction of tax is Rs 5,000 to Rs 50,000.

On payment to contractors, the current TDS rate is 1% if deductee is an individual or HUF and 2% in any any other case.

In the new slab, the rate is

0.75% if the deductee is an in-dividual or HUF and 1.50% in any other case. The threshold limit for deduction is a single payment of Rs. 30,000 and ag-gregate payment of Rs 1 lakh.

On TDS rates for rent, the current rate is 10% if the rent pertains to hiring of immov-able property and 2% if rent pertains to hiring of plant and machinery.

This has been reduced to 7.50% and 1.50% respective-ly. The threshold limit for de-duction is Rs 2.4 lakh.

For payment of rent by by certain individuals or HUF, the TDS rate was 5% which has been reduced to 3.75%. The threshold limit for de-duction is Rs 50,000.

For cash withdrawal the

current rate is 2% in general if cash withdrawn exceeds Rs 1 crore. It is also 2% if assessee has not furnished return for last 3 assessment years and cash withdrawn exceeds Rs. 20 lakhs but does not exceed Rs 1 crore.

The TDS rate is 5% if as-sessee has not furnished return for last 3 assessment years and cash withdrawn ex-ceeds Rs 1 crore.

It has been reduced to 1.50%, 1.50% and 3.75% for the three above mentioned categories.

If a person defaults in filing of return, the threshold limit for deduction is Rs 20 lakhs but if no default is made in filing of return, the limit is Rs 1 crore.

TDs relief for those with rental or interest income, not for salaried or nRi taxpayers

Chandigarh, May 14 (IANS) To facilitate the much-need-ed economic revival, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh, here on Thursday, allowed tiny and cottage in-dustries in non-containment mixed-use areas of Ludhiana to resume operations as part of re-opening of bigger in-dustries that depended on small units for components.

The resumption of opera-tions in these small units, which normally have labour-ers living in the vicinity or on the premises, would be subject to requirements of access control and strict compliance with Covid-19 standard operating proce-dures, the Chief Minister said.

The Chief Minister said several requests had been received from industry asso-

ciations for allowing open-ing of industries in mixed land-use areas, with access control in non-containment zones of the Ludhiana dis-trict, subject to adherence to Covid-19 guidelines. Indus-try Minister Sunder Sham Arora had said first small units should be allowed to open to enable the bigger in-

dustries to start operations, he added.

The Chief Minister said he had come to know that in-dustry in certain industrial areas in Ludhiana had not opened despite permission to operate.

Despite permission, only 6,900 unit in Ludhiana had resumed operations, he said and added, many couldn't start works as they were de-pendent on small and tiny cottage industries for com-ponents.

Ludhiana, an industrial city, has around 95,000 MSMEs that offer more than 10 lakh skilled and non-skilled industrial jobs. The micro and tiny units in the mixed land-use areas consti-tute 50 per cent of the indus-tries and employed around 5-6 lakh workers.

Punjab allows Ludhiana tiny, cottage units to open United Nations, May 14

(IANS) The UN has wel-comed India's Covid-19 me-ga-stimulus package, calling the largest among developing countries, even as it slashed its growth rate for this fiscal year to 1.2 per cent.

Development Research Branch chief Hamid Rashid said on Wednesday that the stimulus package "is a very welcome development in terms of ten per cent of GDP (gross domestic product), largest so far in developing countries."

"India has a domestic com-mercial market and large capacity to implement that large stimulus package," he said at a news conference to release the mid-year World Economic Situation and Prospects (WESP) update.

But he added that its im-pact would depend on how

it is designed. The package announced on Tuesday by Prime Minister Narendra Modi is valued at Rs 20 lakh crore or about $266 billion.

UN's Chief Economist El-liott Harris said, "The pace and strength of the recov-ery from the crisis not only hinges on the efficacy of public health measures in slowing the spread of the vi-rus, but also on the ability of countries to protect jobs and incomes, particularly of the most vulnerable members of our societies."

The efficacy of the stimu-lus packages introduced by various countries would depend on their focus and if they would stimulate the purchasing power of the people.

The 1.2 per cent growth estimate for India for the current fiscal year is a dras-

tic Covid-19-fuelled cut from the 6.6 per cent made in Jan-uary by the UN Department of Economic and Social Af-fairs, but it would still be the second-highest growth rate among major economies, trailing only China.

The update expects In-dia's rate of GDP growth to increase to 5.5 per cent in the next fiscal year. China is expected to grow by 1.7 per cent this year and increase to 7.6 per cent next year.

The world economy rav-aged by Covid-19 is project-ed to shrink by 3.2 per cent this year, with the developed countries bearing the brunt with their economic growth shrinking by 5 per cent.

The update called it "the sharpest contraction since the Great Depression in the 1930s." The UN update said, "The global economy is ex-

pected to lose nearly $8.5 trillion in output over the next two years due to the CO-VID-19 pandemic, wiping out nearly all gains of the previ-ous four years."

"Nearly 90 per cent of the world economy has been un-der some form of lockdown, disrupting supply chains, de-pressing consumer demand and putting millions out of work," it said.

The UN projection for In-dia for the current fiscal year is less than the 1.9 per cent made by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last month.

Asked about the wide dis-crepancy between the UN and IMF projections, Hamid said the reason was that the IMF used the purchasing power parity rate while the UN used the market ex-change rate.

un welcomes india's Covid-19 stimulus package, slashes growth to 1.2%

New Delhi, May 14 (IANS) Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, while announc-ing the second tranche of the economic stimulus on Thursday, said steps are be-ing taken to extend Employee State Insurance Corporation (ESIC) coverage pan-India to all districts and all establish-ments employing 10 or more employees.

Detailing labour codes for workers, she said: "Portabil-ity of welfare benefits for mi-grant workers. Extension of ESIC coverage pan-India to all districts and all establish-ments employing 10 or more employees as against those in notified districts/ areas only."

The ESIC benefits include medical, maternity, disabil-ity and dependents benefits to insured persons. The con-

tribution is made by the em-ployee and the employer, and ESIC applicability is to non-seasonal factories employing 10 or more persons. Since 2011, the insurance has been extended to private medical and educational institutions, cinemas, newspapers, hotels, shops restaurants, employing 20 or more persons.

