RNI NO.: DELENG/2005/15351REGD. NO.: DL(S)-01/3420/2018-20

VOL.16, ISSUE 123 | Tuesday, 4 May, 2021 | New Delhi | Pages 12 | Rs 3.00PUBLISHED FROM DELHI | KOLKATA

MILLENNIUMPOST.IN

No Half Truths

COVID-19: India records 3,68,147 new cases; 3,417 fresh fatalities in 24 hoursSC says Centre, states may consider imposing lockdown to curb second wave

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Delhi gov-ernment on Monday told the Delhi High Court that Dep-uty Chief Minister Manish Sisodia had now written to Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, seeking the Indian Army’s help to set up 10,000 oxygenated non-ICU beds and 1,000 ICU beds and man these facilities as well.

Following this, the Cen-tral government told the court that the matter is in the knowledge of the Defence Minister and he is looking into the issue.

The Delhi government’s SOS to send in the cavalry came after the bench of Jus-tices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Palli had last week nudged the former to seek the help of the Armed Forces.

In his letter to Singh, Siso-dia said that Delhi was get-ting 25,000 new cases every day, 10 per cent of whom need to be hospitalised and that while his government was already augmenting bed capacity, these beds would be occupied the moment they are operationalised.

The Dy CM went on to say that given how overwhelmed the healthcare system already was, it is important that the Army be sent in to set up the required number of beds. The Delhi government also requested the Defence Min-ister to ensure that the Army

also arrange the supply of medical oxygen required for the beds they will set up. Continued on P6

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: In a small sigh of relief, the number of COVID-19 infections dropped in India on Monday. The daily COVID-19 cases in the country showed a slight dip with 3,68,147 new Coronavirus infections being reported in a day, taking the total tally of cases to 1,99,25,604 on Monday. The death toll increased to 2,18,959 with 3,417 daily new fatalities.

While the country recorded 4,01,993 new cases on May 1, it had registered 3,92,488 fresh cases on May 2.

Meanwhile, concerned over the surge in COVID-19 cases in the country, the Supreme Court said the Centre and state gov-ernments may consider impos-ing a lockdown to curb the virus in the second wave in the inter-

est of public welfare.However, the apex court

put a caveat before them say-ing if they decide to go for lock-down then arrangements must be made beforehand to cater to the needs of the poor people. A bench headed by Justice D Y Chandrachud, in its order passed in the suo motu case for ensuring essential supplies and services during the COVID-19 pandemic, also asked the Cen-tre and state governments to put on record the efforts taken and to be taken by them in future to ensure that the disease does not spread further. In another turn of events, the Centre told Supreme Court on Monday that there are 4.68 lakh beds for COVID-19 patients in over 2,084 dedicated hospitals across the country.

Registering a steady

increase, the active cases have increased to 34,13,642 compris-ing 17.13 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate stands at 81.77 per cent.

The number of people who have recuperated from the

disease surged to 1, 62,93,003, while the case fatality rate was recorded at 1.10 per cent, the data stated.

The Centre said that the ris-ing number of daily COVID-19 cases in some states remains a cause of concern and while a

few others like Delhi and Maha-rashtra are plateauing in terms of daily cases, these are “very early signals” and containment efforts have to continue to break the chain of transmission.

Addressing a news briefing, Joint Secretary in the Health

Ministry Lav Agarwal said 13 states, including Delhi, Chhat-tisgarh, Maharashtra, Punjab, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh, are showing early signs of pla-teauing or decrease in daily new COVID-19 cases.

He said states like Bihar, Rajasthan, Haryana, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Ker-ala, Karnataka and West Bengal are still showing an increase in daily infections.

There are seven states where the active cases are in the range of 50,000 to 1 lakh cases and 17 states where the active cases are more than 50,000.

There are 22 states where the positivity rate is more than 15 per cent and in nine states the positivity rate is between 5 to 15 per cent and in five states it is less than five percent. Continued on P6

OVER 15.88 CRORE VACCINE DOSES ADMINISTERED SO FAR SOS TO RAJNATH SINGH

A man sits near his wife as she gets oxygen, in Ghaziabad, on Monday PIC/PTI

The Pandemic » The active cases have increased to 34,13,642 comprising 17.13 per cent of the total infections » There are seven states where the active cases are in the range of 50,000 to 1 lakh » Over 2.15 lakh people in 18-44 age group receive 1st dose of COVID vaccine on Monday » 4,68 lakh dedicated beds for COVID-19 patients in 2,084 hospitals, Centre tells SC

Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia looks as a medic administers a COVID-19 vaccine to a beneficiary pic/pti

Film: Pg 12‘I just cut trolls away from my life’

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Pfizer is in discussions with the Indian government for an expedited approval pathway to make Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine available in the country, its chief Albert Bourla said on Monday, while stating that the firm is donating medicines worth $70 million (over Rs 510 crore) for treat-ment of COVID-19 patients in India.

“We are deeply concerned by the critical COVID-19 situation in India, and our hearts go out to you, your loved ones and all the people of India,” he said in a mail sent to Pfizer India employees that he posted on linked.in. Pfizer is committed to being a partner in India’s fight against this disease and is quickly working

to mobilise the largest humanitarian relief effort in the company’s history, he added.

“Right now, Pfizer colleagues at distribution centres in the US, Europe and Asia are hard at work rushing shipments of Pfizer medicines that the Government of India has identi-fied as part of its COVID treatment protocol,” Bourla said.

Pfizer is donating these medicines to help make sure that every COVID-19 patient in every public hospital across the country can have access to company’s medicines they need free of charge, he added.

He also said that the company is aware that access to vaccines is criti-cal to ending this pandemic.

“Unfortunately, our vaccine is

not registered in India although our application was submitted months ago. We are currently discussing with the Indian government an expedited approval pathway to make our Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine available for use in the country,” Bourla said.

Meanwhile, with states scram-bling to secure vaccines, Adar Poon-awalla — whose firm is the main supplier of COVID vaccine in India — on Monday said his firm cannot ramp up production overnight as vac-cine making is a specialised process.

Serum Institute of India (SII) has orders from the Government of India to supply 11 crore more doses over the next few months on top of 15 crore already supplied, he said in a statement. He, however, did not give

a timeline for supplying the vaccines.Pune-based SII can produce 6-7

crore doses a month and is reportedly planning to ramp up production to 10 crore by July.

Serum Institute of India (SII) also endorsed the government state-ment that 100 per cent advance of Rs 1,732.50 crore has been released to the company on April 28 for 11 crore doses of the Covishield vaccine for May, June and July.

“We endorse this statement, & the authenticity of the information. We have been working closely with the Government of India for the past year & thank it for its support. We remain committed to ramping up our vaccine production to save every life we can,” SII said on Twitter. Continued on P6

Pfizer seeks expedited nod for COVID-19 vaccine in India, donates medicines worth $70 million

Poonawalla says can’t ramp up vaccine production overnight, govt claims paid advance of Rs 1,732.50 crore to SII

CityCOVID BEDS TO BE UP IN NOIDA STADIUM 2NationCURFEW EXTENDED BY 2 DAYS IN UP 5EditAT THE FRONTLINES 7internationalBANGLADESH EXTENDS LOCKDOWN 8businessMARKETS RECOUP INITIAL LOSSES, END FLAT 10SportINDIA 2ND IN ICC T20 RANKINGS 11

In today’s paper

...

Disband present EC, probe actions of its members

Anand SharmaOUR CORRESPONDENT

KOLKATA: Trinamool Con-gress chairperson Mamata Banerjee will be sworn in as the Chief Minister of Bengal for the third consecutive term on Wednesday. Banerjee has been unanimously elected as the leader of the legislative party of the Trinamool Congress. A meeting was held at Trinamool Bhavan on Monday afternoon where several of the MLAs who got elected were present. Trin-amool Youth Congress presi-dent Abhishek Banerjee and poll strategist Prashant Kishor were also there.

TMC has won in 213 Assembly segments out of 292 seats that had gone for polls in the staggering eight-phase high-voltage elections. The

election in the remaining two seats Shamsherganj and Jan-gipur have been rescheduled after the demise of two candi-dates due to Covid.

Partha Chatterjee, Tri-namool Congress Secre-tary-General, said: “Today, the elected members of the state Assembly have voted for Mamata Banerjee as the leader of the TMC’s legislative party. All the elected members have expressed their gratitude towards Banerjee for her fight for the state and the country.”

“She will be sworn-in as the Chief Minister on May 5 at Raj Bhavan. Another deci-sion that has been taken in the meeting is that Biman Baner-jee would be the Speaker again. Subrata Mukherjee, who got elected from Ballygunge, will be the pro-tem Speaker and would carry out the process of handing over the charge to the Speaker,” Chatterjee said. Continued on P6

Hat-trick: Mamata to take oath as Bengal CM on May 5

MPOST BUREAU

NEW DELHI: Batting for “free flow of dialogue” in courts, the Supreme Court Monday said it would neither restrain the media from reporting oral observa-tions made during proceedings in public interest, nor demor-alise high courts - “vital pillars of democracy” - by asking them to refrain from raising questions.

The apex court said, how-ever, that its order would take into account Election Commis-sion’s submission that wanton charges levelled against it by the Madras High Court were unwarranted and would try to strike a balance between two Constitutional bodies.

It termed as too far-

fetched the poll panel’s plea of restraining media from report-ing remarks made in court proceedings.

A bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and M R Shah reserved its order on the EC appeal against the Madras High Court’s “critical” remarks hold-ing it responsible for surge in COVID-19 cases in the coun-try and fastening responsibility on its officials with the murder charge.

It assured the poll panel that the high court’s remarks were not meant to “run down” a Constitutional body but may have been made momentarily in the flow of discussions and that’s why it was not in the judi-cial order. Continued on P6

Can’t restrain media from reporting court

observations: SC to EC

Delhi asks Centre to send in Army for beds, oxygen

MPOST BUREAU

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has directed the Centre to revisit its COVID-19 vaccine pricing policy, saying it would prima facie result in a detriment to the right to pub-lic health. A bench headed by Justice D Y Chandrachud said as of date, the manufac-turers have suggested two different prices, a lower price which is applicable to the Centre and a higher price which is applicable to the quantities purchased by state governments.

The apex court said that compelling state governments to negotiate with manufactur-ers on grounds of promoting competition and making it attractive for new vaccine manufacturers will result in a serious det-riment to those in the age group of 18 to 44 years, who will be vaccinated by state gov-ernments. The social strata of this age group also comprises persons who are Bahujans or belong to other underprivileged and mar-ginalised groups, like many in the other population age groups. Continued on P6

SC directs Centre to revisit current

vaccine policy

MPOST BUREAU

BENGALURU: In yet another hos-pital tragedy in the country in recent days, 24 patients, 23 of them covid-infected, died in Karnataka’s Chama-rajanagar due to alleged oxygen shortage in the district hospital in the last 24 hours. While warning of stringent action against those found guilty, the government ordered a probe into the matter and appointed senior IAS officer Shivayogi Kalasad as the inquiry officer.

The incident evoked a sharp response from the Congress, with party leader Rahul Gandhi won-dering “how much more suffering before the ‘system’ wakes up.”

At Chamarajanagar, a pall of gloom descended on the district hospital as the grieving kin of the deceased gathered after hearing the news.

Family members of the dead also staged a demonstration at the hospi-tal and alleged there was a shortage of oxygen and raised slogans.

Chamarajanagar district in-charge Minister S Suresh Kumar said he has ordered a death audit report from the district administration into the incident.

He, however, maintained that all the deaths did not occur due to oxy-gen shortage.

“It’s not appropriate to say that all the 24 deaths were due to oxy-

gen shortage. These deaths occurred from Sunday morning to this morn-ing.” “The oxygen shortage hap-pened in the wee hours of Monday — from 12.30 AM to 2.30 AM,” Kumar, who holds the Primary and Secondary Education portfolio, told reporters here.

He said the death audit report would detail what these patients were suffering from, whether they had any comorbidities and in which condition they were brought to the hospital. “All the people who died may not have died due to oxygen shortage,” he added.

According to him, there is a stock of 6,000 litres of Liquid Medi-cal Oxygen (LMO), but there was a

need for oxygen cylinders.“The cylinders were supposed to

come from Mysuru, but there was some glitch,” Kumar said.

He also said he has explained the situation to the Chief Secretary of the State, personal secretary to the Chief Minister and the Additional Director General of Police Pratap Reddy, who is in charge of oxygen supply in the state.

“I have also told the officials to find a permanent solution for the supply of oxygen in Chamarajanagar district.

There indeed is a problem in Mysuru, but that should not hinder the supply of oxygen from Mysuru to Chamarajanagar and Mandya,” Kumar added.

Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa warned of strict action against those found responsible for the incident

and also expressed shock over the deaths.

“I have ordered an inquiry into the matter and strict action will be taken at the earliest against those responsible. We will also ensure that such an incident is never repeated,” Yediyurappa tweeted.

“Deeply pained and shocked by the loss of lives at the Chama-rajanagar district hospital. I express my heartfelt condolences to the fam-ily members. Government stands firmly with the bereaved families in their hour of grief,” he added.

Rahul Gandhi and other Con-gress leaders, including former chief minister Siddaramaiah hit out at the ruling BJP over the deaths.

“Died or Killed? My heartfelt condolences to their families. How much more suffering before the ‘sys-tem’ wakes up?” Gandhi tweeted.

Congress Karnataka chief D K Shivakumar said the government is only interested in publicity and does not take any responsibility.

“The Chief Minister and minis-ters are not able to handle it (admin-istration),” he said, adding he would take up the matter with the Chief Secretary and ask him to “present the truth before the people.”

Siddaramaiah demanded a judi-cial probe into the deaths.

He said an inquiry by an IAS offi-cer, as ordered by the government, will not serve any purpose.

Karnataka: Yet another hospital tragedy leaves 24 dead; O2 shortage alleged

Relatives grieve after 24 Covid patients died, allegedly due to shortage of oxygen cylinders, in Chamarajanagara district of Karnataka, on Monday PTI

A medic prepares to administer the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine to a beneficiary at a vaccination centre in a govt. school, in East Delhi, Monday PTI

NEW DELHI: While hear-ing a matter related to the management of the Covid-19 crisis in the Capital, a petition was moved before the Delhi High Court which sought the intervention of the armed forces and further asked for handing over of the entire oxygen supply machinery to the latter.

The petitioner, senior advocate Abhinav Vashisht, told the court that the armed forces have to ensure that the supply chain is maintained since the current situation warrants the doctors leav-ing their patients and directly going and procuring oxygen.

“This is high time that armed forces be brought in. Armed Forces have tankers and the ability to do every-thing…we are only look-ing at a solution, citizens of India are dying because of a lack of coordination...nothing is happening, even the SC has passed a detailed order” advocate Vashisht argued. MPOST

‘Let Army take over entire O2 supply chain’

Biman to be Speaker again; Subrata to act as pro-tem Speaker

City: Pg 3Healthcare crashing around her, a woman waits to go into labour

Nation: Pg 4Some states showing early signs of plateauing in daily cases: Govt

Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia wrote to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharam, seeking a complete exemption of IGST on the import of oxygen concentrators

Younger residents line up for vax, all slots now booked for next 2 days

Now, Covid beds to come up inside

Noida stadium

NIKITA JAIN

NEW DELHI: Delhi has wit-nessed more than 400 deaths in the past two days leaving behind grief stricken families. However, the situation at the crematorium grounds shows a different reality, with official sources hinting that many deaths are unaccounted for.