Sitharaman added that ex-tension of ESIC coverage to employees working in estab-lishments with less than 10 employees will be on a vol-untary basis. For implement-ing ESIC for hazardous indus-tries, she said: "Mandatory ESIC coverage through notifi-cation by Central government for employees in hazardous industries with less than 10 employees." ESIC provides financial assistance to com-

pensate for the loss of wages, when the employee is unable to join work due to sickness, maternity and injury on em-ployment and during hos-pitalisation in any hospital associated with an insurance scheme. During the press briefing, Sitharaman also talked about the definition of inter-state migrant worker modified to include migrant workers employed directly by the employer, workers direct-ly coming to the destination state of their own besides the migrant workers employed through a contractor.

"Statutory concept of Na-tional Floor Wage introduced will reduce regional disparity in minimum wages.Occupa-tional Safety & Health (OSH) Code also applicable to estab-lishments engaged in work.

esiC to be extended pan-india, apply to all firms with over 10 workers: FM

Mumbai, May 14 (IANS) The Indian stock market plunged on Thursday with the BSE Sensex falling over 800 points and the NSE Nif-ty50 falling below the 9,200 mark.

The initial announce-ments under the Rs 20 lakh crore economic package failed to boost the investor sentiments. Further, weakness in the global markets also weighed on the domestic indices, analysts said.

Siddhartha Khemka, Head of Retail Research at Motilal Oswal Finan-cial Services said: "Global markets fell after US Fed Chairman Jerome Powell pointed towards a grim US outlook. He warned

of prolonged economic weakness and called for more fiscal support. Fur-ther UN has forecasted that the coronavirus pandemic will shrink the world economy by 3.2 per cent this year, the sharp-est contraction since the Great Depression in 1930s." "On the domes-tic front, the announce-ments made by FM yes-terday failed to cheer the investors," he added.

According to Rahul Sharma, Research Head at Equity99 Advisors, traders continued to trim their open market positions on weak global clues for the third con-secutive day. "Traders were also disappointed by the slew of measures

announced by the Indian government to support MSMEs and NBFCs. To-day's selling was led by technology and banking stocks. While FMCG and pharma, stocks bucked a weak market trend. Over-all, trading was volatile due to expiry of weekly index options," Shar-ma said. Sensex closed at 31,122.89, lower by 885.72 points or 2.77 per cent from the previous close of 32,008.61.

It opened at 31,466.33 and touched an intra-high of 31,630.94 and a low of 31,052.65. The Nifty50 on the National Stock Exchange closed at 9,142.75, lower by 240.80 points or 2.57 per cent from the previous close.

stimulus fails to cheer market, sensex plunges 885 points

New Delhi, May 14 (IANS) Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sith-araman has come out with 15 new and some enhanced measures to revive businesses, and support workers via fiscal incentives and regulatory easing under the mega stimulus package -- Self-Reliant India Movement -- which was announced by Prime Minister Nar-endra Modi on Tuesday evening.

Accordingly on Wednesday, Sitharaman announced the slew of fiscal and regulatory measures for MSMEs, real estate, NBFCs, power distribution and general businesses and workers.

She attempted to de-crease the regulatory burden on companies, while increasing the take-home pay of employees via these measures.

In terms of takeaways, the biggest were for the MSME sector which is considered to be the backbone of economic activity.

As a major reform measure for the sector, the Centre has decided to give a new definition to MSMEs. This will denote the type of companies that will be included in the sector.

Specifications wise, the investment limit for defining MSMEs has been revised upwards.

Besides, she high-lighted that additional criteria such as turnover has been considered for defining MSMEs.

In terms of fiscal mea-sures, the Minister an-nounced that Rs 3 lakh crore "Collateral-free Automatic Loans" for businesses, including

MSMEs, will be provided to meet operational li-abilities built up, buy raw material and restart busi-ness. She announced an-other scheme worth Rs 20,000 crore for "Subor-dinate Debt for Stressed MSMEs".

A Rs 50,000 crore "Fund of Funds" for MEMEs which face se-vere shortage of equity was also announced.

The Centre has also decided not to go in for global bidding for gov-ernment procurement for tenders up to Rs 200 crore, thereby, promot-ing the participation of MSMEs, she said. Fur-thermore, e-market link-

age for MSMEs will be provided and that the CPSEs will pay all receiv-ables to MSMEs within 45 days.

Besides MSMEs, a Rs 30,000 crore special liquidity scheme for non-banking finance companies (NBFCs), housing finance com-panies (HFCs) and mi-cro-finance institutions (MFIs) was announced. This scheme will pro-vide investments in both primary and secondary market transactions in "investment grade debt paper of these institu-tions". The minister said the scheme will support the previous initiatives of the government and the central bank to boost liquidity.

The securities under the scheme will be fully guaranteed by the Cen-tral government. Fur-ther, the FM has also an-nounced Rs 45,000 crore partial credit guarantee scheme for NBFCs.

Under this measure, first 20 per cent loss will

be borne by the Centre, and even unrated papers will be eligible for invest-ment, enabling NBFCs to reach out even to MSMEs in far-flung areas.

Additionally, a Rs 90,000 crore liquid-ity injection plan was announced for the finan-cially stressed power dis-tribution companies.

This plan will allow these entities to clear their dues towards power generation companies.

As per the plan, the liquidity window for dis-coms was essential as its revenue has plummeted and they are in the midst of unprecedented cash flow problem accentu-ated by demand reduc-tion during the current lockdown. The scheme will allow power sector fi-nanciers -- PFC and REC to infuse liquidity of Rs 90,000 crore to discoms against receivables.

Loans will be extended against State guarantees for exclusive purpose of discharging liabilities of discoms to gencos.

15 measures to revive economy, big takeaways for MsMes, nbFCs

New Delhi, May 14 (IANS) Developers and realty sector experts have applauded the extension of the credit linked subsi-dy scheme (CLSS) and the governments decision to come up with affordable rental housing complexes for the migrant workers and urban poor.

Finance Minister Nir-mala Sitharaman on Thursday announced that the Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme (CLSS) for middle income groups to buy af-fordable housing units will be extended till March 31, 2021. The scheme was last extended till March 2020.

Further, the Centre will launch a scheme under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana for migrant la-bour and the urban poor to build affordable rental housing facilities for them.

Anshuman Magazine, Chairman and CEO - In-dia, South East Asia, Mid-dle East & Africa, CBRE said: "The announcement on rural infrastructure and

affordable rental accom-modations for urban and migrant workers under PPP partnership will open newer avenues for the construction industry. For the middle-income group, the extension of Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme, is a positive step and will further strengthen de-mand in the affordable housing segment."