At Delhi’s Dwarka cremato-rium, people have been waiting for hours so that they can cre-mate their loved ones. The fam-ilies have to first take a token from the counter after which they have to wait for their turn.

A family member who had been waiting to cremate their relative for the past two hours said that the situation is so bad, waiting for a couple of hours does not seem like an inconve-nience. “Honestly, I am relieved we were able to at least procure a number. We tried going to other cremation grounds, but the situ-

ation was so bad that we are glad we came here,” Rahul Sharma, whose relative died.

The cremation ground only had bodies of those who died of Covid-19. “My relative died due to oxygen shortage at the hospi-tal. First, we have to run for the beds, then the oxygen and even after death, it is a fight to bury the dead. Basically, the whole situ-ation is a chaos and has ruined us completely,” Sharma said.

24-year-old Vijay is an ambu-lance driver who had been trav-eling to and fro said that he has

been witnessing more than 60 cremations every day since the past couple of days. “On Sunday, I was given the token number 55 and even today I have to wait for at least two hours,” he said, as the body of a patient was kept inside his ambulance.

He said that working last year was difficult, however this wave is worse. “Since the pandemic began, we have not rested for once. I have been driv-ing the ambulance every day. Although the fear of dead bodies has decreased as we have been

witnessing so many deaths since last year,” he added.

Families and friends wear-ing PPE kits waited in line to cremate their loved ones, not understanding how to revive themselves from such a grief. “I lost my colleague and a friend due to Covid,” a man and a friend said while not being able to com-pose himself. “We all work in a hospital ourselves and to see someone so close go away is heart-wrenching,” he added.

The crematorium is com-paratively small that can at the one moment give space to 20 bodies at a time.

Meanwhile, SDMC, in order to conduct last rites of deceased Covid patients in a respectful manner, has improved facilities at all its cremation centres. The civic agency is making special arrangements to cope up the situation amid increased num-ber of Covid deaths.

Grief-stricken families wait in line to cremate their loved onesSDMC increases daily Covid cremation capacity to 436

RAHUL SINGH

NOIDA: In a bid to increase Covid bed capacity of the dis-trict, the Noida Authority has started transforming the shoot-ing range at indoor stadium in Sector 21A of Noida for treat-ing Covid patients.

The authority is focused to complete the work in next two days and the facility will include over 50 Covid beds with oxygen support and cabin for doctors.

A meeting of senior Noida Authority officials with rep-resentatives from ‘doctors for you’ organisation was con-ducted to discuss the layout of the facility.

A senior Noida Author-ity officer informed that they are planning to get oxygen directly from the oxygen plant for which talks are underway. The facility is expected to be operational within this week, the officer said.

At present, there are 3,668 beds in hospitals of Gautam Buddh Nagar. The number of ICU/ventilator beds is 813, all of which are occupied. The number of beds with oxygen support is 1,809 and these are occupied too.

The only beds that are vacant are normal beds and majority of those are available in Sharda hospital, NIIMS, Noida Covid hospital in Sector 39. The total number of normal beds available in the district is 1,046, out of which, 388 beds are occupied while 658 beds are vacant.

Meanwhile, 1,446 fresh Covid cases were reported in Gautam Buddh Nagar district on Monday taking the total number of cases to 45,801. Along with this, 13 deaths were also reported due to Covid on Monday taking the death toll to 250.

It has been for the first time since outbreak of the second wave that the number of recov-eries has been more than the number of cases reported in a span of 24 hours. On Monday, the number of patients recov-ered from Covid in GB Nagar was 1,712 while in Ghaziabad, the number of patients recov-ering from Covid on Monday was 1,152.

In Ghaziabad, the total number of cases reported on Monday were 598. Five people succumbed to the virus taking the death toll to 251.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Delhi inter-national airport handled 25 flights carrying 300 tonnes of COVID-19 relief cargo in the last five days, its operator, DIAL, said on Monday. The airport has set up a 3,500 square metre dedicated logistics facility, called ‘Jeevoday warehouse’, for interim storage and distribution of the relief materials, the Delhi Inter-national Airport Limited (DIAL) said in a statement.

India is struggling with the second wave of the coronavirus infection as hospitals in several states are reeling under a severe shortage of drugs, oxygen and beds. “In a span of just 5 days April 28 to May 2 - Delhi airport has handled around 25 COVID relief flights totalling around 300

tonnes cargo, originating from various countries like the US, United Kingdom, UAE, Uzbeki-stan, Thailand, Germany, Qatar, Hong Kong, China etc,” the state-ment noted.

Most of the relief flights were conducted by Indian Air Force (IAF) aircraft such as IL76, C-130, C-5, C-17, it said.

These flights brought in over 5,500 oxygen concentrators, approximately 3,200 oxygen cylinders, over 9,28,000 masks, 1,36,000 remdesivir injections, which are required in view of a massive surge in COVID-19 cases in the country, the state-ment noted.

However, even as the sup-plies have reached the coun-try from across the globe, the Capital, along with many other states continues its battle for

basic medical supplies with black marketers raking in tens of thou-sands in cash.

At least Delhi is yet to receive any of these supplies. “As far as I know, we have not received anything so far,” Dr Nutan Mundeja, Director General of Health Services, Delhi govern-ment, was quoted as saying in a Scroll report that spoke to six other state health departments, all of whom said they had not received any of these supplies yet. The states are Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Odisha. However, the Ministry of External Affairs has made it clear that one of the Empowered Groups managing the pandemic was already field-ing requests from state govern-ments to get the aid coming in from foreign countries.

300 tonnes of Covid relief landed at IGIA but Delhi sees none of it

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Observing that “people should not lose lives” as a result of imported oxygen concentrators pending Customs clearance, the Delhi High Court on Monday asked the Centre to inform it of the status of all such concentrators that are awaiting clearance.

Appearing before a division bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Palli, senior advocate Krishnan Venugopal told the court, “Customs be put on war footing (regarding the release of oxygen concentrators). Max Hospital has 3,000 concentrators lying in the customs”.

He told the court that these concentrators should be released to hospitals, individuals and dis-tributors with an undertaking that they should not be sold in the black market.

On this, the bench asked Centre as to what is the back-log and how many such concen-trators are pending clearance

at customs, to which advocate Amit Mahajan responded that it is a dynamic number and that there is an order saying that that the process has to be completed within three hours.

“People should not lose their lives for this. That there are resources but they are pend-ing clearance...the question we are asking is if backlog of con-centrators is lying. You are taking us round in circles” the bench

remarked.The bench further asked

Mahajan about the status of these concentrators as of 12 pm on Monday. On this, Maha-jan informed the court that as of April 30, as many as 40,000 concentrators had been cleared.

However, after Mahajan could not provide a complete collation of how many concen-trators are awaiting clearance, the bench asked it to come back with the information today (Tuesday).

However, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs issued a statement after the hear-ing to address Max’s allegation

of 3,000 concentrators awaiting Customs clearance. The CBIC, in a press note, said no such con-signment of concentrators was awaiting Customs clearance. It said that it had checked with its field formations and found no such consignment with the Cus-toms. However, it said that some information regarding this was available on social media and added that it would take action on any credible information as to the whereabouts of such a held-up consignment if any.

Significantly, on Monday, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia wrote to Finance Minis-ter Nirmala Sitharam, seeking a complete exemption of IGST on the import of oxygen con-centrators, especially in light of the fact that at least a third of Delhi’s home isolation patients were currently struggling to get oxygen.

Hours later, the Centre noti-fied a list of good exempted from IGST, including oxygen concentrators.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Delhi gov-ernment on Monday launched a mega COVID-19 inoculation exercise for people in the 18-44 age group, who comprise more than half of the city’s popula-tion, with all the 301 vaccina-tion centres witnessing “100 per cent turnout”.

These 301 centres have been established in 76 schools in the city.

Around 92 lakh people are eligible for the jabs in the 18-44 age group. According to the 2011 census, Delhi’s population is 1.68 crore.

Delhi Deputy Chief Minis-ter Manish Sisodia said all the centres witnessed “100 per cent turnout” on the first day.

“All slots are booked for the next two days,” an official said.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejri-wal tweeted, “I am glad that the vaccine process for 18+ has started smoothly. It’s heartening to see that youngsters are com-ing out in large nos to get vacci-nated. Get your elders vaccinated too. Encourage ur friends and relatives also to get vaccinated.”

Sisodia, who visited a vac-

cination centre in west Vinod Nagar, said people informed him that they did not face any trouble getting vaccinated at the centres.

However, they faced diffi-culties getting an appointment.

“This is because we have only 4.5 lakh vaccines now, but we will resolve these challenges as we continue to expand our cen-tres,” he said.

Sisodia, who is also the nodal minister for COVID-19 man-

agement in Delhi, said the city government wants to increase the number of vaccination cen-tres per location to 10.

“Our target is to establish 3,000 such centres in 300 schools, subjected (sic) to the availability of vaccine,” he said in a tweet.

“We are in constant touch with companies and will con-tinue to receive more doses,” he added.

More than 45,000 benefi-ciaries in this category can get

jabs at the 301 centres in a day, the official said.

The government set up the vaccination centres in schools to accommodate the large number of beneficiaries in this phase, another official said.

Till now, vaccines were being given to those aged above 45 at around 500 centres in the national capital.

Around 60,000 people aged above 45 can be inoculated in the capital every day, officials said.

Pre-registration is mandatory for vaccination in the 18-44 age group, and there are no walk-ins under this category for now, the official said.

While the city’s Max Hospi-tal started vaccinating people in the 18-44 age group at limited centres from Saturday, Fortis Healthcare began the exercise on Sunday.

The Delhi government has placed orders for 1.34 crore vac-cine doses, which will be deliv-ered over the next three months.

Of these, 67 lakh doses are of Covishield vaccine, which are being procured from the Pune-based Serum Institute of India, officials said.

Chief Minister Arvind Kejri-wal had on Thursday said a plan has been formulated to vaccinate all adults against the coronavirus within the next three months.

He had then said that every-body aged above 18 would be administered COVID-19 vac-cines free of cost in Delhi.

“Cumulatively, more than 33 lakh doses have been admin-istered since the initiation of COVID-19 vaccination in Delhi. More than 7 lakh beneficiaries have been given 2 doses,” a gov-

ernment official said.Meanwhile, Chief Minister

Arvind Kejriwal tweeted, “I am glad that the vaccine process for 18+ has started smoothly. It’s heartening to see that youngsters are coming out in large nos to get vaccinated. Get your elders vaccinated too. Encourage ur friends and relatives also to get vaccinated.”

On the same day, Delhi min-ister Gopal Rai visited a COVID vaccination centre at Shahdara.

In a statement, Rai said 77 vaccination centres have been made operational in differ-ent Assembly segments of the national capital, including one that was opened on Monday at the Government Boys’ Senior Secondary School in the Babar Pur constituency. Three sites have been created for a centre so that it does not get crowded and the social-distancing protocols are maintained, the minister said.

He said the aim of the AAP government in Delhi in the near future is to start the vaccination process at all the centres in the 272 wards of the national capital so that the inoculation of those above 18 years of age can be completed at the earliest.

‘ALL THE 301 VACCINATION CENTRES WITNESSED 100% TURNOUT’

None should die awaiting Customs clearance for O2 concentrators: HC

People aged above 18 queue at a vaccination centre for Covid-19 on Monday PTI

2 millenniumpostCitympTUESDAY, 4 MAY, 2021 | NEW DELHI

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ACTIVE CASES

89,592DEATH TOLL

17,414ICU

23WARD

1,351

DELHI COUNT

COVID BED AVAILABILITY

COVID-19OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The national Cap-ital logged a record 448 COVID-19 deaths in a day and 18,043 cases, the lowest since April 15, with a positivity rate of 29.56 percent, according to a bulle-tin issued by the Delhi health department on Monday.

This is the third day on the trot that the capital has recorded over 400 fatalities due to the deadly virus.

The 18,043 fresh cases is the lowest since April 15 when 16,699 people were diagnosed with the disease. The low number of cases can be attributed to less tests (61,045) conducted on Sunday.

According to the bulletin, only 1,611 vaccine doses were administered a day ago, the low-est so far. This included 1,260 people who received the first dose. The positivity rate remained below 30 percent for the second consecutive day.

Delhi had reported a posi-tivity rate of 28.33 per cent on Sunday, 31.6 per cent on Sat-urday, 32.7 per cent on Friday, 32.8 per cent on Thursday, 31.8 per cent on Wednesday, 32.7 per cent on Tuesday, and 35 per cent on Monday.

The city had witnessed 407 deaths on Sunday, 412 on Sat-urday, the highest so far; 375 on Friday, 395 on Thursday, 368 on Wednesday; 381 on Tuesday, 380 on Monday, 350 on last Sunday, and 357 on Saturday last week,

according to government data.Delhi had recorded 20,394

cases on Sunday, 25,219 on Sat-urday, 27,047 on Friday, 24,235 on Thursday, 25,986 on Wednes-day, 24,149 on Tuesday, 20,201 on Monday, 22,933 on last Sun-day, and 24,103 last Saturday.

The city has so far recorded 12,12,989 cases, of which over 11.05 lakh have recovered. The death toll due to the viral dis-ease stands at 17,414, the bul-

letin said.The number of active cases

dipped to 89,592 from 92,290 active cases the day before, it added. A significant number of 20,293 patients recovered from the virus during the period.

A total of 50,441 patients are recovering in home isolation, the bulletin said. The number of containment zones in the city has jumped to 44,052 from 42,098 the previous day.

448 deaths in city; positivity at 29%, daily tests dropping

ABHAY SINGH

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police have distributed 86 Remdesivir injections, 90 Favipiravir tab-lets, 70 oxygen cylinders, 170 oxygen concentrators, 66 oxy-gen flow meters, 24 regulators and 63 pulse oximeters — all seized from the black market — to various hospitals and authorities fighting the fourth wave here.

The Remdesivir injec-tions, used for critical care in high lungs infection, have been released to hospitals that include Sanjay Gandhi Memo-rial hospital, BSA hospital, Deepchand Bandhu hospital, Park hospital, Kailash hospital, CDMO, Terapanth Chhatar-pur, Rohini Covid Care Center and DDMA North.

“About 90 Favipiravir tab-lets have been given to Deep-chand Bandhu hospital by order of DC North. Over 100 Remdesivir injections are under the process of release, awaiting orders from author-ities concerned,” the official said.

70 oxygen cylinders were released to institutions that include the official-in-charge of DDMA West district, CDMO Terapanth Ansari hospital, World Brain Centre hospital, Aarya hospital, Bhagat Chan-

dra hospital in the south-west district. 140 oxygen cylinders freshly seized are in the process of release.

“170 Oxygen concentrators seized by north district police have been released to AIIMS (60), CAPF Hospital (40) and Covid Care Centres while over 100 concentrators seized by Outer North district and oth-ers are in the process of release,” the Delhi Police data shows.

In the same manner, 66 oxygen flow meters, 24 oxygen regulators and 63 pulse oxime-ters have been released. 18 oxy-gen pumps and 28 oxygen flow meters are in the pipeline for release.

Police hand over bulk haul from black market to hospitals

Factory workers follow protocol at Dundahera-Kapashera Delhi border on Monday PTI

‘Over 100 Remdesivir injections are under the process of release, awaiting orders’

PIC/PTI

PIC/PTI

PIC/PTI

BACK TO SENSES

ARNABJIT SUR

NEW DELHI: The Central gov-ernment on Monday tried to shift proceedings in the matter related to the mismanagement of Covid-19 — specifically the sup-ply of medical oxygen to Delhi’s hospitals — from the Delhi High Court to the Supreme Court where the matter has already been taken up, with the bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Palli disagreeing.