According to the Presi-dent of National Real Es-tate Development Coun-cil (NAREDCO), Niranjan Hiranandani, the rental housing scheme under PMAY offers a business opportunity to the pri-vate sector, to build more rental housing stock through the public pri-vate partnership (PPP) mode, with a concession-aire arrangement.

"The Finance Minis-ter focused on moves that will improve work-ing conditions, mak-ing life easier and more conducive for workers. Most of these were large-

ly through changes in codes, rules and regula-tions; rather than direct liquidity, monetary or fiscal help," he said.

On the extension of the CLSS, Hiranandani said that it will spur the po-tential demand of hous-ing units resulting in a cumulative demand for construction services, building materials, fi-nally translating into job creation. Dhruv Agarwa-la, Group CEO of Hous-ing.com said that the extension of CLSS by one year will prompt many of the fence sitters to buy homes at the earli-est and thereby increase demand for affordable housing wherein indus-try has maximum un-sold inventory across the country.

"This will also help sustain employment as real estate supports close to 200 allied industries. The proposed affordable rental housing under PPP is a welcome step.

Realtors laud CLss extension, affordable rental housing for urban poor

New Delhi, May 14 (IANS) Food delivery platform Zomato on Thursday announced that it has disbursed Rs 2.64 crore to sup-port more than 3,100 restaurant workers through its Gold Support Fund.

"All funds collected as part of this initia-tive have already been disbursed to over 3100 restaurant workers from 378 restau-rants, helping them meet their daily liveli-hoods," the company said in a statement.

One restaurant worker has received nearly Rs 7,500 from this Zomato initiative.

Under the initiative, all proceeds from Gold memberships sold in April 2020 went towards supporting restaurant workers while providing contributors an additional year of membership for free. "We wish to express a heartfelt thanks to everyone who contributed to the Zomato Gold Support Fund, be it by purchasing Zomato Gold or helping spread the word. You have sup-ported the restaurant community at a time when it needs you the most," the company added.The firm said it is contributing 10 per cent of its collection which is Rs 26.5 lakh, to the NRAI Covid-19 Relief Fund.

Zomato disburses Rs 2.64 crore to over 3,100 restaurant workers

10businessindian HorizonFriday, May 15, 2020

Kerala's iT sector staff log in from home amid lockdown

New Delhi, May 14 (IANS) The first instalment of stimulus package an-nounced by government on Wednesday will just put a burden of Rs 2,500 crore on the exchequer as all other measures involve bank loans and guarantees have almost no of negligi-ble fiscal impact, an expert analysis on the stimulus measures has said.

So, besides paying the provident fund on behalf of both employees and employer to 3.67 lakh es-tablishments and for 72.22 lakh employees for anoth-er three months involving Rs 2,500 crore expendi-ture, other measures do not involve any financial outgo for the government.

Government on Wednesday came out with 15 new and some en-hanced measures to revive

businesses, and support workers via fiscal incen-tives and regulatory easing under the mega stimulus package -- Self-Reliant In-dia Movement involving an amount of Rs 20 lakh crore.

According to the analy-sis done by chartered ac-countant Mihir Modi, the measures in the economic package such as collateral free loan, subordinated debt , fund of funds for msme, all involve support to be provided by banks and other institutions.

Similarly, the Rs 90,000 crore liquidity to Discoms also involve state guar-anteed loans that has to be paid with interest. The measures this does not in-volve direct government support, the analysis has said.

"The Rs 30,000 crore

special liquidity to NBFC / HFC / MFI and Rs 45,000 crore partial credit guar-antee scheme to NBFC are Good step for creating liquidity. Although the cri-sis has been deferred and not resolved. Moreover, the cost to the government is nil as it is not going to purchase the securities to be issued by them. Only guarantee will be provided by the government," the analysis said.

With regard to proposal to bar global tenders be-low Rs 200 crore, the ex-pert analysis said that though the step will pro-mote Make i. India, For projects between 200-1000 crore, provision for man-datory local collaboration can be inserted, so that local entrepreneurs will get exposure of global best practices.

1st instalment of stimulus puts almost no financial burden on exchequer

New Delhi, May 14 (IANS) National carrier Air India and its subsidiary Air India Express will expand their scope of opera-tions under the 'Vande Bharat' air repatriation operations and are likely to operate flights to 32 countries from May 16. At pres-ent, two airlines are flying back Indian citizens from 12 coun-tries under the phase 1 of the Vande Bharat mission.

In the phase-II, both the air-lines will start operating flights to 32 countries to repatriate more Indian citizens. Besides, the national carrier will operate special domestic ferry flights for only those passengers who have been repatriated under the "Vande Bharat" mission.

Accordingly, the airline will run these special ferry flights during the second phase of the repatriation mission.

Under special circumstances, many passengers brought to large hub airports would re-

quire further transport to reach their home states. Consequent-ly, the airline will operate these special flights for only those passengers.

On Wednesday, the airline had brought back 2,669 passen-gers from abroad on 13 flights.

Since May 7, both the airlines have operated nearly 60 inter-national flights to repatriate over 10,000 Indian citizens from 12 countries under the phase one of the scheme.

In the first phase, flights were operated to 12 countries span-

ning across the world, with geographical spread of the US in the west to the Philippines in the east.

Last week, India commenced one of the world's largest air repatriation operations, when the two airlines started the first phase of the mission.

Under the phase-I, these two airlines had to operate 64 flights in 7 days to bring back 14,800 stranded Indians from 12 coun-tries.

Overall, more than 190,000 Indian nationals, who would

have to pay a one-way ferry ser-vice charge, are expected to be brought back in the airlift op-eration which has been divided into phases.

In comparison, three decades ago, Air India led a group of air-lines which included Indian Air-lines and Aeroflot as well as IAF to rescue an estimated 111,711 Indians from the Gulf, after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. The 59-day operation involved 488 flights and was conducted be-fore the first Gulf war.

The airline to date has carried out massive flight operations to China, Japan and Europe to bring back stranded Indians, mostly students and pilgrims. Additionally, the airline has been instrumental in repatriat-ing foreigners to Israel, UK and Germany. Moreover, Air India and its subsidiary Alliance Air has reached every corner of the country to supply essential medical equipment.

Vande bharat-ii: Air india to operate flights to 32 countries from May 16

Yogi gives Rs 2002 cr to 56K entrepreneurs

Lucknow, May 14 (IANS) Within 24 hours of the an-nouncement by the Centre, Uttar Pradesh Chief Min-ister Yogi Adityanath gave out loans worth Rs 2002 crore to 56,754 entrepre-neurs in the MSME sectors on Thursday.