During the hearing, Addi-tional Solicitor General Chetan Sharma told the court, “The court has seen the directions laid down by SC...now that the SC has laid down the mecha-nism and parties are before the Supreme Court, let the matter be heard before it…”

However, the court took exception, saying, “The SC has said so far as oxygen supply is concerned but there is noth-ing on beds and dearth of hos-pitals…” On this, ASJ Sharma submitted, “I am just saying that it shouldn’t be that this court is the executing court”.

However, the court refused to accept the argument and shot back, “We all have to implement and we all are duty-bound…”

In response, ASG Sharma stated that orders should be passed only in areas that have been adjudicated by the Supreme Court, “There is an exercise before the Supreme Court... compulsory licensing, patents act finds mention”.

Justice Sanghi again shot back, “You cannot tell us that we are not entitled to ask(on oxygen supply matter)...”

“No, I was not suggesting that…” ASG Sharma said.

Meanwhile, arguing on the question of jurisdiction exer-cised in the matter by the High Court, senior advocate Krish-nan Venugopalan submitted that nothing stopped the HC from implementing the SC orders. “We consider it our duty to implement the direc-tions given out by the Supreme Court,” Justice Sanghi stated.

Moreover, during the hear-ing, one Santom Hospital raised an SOS claiming that oxygen supplier Seth Air is refusing to give them their allocated amount and they only have two hours of oxygen supply left for the 119 patients they are cur-rently treating.

“We cannot do this fire fighting during the hearing of the matter,” the court said, asking it to contact the nodal officer or Additional Standing Counsel Satyakam.

Further, advocate Rohit Priya Ranjan, appearing on behalf of Goyal Gases, told the court that his tankers have been stopped and threatened at Batra

Hospital where it was doing to deliver the oxygen supply and that the authorities told them to deliver 5 MTs instead of the allocated 2.5 MTs.

The court took strong note of this and stated, “No hospital should be allowed to haul up any tanker...indiscipline should not be tolerated”. It also passed an order stating the same observations.

Amicus curiae senior advo-cate Rajshekhar Rao informed the court about the issue of last-

mile connectivity where smaller stations and smaller hospi-tals have no buffer amount of oxygen.

INOX and Goyal Gases also raised grievances pertaining to longer times being taken at oxygen re-filling stations. On this, the Amicus stated that the present filling stations are not meant to deal with the demand and the only solution is to have more tankers, following which the court told the Centre and State to sort out the matter.

NIKITA JAIN

NEW DELHI: As the Capital descends into chaos every day with patients, their kin, doc-tors, government, opposition, volunteers and good samar-itans either busy looking for a hospital bed or for oxygen, 33-year-old Angela wakes up every day uncertain where her first child will be born.

She is due for delivery on May 20.

“In February my doctor told me to not rush and pre-book a room, she also kept assuring me that everything is fine, how-ever, now she has told me that if I become positive (for Covid), she won’t be able to deliver my baby,” Angela told Millennium Post over the phone, the anxiety in her voice clear.

The new variants of the Coronavirus that are currently rapidly tearing through the Capital have been observed to be more severe for women and even more so for pregnant women, according to medical experts.

A business owner living in South Delhi, Angela is not yet sure whether a hospital bed will be available for her and her child whenever the time comes.

“I won’t lie, but this has been a really difficult time merely because of how this virus has been affecting peo-ple. I have also seen my doc-tors changing over the course of time,” she said.

She also said that doctors have been telling her about the risks for both the baby and mother under these circum-stances. “Half my family or known people are positive, my husband and I have shifted out, at a different place for the time being,” she said, adding that

she would still prefer to have the baby in a hospital over any-where else.

“Though the hospital I have booked is not a big multi-spe-cialty. I am going for a small hospital,” she added.

But as the stress of deliver-ing a child amid the spectacu-larly devastating collapse of the healthcare system catches up to hundreds waiting to have their children in the next few months, doctors and specialists are increasingly recommend-

ing pre-term deliveries.“We doctors are recom-

mending women to get the delivery a little early. The pres-sure on the lungs due to preg-nancy is already high but in such a situation pre-term deliv-eries are being recommended,” Dr Akta Bajaj, Senior Consul-tant and head-Obstetrics and Gynecology at Ujala Cygnus Hospital said.

Dr Shivani Sabharwal, Gynecologist and senior con-sultant at Apollo Spectra Hos-

pital also said that pregnant women are more likely to develop pneumonia compared to those who are not pregnant. She said, “There are studies that have shown that there might be increased risk of abortion but this has not been proven. There are risks of pre-maturity but this risk is iatrogenic.”

Dr Bajaj added, “If the symptoms are more and severe then the woman is going to face problems. However, there are no cases of miscarriages or that it is has affected the baby.”

When asked whether the baby can get Covid through transmission, Dr Sabharwal said that as most of the cases are born by cesarean, it is dif-ficult to understand the trans-mission of the virus from mother to baby.

But even as doctors said that there have not been seri-ous cases in their eyes so far, a woman has already died due to Covid in the Capital, days after giving birth, leaving behind her newborn, for whom volunteers soon had to source breast milk donors.

3millenniumpost City mpNEW DELHI | TUESDAY, 4 MAY, 2021

‘Up to you’: Hosps across town stop admissions amid O2 crisis

Centre tries to move Covid matters out of HC but fails

ARNABJIT SUR

NEW DELHI: As the city’s hospitals continue their daily struggle with medical oxy-gen, Delhi’s non-Covid nurs-ing homes, caught in between the supply chain management mess that has led to this situ-ation, have now said they are being neglected and sought a slew of directions for so that another impending crisis can be averted in time.

In a submission made by petitioner Delhi Medical Asso-ciation on Monday before the Delhi High Court that most nursing homes have not been allocated oxygen supply and that a majority of the alloca-tion has gone to large hospitals, the court observed that such a demand cannot be fulfilled can-not be provided as “there is not

enough for existing facilities”.Senior advocate Sachin

Dutta, appearing for the asso-ciation, told a division bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Palli: “Most nursing homes have been kept out of oxygen allo-cation...total capacity is 8,000 beds...instead of focussing on large hospitals, if oxygen sup-ply can be sent to these nurs-

ing homes”.On this, senior advocate

Rahul Mehra responded by submitting that, “Oxygen as we all know is being addressed...if we get 900-700 whatever it is...we would like everyone to be a Covid facility…”

The court asked Mehra, “The petitioner Association is not a Covid facility?..” Advocate Dutta

replied in the negative.Sr. advocate Mehra told the

court that since the oxygen sup-ply is already low, he won’t be able to take in or augment any more hospitals. “Pressure is of oxygen. I can’t take another 100 hospitals...I’ll collapse,” Mehra argued.

Agreeing with the Delhi gov-ernment’s stand, the court stated,

“They don’t have excess supply. There’s not much they can do…”

However, Dutta rebutted saying that there “should be a balance” in the allocation of oxygen and that “8,000 beds are waiting to be augmented for Covid demands”.

On this, the bench remarked, “At this time, don’t insist on get-ting in when there is not enough for existing facilities”.

“I’m anticipating 15 to 20 days ahead...it is better to make a projection now...it’s a genuine apprehension...we should not wait for the crisis to break out,” Dutta submitted.

“We have a plan of 15,000 beds and 12,000 ICU beds. When required, please offer us…” Mehra told Dutta, who had also mentioned the point of stocking up on enough generic medication.

Claiming to be neglected, these nursing homes now approach Delhi HC

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police Monday said it has been receiving numerous complaints about Covid-19 patients fall-ing prey to cyber criminals, and eight FIRs have been reg-istered in this connection at CyPAD and different police stations.

Delhi Police Commis-sioner S N Shrivastava Monday directed his officers to immedi-ately put in place a comprehen-sive strategy to curb the spurt in cyber offences.

The police said in statement that later a meeting of all dis-trict Cyber Crime Cells and Crime Branch was held, which was coordinated by the CyPAD or Cyber Prevention Awareness & Detection Center, the Delhi Police’s nodal cyber crime unit.

Senior officers of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Center (I4C) of MHA and the National Payment Corpora-tion of India (NPCI) were also present as special invitees in the meeting, the statement said.

The NPCI and I4C have agreed to intensify coopera-tion in this regard and to get the bank accounts being used by cyber criminals frozen and their SIM cards highlighted to the Department of Telecom so that it becomes further difficult for them to continue with such criminal practices, it said.

According to the statement, each and every complaint about cyber fraud will be duly enquired into and appropriate action taken.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: In an indict-ment of the public health-care system’s collapse in the Capital, the north-west Delhi Member of Parliament Hans Raj Hans on Monday turned to Twitter to seek medical help for a constituent whose condition was deteriorating fast.

Minutes after the first-time BJP MP posted the SOS mes-sage on the social media plat-form, which has become the first step to finding medical care in the city now, Indian Youth Congress chief Srinivas BV, responded to the message and said he had already made contact with the patient’s family and was arranging for an oxy-gen cylinder.

This comes a day after the Youth Congress leader was sought out by the Philippines and the New Zealand Embas-sies in the city to source oxygen cylinders for themselves.

Importantly, other vol-unteers and activists work-ing on the ground in the absence of government offi-cials also responded to Hans’ cry for help and the patient was cared for.

MP on Twitter for

O2, IYC responds

8 FIRs filed as many

falling prey to fraud

Covid nos.

CHHAVIANSHIKA SINGH

NEW DELHI: At least 13 pri-vate and many other govern-ment hospitals in the city have now closed their doors for new admission of patients that require either oxygen or venti-lator support, as a consequence of what most say is an acute shortage of medical oxygen and the interrupted supply chain for the same, which is getting more uncertain by the day.

The Institute of Brain and Spine Hospital in Lajpat Nagar was again found running low on oxygen on Monday morn-ing when the Delhi govern-ment managed to get it some emergency amount from its reserves in the nick of time. But the hospital workers spoke of their daily ordeal. “We have been trying to arrange oxy-gen cylinders one by one since morning. There are 37 patients, all on oxygen, 13 in ICU, 6 on ventilators, and we cannot even save half of them,” one hospital administrator said.

The hospital with just two to three hours of supply left, said, “This job of choosing whom to save, whom to let die, (I) can-

not do that job. That is not my training. I urge you to please shift all the patients. Take them to AIIMS, keep them outside and let the Govt manage. They are resourceful and they will manage. We don’t have (any more) resources.”

In addition to scores of other small hospitals in the city raising SOSes for oxy-gen, these facilities have now decided to close their doors for new admissions. Among those that have done so are: Jeewan Hospital in Maharani Bagh, Jeewan Anmol hospital and Kukreja Hospital in Mayur Vihar, Kalkaji’s Irene hospital,

Kapoor Hospital in Rajendra Nagar, MD City Hospital in Model Town, HAHC hospital in Hamdard Nagar, Dharam-veer Solanki hospital in Rohini, Parameshwari Devi Hospital in Vasant Kunj, Uttam Nagar’s Gandhi Hospital, UK Nurs-ing Home in Vikaspuri, and Bhagwan Mahavir Hospital in Pitampura.

And as the crisis spirals out of control with the Delhi gov-ernment, Centre and many oxygen suppliers locked in daily battles in the Delhi High Court, the patients already admitted to these hospitals have been left to their own devices.

At Jeewan Hospital, the staff made efforts to get some oxygen cylinders refilled but patients were told that they would have to leave by evening and move to another hospital where they can get oxygen.

At Irene hospital, patient intake was stopped and oxy-gen supply was being rationed. Patients have been asked to arrange their own oxygen cyl-inders or shift to a facility with a steadier supply.

At the Parameshwari Devi Hospital in Vasant Kunj, the staff had even started privately arranging for as many oxygen cylinders as it could because it

had run out of oxygen supply.And as the deadline drew

closer, patients seeking admis-sion at the Jeewan Anmol Hospital were told that all ven-tilator beds were occupied and relatives/family members of patients admitted at the hospi-tal were asked to arrange oxy-gen cylinders on their own.

Most hospitals said their suppliers were making highly erratic deliveries, not supply-ing the agreed-upon amount and delaying supplies at a time when even a few minutes of low supply turns out to be fatal.

Deputy CM Manish Sisodia has now said they are now ask-ing for help from all quarters for oxygen and tankers, add-ing that Delhi was still waiting for the Centre to increase allo-cation to the required 976MT daily.

Meanwhile, the North-ern Railways on Monday said that one Oxygen Express train from Odisha had delivered 37MT LMO in two tankers at the Delhi Cantonment station, adding that three more such trains are expected to reach the NCR (Faridabad, Okhla and Gurugram) on Tuesday.

Healthcare crashing around her, a woman waits to go into labour

Non-Covid nursing homes feel the O2 crisis pinch

Delhi High Court to Centre: You can’t tell us what to ask, duty-bound to implement SC directionsDelhi waits for allocation to be increased to 976MT, 447MT received on Mon

Court asks Amicus to act as ‘filter’

‘Can’t say reporting crisis is

negative’OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: With the Delhi High Court now effectively guiding the city’s daily Covid-19 response and scores of matters listed before it oftentimes inter-rupting urgent matters such as oxygen supply, the Delhi government submitted that the Amicus in the case be asked to prioritise issues accordingly so that imme-diate attention can be given where needed.

The bench of Justices Vipin Sanghi and Rekha Palli agreed with the sug-gestion during the hear-ing and eventually asked Amicus Curiae senior advocate Rajshekhar Rao to “filter” the issues before it.

Senior advocate Rahul Mehra, for the Delhi gov-ernment, said, “In every hearing...there are diver-sions that happen...if the Amicus can highlight pri-ority issues...otherwise we can have these discussions for discussion purposes,” Mehra told the court.

He further said that the matters should be heard in a “structured manner”.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Observ-ing that reportage on the Covid-19 pandemic can-not be restricted as long as the information is cor-rect and that it is a wrong notion that news about death is “negative news”, the Delhi High Court on Monday dismissed a peti-tion that sought to curb such a reporting which as per the petitioner is caus-ing “a sense of insecurity towards life” among people.

A division bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Jasmeet Singh, while refusing to entertain the petition, stated that “not a single violation has been pointed out” in the news reportage.

The petition, filed by advocate Lalit Valecha, stated that television chan-nels have been showing “precarious, pathetic and unbearable pictures” of the bodies of the Covid-19 vic-tims and shortage of oxy-gen, etc..

The petitioner said such “negative images” should not be glorified and report-ing should instill positivity amongst viewers.Highlights

» There are studies that have shown that there might be increased risk of abortion but this has not been proven. There are risks of pre-maturity but this risk is iatrogenic, said Dr Shivani Sabharwal, Gynecologist and senior consultant at Apollo Spectra Hospital » As most of the cases are born by cesarean, it is difficult to understand the transmission of the virus from mother to baby, Sabharwal said » The pressure on the lungs due to pregnancy is already high but in such a situation pre-term deliveries are being recommended, said Dr Akta Bajaj, Senior Consultant and head-Obstetrics and Gynecology at Ujala Cygnus Hospital

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Delhi Commis-sion for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR) has written to the Delhi Police Commis-sioner, related to those children who were orphaned due to COVID-19 and being offered for adoption on social media in violation of laws.

As per child rights body, they come across many instances on social media (Facebook, Twitter and What-sApp) where people who have information about children orphaned by the pandemic are encouraging people to adopt them.

Anurag Kundu, chairper-son, DCPCT said, “In some cases, they post updates that the child or children have been adopted. I am sure some of these are out of innocence and

ignorance of the laws govern-ing adoption. However, they may also be cases of traffick-ing and sale-purchase of the children.’’

As per chairperson such cases deserve to be looked into. The letter copy accessed by Mil-lennium Post read, “Although the commission shall indepen-dently write to the DCP, Cyber Crime with specific instances, requesting an inquiry into each one of them, I write this letter to request your kind intervention so that the Delhi Police becomes more vigilant on social media of any such instances and starts taking cog-nisance of these cases.”

He also urged the police to join the DCPCR’s efforts in raising awareness about the adoption process and encour-aging citizens not to ‘engage in such reckless acts’.

‘Adopting Covid orphaned kids on

social media illegal’

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Some states showing early signs of plateauing in daily cases: Govt ‘Harassing people seeking

Covid-related help to result in coercive action’

COVID-19: MP DECLARES JOURNALISTS AS ‘FRONTLINE WORKERS’ BHOPAL: Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Madhya Pradesh on Monday declared media professionals ac-credited with the state government as ‘frontline work-ers’. While making the announcement, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan said journalists were risking their lives while doing their duty during this “danger-ous period of COVID-19 pandemic”. “Therefore, we have decided to declare all accredited journalists as frontline workers in Madhya Pradesh. They will be taken care of,” Chouhan said in a video statement posted on the Twitter handle of the Chief Minister’s Office. Around 4,000 journalists are currently accred-ited with the state government, according to a public relations department official.

BLACK-MARKETING OF REMDESIVIR INJECTIONS: 4 HELD IN AHMEDABAD AHMEDABAD: Police have arrested four persons for allegedly trying to sell Remdesivir injections at exorbi-tant rates in Ahmedabad, an official said on Monday. The drug is currently in high demand for the treatment of COVID-19 patients. Acting on a tip-off, the city po-lice intercepted four persons moving on a two-wheeler on Sunday, the official from Ramol police station said. “Four vials of Remdesivir were seized from them. They were planning to sell the drug to the needy persons at a much higher price than its MRP,” he said.

LOCKDOWN TO CONTINUE IN GOA’S TOURIST HOTSPOTS: MINISTER PANAJI: Tourist hotspots like Calangute and Cando-lim in North Goa will continue to be under lockdown, even as the government has lifted the lockdown in other parts of the state, Ports Minister Michael Lobo said on Monday. Goa, a popular tourism destination, reported an extremely high COVID-19 test positiv-ity rate of over 50 per cent last Thursday, following which the state government imposed the lockdown from April 29. The lockdown was lifted at 6 am on Monday.

Nation Briefs

4 millenniumpostNationmpTUESDAY, 4 MAY, 2021 | NEW DELHI

NEW DELHI: There are 4.68 lakh beds for COVID-19 patients in over 2,084 dedicated hospitals across the country, the Centre has told Supreme Court. The fact about the avail-ability of dedicated hospital beds in the country has been noted down in its order by a bench headed by Jusitce D Y Chandrachud which passed a slew of directions to ensure essential supplies and services to deal with the second wave of the pandemic.

It also noted that the Cen-tral government, in its affidavit, has said it has devised a three-tier setup for COVID manage-ment and it has set up Covid Care Centers (CCC), Dedi-cated COVID Health Cen-ters (DCHC) and Dedicated COVID Hospitals (DCH).

The present status of these is: (i) 2,084 DCH (of which 89 are under the Central Gov-ernment and the rest 1,995 with State Governments); (ii) 4,043 DCHC; and (iii) 12,673

CCC. Cumulatively, they have 18,52,265 beds in total, out of which 4,68,974 beds are in DCH. It was also noted that Central Government hospitals have also been converted into DCH, the apex court recorded in its order.

The hospitals under ESIC, Defence, Railways, paramili-tary forces, Steel Ministry have been leveraged for COVID management, the Centre has said, adding as many as 3,816 railways coaches, spread over

16 railway zones, have been converted into COVID Care Centres. The bench, also com-prising justices L Nagesara Rao and S Ravindra Bhat took note of the submissions and rec-ommended to the Centre that healthcare workforce may be augmented further.

It is common knowledge that a large number of medi-cal, nursing and pharmacy stu-dents, who graduated in 2020 and would be in the process of graduating in 2021, would

be available to augment the workforce in the health sec-tor. The Central Government should, we feel, look into this aspect, and ensure the opti-mal manner of utilization of their services, regard being had, of course, to their safety and well-being, it said. The Central Government should also con-sider using health care work-force available with the armed forces and para military forces for the purpose of vaccination, it suggested. AGENCIES

NEW DELHI: The AIIMS chief on Monday warned against rushing for CT scan in cases of mild COVID-19, saying it has side effects and can end up doing more harm than good. Stressing that there is no need for doing CT scans in mild COVID cases, AIIMS Director Dr Randeep Guleria at a press conference said that many people are opting for the test the moment they find out they are positive for COVID-19 and added that misuse of CT scans and biomarkers may cause damage.

"One CT scan is equiva-lent to 300 to 400 chest x-rays. According to data, repeated CT scans in younger age groups increase the risk of cancer in

later life. Exposing yourself to radiation again and again may cause damage. So, there is no point in doing CT scan in mild COVID-19 if the oxygen satu-ration is normal," Guleria said.

Even in mild illness and according to a study, even in asymptomatic cases, a CT scan may show patches which go away on their own without treatment, he said.

He advised that CT scans should be done in cases of moderate disease, when hospi-talised. "And if there is a doubt, one should opt for a chest x-ray," he said. Guleria added that several blood tests for bio-markers are also not needed in mild illness or in home isola-tion if the oxygen saturation is

fine, fever is not high and there are no other symptoms.

"As this will cause panic. These biomarkers are acute phase reactants and they increase even when there is some normal injury and tooth-ache, it does not show that the COVID-19 disease has become

severe. This causes more dam-age. Reliance on these tests can lead to over treatment," he said.

He said that clinical man-agement guidelines are clear that people with mild illness need no medicine. Based on limited data, one can take iver-mectin or hydroxychloroquine

but there is no need to take too many medicines, he advised.

"Some patients take ste-roids in the early part of the disease which increases viral replication. Taking high dose steroids in mild cases may lead to severe viral pneumonia. Ste-roids should be taken in mod-erate stage and as advised by doctors," he said.

Falling oxygen saturation (below 93), excessive fatigue or chest pain are warning signs indicating that a patient in home isolation may need hospitalisation. Thus, such patients should stay in touch with a doctor and high-risk group people having comor-bidities also need to take spe-cial care, he said. MPOST

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has directed the Cen-tre and states to inform their chief secretaries and police chiefs that any clampdown on information on social media or harassment to individuals seeking help on any platform in relation to COVID-19 would result in coercive action.

In these “trying times”, those desperately seeking help for their loved ones on these platforms should not have their misery compounded through the actions of the State and its instrumentalities, the apex court said.

It said it was “deeply dis-tressed” to note that individuals seeking help on such platforms have been targeted, by alleging that the information posted by them was false and posted on social media to create panic, defame the administration or damage the national image .

A bench headed by Jus-tice D Y Chandrachud said such targeting of individu-als should not be condoned, and the Centre and state gov-ernments should ensure that they immediately cease direct or indirect threats of prosecu-tion and arrest to citizens who air grievances or those that are attempting to help fellow citi-zens receive medical aid.

The apex court, in a 64-page order uploaded on the its site on late Sunday night, said that if this keeps happening even after the current order, it would be constrained to use the pow-ers available to it under it con-tempt jurisdiction.

“The Central Government and State Governments shall

notify all Chief Secretaries/Directors General of Police/Commissioners of Police that any clampdown on informa-tion on social media or harass-ment caused to individuals seeking/delivering help on any platform will attract a coercive exercise of jurisdiction by this Court.

“The Registrar (Judicial) is also directed to place a copy of this order before all District Magistrates in the country,” said the bench, also compris-ing Justices L Nageswara Rao and S Ravindra Bhat.

The top court said the clampdown on information sharing must be absolutely stopped immediately because sharing information widely is in itself an important tool in combating public tragedies and it will help in the creation of a collective public memory of this pandemic.

“As such, preventing clamp-downs on sharing of informa-tion on online platforms is not just in the interest of individu-als sharing the information, but the larger democratic struc-tures of our nation. Without the ready availability of such information, it is entirely pos-sible that the COVID-19 pan-

demic may turn into a a tragedy worse than what it already is,” the bench said.

The bench also referred to its Right to Privacy judgement and said, “Academic literature documenting the widespread availability of information and the resultant acknowledgement of the problem is what pre-vented the drought in Maha-rashtra in 1973 from becoming as bad as the Bengal Famine of 1943, where the British tried to deny the problem even existed.

The apex court said that widespread sharing of infor-mation by individuals living through the COVID-19 pan-demic is crucial and the role of Courts in creating and preserv-ing this collective public mem-ory cannot be understated.

“Hence, in the present proceedings, we hope to not only initiate a dialogue so as to better tackle the current COVID-19 pandemic but also to preserve its memory in our public records, so that future generations may evaluate our efforts and learn from them,” it said. The directions were passed in a suo motu case for ensuring essential supplies and services during the COVID-19 pandemic. AGENCIES

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: As the second wave of coronavirus contin-ues to engulf several parts of the country, the Centre on Monday said some states are showing very early signs of pla-teauing in daily new COVID-19 cases, while some remain a cause of concern.

Addressing a news briefing, Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry Lav Agarwal said 13 states, including Delhi, Chhat-tisgarh, Maharashtra and Pun-jab, are showing early signs of plateauing, while states like Bihar, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Tripura and West Bengal are showing an increas-ing trend in daily cases.

Amid a shortage of medi-cal oxygen in the country, he said the government is explor-ing the feasibility of converting existing nitrogen plants to pro-duce oxygen.

"There are some early signs of plateauing or decrease in

new COVID-19 cases in some states," Agarwal said.

Chhattisgarh, where 15,583 cases were reported on April 29, recorded 14,087 fresh cases on May 2. Similar was the case with Delhi, Daman and Diu, Gujarat, Jharkhand, Ladakh, Lakshadweep, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Pun-jab, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.

With regards to districts, Agarwal said Durg, Gariya-band, Raipur, Rajnandgaon in Chhattisgarh; Chhindwara, Guna, Shajapur in Madhya Pradesh, Leh in Ladakh; Nir-mal in Telangana are showing signs of decline in cases in the last 15 days. Agarwal said 12 districts of Maharashtra are also showing signs of a decline since the last 15 days.

"However, these are very early signals and this is too early to analyse the situation. It is important to have contin-ued efforts of containment at district and state level so that

we can preserve these gains and reduce cases further," he further said.

"There are some causes of concern," Agarwal cautioned.

He said there are 12 states where active cases are more than a lakh. They are Maha-rashtra, Gujarat, Delhi, Hary-

ana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu. There are seven states where the active cases are in the range of 50,000 to 1 lakh cases and 17 states where the active cases are more than 50,000.

There are 22 states where the positivity rate is more than 15 per cent and in nine states the positivity rate is between 5 to 15 per cent and five states it is less than five per cent.

He said states and union territories like Andaman and Nicobar, Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Bihar, Goa, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Karnataka, Kerala, Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland, Megha-laya, Odisha, Pudcherry, Raj-asthan, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Tripura and West Bengal are showing an increasing trend in daily cases.

"Today, it is important to analyse the cases at micro-level and continue with the efforts in the areas from where the cases are being reported," he said.

On vaccine coverage, he said so far 12.07 crore (first dose for 10.53 crore people and second dose for 1.54 crore) above the age of 45 years have been vaccinated.

States like Bihar, Rajasthan, Sikkim, Tamil Nadu, Tripura and West Bengal are showing an increasing trend in new Covid cases’

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: In a move aimed at augmenting human resources deployed in fight-ing COVID-19, Prime Min-ister Narendra Modi on Monday approved postponing the NEET-PG for at least four months to make a large num-ber of qualified doctors avail-able for pandemic duty and pressing into service medical interns.

All such professionals who complete 100 days of duty will be given priority in the forth-coming regular government recruitment and also honoured with the Prime Minister’s Dis-tinguished COVID National Service Samman, the PMO said in a statement. It said that the services of final year MBBS stu-dents can also be utilised for providing services like tele-consultation and monitoring of mild COVID cases after due orientation under the faculty’s supervision.

“Medical interns will work under the supervision of their faculty. This will reduce the workload on the existing doc-tors engaged in COVID duty and boost the efforts of triag-ing,” it said, adding that B.Sc.

or GNM qualified nurses may be utilised in full-time COVID nursing duties under the super-vision of senior doctors and nurses.

Those providing services in COVID management will be given priority in forth-coming regular government recruitments after they com-plete a minimum of 100 days of duty, the PMO said, adding that the medical students and professionals to be engaged in COVID-related work will be suitably vaccinated.

States and UTs have been urged to consider the incen-tives suggested to maximise manpower availability, the PMO said, adding that they can make available additional health professionals engaged through this process to private COVID hospitals as well in surge areas.

These professionals will also be covered under the gov-ernment’s insurance scheme for health workers engaged in fighting COVID-19. The state-ment said that the National Eli-gibility cum Entrance Test for Post-Graduation (NEET-PG) will be postponed for at least four months, and the exam will not be held before August 31.

To motivate students to join Covid duty, govt postpones NEET-PG

4.68L dedicated beds for Covid patients, Centre to SC

A health worker collects a nasal swab sample from fruit vendor to test for Covid-19 infection, at Patiala, on Monday

‘Don’t go for CT scan in mild Covid cases’ It may do more harm than good: AIIMS chief Dr Randeep Guleria

NEW DELHI: The Election Commission, rattled over the strong high court observa-tions related to conducting of just concluded assembly elec-tions, told the Supreme Court on Monday that COVID-19 management was not its pre-rogative and it does not run the governance of the state.

A bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and M R Shah was told by senior advocate Rakesh Dwivedi, appearing for the EC, that remarks of murder charges made by the Madras High Court against the Consti-tutional body were unwarranted and such conclusive remarks

should not have been made without hearing the poll panel.

Election commission is not running the governance of the State. We only issue guidelines and directives. We don't have CRPF or any other force with us to check the people in rally. State Disaster Management Authority has to issue orders for limiting the people. There is a presump-tion that EC has responsibility for all this. We have nothing to do with COVID management, he said.

The high court had on April 26 castigated the EC for the surge in COVID-19 cases dur-ing the second wave of the pan-

demic, holding it "singularly" responsible for the spread of the viral disease, called it the "the most irresponsible institution" and even said its officials may be booked under murder charges.

The bench told Dwivedi that the poll panel should take the observations of the high court in the right spirit and said, "Nobody is criticising any-body. You have done a good job. Election Commission is a seasoned Constitutional body, entrusted with the responsibil-ity to ensure free and fair elec-tion in the country. It should not be rattled by the observa-tions made. AGENCIES

Covid management not our prerogative, EC tells SC

NEW DELHI: Senior Con-gress leader Anand Sharma on Monday demanded that the present Election Commission be disbanded and the action of its members probed as it has allegedly betrayed the trust of voters.

He also demanded that a Constitution bench of the Supreme Court should decide on the composition and quali-fying criteria for the appoint-ment of CEC and EC's.

The former union minis-

ter's remarks came a day after results of assembly elections in five states came out.

Sharma said the recent elections and the conduct of the Election Commission has raised serious concerns.

"The present Election Com-mission should be disbanded and actions of its members probed. The EC has disgraced itself and voters trust betrayed," Sharma said in a statement.

"A Constitution bench of the Supreme Court should

decide on the composition, qualifying criteria for the appointment of CEC and EC's

and firm guidelines for the con-duct of free and fair elections as per the Constitution," he said.