Preparations to strength-en the MSME sector had already been made in the state which has now be-come the first state in the country to disburse such a large amount of loan.

With one click, the chief minister not only disbursed the loan but also inaugu-rated the online loan mela in the state.

The chief minister said that the loans given to

56,754 units will ensure employment for two lakh people.

Yogi Adityanath, while showcasing the single-window system, said that he was committed to turn-ing the workers and labour-ers into the strength of the state. He said he would 'wipe off the blot of migra-tion' from Uttar Pradesh and generate skilled em-ployment.

The chief minister said that it would be his endeav-our to ensure that idols of Indian gods and goddesses are not imported from Chi-na for Diwali. He said that terracotta idols from Go-rakhpur are of much better quality.

Chennai, May 14 (IANS) In-formation Technology (IT) companies in and around Tamil Nadu's capital have de-cided to continue the work-from-home policy for now even though the state government has allowed them to resume operations with limited staff.

According to industry of-ficials, the companies want to see how the coronavirus is spreading and then take a call on asking their employees to report for duty at the offices.

While employees say their productivity has gone up and women employees are happy to manage their children also at home in addition to official work, whether this could con-tinue when life again returns to normal is a big question.

According to industry offi-cials to whom IANS spoke, only a limited number of employees mainly involved in infrastruc-ture maintenance are reporting at offices at present.

The companies are adopt-ing a wait-and-watch approach rather than risking infections among staff and thereby cre-

ation of another Covid-19 clus-ter. The IT companies will ask their employees to get back to office in a phased manner.

For instance, the 2,500-em-ployees strong payments tech-nology company Financial Software and Systems (FSS) founder and Managing Di-rector Nagaraj Mylandla told IANS: "The current decision is to get back employees to FSS and customer locations in a phased manner starting June 1." He said a minimum 25 per cent of the employee base in India and a larger "50 per cent of overseas locations" will con-tinue to work from home.

"At Siruseri (Tamil Nadu) and Thane (Maharashtra) we have a large setup of 24x7 oper-ations and hence we have gov-ernment and police permission to have 100 staff each in both the locations," Mylandla said.

He said 80 per cent of the company's total employees are on work-from-home mode or at data centres.

"Companies are taking time to decide on asking their em-ployees to report at the offices.

They want to know how the coronavirus is spreading and the implications for them," Ajit Chordia, Managing Director, Olympia Tech Park, told IANS.

He said 14 companies oper-ate from Olympia Tech Park. On normal days, the building will see footfall of about 12,000 people. But now, only about 300 people come to the offices there. A software professional in Cognizant, not wanting to be quoted, told IANS that a bulk of the workforce are working from home till further orders.

Similar is the case with fi-nancial technology company Intellect Design Arena Ltd, where majority of employees -- total of 4,500 employees based in Chennai, Gurugram, Mumbai and overseas -- are working from home except the hardware maintenance of-ficials.

An official of Intellect Design told IANS that the situation is expected to continue for some more time to come. He said employees have VPN connec-tions and there is no hassle of working from home now, add-

ing that the system is being streamlined further.

Echoing similar views was an official of Ramco Systems who said it is work-from-home mode for some more time for company staff.

Similarly, companies oper-ating from IT parks here have decided to wait it out for some more time to ask their employ-ees to return to offices.

Even if one person in a build-ing is infected with coronavi-rus, there is risk of the entire building getting sealed.

As regards the output from working from home, the gen-eral view of employees was that their productivity had gone up. But whether it would be the same when the restrictions are lifted and there are other distractions and demands is a moot point.

On the other hand, San-jay Tyagi, Director, Software Technology Parks of India, told IANS: "Smaller IT companies like business process outsourc-ing (BPO) units want to resume operations at the earliest with higher number of employees."

San Francisco, May 14 (IANS) Microsoft on Thursday signed a defini-tive agreement to acquire UK-based Metaswitch Net-works, a leading provider of virtualised network soft-ware and voice, data and communications solutions for operators, for an undis-closed sum.

The convergence of cloud and communication net-works presents a unique opportunity for Microsoft to serve operators globally via continued investment in

Azure,"This announcement builds on our recent acqui-sition of Affirmed Networks, which closed on April 23. Metaswitch's complemen-tary portfolio of ultra-high-performance, cloud-native communications software will expand our range of offerings available for the telecommunications indus-try," said Yousef Khalidi, Corporate Vice President, Azure Networking.

As the industry moves to 5G, operators will have op-portunities to advance the

virtualization of their core networks and move forward on a path to an increasingly cloud-native future.

Microsoft aims to lever-age these two organisations -- extending the Azure plat-form to both deploy and grow these capabilities at scale in a way that is secure, efficient and creates a sus-tainable ecosystem.

"We will continue to sup-port hybrid and multi-cloud models to create a more di-verse telecom ecosystem and spur faster innovation, an expanded set of unique offerings and greater op-portunities for differentia-tion," said Khalidi.

5G will ultimately give operators a path to acceler-ate service innovation and deliver new transforma-tive experiences that are faster, more resilient and more secure, spurred on by software advances to drive transformation at scale, said the company.

Working from office: Tn iT firms to wait and watch Microsoft acquires virtualised network software provider Metaswitch networks

New Delhi, May 14 (IANS) Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Thursday announced that the Credit Linked Subsidy Scheme (CLSS) for middle income groups to buy affordable housing units will be extend-ed till March 31, 2021.

The scheme was last ex-tended till March 2020.

Addressing the media here,

Sitharaman said that the ex-tension would benefit 2.5 lakh middle income families. So far, the scheme has ben-efitted 3.3 lakh middle class families, she added.

The Finance Minister said that it will lead to an invest-ment of Rs 70,000 crore in the housing sector and also cre-ate jobs.

As per the government,

the decision will stimulate demand for steel, cement, transport and other con-struction materials.

The decision is part of the Rs 20 lakh crore economic package announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday.

Further, the Centre will also launch a scheme under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana for migrant labour and urban poor to building affordable rental housing fa-cilities for them.

Under the scheme, gov-ernment funded housing in cities will be converting to affordable rental housing complexes under the public private partnership mode.

Further, the government will also incentivise manu-facturing units, industries.

subsidy for affordable housing to be extended till March 2021: FM

New Delhi, May 14 (IANS) Taxpayers who have not furnished Pan or Aadhaar numbers while filing tax returns will not get the benefit of lower rates of Tax Collection at Source (TCS) and Tax De-duction at Source (TDS), the government has clari-fied. As part of Rs 20 lakh economic package, Fi-nance minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednes-day reduced TDS/TCS for the non-salaried specified payments made to resi-dents by 25 per cent for balance period of FY21. This was done to pro-vide more money into the hands of the taxpayers to deal with the economic situation amid COVID-19 pandemic.

However, it has now been clarified that re-duced rates would not be applicable to tax payers who have been denied lower rates (of TCS/TDS) due to non-furnishing of PAN/Aadhaar. The tax is required to be deducted at a rate of 20 per cent or higher for this category of taxpayers as per the provi-sions of section 206 AA of the Income-tax Act.

As per the government announcement, the re-duced rate of TDS will be applicable to payment for contract, professional fees, interest, rent, dividend, commission, brokerage. This reduction will be ap-plicable for the remaining part of the FY 2020-21 i.e. from Thursday (May 14) to

March 31, 2021.It is estimated that the

move will release liquid-ity of Rs 50,000 crore in the difficult period of Co-vid-19 pandemic.

TCS is applicable on sale of Tendu Leaves, tim-ber obtained under a for-est lease, any other forest produce, scrap, minerals, grant of licence, lease of parking lots, mining and quarrying, sale of motor vehicles, above rates of Rs 10 lakh. The existing rates here vary from 1 to 5 per cent. This now stands re-duced between 0.75-3.75 per cent. The TDS rates vary from 1 to 25 per cent for different segments such as interest in securi-ties, dividend, repurchase of units by mutual funds.

Reduced TDs/TCs not for those who have not furnished Pan/Aadhaar

Mumbai, May 14 (IANS) Shares of NTPC Ltd fell by around 5 per cent on Thursday, after the government an-nounced the waiver of fixed charges for the lockdown period which distri-bution companies had to pay to power generation companies. At 11.11 am, NTPC shares on the BSE were trading at Rs 88.45, lower by Rs 4.55 or 4.89 per cent from the previous close.

As part of the Rs 20 lakh crore eco-nomic package, the central govern-ment has announced Rs 90,000 crore liquidity injection for discoms. Fur-ther, in a bid to provide further relief to the discoms, the government has decided to waive fixed charges and inter-state transmission charges (by PowerGrid) against power not drawn from various public sector units dur-ing the lockdown, from March 24 to May 17. As per the Power Ministry, this waiver of fixed charges will have an overall impact of Rs 3,000 crore on all CPSEs.

NTPC shares down 5% post waiver announcement of fixed

charges

New Delhi, May 14 (IANS) Taxpayers who have not fur-nished PAN or Aadhaar while filing tax returns will not get the benefit of lower rates of the tax collection at source (TCS) and the tax deduction at source (TDS).

Also, the TDS has not been reduced on salary income, cash withdrawal of over Rs 1 crore from bank accounts and foreign remittances, accord-ing to a top Finance Ministry official, here on Thursday.

As part of the Rs 20 lakh crore economic package, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Wednesday announced 25 per cent reduc-tion in TDS/TCS for the non-salaried specified payments made to residents for balance period of FY21 -- from May 14

to March 31, 2021.It was done to provide more

money into the hands of tax-payers to deal with the eco-nomic situation amid the Co-vid-19 pandemic.

"The TDS on salary has not been reduced to prevent the salaried people from facing a heavy tax burden at the end of the year, at the time of fil-ing returns and paying the full quota of taxes for the year.

"Similarly, cash withdraw-als and foreign remittances have also been kept out of the rate reduction ambit to promote digital transactions and restrict larger outflow of money," Finance Secretary Ajay Bhushan Pandey clarify-ing the position after second instalment of economic re-lief package was announced

by the Finance Minister. He said the reduction in TDS/TCS rates was largely to facili-tate businesses get that much extra in this difficult period. The benefit would accrue to TDS on all kind of interest on securities, dividend, bank sav-ings accounts where the rate will come down to 7.5 per cent from 10 per cent.

Similarly, payments to pro-fessionals would also attract lower TDS rate of 7.5 per cent. If you have sold a property or bought a car or paid rent, 1 per cent TCS is applicable. This will now come down to 0.75 per cent.

Pandey said 23 items under TDS and 12 under TCS would get the benefit of lower rate.

Apart from the 3-4 excluded items, it has also been clari-

fied that reduced rates would not be applicable for taxpay-ers who have been denied lower rates (of TCS/TDS) due to non-furnishing of PAN/Aadhaar. The tax is required to be deducted at a rate of 20 per cent or higher for this category of taxpayers, as per the section 206 AA of the Income-Tax Act.

As per the announcement, the reduced TDS rate will be applicable to payment for contract, professional fees, interest, rent, dividend, com-mission and brokerage.

It's estimated that the move will release Rs 50,000 crore li-quidity. The TCS is applicable on sale of Tendu leaves, tim-ber contained under a forest lease, any other forest pro-duce, scrap, minerals, grant of licence, lease of parking

lots, mining and quarrying, sale of motor vehicle above Rs 10 lakh. The existing rates vary between 1 per cent and 5 per cent. It will now be be-tween 0.75 per cent and 3.75 per cent. The TDS rates vary between 1 per cent and 25 per cent for different segments, like interest in securities, divi-dend, repurchase of units by mutual funds, payment for ac-quisition of immovable prop-erty, fee for professional or technical services or royalty, income by securitisation trust, e-commerce participants. This will now stand reduced between 0.75 per cent and 18.75 per cent. The necessary legislative amendments in this regard would be done in the due course, government sources said.

Sports Indian HorizonFriday, May 15, 202011

Munich, May 14 (IANS) Borussia Dortmund midfielder Julian Brandt has said while he is not feeling the same pressure as he would in normal circumstances when they take on local rivals Schalke on Saturday, the sense of occasion is not lost on him.

The German Bundesliga is the first of Europe’s elite football leagues to resume official competition for its 2019-20 season since the sporting world was disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Even though the matches are to be played behind closed doors, for football fans this return to live sporting action shines as a positive ray of hope.

“You have to say that it’s the fans who always make it special. If you’re a few days before such a game you’ll notice that your neighbours are only speaking about the game when they see you,” Brandt told bundesliga.com in their midweek interview.