The senior Congress leader charged that the Commis-sion violated its Constitutional mandate under Article 324 to conduct free and fair polls.

"Blatantly partisan, its actions in Bengal were shock-ing and condemnable. There have been instances where it acted as a willing accomplice of the BJP," he alleged.

Sharma said by allowing

unrestricted mass rallies, it is guilty of violating COVID protocols and must be made accountable for fuelling the surge and sufferings of our people.

"Cosmetic restriction for the last phase after the fire had spread, fooled no one but insulted the wisdom of cit-izens," he said. A number of political parties including the TMC and its leader Mamata Banerjee have pointed fingers at the EC. MPOST

‘Disband present EC, probe actions of its members’

Congress leader Anand Sharma

SIBSAGAR (ASSAM): Jailed anti-CAA activist Akhil Gogoi became the first Assamese to win an election without hit-ting the campaign trail, as he clinched the Sibsagar constitu-ency, defeating his nearest rival Surabhi Rajkonwari of the BJP by a decisive 11,875 votes.

The founder of the newly floated Raijor Dal -- arrested in December 2019 over sedi-tion charges -- bagged 57,219 votes as an Independent, gar-nering support from 46.06 per cent of the electorate.

The Congress, which had initially backed the Raijor Dal chief, ended up giving ticket to Subhramitra Gogoi, who came third in the contest.

The RTI activist, in an attempt to reach out to the people of the state, wrote sev-eral open letters from jail, high-lighting problems that need to be addressed.

What might have struck a chord with the electorate was his 85-year-old mother's efforts to campaign for his imprisoned son along the narrow lanes of Sibsagar, despite the frailties of old age.

Moved by Priyada Gogoi's determination, renowned social activists Medha Patkar and Sandeep Pandey flew down to the Upper Assam town and joined the octogenarian in her campaigns.

Hundreds of youth vol-unteers and members of the Raijor Dal also took to door-to-door electioneering to woo voters ahead of the three-phase polls.

Notwithstanding the entire election machinery of the BJP, which put all its weight behind Rajkonwar as top leaders such as Union Minister Smriti Zubin Irani addressed the people of the constituency, Gogoi, a greenhorn, emerged victori-ous with absolutely no cash in hand and Rs 60,497 in deposits.

A graduate from Cotton College in Guwahati, the 46- year-old Raijor Dal chief is not new to electoral politics. He had served as general secretary of the Cotton College Students' Union in 1995-96. AGENCIES

Akhil Gogoi first in

Assam to win election

from jail

SC WARNS CENTRE, STATES

5millenniumpost Nation mpNEW DELHI | TUESDAY, 4 MAY, 2021

Covid fight: Italy sends team of experts and oxygen plant

May have to consider total lockdown if people don’t follow curbs: Punjab CM

MAHA: CENTRAL RAILWAY PROVIDES 11 ISOLATION COACHES TO NAGPUR MUMBAI: The Central Railway has handed over 11 isolation coaches to the Nagpur Municipal Corpora-tion to set up a care centre for COVID-19 patients, officials said. A rake of 11 non-AC coaches coaches and one additional coach for medical staff was sta-tioned at the Ajni inland container depot in Maharash-tra’s Nagpur district on Sunday, the Central Railway (CR) said in a release. Each isolation coach has 16 beds, including two in each compartment, it said, adding that total 176 patients can be accommodated in the 11 coaches. “The COVID-19 patients who are asymptomatic or have mild symptoms will be shifted to these coaches,” it said.

JUSTICE (RETD) P C PANT APPOINTED ACTING CHAIRPERSON OF NHRC NEW DELHI: Justice (Retd) P C Pant, who is a member of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), has also been appointed its Acting Chairperson with effect from April 25 this year, said an official statement on Monday. “The Honourable President of India has authorised Justice Prafulla Chandra Pant, Member, NHRC India, to act as its Chairperson with effect from April 25, 2021,” the NHRC’s statement noted. Prior to his appointment as member, NHRC on April 22, 2019, he was a Judge of the Supreme Court from August 13, 2014 to August 29, 2017, it mentioned.

EU ANNOUNCES FRESH AID

Nation Briefs

NEW DELHI: With India bat-tling the second wave of Covid-19, the severity of the pandemic is also evident in Chhattisgarh. The state government is fight-ing with all its might to contain the rapid surge in Coronavi-rus cases and is hopeful that Chhattisgarh will soon recover from the pandemic riding on the strong intentions and pub-lic welfare decisions of the government.

The state government focused on testing, tracing, treatment and vaccination and it has become its main weapon in the fight against Corona-virus. So far, about 7,44,000 people have been infected in Chhattisgarh, out of which 6,14,000 people have recovered.

Currently, there are 1,30,000 active patients in the

state with 82.5 per cent recov-ery rate, which is much higher than many big states. Daily test-ing in Chhattisgarh is 2069 per million, which is better than the average of many large states and the country. In view of the pandemic in the state, the num-ber of tests has been increased to 59,000 per day. On the other hand, average seven persons are being traced and tested on a Covid positive person.

With the commitment to deal with Covid, the state government has put in all its efforts in developing resources in a short span of time. Thirty-seven dedicated Covid hospi-tals and a total of 154 Covid Care Centers including six Medical Colleges and AIIMS Raipur were constructed in the state. Dedicated Covid Hos-

pital has been set up in every district of the state. An online website has been created for the information about vacant beds in these hospitals. Details on availability of beds in the hospi-tal is easily available on website, cgcovidjansahayta.com.

According to the informa-tion received, the number of general beds in Raipur district is 988, out of which 767 beds are vacant. Likewise, the number of oxygen beds in the Raipur dis-trict is 2170, and 1150 of these beds are vacant. Also, 333 out of the 584 HDU beds and 374 out of the 1024 ICU beds are vacant. Number of ventilator beds in Raipur district is 346, out of which 131 beds are vacant.

To increase the number of oxygenated beds, 15 new oxy-gen generation plants have

been set up in the state. Oxygen cylinders are being provided at home to Covid patients. Services for doorstep deliv-ery of Oxygen concentrators for Covid patients who are in home isolation also started in Raipur. The state also provided assistance in the supply of oxy-gen to other states at this time of crisis.

The state is also ahead of many states in terms of Covid vaccination. More than 55 lakh dose vaccines have been administered in the state. In Chhattisgarh, more than 45 years of age and 72 per cent vaccination has been done including front-line workers. Chhattisgarh has the second-best performance in the entire country in terms of vaccination of health workers. MPOST

Chhattisgarh govt hopeful that state will soon recover from pandemic

OUR CORRESPONDENT

SHIMLA: As the global pan-demic –Covid 19 has wreaked havoc in the country, leaving thousands dead and millions struggling in the hospitals for beds and oxygen, the tourism industry in Himachal Pradesh, a mainstay of livelihood for 33 percent of the state's popula-tion, is dying an impending death.

After last year’s lockdown causing an unprecedented jolt to the hoteliers and tourism stakeholders, the second wave of pandemic has forced an abrupt shutdown of the hotels, resorts and homestays.

The luxury chain hotels, which incur a huge mainte-nance and establishments, have no business since April 2021 following state govern-ment’s move to make RT-PCR tests mandatory for the vis-itors, and also Covid spurt in Delhi, Punjab, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, UP and Gujarat.

“The hotel industry of Kullu and Manali is on the verge of collapse because of the second wave of Covid-19. Room occupancy in hotels has reduced to less than 3 per-cent these days.More than a dozen hotels have been shut down as no tourists are com-ing,” informs Anoop Thakur, president Manali Hoteliers Association.

Atul Sharma, who owns leading hotel “Apple Valley” at Kullu said “this is the worst time for the hotel industry. We had big hopes from the sum-mer season after the tourism activity got revived in Decem-ber 2020 and January 2021, we are again back to square one”.

The conditions at Dharam-shala and Mcleodganj are no better despite the tourists desti-nation popular internationally on account of Tibetan Spiritual leader Dalai Lama’s abode and headquarter of Central Tibetan Administration.

The Hotel and Restau-rant Association had already announced that there was no point in keeping the hotels in operation as there is not even a single tourist visiting from any-where except some people trav-elling for businesses or official works within the state.

All hotels would be shut till May 12.

The association has made a strong plea to the government to waive off electricity demand charges of hotels, the licence fee for the bars. There is no sale or any kind of business being done in absence of tourists.

The state capital Shimla is seeing a considerable drop in the arrivals. The hotels have no occupancies. Most resorts and homestays in the peripheral areas of Shimla like Mashobra, Naldehra, Kufri, Fagu, Theog and Narkanda, have not been

visited by the tourists since mid-April.

“We don't have routine res-taurant business. The people are not coming out of their homes due to Corona fires. The media reports about daily deaths and infection rate being highest in the second wave has kept the people indoors. Only those who have urgent work or going to offices, businesses and daily jobs are seen on the roads,” said Sanjay Sood, presi-dent Shimla Hotels and Restau-rants Association.

Manali Hoteliers Associa-tion has been asking the state government repeatedly to give a relief package to the hotel industry. The industry needs oxygen to survive or else it will be dead. The government must waive demand charges of elec-tricity for one year and issue electricity bills to hoteliers at domestic rates, said Anoop Thakur.

He said, “We also request the government to waive the EMIs of the bank loans of the hoteliers for one year without interest. It will be a huge relief for the industry.”

Shimla‘s Ridge

Tourism industry in HP ‘critically ill’, thanks to Covid

OUR CORRESPONDENT

LUCKNOW: Amid a surge in coronavirus cases, the Uttar Pradesh government on Mon-day decided to increase the duration of the weekend lock-down by 48 hours to cover Tuesday and Wednesday also.

"The corona curfew from Friday 8 pm to Tuesday 7 am has been extended for 48 hours. Now it will continue till May 6 till 7 am," Additional Chief Sec-retary, Information, Navneet Sehgal said.

All shops and establish-ments will now remain closed till Thursday 7 am.

This arrangement is for this week only, he said add-ing that decision has been taken for breaking the chain of Coronavirus.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Italy on Monday sent to India a team of experts and medical equipment, while the UK delivered a fourth con-signment of aid comprising 60 ventilators to back the coun-try's battle against a deadly sec-ond wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

Separately, the European Union announced additional emergency medical support by its member countries including Denmark, Spain and Nether-lands to India.

Besides a team of experts, Italy's medical assistance to India comprised an oxy-gen generation plant and 20 ventilators.

The Italian embassy said the team comprised person-nel from the Maxiemergenza group of the Piedmont Region, a doctor from the Lombardy

region and a representative of the Ministry of Health.

The oxygen generation plant, capable of supplying oxy-gen to an entire hospital, will be deployed at the ITBP hospital in Greater Noida, it said.

Ambassador of Italy to India Vincenzo De Luca greeted the medical delegation at the airport along with the EU Ambassador to India Ugo Astuto.

"Italy stands with India in the fight against coronavirus. This is a global challenge that we must tackle together. The medical team and equipment provided by Italy will contrib-ute to saving lives in these ter-rible moments," De Luca said.

The UK sent 60 ventilators as part of its fourth shipment of supplies to India.

"Fourth consignment of medical supplies containing 60 ventilators arrives from the UK.

Thank our strategic partner & friend United Kingdom for the support," External Affairs Min-istry Spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said in a tweet.

In a statement, the EU said a number of its member nations

are sending additional supplies to India under the bloc's Civil Protection Mechanism.

It said Denmark is send-ing 53 ventilators while Spain is supplying 119 oxygen con-centrators and 145 ventilators.

The EU said the medical supplies from the Netherlands included 100 oxygen concen-trators, 30,000 vials of antivi-ral drugs Remdesivir and 449 ventilators.

Fresh supplies from Ger-many will comprise 15,000 vials of antiviral drugs, 516 ventilators and one oxygen generator, the EU said in a statement.

The EU countries are send-ing to India medical assistance under the 27-nation grouping's Civil Protection Mechanism.

As part of its Civil Protec-tion Mechanism, the EU plays a central role in coordinating its responses to emergencies in Europe and beyond.

As India battles a devastat-ing second wave of coronavirus pandemic, several countries around the world are sending medical supplies to help it tide over the situation.

INDORE: Union minister Thawarchand Gehlot's daugh-ter Yogita Solanki died in a pri-vate hospital here on Monday while undergoing treatment for COVID-19, a top official of the medical facility said.

Solanki (42) was undergo-ing treatment at the Medanta Hospital in Indore for the last one week and the viral infec-tion had spread to 80 per cent of her lungs, the medical direc-tor of the hospital, Sandeep Srivastava, said.

"Tocilizumab injections (a COVID-19 medicine) and other life-saving drugs were given to Solanki, but her life

could not be saved despite all our efforts," he said.

Initially, Gehlots daughter was taken to a hospital in Ujj-ain, but was shifted to Indore after her condition deterio-rated, a BJP leader said.

Solanki, who was a home-maker, is survived by her husband and two children, a 23-year-old daughter and a 20- year-old son.

Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chou-han, state BJP president V D Sharma and several other party leaders and ministers expressed grief over the death of Solanki. AGENCIES

Thawarchand Gehlot’s daughter dies of Covid

DHIRENDRA KUMAR

NEW DELHI: The results of the West Bengal assembly elec-tion, which was declared on Sunday, have established the fact that Congress has lost its vote share in West Bengal as the Grand Old party has got just 2.93 per cent of the total vote share which is even lesser than CPI (M) as the Left party has got 4.73 per cent vote.

Even the high decibel cam-paigning by Congress leader Rahul Gandhi failed to bring voters to its fold in the state Assembly election which was mainly fought between the rul-ing party – Trinamool Con-gress – and BJP and the party faced a great setback in the con-stituencies where Rahul Gan-dhi had campaigned.

The Grand Old party that had joined hands with its once arch-rival the Communist party and the Islamist Indian Secular Front (ISF) has failed to secure even a single seat and emerged as the ‘biggest loser’.

Notably, Gandhi had cam-paigned in the two constitu-encies of Goalpokhar and Matigira-Naxalbari on April 14 – ahead of the fifth phase of the elections. Though Congress

has lost all of the 92 seats it con-tested, but the party candidates, who contested from Goalpokar and Matigira-Naxalbari con-stituencies, have also lost their security deposit.

As per the Election Com-mission website, Congress candidate from Goalpokhar Masood Md Naseem Ahsen managed to secure just 12 per cent of the total valid votes, while Trinamool Congress nominee Ghulam Rabbani won the seat with a whopping 65.4 per cent of the votes and BJP’s Ghulam Sarwar stood at second with 19.89 per cent votes.

As per the Representation of People Act, 1951, if a can-didate fails to secure 1/6th (16.67 per cent) of the total valid votes, then the candidate has to lose its security deposit.

In case of Matigara-Nax-albari constituency, where Rahul Gandhi had addressed a ‘large gathering’, BJP candi-date Anandamay Barman has won the seat with a whopping 58.1 per cent votes, while TMC candidate Rajen Sundas stood second as it secured 28.65 per cent votes and Congress was pushed to the third slot with just 9.58 per cent vote share.

Besides a team of experts, Italy’s medical assistance to India comprised an oxygen generation plant and 20 ventilators PTI

CHANDIGARH: A day after ordering more state-wide curbs, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Monday warned he will be forced to consider a total lockdown if people do not follow restric-tions and the COVID-19 situ-ation does not improve.

He said he will not allow Punjab to go the way of some other states where patients can be seen, according to him, lying on the road.