“You notice that the media focuses heavily on the game and that creates a certain tension in the air. At the moment, this isn’t the case. Although I think the fans still really care about the result of the fixture, you don’t notice it, especially in this hotel. The only tension that you could potentially feel is through the media but they have many other topics to cover so I think BVB vs Schalke is at the bottom of their priorities.

“Therefore, you don’t feel the same pressure as you would in normal circumstances, but in the end, this is the situation that we’re in. Everyone will be watching us

on Saturday, the Dortmund fans will watch us and the Schalke fans will watch their team. The result of the game will be important to them so it’s not like we just say that it’s irrelevant who wins or loses, it won’t be like this.

We do recognise that it would be an important tone to set if we win the game,” said the 24-year old.“This game is already historic, regardless of what happens on the pitch, as there has never been something like this.

“I don’t think that many will forget this, for the fans it is the worst scenario. Particularly for the Dortmund fans, to be unable to be present in this match at home, it’s painful for them. Therefore we’ll have to ensure that we can alleviate their pain,” he added.

NOT FEELING SAME PRESSURE BUT READY FOR HISTORIC GAME: BRANDT

COVID : ‘WHAT DAY IS IT?’ RAHUL POSTS ON SOCIAL MEDIABengaluru, May 14 (IANS)

The prolonged period of lockdown to curb the menace of COVID-19 pandemic does take a toll, so much so that India batsman K.L. Rahul has put up a tweet asking which day of the week is it.

The cricketers have been locked up in their homes since the nationwide lockdown was imposed on March 24. The Indian Premier League (IPL) has been postponed and now the T20 World Cup slated to take place in Australia later this year, is also in doubt.Rahul, who kept wickets for India against Australia at home and in New Zealand before their South Africa home series got pushed back, was in fine form.

The dashing Karnataka right-hander on Thursday tweeted: “What day is it?....”He also shared an old photo along with the post where he is looking deep in thought.

Recently Rahul got up close and personal with television presenter and commentator Suhail Chandhok in the fifth episode of ‘The Mind Behind’. He spoke about how he is spending time at home during this period.

“Me and my family are in Bangalore. We’re all safe. I’m just trying to do whatever I can, in terms of training and keeping busy. I haven’t been or haven’t really got to a

place where it’s annoying, I’m hanging in there!

But yeah, it is it is quite nice to spend time at home and I remember when we kept playing (the team) for so long, all of us kept wanting a break, and now that we’ve got such a big break, we are like we don’t want such a big break.”

Rahul also said if he had the option of changing any match going back time, he would do so for the 2019 World Cup semi-final which India lost to New Zealand.

“It has to be the World Cup semi-final. I think most of us are still not over that loss, it is still haunts us sometimes. I

London, May 14 (IANS) World No.1 golfer Rory McIlroy feels PGA Tour has a robust plan in place to resume the season from June 11. All golf has been suspended since March 12 - first round of The Players’ Championship - as a precautionary measure against the spread of coronavirus.

“I think it will be nice to get back out and play,” McIlroy told reporters as per ESPN.

“Obviously we’re going to have to take as many precautions as possible to be able to put tour events on again, but I think the PGA Tour has got a very robust plan in place, and if they can execute it the right way, I see no reason why we can’t start on June 11.”McIlroy also stated that

if all safety norms are properly followed then playing in such unprecedented conditions won’t be a problem for golfers.

“I think if you take the necessary precautions, wearing a face covering, washing your hands frequently, sanitizing your hands frequently, practicing social distancing. ... I really do think it’s possible,’’ McIlroy said.

McIlroy also said he will take part in the first three events on the tour once the season resumes next month.

This means, McIlroy will be participating in Charles Schwab Challenge in Fort Worth followed by RBC Heritage in Hilton Head and the Travelers Championship in Cromwell.

PGA has robust plan to resume season from June 11, feels McIlroy

COVID : SOUTH AFRICA WOMEN’S TOUR TO WEST INDIES POSTPONEDJohannesburg, May

14 (IANS) South Africa women’s upcoming ODI series against the West Indies, scheduled to begin at the end of the month in Jamaica and Trinidad, has been postponed due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Besides, Cricket West Indies (CWI) and Cricket South Africa (CSA) have also agreed to postpone

the men’s ‘A’ team series scheduled to commence in Antigua in June.

The five-match women’s series was scheduled prior to the World Cup Qualifier in July, however following South Africa’s automatic qualification and in response to the ICC’s announcement on Tuesday of the postponement of the Women’s Qualifier tournament due to the

COVID-19 pandemic, CWI and CSA on Wednesday

agreed to postpone the tour.Additionally, both the

cricket bodies also agreed that due to the uncertainty of international travel, quarantine requirements and the health and safety of both teams that the ‘A’ team tour should also be postponed.CWI’s CEO Johnny Grave said, “The health and safety of the players and coaching staff is of paramount importance to both CWI and CSA and with the

current COVID-19 travel restrictions it is impossible for us to consider both tours taking place as we had originally planned.”

“We are continuing our discussions with CSA on the feasibility of hosting the men’s tour later this summer and will have further discussions in due course on new dates for the women’s and ‘A’ team tours.”

can’t imagine what the senior players must have felt but you know in a World Cup it just becomes even harder and

knowing that we played so well in the entire tournament. Yeah, so, you I still wake up to that nightmare sometimes!”

MOTHER EARTH FINDING WAY TO HEAL DURING COVID PANDEMIC,

SAYS ROHIT SHARMA

Mumbai, May 14 (IANS) Star Indian cricketer Rohit Sharma on Thursday said the silver lining during these tough times -- brought by the outbreak of novel coronavirus -- has been the nature finding a way to heal itself.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the world to a standstill and Rohit is spending his time at home with family since the nationwide lockdown was imposed on March 24.

"This virus has come like a storm in all of our lives and disrupted what we call normal. If we wanted to look at things in a positive way, Mother Earth is finding her way to heal.

Times like these make you grasp for the silver linings and that's what we must cling to," Rohit said in a post on his official Twitter handle.

The entire world has come to a standstill because of the coronavirus pandemic which has so far claimed close to 3 lakh lives globally.

In India, over 78,000 people have been so far infected with the virus while more than 2500 have lost their lives.In normal

circumstances, Rohit would have been currently the Mumbai Indians in the 13th edition of the Indian Premier League. However, because of the pandemic, the cash-rich league stands indefinitely postponed.