On Sunday, his govern-ment ordered the closure of all shops not selling essential com-modities, barred over 50 per cent attendance at government offices and made a coronavi-rus-negative report or a vac-cination certificate mandatory for people entering the state.

These curbs, in addition to measures like a weekend lockdown and a night curfew announcd earlier, will be in force till May 15.

Now, according to an offi-cial statement, the CM has warned of harsher steps.

Chairing a review meeting on Monday, Singh said he is not in favour of a complete and harsh lockdown.

The CM said he has so far refrained from ordering a sweeping lockdown because it will hurt the poor the most and lead to an exodus of migrant labourers, plunging industries into chaos again.

However, if the people do not stringently comply with the restrictions in place, harsher steps might have to be taken, he said.

The chief minister said Punjab is currently in a soft lockdown situation, with strong curbs in place and addi-tional restrictions imposed on Sunday.

Punjab is among the worst-affected states in the second

wave of the COVID-19 pan-demic. On Sunday, it registered a record 157 deaths and 7,327 new infections.

Underlining the need to step up preparedness amid pro-jections of a coronavirus peak in the coming days, the CM ordered a 20 per cent increase in bed capacity in the next 10 days. He directed the Health and Medical Education depart-ments to get stadiums, gymna-siums and similar places ready to house patients.

Tented camps should be set up and gyms and halls con-verted into level-2 and level-3 facilities, he said, adding that we have to be prepared for the worst .

The CM ordered a ban on takeaway services at restau-rants, saying this was being used by youngsters as a pretext to move out of their homes. Only home delivery of food should be allowed, he said.

The CM said industry should be encouraged to use their CSR (corporate social responsibility) funds for vac-cination and treatment of their workers suffering from mild or moderate illness, so that they can stay at home, thus reducing pressure on hospitals.

Singh directed the use of staff from rural development and other departments for tracing Covid contacts in rural areas.

The directives came as Health Minister Balbir Sidhu said the situation was grim with only 300 beds now available at level-3 in the state. Hospi-tals were getting overwhelmed, he added.

Health Secretary Hussan Lal said the state's positivity rate had on Sunday stood at 12 per cent, with the Malwa region showing increased cases in the last 7-10 days.

With level-3 occupancy at 90 per cent and in some cases 100 per cent, the situation was grim, he said.

Case fatality rate (CFR) was close to 2 per cent and higher –at 2.7 per cent –in rural areas. Home deaths currently were also at 2 per cent, he said.

He added that the worry-ing factor was that 17 per cent of the all deaths had no comor-bidity condition.

Dr K K Talwar, head of the state's Covid expert committee, stressed on the monitoring of home isolation cases to identify serious patients quickly, partic-ularly in rural areas. MPOST

Cong ‘biggest loser’ in West Bengal elections

A shopkeeper during a shutdown imposed as a new guideline to prevent the spread of Covid-19, in Amritsar, on Monday PTI

NEW DELHI: The CBI has registered an FIR against for-mer Kerala police officials for allegedly framing space scien-tist Nambi Narayanan on false charges in the 1994 ISRO espi-onage case, officials said on Monday.

The CBI has officially refused to comment on the names of the accused in the FIR and the specific charges, but sources have said several former officials of the Kerala police have been named.

The Supreme Court, on April 15, directed the CBI to conduct further investiga-tion into the allegations of the framing of Narayanan on false charges by the police, based on the findings of a three-member committee under retired apex court judge Justice DK Jain.

The court had also ordered that the findings of the com-mittee should not be published.

"On the basis of the report, the Supreme Court directed the CBI to proceed in the matter in accordance with law, being a court-directed enquiry," CBI

Spokesperson Joshi said.Accordingly, the CBI has

registered a case, he added.Narayanan (79), who was

working at ISRO's Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre (LPSC), was absolved of the espionage charges following the CBI probe. He had approached the Supreme Court seeking action against Kerala police officials.

Narayanan, the then direc-tor of the cryogenic project at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), along with the then ISRO deputy director D Sasikumaran, were

arrested by the Kerala police in the 1994 case pertaining to the alleged selling of secret docu-ments to Pakistan through a Maldivian woman, Rasheeda.

The police registered two cases at Thiruvananthapuram's Vanchiyoor police station in October and November of 1994 over stay beyond visa limits and espionage respectively against Rasheeda, who was arrested in the state capital for allegedly obtaining secret drawings of ISRO rocket engines to sell to Pakistan.

The arrest during the Con-gress government in Kerala

assumed political colour when a section of the party leaders blamed the then chief min-ister K Karunakaran for the police action, leading to his resignation.

The cases were handed over to the Central Bureau of Inves-tigation (CBI), which gave a clean chit to Narayanan.

"In the espionage case, the CBI submitted a final report before the chief judicial mag-istrate, Ernakulam, which was accepted by the court. While submitting the said report, the allegations pertaining to espi-onage were found to be false," Joshi said.

Narayanan approached the Supreme Court against a Kerala High Court judgment that said no action needed to be taken against former state director general of police (DGP) Siby Mathews, who was then head-ing the SIT, and two retired superintendents of police –K K Joshua and S Vijayan –who were later held responsible by the CBI for the scientist's illegal arrest. AGENCIES

ISRO espionage case: CBI lodges FIR against ‘erring’ cops

Several former officials of Kerala police named in FIR

Curfew in UP extended by two days

SC TO CENTRE OVER OXYGEN

PHONE TAPPING

6 millenniumpostNationmpTUESDAY, 4 MAY, 2021 | NEW DELHI

COVID-19...On the vaccination front,

over 15.88 crore doses have been administered across the country so far. The country has admin-istered nearly 16.5 lakh vaccine doses till 8 pm on Monday. The cumulative number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the country stands at 15,88,71,435 as per the 8 pm provisional report on Monday. 2,15,185 ben-eficiaries of the age group 18-44 years received their first dose of COVID-19 vaccine on Monday across 12 States/UTs. According to the ICMR, 29,16,47,037 sam-ples have been tested up to May 2 with 15,04,698 samples being tested on Sunday.

Send in Army for beds...

In addition to this, Sisodia said that despite the Centre hav-ing increased Delhi’s allocation to 590MT per day, most of it was coming from far-off plants and sought the Army’s help to provide the Capital with cryogenic tankers to transport the LMO from the plants at the earliest.

Delhi’s Dy CM went on to

request that the Armed Forces also provide 40,000 D-Type medi-cal oxygen cylinders.

But even as the Centre said it was looking into the requests, Senior advocate Abhinav Vash-isht, one petitioner in the mat-ter, told the court, “We are going around in circles...it is a very complex problem. War footing requires Army to do it (taking over oxygen supply)…”

However, when senior advo-cate Krishnan Venugopal argued that the Delhi government should make a request directly to the local commanders in this regard to that the coordination time is reduced, Mehra responded by saying that the Centre might dis-approve of such a move and pre-ferred to wait for a response from the Defence Ministry first.

The court eventually said that once the approval is received for bringing in the Army to take over the oxygen supply chain, appro-priate directions will be passed.

“During the Commonwealth Gamers in the capital, a bridge collapsed during that time and the armed forces were brought it on an urgent basis…” Vashisht fur-ther told the court.

On this, the court said that it is conscious of the fact and has directed the Delhi government to look into the issue.

On this, senior advocate Rahul Mehra, on behalf of Delhi govern-ment submitted, “This will take a day or two to fructify...it was com-municated to the Raksha Mantri (Defense Minister) by the Deputy CM”.

Pfizer seeks...The company’s response came

after the Health Ministry in a statement refuted allegations that it has not placed any fresh orders for the Covishield vaccine with SII.

The Health Ministry earlier said that it has paid the entire advance of Rs 1,732.50 crore to SII for 11 crore doses of Covishield vaccine for three months — May, June and July. The ministry also said that another 5 rore doses of Covaxin have been ordered from Bharat Biotech India Ltd for the same months.

Can’t restrain.. media from...

Election Commission is a seasoned constitutional body, entrusted with the responsibility to ensure free and fair election in the country. It should not be rat-tled by the observations made.

“We cannot say in today’s time the media will not report the dis-cussions taking place in the court as it is also in public interest. The discussions that take place in courts are also important as is the order.”

“Therefore, unfolding of the process in the court of law is in public interest,” the bench said.

It said that the media is a pow-

erful watchdog of unfolding of the process in court of law and we cannot object to that reporting by media.

Justice Chandrachud said that judges ask questions to elicit response from lawyers and it does not mean that the court is against that person or body.

We have an Indian pattern of arguments in our courts. It’s not a monologue that one person will speak and then judges will speak. We have discussions here and there is an aspect of application of mind, the bench said.

SC directs Centre...

They may not have the ability to pay. “Whether or not essential vaccines will be made available to them will depend upon the deci-sion of each state government, based on its own finances, on whether or not the vaccine should be made available free or should be subsidised and if so, to what extent. This will create disparity across the nation. The vaccina-tions being provided to citizens constitute a valuable public good,” the bench said.

The bench, also comprising Justices L Nageswara Rao and Ravindra Bhat said, discrimina-tion cannot be made between dif-ferent classes of citizens who are similarly circumstanced on the ground that while the Central government will carry the burden

of providing free vaccines for the 45 years and above popula-tion, state governments will discharge the responsibility of the 18 to 44 age group on such commercial terms as they may negotiate.

“Prima facie, the rational method of proceeding in a man-ner consistent with the right to life (which includes the right to health) under Article 21 would be for the Central Government to procure all vaccines and to negotiate the price with vaccine manufacturers,” the court said.

The apex court said that once quantities are allocated by it to each state government, the latter would lift the allocated quantities and carry out the distribution.

“While we are not pass-ing a conclusive determina-tion on the constitutionality of the current policy, the manner in which the current policy has been framed would prima facie result in a detriment to the right to public health which is an inte-gral element of Article 21 of the Constitution.

“Therefore, we believe that the Central Government should consider revisiting its current vac-cine policy to ensure that it with-stands the scrutiny of Articles 14 (equality before law) and Article 21 (Protection of life and per-sonal liberty)of the Constitution,” it said.

At present, the two corona-virus vaccines — Covishield and Covaxin — are in use.

Hat-trick: Mamata to...

Before swearing-in as Chief Minister for the third consecu-tive term on Wednesday, Baner-jee called on Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar on Monday eve-ning and submitted her resigna-tion letter. “Congratulations @MamataOfficial for victory in the assembly polls and wished her a fruitful third term in office to serve the people of the State with dedication and commitment so that State regains past glory. Hon’ble CM @MamataOfficial called on me and submitted her resignation as CM and the same has been accepted. She has been requested to continue till alter-native arrangements are made,” Dhankhar tweeted.

MLAs will take the oath of secrecy at the state Assembly on May 6. Subsequently, the oath-taking ceremony of Cabinet mem-bers will be held.

This time, the swearing-in cer-emony will be held as a low-key affair, considering the Covid situ-ation. Banerjee held the swearing-in ceremony after winning the 2016 Assembly polls in Red Road with chiefs of all political parties in the Opposition across the state pouring in to congratulate her. This time too, Banerjee will be hosting a brigade rally, once the Covid situation is over, in which senior leaders of all national

political parties in the Opposition would be present.

She said Shiv Sena president and Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh and superstar Rajinikanth had called her up to congratulate.

Banerjee urged all the elected MLAs of her party to give prior-ity to check the spread of Covid in their respective areas. She directed them to curb post-poll violence as well. MLAs, including Firhad Hakim, Sobhandeb Chattopad-hyay, Debasish Kumar, Nirmal Maji, Tapas Roy, Kanchan Mul-lick, Aditi Munshi, Lovely Moitra and Raj Chakraborty stated that there was no time to talk about BJP now as the primary focus was to work for people, especially in this pandemic period.

Meanwhile, TMC will move court against the Election Com-mission of India for its alleged bungling over the publication of results of the Nandigram Assem-bly seat, which finally led to the defeat of Mamata Banerjee by less than 2,000 votes.

Addressing a press conference, Trinamool Congress chairperson Mamata Banerjee, said: “They had announced me as the winning candidate. The Governor congrat-ulated me and then they declared me as the losing candidate. Our party has done so well in the elec-tion and it is amazing that here it could not do well,” she said.

From Page 1

SATARA: Civic authorities at the popular hill station Maha-baleshwar have asked a pri-vate club to shut down its golf course ground after a video of industrialist Anil Ambani tak-ing a walk there went viral on social media. Ambani who is in Mahabaleshwar along with his wife Tina and children was seen taking an evening walk at the golf course recently despite the lockdown-like restrictions in the state not allowing any such activity, sources said.

The notice issued by Maha-baleshwar Council chief officer Pallavi Patil warned of action under the Disaster Manage-ment Act, Indian Penal Code, and Epidemic Diseases Act if the establishment does not bar people from coming there for morning or evening walks dur-

ing the ongoing restrictions."A video of Anil Ambani

along with some family mem-bers taking a walk at the ground went viral on social media. After verifying the video, we slapped a notice on The Club, which owns the ground, instructing them to bar the entry of people com-ing for morning and evening walks," Patil said.

The ground has been closed and the entry of people has been barred after the notice was issued, she said.

The 11-hole golf course from the British era, set amidst a deep and evergreen forest is a serene spot amid the hustle and bustle of the iconic hill station, a resident said.

An official said the Amba-nis arrived in Mahabaleshwar much before the recent Coro-navirus-induced restrictions came into force and have been living in a bungalow here.

Located about 120 km southwest of Pune and 280 km from Mumbai, Mahabaleshwar is a vast plateau bound by val-leys on all sides. It is the source of the Krishna river that flows across Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. MPOST

MUMBAI: Senior IPS offi-cer Rashmi Shukla moved the Bombay High Court on Mon-day, seeking no coercive action against her in connection with an FIR registered by Mumbai police in a case of illegal phone tapping and alleged leaking of sensitive documents related to police postings. Shukla's advo-cate Sameer Nangre sought an urgent hearing of the plea, saying the petitioner, a senior IPS officer of 1988 cadre, was apprehending arrest in the case. Nangre also sought a direction to the police to not take any coercive action against Shukla.

"The approach of the State is to arm-twist the petitioner by a bogus and frivolous case," the plea alleged.

Shukla is currently serving

as additional director general of the Central Reserve Police Force's (CRPF) South Zone and is posted in Hyderabad.

An FIR was registered under the Official Secrets Act at the BKC cyber police station in Mumbai against unidentified persons for allegedly tapping phones illegally and leaking certain confidential docu-ments on the complaint filed by the Maharashtra Intelligence Department. The alleged tap-ping of phones had taken place when Shukla headed the state intelligence department.

BJP leader DevendraFad-navis had cited a letter pur-portedly written by Shukla to the then Director General of Police about alleged corruption in police transfers. MPOST

MUMBAI: The diversion of Mumbai's quota of liquid medical oxygen, currently in high demand for COVID-19 patients, to neighbouring Navi-Mumbal and Thane has led to its "short supply" in some hos-pitals here, the Brihanmum-bai Municipal Corporation has claimed.

BMC's Additional Com-missioner P Velrasu has demanded that local admin-istration officials be deployed at the refilling facilities of two companies in Navi Mumbai to

monitor and ensure smooth supply of the life-saving gas in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR).

He wrote a letter last week to Konkan divisional commis-sioner AnnasahebMisal, claim-ing that the diversion of liquid medical oxygen (LMO) had led to multiple distress calls of its "short supply" in some hospitals and on one occasion, patients were shifted to other medical facilities.

The Maharashtra govern-ment has fixed a quota of the

liquid medical oxygen for Mumbai, Thane, Navi Mumbai and other areas in the MMR, considering the huge increase in its demand due to a surge in COVID-19 cases, the let-ter said.

"It has been observed that the supply of LMO received for Mumbai quota has been diverted to NaviMumbal and Thane region from common suppliers," the BMC said in the letter, which was also marked to the Food and Drug Admin-istration (FDA) commissioner.

In spite of the allocation of LMO quota, its availability at re-fillers is decreased for the BMC by more than 50 per cent of the available quota, it said.

The BMC said the the sup-ply of LMO should be as per the quota fixed for a particu-lar region.

It also requested to deploy adeputy collector and a teh-sildar (revenue officer) at the refilling facilities of two com-panies in Navi Mumbai area, to monitor the supply and ensure smooth delivery of LMO, as per

the allocated quota."This will certainly help

in reducing the distress calls from hospitals and also avoid forceful transfer of patients or loss of human life due to unavailability of medical oxy-gen," the civic body said in the letter. The letter said the BMC-run hospitals receive some liquid medical oxygen in jumbo tanks and a part of the LMO is diverted to re fillers, who in-turn provide filled cylinders to the civic medical facilities. MPOST

OUR CORRESPONDENT

MUMBAI: The Shiv Sena on Monday said the West Bengal election results have proved that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah are not invincible.

An editorial in the Sena mouthpiece 'Saamana' said out of four states (West Bengal, Assam, Tamil Nadu and Kerala) and a Union Territory (Puducherry) which recently went to polls, all eyes were on West Bengal.

"Instead of tackling the raging COVID-19 pandemic, the entire central government, including Prime Minister Modi, was in the poll arena of West Bengal to defeat (Chief Minister) Mamata Banerjee," it said.

On Sunday, Banerjee fended off a spirited challenge by a resurgent BJP in West Bengal with a landslide victory for her Trinamool Congress (TMC) party for a third consecutive term.

"The results have proved that despite having all the machinery and technology at their disposal, Modi-Shah are not invincible," the Marathi daily said.

The Shiv Sena, which shares power in Maharashtra with the NCP and Congress, did not contest the West

Bengal polls, but extended its support to Banerjee.

West Bengal had to go through eight phases of voting, the editorial noted, and claimed the BJP used money, power and government machinery to defeat Mamata Banerjee.

"The BJP lost and the corona won. This is a one-line analysis of the Bengal poll results," the editorial said.

With the single aim to win West Bengal, Modi and Shah entered the poll fray, held massive rallies and roadshows, violating all COVID-19 safety rules, it alleged.

It said the Madras High Court has blamed the Election Commission for the spread of COVID-19 due to the long-drawn campaign in the states where polls were recently held, especially West Bengal.

The Sena asked who will take the responsibility of the BJP's performance in the polls.

Except for Assam and Puducherry, the BJP has not done well (in other states which went to polls), it said. "The people of West Bengal need to be complimented for not falling prey to an artificial wave and for unitedly standing up for their own prestige. The country should learn from Bengal," the editorial said.

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court has directed the Centre to prepare a buffer stock of oxy-gen for emergency purposes in collaboration with states and decentralise the location of the stocks so that it is immediately available if the normal supply chain is disrupted.

A three-judge bench headed by Justice D Y Chan-drachud said the emergency stocks shall be created within the next four days and replen-ished on a day-to-day basis, in addition to the existing alloca-tion of medical oxygen supply to the states.

“We direct the central gov-ernment in collaboration with the states to prepare a buffer stock of oxygen to be used for emergency purposes to ensure supply lines continue to func-tion even in unforeseen cir-cumstances. The location of the emergency stocks shall be decentralised so as to be imme-diately available if the normal

supply chain is disrupted to any hospital for any reason,” the bench said.

“The emergency stocks shall be created within the next four days. The replenishment of the emergency stocks will also be monitored on a real-time basis through the virtual con-trol room in active consulta-tion with each state/UT. This is in addition to the day to day allocations,” it added.

Noting that the situation on the ground in Delhi is heart-rending, the top court also directed the Centre to ensure that the deficit in the supply of oxygen to the national capital is rectified before May 3 mid-night. It said lives of citizens cannot be put in jeopardy in the battle of shifting responsibility of supply of oxygen.

“The protection of the lives of citizens is paramount in times of a national crisis and the responsibility falls on both the central government and the GNCTD to cooperate with each other to ensure that all

possible measures are taken to resolve the situation,” the bench also comprising justices L Nag-eswara Rao and Ravindra Bhat said.

On the issue of treatment in hospitals, the top court directed the Centre to formulate within two weeks a national policy on admissions to hospitals in the wake of the second wave of COVID-19.

“Till the formulation of such a policy by the central government, no patient shall be denied hospitalisation or essen-

tial drugs in any state/UT for lack of local residential proof of that state/UT or even in the absence of identity proof,” the bench said.

It also directed the Centre and the state governments to notify that any clampdown on information on social media or harassment caused to indi-viduals seeking help on any platform will attract coercive action. “The central govern-ment and state governments shall notify all chief secretar-ies, directors-general of police,

commissioners of police that any clampdown on informa-tion on social media or harass-ment caused to individuals seeking/delivering help on any platform will attract a coercive exercise of jurisdiction by this court. “The registrar (judicial) is also directed to place a copy of this order before all district magistrates in the country,” it said in an order uploaded on the SC website late on Sunday night.

The top court also directed the Centre to revisit its initia-tives and protocols, includ-ing the availability of oxygen, availability and pricing of vac-cines, and availability of essen-tial drugs at affordable prices.

It asked senior advocates Jaideep Gupta and Meenakshi Arora, appointed as amicus curiae, to collate and compile these suggestions submitted by various parties. The matter is listed for the next hearing on May 10. The directions were passed in a suomotu case for ensuring essential supplies and

services during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The bench has taken up issues such as the projected demand for oxygen in the country at present and in the near future, how the govern-ment intends to allocate it to “critically affected” states and its monitoring mechanism to ensure supply.

The Supreme Court had earlier made clear that any attempt to clamp down on the free flow of information on social media, including a call for help from people, would be treated as contempt of the court.

“There should be free flow of information; we should hear voices of citizens. This is a national crisis. There should not be any presumption that the grievances raised on the Internet are always false. Let a strong message be sent to all the DGPs that there should not be any kind of clampdown,” the bench had said while reserving its order on April 30.

NEW DELHI: The Centre on Monday said medical oxy-gen being given to COVID-19 patients, especially in hospitals, should be used “judiciously” and claimed that there was “shortage” of the life-giving gas in the country.

At a routine briefing on steps taken by the government to battle the COVID-19 crisis, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) Piyush Goyal told reporters that mul-tiple efforts were being under-taken to enhance production and quickly transport oxygen to the hospitals and patients.

“It is very important for all the hospitals that they ensure judicious use of oxygen as per the guidelines issued in this context by the Union Health Ministry. Many efforts are being undertaken in this con-text and we are getting positive results also.”

“We need to continuously monitor this so that very judi-cious use of oxygen is under-taken,” Goyal said.

He appealed to the citizens to not get “jittery about the lack

of oxygen in the country.”“Oxygen is available in ade-

quate quantity in the country and efforts are being made to transport it to hospitals in the shortest possible time.”

“If we undertake this battle together, I have no doubt that we will be victorious,” the offi-cer said.

Goyal was speaking to reporters in the presence of Joint Secretary, Union Health Ministry Lav Agarwal and AIIMS Director Dr Randeep Guleria.

The country is grappling with a raging second wave of the pandemic with lakhs of patients and their family members anxiously scouring for oxygen beds in hospitals, cylinders, medicines and other medical facilities.

Goyal also sought the sup-port of citizens in ensuring that no “hoarding or black marketing” of oxygen cylin-ders takes place so that these are made available to patients who are gasping for breath due to the coronavirus infection. AGENCIES

‘Prepare buffer stock for emergencies’No shortage of oxygen

in country; use it judiciously, says Govt

Bengal poll results show Modi-Shah not invincible, says Sena

‘O2 quota being diverted to Thane, Navi Mumbai’

IPS officer Shukla moves HC against FIR

Maha club asked to shut golf course after Anil Ambani walk

NEW DELHI: Black market-ing of critical COVID-19 drugs and oxygen is a condemnable attempt to exploit peoples’ misery, the Supreme Court has said, directing the Centre to consider constituting a spe-cial team to identify and pros-ecute offenders. The apex court also said that a protocol must be evolved for ambulances to avoid extraction of unconscio-nable charges from citizens and the Centre can consider creat-ing a platform for easy report-ing and redressal of such cases.

A bench headed by Justice D Y Chandrachud noted that several critical drugs such as Remdesivir and Tocilizumab, are being sold at significantly inflated prices or in fake form.

“This is a condemnable attempt to exploit peoples’ mis-ery and profit from their help-lessness,” the apex court said in its order uploaded on its web-site on late Sunday night.

“In order to clamp down on this practice, the Central Government can consider con-stituting a special team to iden-tify and prosecute those who: (a) sell medical grade oxygen/COVID-19 medicines at exor-bitant prices; and (b) sell fake substances and recover the concerning substances,” said the bench, also comprising Jus-tices L Nageswara Rao and S Ravindra Bhat. AGENCIES

Virus drugs being sold at inflated prices: SC

‘Lives cannot be put in jeopardy in battle of shifting responsibility of supply of oxygen’

7millenniumpost Editorial mpNEW DELHI | TUESDAY, 4 MAY, 2021

Expanding the base

Achilles heel

Replication of MGNREGA’s resounding success to urban area is an emergent need

Though Pakistan has historically strived for a Taliban-dominant regime in Afghanistan, absolute power to the terror group will be contrary to its interests

Ever since I joined the IAS in 1978 there have been numerous schemes catering to

the creation of employment in the rural areas. I recall that we used to implement NREP (National Rural Employment Programme) and RLEGP (Rural Employment Guaran-tee Programme). The main objective of the schemes was the creation of employment and even at that time, I felt that there should be a greater focus on the creation of productive assets along with the genera-tion of employment. I remem-ber constructing primary schools with NREP funds in district Ghazipur, UP as a pilot which was later on appreciated by the state government. Look-ing at the positive impact of these schemes Government of India in 2006-07 launched the MGNREGA (Mahatma Gan-dhi National Rural Guaran-tee Act) in the year 2000 for the most backward blocks of the country. Subsequently, it was extended to 130 more blocks in 2007-08 and then finally to the entire country in 2008-09. The scheme had the backing of an Act of the Parliament and it was a rights-based approach having a clear legal framework. The Act pre-scribed that anybody in rural India who was desirous of get-ting employment could apply for the same and his Job Card would be prepared after which he would be given up to 100 days of employment in a year. The funds of MGNREGA were to be spent in such a manner that 60 per cent would be spent on the labour component and 40 per cent on the materials. This did lead to the creation of productive assets along with

the generation of employments but it was a safety net for the poor unemployed in the rural areas. A shelf of projects was prepared for each village and works taken up accordingly. Immediate payment through a bank account was to be made to the beneficiary.

March 20 onwards, we have been in the grip of a pandemic that has led to people losing jobs and slipping back into poverty. We all witnessed the sorry spectacle of thousands of migrant labourers losing their jobs and returning to their vil-lages with no source of income. The MGNREGA became a life-saver for them at a time of tre-mendous economic crisis. Almost all the states resorted to this scheme, more evidently in the poorer states of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.

A comparative study shows that MGNREGA led to an increase in person days gen-erated from 265.35 crore to 385.89 crore (45.43 per cent

increase) between 2019-20 and 2020-21. It also shows that there was a 68.9 per cent increase in the number of households completing 100 man-day’s employment and there was a 37.59 per cent increase in the total number of households getting employ-ment. The total number of employed individuals went up from 7.88 crore to 11.17 crore showing a 41.7 per cent increase. The total expenditure on the scheme also went up by 62.13 per cent.

Apart from the pandemic, MGNREGA has penetrated to 40 per cent of the rural house-holds and has on average pro-vided 40 to 55 days of work per household. Various eval-uation studies have shown that the additional income earned through MGNREGA has increased the purchasing power of the people leading to improved quality of life for them. The poor have been able to afford food, spend more on

the education of children and on health as well as on buying household goods and paying back debts. In particular, the impact on migration of labour-ers has been significant, lead-ing to a three to four per cent reduction in the figure. In addi-tion, it has led to women get-ting employment and wages equal to men helping them to become financially indepen-dent and also providing food security. It has also helped in creating useful assets for the community. It is significant to note that MGNREGA has had a positive impact on cli-mate change as two-thirds of the projects taken up under MGNREGA have been in the natural resource management area like soil fertility, tree plan-tation and water conservation. In fact, more than 70 per cent of the projects have been related to water conservation and irri-gation. This has led to the cre-ation of a large carbon sink to sequestrate carbon.

The scheme can indeed be implemented better at the field level if certain actions are taken. First of all the scheme involves the mobilization of the community which should be done on priority basis to see that the benefits of the scheme reach the beneficiary. In fact, social audit is used as a tool for the community to monitor the implementation of the scheme and has given a lot of positive results. It is important to carry out extensive capacity-building of the Panchayati raj function-aries and also train the block and village level staff properly so that they are motivated and in a position to implement the scheme as per its objectives. There is also a case for increas-ing the maximum number of

days prescribed from 100 to 150 to provide more relief to the people and also to increase the wage rate being given. Here, I must mention that one con-sequence of MGNREGA has been that the general wage rate in rural India has gone up about which the farmers sometimes complain. I think one should seriously consider having some flexibility in the labour and material component ratio to allow more projects of impor-tance to be taken up. To make the scheme a success genuine, participatory planning must be ensured. More women should be given employment and the most important thing is the timely flow of funds so that wages are paid on time.

If properly implemented this scheme can be a game-changer. There is a case for not only continuing it with higher allocation but expand-ing it, particularly as the corona pandemic has still not abated. I personally used the scheme to counter the severe drought in the Bundelkhand area of Uttar Pradesh and not only gave life-saving employment to people but also implemented a lot of water conservation and har-vesting measures. This is one of those schemes of the Gov-ernment which has had a very positive outcome. There is, in these times of unemployment, an immediate need to widen the scope of this scheme and implement it in urban areas also where they can focus on water-related projects. MGN-REGA, both in rural and urban areas, would be an excellent response to the problems of poverty and unemployment.

The writer is an ex-Chief Sec-retary, Govt of Uttar Pradesh. Views expressed are personal

ALOK RANJAN

Log on to write letters to the editor or send them to letter2editor.mp@gmail.com. You can also send your comments to The Editor,

Millennium Post, Pratap Bhawan, 5 Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi 110 002

DearEditor

This is the first election in the last five decades fought in Tamil Nadu without the presence of the icons of Dravidian politics and it may have well seen the emergence of one, perhaps two. Now the state has newly elected MLA and to-be-CM, M K Stalin is well suited for this new generation, the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). He is 68 years old and has been finally been there which he awaited for five long decades by his father and one of the leading lights of the Dravidian movement, the late Muthuvel Karunanidhi. However, the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) haven’t done as badly it was expected with the weight of alliance with the BJP which was more like a liability rather than an asset for the state. Stalin, because of his genealogy, long years in politics and two successive wins, in 2019, when the DMK led grouping won 38 of the 39 Lok Sabha seats in the state, and now, can stake his claim to being the next Dravidian icon.

In Pakistan, lines between the religio-politico-mil-itaristic realms are dan-gerously blurred. In 1974,

Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto tasked a Dehradun-schooled (Royal Indian Military College) Pashtun officer, Major Gen-eral Naseerullah Babar, to con-duct an uprising against the Royalist Afghan government of Sardar Mohammed Daoud Khan – it was the first time the Pakistanis had intervened militarily and surreptitiously into Afghanistan. Amongst the warlords that General Babar had engaged included Gulbud-din Hekmatyar (‘Butcher of Kabul’ and the progenitor of the Taliban) and the Tajik war-lord, Ahmed Shah Massoud.