BHAKER, MOUDGIL & RANA HEADLINE NRAI’S NOMINATION

FOR SPORTS AWARDSNew Delhi, May 14

(IANS) Rifle shooter Anjum Moudgil has been recommended for the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Award, the country’s highest sporting honour while pistol shooters Manu Bhaker, Saurabh Chaudhary and Abhishek Varma and rifle shooter Elavenil Valarivan have all been recommended for the Arjuna Award.

National shooting coach Jaspal Rana has been recommended for the Dronacharya Award.

“Our shooters had an outstanding last season and it was a particularly difficult selection to make this time around,” said NRAI President Raninder Singh in the national sports federation’s statement on Thursday.

“I wish all those recommended all the very best and hope those who could not make it this year,

force us to do so next time around with their performances. I believe all are equally talented and will certainly reap rich awards if they carry on the way they have.”

NRAI Secretary Rajiv Bhatia said that the “nominations will be sent to the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports (MYAS), shortly.”

Anjum had last year won the Arjuna Award. She was among the first two Indians to have secured quota places in the sport for the Tokyo Olympics, which have been postponed to nexy year due to the coronavirus pandemic.

COVID : I PLAN TO STAY IN AS LONG AS IT TAKES, SAYS BHUPATHIMumbai, May 14 (IANS)

Former India tennis great Mahesh Bhupathi on Thursday he is planning to stay home for as long as it takes in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic which has forced the country to remain under lockdown for almost two months now.

"I am staying home during COVID-19 and I plan to stay in as long as it takes... I nominate Sania Mirza, Bajrang Punia, Saina Nehwal to do the

same," Bhupathi said in a video posted on his Twitter handle.

In the video, Bhupathi is seen juggling a tennis ball with his racquet while saying the same.

The COVID-19 pandemic has brought the world to a standstill and Bhupathi is spending his time at home with family since the nationwide lockdown was imposed on March 24.

The former Davis Cup non-playing captain had earlier taken part in a

'Frying Pan' volleying challenge with Leander Paes from their respective homes.Paes had come

up with the challenge, urging fans to take up the same as they spend time at their homes during

the lockdown in wake of coronavirus pandemic.Swiss Maestro Roger Federer had posted a video too of himself volleying, while slamming the ball on the wall.

He also urged fans and celebrities, including the likes of Virat Kohli, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal, etc to take up the challenge.

In India, over 78,000 people have been so far infected with the virus while more than 2500 have lost their lives.

London, May 14 (IANS) Tottenham Hotspur manager Jose Mourinho rubbished media reports on Thursday that he wants to delay Football Association's Project Restart. It was earlier reported that Mourinho wanted to delay the resumption of football in the country citing players' welfare.

All football in England have been suspended since March as a precautionary measure against the spread of coronavirus pandemic. June 12 has been mooted as the likely date for resumption of the game in the country.

In a statement issued by Spurs on their website, Mourinho said he is 'desperate' for Premier

Mourinho rubbishes claim he wants to delay Premier League return

League to resume and hasn't asked for it to be delayed futher.

"I have not asked for any delay. I want to train, and I am desperate for the Premier League to return as soon as it is safe to do so, particularly now we are seeing other leagues preparing to return to action," Mourinho was quoted as saying in the statement."I

am extremely proud of the way my players have maintained their fitness. They have shown great p r o f e s s i o n a l i s m , passion and dedication."We have all been working extremely hard through remote squad training sessions and isolated running now the pitches are available to use again at the training centre,"

he added."Every player has been extremely committed in terms of their individual work and now we wait for clearance to commence working in small groups again, which I will fully support."Mourinho's Spurs currently occupy the eight spot in the Premier League table, having accumulated 41 points in 29 matches.

Manchester United's manager Jose Mourinho gestures during a friendly game between Manchester United and

L.A. Galaxy at StubHub Center in Carson, California

Friday - May 15, 2020

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SRK: CONTRIBUTE TOWARDS PPE, VENTILATORS

FOR HEALTHCARE WORKERS

Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan has appealed to all

to contribute towards personal protective equip-ment (PPE) and ventilators, among other necessary items, for healthcare work-ers battling at the front-line amid the COVID 19 pandemic.

Shah Rukh Khan tweeted on Thursday: "Let's sup-port the brave health officials and medical teams that are leading the fight against the coronavirus by contributing towards sup-plies and personal protec-tive equipment (PPE). A little help can go a long way. @MeerFoundation."

A link was also shared on the actor's non-profit organisation Meer Founda-tion, with the tweet: "@iam-srk & #MeerFoundation are working to protect health-care soldiers fighting on the frontlines. Now you can be a part of our efforts! Donate on our crowdfunding link and help us take PPE kits & ventilators to them."

IANS

Salman Khan denies casting for new fi lm, warns of legal action against impersonator

Actress Disha Patani has complimented her rumoured boyfriend

Tiger Shroff's sister Krishna, calling her "flawless."

Disha posted a photograph of herself in a black "Dragon Ball-Z" T-shirt, and good friend Krishna commented: "Your skin is freaking amaz-ing. What you using."

To this, Disha replied: "Look who is talking, you're flawless."

Disha then took to Ins-tagram Stories, where she shared a photograph of half of her face, with "bushy" eyebrows.On the image, she wrote: "Eyebrows are just getting bushier."

On the work front, Disha was last seen in "Malang", which also features Anil Ka-poor, Aditya Roy Kapoor and Kunal Kemmu.She will next be seen in "Radhe" starring superstar Salman Khan.

IANS

DISHA PATANI TO KRISHNA

SHROFF : YOU'RE FLAWLESS

Bollywood superstar Salman Khan has rubbished rumours

that his production house, Salman Khan Films (SKF), has begun casting actors for an upcoming movie.The ac-tor took to Twitter to issue a denial over the issue. Salman has also warned he will take legal action against imper-sonators spreading rumours.

"This is to clarify that nei-ther I nor Salman Khan Films are casting for any fi lm cur-rently. We have not hired any casting agents for any of our future fi lms. Please do not trust any emails or messages received by you for this pur-pose. Legal action will be tak-en if any party is found falsely using SKF or my name in any unauthorised manner," shared Salman in a state-

ment.Recently, television ac-tor Vikkas Manaktala shared on Facebook how an im-personator pretending to be from Salman Khan's produc-tion house SKF approached him for an upcoming movie titled "Ek That Tiger 3". He shared screenshots of his conversation with the imper-sonator and warned people so that nobody else falls prey."Impersonator alert... Please be careful.. The num-ber doesn't belong to Dipti R Sharma and the email id is fake... Skf.com is not Salman Khan Films' domain ... Please don't be fooled by such im-personators.. #fakecasting

#impersonator #becareful," wrote Vikkas Manaktala on Facebook sharing a phone number and an email id.

On the work front, Salman Khan recently released his single "Tere bina" where he features alongside Jacqueline Fernandez. The video has been shot in Salman Khan's Panvel farmhouse where he has been residing amid the lockdown along with his family and a few friends. Bol-lywood actress Jacqueline Fernandez has also been re-siding with Salman Khan and his family in their farmhouse during the lockdown.

IANS

"This is to clarify that neither I nor Salman Khan Films are casting for any fi lm currently. We have not hired any casting agents for any of our future fi lms. Please do not trust any emails

or messages received by you for this purpose."

Telugu actor Nikhil Siddhartha gets married amid COVID-19 lockdown

Telugu actor Nikhil Siddhartha has got married amid lock-

down, and pictures of his wedding have gone viral.

Siddhartha, who rose to fame with "Happy Days" in 2007, has tied the knot with Dr Pallavi Sharma, reportedly his longtime girlfriend.He took to Insta-gram and shared a couple of snapshots from the haldi ceremony.Siddhartha also shared a photograph on Instagram Stories from the

wedding. The caption read: "Pallavi and Nikhil. Mask here, sanitisers there, love

everywhere."A fanpage with the name of silver screen celebrities shared a

string of photographs and videos from the actor's wedding.

In one image, guests can be seen wearing masks.

Siddhartha is known for popular films such as "Yuvatha", "Alasyam Amrutham", "Veedu Theda", "Swamy Ra Ra", "Karthikeya", "Surya vs Surya", "Ekkadiki Pothavu Chinnavada", "Keshava", "Kirrak Party" and "Arjun Suravaram".

IANS

Deepika Padukone is not too fond of Kartik Aaryan's bearded look

Deepika Padukone is clearly not too impressed with Kar-

tik Aaryans newly-grown beard.Kartik has been wearing a beard amid the lockdown, and the actor took to Instagram to share

a couple of photos. In one, he flaunts a stubble and in the other picture he has grown a heavy beard."Still confused sexy or jungli," captioned the actor.

When Kartik went live on Instagram to ask fans whether he should shave off his beard or not, Deep-ika commented with an emoji of a girl raising her hand -- which indicates that she wants Kartik to shave off his beard!The ac-tor also jockingly revealed during the live session that his mother has refused to give him food until he shaves off his beard!

IANS

Former beauty queen-turned-Bollywood actress Manushi Chhillar turned

23 on Thursday. Owing to the lockdown, it's been a very quiet birthday for her this year."It is a refl ective birthday for me. All that I thought I knew about the world has changed and I have had time to think about this a lot and discuss it with my family and friends. So, it's

a very quiet birthday for me as celebrations is the last thing on my mind right now given the pain, loss and suffering I have been witnessing," she said.Manushi, who is set to make her Bollywood debut opposite Akshay Kumar in the historical drama "Prithviraj", says that she is excited to see how her life and career shape up.

"I have had a blessed life and I thank the universe for everything. I have nothing but gratitude for the exposures that I have had so far and I'm proud that I have been able to express myself completely along the way. My journey has just be-gun and I'm extremely excited to see how my life and career shapes up," she said.

Manushi realises that the en-tertainment industry has been hit hard owing to the COVID-19 lockdown but she is confi dent that Bollywood will bounce back."I think all the thinkers and visionaries of Bollywood will huddle in making plans to script the industry's comeback, as and when it's feasible. We live in an intimate country, a country that likes to celebrate with everyone, so we will all go back to watching movies in theatres in due course of time," said Manushi.

MANUSHI CHHILLAR HAS A 'REFLECTIVE BIRTHDAY' AS

SHE TURNS

KATRINA KAIF : COVID PANDEMIC CHANGED MY PERSPECTIVE ABOUT LIFE

The COVID-19 pan-demic has brought the world down to its

knees. It has changed al-most everything - especially peoples perspective of look-ing at life. Katrina Kaif isnt feeling anything different.

"The pandemic, followed by the lockdown has surely left many of us introspect-ing, on how blessed our lives are and how much we take for granted in our nor-mal lives.

Also, with the alarming number of cases, I feel we all should work towards at having better immunity through our food habits and lifestyle. It also changed my perspective about life in some ways," Katrina told IANS.

She also shared how she gets worried about the situation at times, and she shares a few tips on how to control anxiety during the

lockdown."I take one day at a time but, yes, there are days when I miss being on a shoot.

Katrina Kaif believes that it is the time to introspect and not to take our life for granted. Not only this, but the lockdown has also helped the actress to hone her kitchen skills.

Sometimes I also get wor-ried about when will life go back to normal again. But I understand the crisis the world is dealing with, and the importance of every-thing that is being practised to defeat the pandemic.

"While anxiety is a serious issue, I would suggest that everyone keeps calm, medi-tate or perform yoga, and think of the brighter side.

Think about the days to come after this phase and how to not repeat the mis-takes we have been making towards the environment.

In this phase whenever I have felt low, I have re-sorted to meditating, doing yoga, or watching a movie or a show that cheers me up," Katrina added.Not only this, the crisis has helped the actress polish her housekeeping skills, in the absence of caretakers."

This phase has helped me polish my cooking skills and kitchen skills in a big way.

It has helped me improve in managing many house-hold chores at once and has also given me a newfound respect for the homemak-ers who do it on a regular basis," she expressed.

Also, Katrina has con-tributed her bit in the fi ght against the coronavirus. Her make-up brand Kay Beauty has partnered with De'Haat to support daily-wage earners in rural areas of Maharashtra."Right from the start, we had plans for Kay

Beauty collaborating with various foundations.There was a lot planned in terms of creating awareness and helping people, and also as-sociating with several causes. From the start, Kay Beau-ty stands for a brand that cares."De'Haat has been our fi rst collaboration and con-sidering the pandemic they were really happy to work to-gether on this initiative.

Vrundan, the founder and CEO of De'Haat Foundation is an amazing personality, she is very strong-headed, she works very hard for the welfare of Rural India and her efforts towards the work is does is just great to see.

In our initiative, we are reaching out to the families of daily wage workers in the Bhandara district of Maha-rashtra providing with their food and sanitary needs," Katrina explained.

IANS