Ironically, General Babar’s meteoric rise and a seamless shift from the ‘Olive Green’ to the ‘shalwar-kameez’ of poli-tics was temporarily cut short by yet another Pakistani offi-cer, General Zia-ul-Haq, whose rabid ambition to usurp power and meddle in Afghanistan was unmatched, albeit, with additional support from the US-CIA. The post-Zia years saw the return of the Bena-zir Bhutto government, and amongst the people that she chose was her father’s loyalist, General Babar – this time, as the powerful Federal Minister of Interior (Indian equivalent of ‘Home Minister’). In his sec-ond political coming, General Babar earned the sobriquet as the ‘Father of the Taliban’ for his covert and invaluable sup-port to the ragtag brigands.

Around the same time, another pushy and shadowy Pakistani officer and the Chief of Army, General Mirza Aslam Beg (amongst the prime sus-pects in the General Zia’s con-troversial air crash), coined the doctrine of ‘Strategic Depth’ in Afghanistan. Importantly, its objective was not expan-sionism from a cartographi-cal sense (Afghanistan as the ‘graveyard of invaders’, is well-understood in Pakistan), but to ensure ‘peaceful, friendly and stable’ Afghanistan — effec-tively implying, the virtual con-trol of the Afghan narrative and

the beholden status to Pakistan. Like any unhinged Pakistani officer, General Mirza, pan-dered recklessly to the religious conservatives. Even though General Mirza’s successors were professional and upright officers, the seeds of ‘Strate-gic Depth’ were too politically tempting to renege. Pakistan’s geopolitical hunger saw its trained-funded-guided Taliban storm Kabul on September 27, 1996, to establish the Islamist Emirate of Afghanistan.

Through the testy tenure of the Taliban (1996-2001), forewarning by the then US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, of Pakistani ISI treating Taliban as a ‘strategic hedge’ were ignored. But the Paki-stani support for the Taliban fell deliberately short of ensuring a truly Talibanised Afghanistan and instead sought a depen-dent/vassal status for the Taliban. Duplicitously, the Pak-istanis feigned selective support to the US in its ‘war on terror’, to not forego the US ‘aid’ and leverage. The high stakes and manipulatively double-game of the Pakistanis was under-stood in Washington DC, but due to unavoidable circum-stances, geography and com-mitments, the Pakistanis were always on the table, when it came to Afghanistan.

Taliban are a heterogeneous

entity with explosive faultlines within, held together by their medieval and totalitarian out-look that has enough ‘bind’ when in opposition — but when entrusted with power, the collectiveness of Taliban is grossly suspected. Pakistan supports only specific elements within the Taliban and often plays one against the other. Looming nationalistic under-currents of Pashtunistan which subliminally resonates on both sides of the Durand Line that divides Pashtun families and clans, is vulnerable to eruption, should the current fixation with ‘foreigners’ (read, US/NATO troops) subside.

Only a ‘dominant’ posi-tion for the Taliban (like ear-lier, when it controlled 80 per cent land, and was fighting for the rest, unsuccessfully) is pref-erable to Pakistani interests, as opposed to the complete control of Afghanistan, by the Taliban — as then the distrac-tion, reliance and ‘sustenance lifeline’ afforded by Pakistan/ISI for the Taliban to continue waging its internal wars, may not be required anymore! Paki-stan hosts the lawless Pashtun swathes along the Af-Pak bor-der, with over three million restive Afghan refugees on its soil. With no internal strife, the Taliban could train their focus on their Pashtun breth-

ren and their perceived woes in Pakistan.

Despite the initial and sim-plistic euphoria surrounding the US troops pullout among the Pakistanis with the fructi-fication of its ‘Deep State’ aspi-rations, the experience and the evolving realities point to an equally worrisome and delete-rious picture for Pakistan. The Talibanis do not take too kindly to external interferences, espe-cially when not required, and certainly not from the state of Pakistan which evokes com-plex historical memories. In its natural raw form, the moorings of the Taliban are unaligned to the relatively moderate prefer-ences of the Pakistani Military which only uses religion tac-tically to galvanise emotions and distract people. The Fran-kensteinian fear of pandering to extremist ideologues was brought home in the horrific Peshawar Army School attack that resulted in 156 deaths, mostly children of Pakistani Army personnel. Even earlier, multiple failed assassination attempts on previous President Pervez Musharraf (who had once called the Taliban a ‘stra-tegic asset’), had pointed to the mutative nature of Islamist ter-ror groups, who are known by the collective denomination of Taliban. Former Pakistani Army Chief Raheel Sharif had launched Operation Zarb-e-Azb against many insurgent groups and conceptualized the more holistic National Action Plan. His successor, General Parvez Kayani, too kept up the tempo in the Af-Pak region, but murmurs of ‘selectivity’, ‘double-dealing’ and ‘sym-pathetic elements within the Pakistani ‘establishment’, per-sisted. General Kayani had gone to the extent of calling out the boomeranged threat by admitting, “We as a nation must stand united against this threat”, but to little impact as Pakistan persisted with its Afghan meddling in the pat-ented Pakistani manner, where the left hand does not know about what the right hand is up to! Clearly, Pakistan continues playing with fire.

The first port of societal destabilisation in a second Tali-ban regime in Afghanistan will be Pakistan, undoubtedly. Just recently the Pakistanis got a taste of pandering to the home-grown extremist sentiment with the embarrassing capitu-lation towards Tehreek-e-Lab-baik Pakistan (TLP). Now, if the TLP which cannot even remotely be compared to the Taliban in terms of sheer fire-power or ferocity could bring Islamabad to its knees, then having Afghanistan run by the Taliban who respect no inter-national law or authority, will be a completely different ball game. Tellingly, even though the Pakistani Taliban and the TLP are divided on ideologi-cal lines (TLP subscribes to the Barelvi movement whereas the Pakistani Taliban is influ-enced by the rival Panj Peer and Deobandi schools), the unusually warm condolence message by the Pakistani Tali-ban following the death of the TLP leader, Khadim Hussain Rizvi, has significant ramifica-tions and import.

Overall, on terror, the Paki-stani ‘establishment’ realises that it has bitten more than it can chew and needs to do major course correction. How-ever, vested interests, political short-termism and rudderless leadership have ensured that the Pakistanis keep walking deep into the religious mine-field and with a possible Tal-iban-run Afghanistan, it will be the worst self-goal and not the ‘Strategic Depth’, as once envisaged. Prime Minister Imran Khan repeatedly talks about Pakistan being ‘the big-gest victim of terror’ — he does so unconvincingly with the full knowledge of how it all started, though he is statistically right about the Pakistani body count owing to terror, and with the inevitable Taliban-run Afghan-istan looming, the terror num-bers will spiral for Pakistan, before anywhere else.

The writer is the former Lt Governor of Andaman

and Nicobar Islands & Puducherry. Views

expressed are personal

Proper implementation of MGNREGA in rural and urban areas could prove out to be game-changer

— ANSHITA ROCHWANI, UJJAIN via email

Pakistan could be an immediate sufferer if the Taliban assumes full control of Afghanistan

EDITORIALAt the frontlines

Among the many harrowing tales you hear or don’t get to hear on the frontlines of Covid worldwide are the struggles of those bring-ing you those stories. As society retreated

from public life into the relative safety at home, journal-ists worldwide continued to bring vital stories, tragic sto-ries, even hopeful ones at times. To a journalist, covering COVID-19, besides being a major health hazard, is also a job. There is no real option to retreat as the news cycle must always go on. And they have paid the price for tak-ing these risks as well. The Press Emblem Campaign has noted that worldwide, at least 1,200 journalists have died in the last year as a result of Covid. India is noted to be third on the list with the highest number of journalists dying from COVID-19, behind Peru and Brazil. By the end of April, the toll for Indian journalists stood at 107, with 45 of those coming in just two weeks. This estimate, as with the case of all Covid estimates, is not likely to be the full picture of how widespread the problem actually is. Beyond just a human tragedy, this is tragic for different reasons as well. In India, just as is the case with the world, journalists have been recognised as vital frontline workers. They are permitted to move around even when restrictions are in place. But, unlike other frontline workers, journal-ists have been left out of the discussion when it comes to priority vaccinations of those working on the frontlines of the pandemic. While many have managed to transition to a more work from home oriented model, not everyone has been quite so lucky. Freelance journalists, reporters and obviously visual journalists are even more at risk because their work generally precludes them from safely sheltering in place. The risks for journalists in such times come from many different avenues. To begin with, many have not had adequate equipment to protect themselves when going out onto the Covid frontlines. This was especially the case last year when there was a scramble to secure PPEs, sanitis-ers, etc. As coverage of the pandemic requires a dangerous level of contact with the contagion, ordinary precautions — wearing a mask, safe social distancing, sanitation, etc. — are sometimes not enough. Sure, you could get yourself that extra mask, a face visor, etc. But then the list of pre-cautions never end and even then, there is simply no guar-antee of safety when you expose yourself to the virus every single day at such an intimate range. And this is not all. There were several cases of journalists last year facing the same kind of harassment as other frontline workers as they were perceived to be tainted carriers of the disease. Death threats, attempts at eviction, etc., are all additional trag-edies that many journalists experienced as they strived to keep society informed in its darkest hour. Taken together with the compounding toll of job and income insecurity, family tragedies and other such uncertainties, the mix-ture becomes a toxic one indeed. But what can be done? The news must go on. But this is not to say that nothing can be done to alleviate the risk that is taken on by front-line journalists. Vaccines are the key to helping us end this pandemic, it is also the key to keeping our frontline work-ers relatively safe. This is precisely what many in India and across the world are demanding. Recognise journalists as true frontline workers and give them priority inoculations so that they make continue their vital work without play-ing a game of Russian roulette every time they go to work. Organisations such as the Editors Guild of India have been urging the government to give priority vaccines to jour-nalists for some time. But journalists have not yet been added to the national list of priority vaccinations for front-line workers. But though the Centre has kept its silence regarding the matter, thankfully, a few of those in power have spoken up. The Indian states of Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Odisha have recently declared journalists to be vital frontline workers. Uttarakhand too had previously made such a declaration. Odisha not only announced that journalists would be inoculated as frontline workers but also went further by announcing an ex gratia amount of Rs 15 lakh for the next of kin of journalists who died of Covid in the line of duty. This is a hopeful start and possibly one that could and absolutely evolve into a much larger move-ment to recognise the on-job risks and sacrifices of jour-nalists who expose themselves to danger every day.

Tweet of the day

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Nirvachan Sadan new crematorium in Delhi. Constitutional body burnt here.

Apart from generating employment at scale, MGNREGA has ensured financial independence of women, strengthening of community, and a positive impact on the environment

The Frankensteinian fear of pandering to extremist ideologues was brought home the horrific Peshawar Army School attack that resulted in 156 deaths, mostly children of Pakistani Army personnel

millenniumpost.in

BHOPINDER SINGH

DMK BEATS ADMK

8 millenniumpostWorldmpTUESDAY, 4 MAY, 2021 | NEW DELHI

Nepal PM Oli to seek vote of confidence on May 10

KATHMANDU: Nepal's embattled Prime Minister K P Sharma Oli will seek a vote of confidence from Parliament on May 10 in his bid to stay in power.

President Bidya Devi Bhan-dari, on the recommendation of Prime Minister Oli, summoned a Parliament session on May 10 to obtain a vote of confidence in his government, according to an official statement on Sunday.

Oli, 69, requires at least 136 votes in the 275-member House of Representatives, the lower house of Parliament, to win the confidence motion as four members are currently under suspension.

During a Cabinet meet-ing on Sunday, Oli said that he would try to win the trust of Par-liament to stay in power, Nep-alease media reported.

Oli's decision comes amid the current chaotic state of polit-ical affairs in the country that emerged since the Prime Min-ister's controversial move to dissolve the House of Repre-sentatives in December last year.

The Prime Minister will seek a vote of confidence on May 10, Lila Nath Shrestha, Minister for Law, Justice and Parliamentary

Affairs, told the Kathmandu Post. This is just a day-long session.

Shrestha said Oli wants to take a vote of confidence to take the political process which has been stuck now, forward. The government believes it will win the vote of confidence. If not, the process will move forward for the formation of a coalition government.

This is also an opportu-nity for other parties to form the government otherwise the country will move in the direc-tion of the snap poll, he said.

Prime Minister Oli's deci-

sion to seek a confidence vote comes at a time when Nepal is grappling with the effects of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The country on Sunday reported a record 7,137 new cases of the Coronavirus, the highest daily surge. The national tally has crossed 329,000-mark. The death toll now stands at 3,325.

Nepal plunged into a politi-cal crisis on December 20 last year after President Bhan-dari dissolved the House and announced fresh elections on April 30 and May 10 at the rec-

ommendation of Prime Minis-ter Oli, amidst a tussle for power within the ruling Nepal Com-munist Party (NCP).

Oli's move to dissolve the House sparked protests from a large section of the NCP led by his rival Pushpa Kamal Dahal 'Prachanda', also a co-chair of the ruling party. In February, the apex court reinstated the dissolved House of Representa-tives, in a setback to embattled Prime Minister Oli who was preparing for snap polls.

A five-member Constitu-tional bench led by Chief Jus-tice Cholendra Shumsher JBR annulled the government's decision to dissolve the lower house of Parliament and ordered the government to summon the House session within the next 13 days. Oli repeatedly defended his move to dissolve the House of Representatives, saying some leaders of his party were attempting to form a "par-allel government".

As many as 13 writ petitions, including the one by the ruling Nepal Communist Party's Chief Whip Dev Prasad Gurung, were filed at the apex court seeking the restoration of the lower house of Parliament. AGENCIES

At least 26 die as speed boat overturns in Bangladesh river

DHAKA: An overcrowded speedboat ferrying over 30 passengers and defying the COVID-19 restrictions cap-sized after hitting a stationary sand-laden cargo vessel in the Padma River on Monday, leav-ing at least 26 people dead, a senior Bangladesh police offi-cer said.

The accident occurred at the old Kanthalbari ferry ter-minal in Shibchar upazila of Madaripur at around 8 am. The boat, driven by an inex-perienced driver, overturned in the Padma River in central Bangladesh while heading for Madaripur district from Mun-shiganj district.

Rescuers have retrieved at least 26 bodies, police said.

"We have retrieved 26 bod-ies, rescued alive five others . . . but searches are underway for more as several speedboat pas-sengers are feared missing," said Ashiqur Rahman, the police inspector of a nearby ferry ter-minal. He said that they were informed the driver of the speedboat was an inexperienced underage boy.

Witnesses and survivors said the boat was carrying over 30 passengers and the vessel was transporting sand in the Padma River near the town of Shibchar of Madaripur, he said.

Divers from the local fire service station and river police rushed to the spot and joined

the rescue operation, he added.All the deceased - one female

and 25 males - were passengers of the speedboat, the Daily Star newspaper reported.

The speedboat was carry-ing excess passengers, violat-ing the restriction imposed by the government amid the pandemic situation, the report quoted Madaripur Deputy Commissioner Rahima Khatun as saying. Bangladesh is under lockdown until Wednesday to stem the spread of Coronavirus.

The accident occurred as there was not sufficient light in the morning and also the driver was not skilled enough, Kha-tun said. A six-member inquiry committee has been formed to investigate the accident. Hun-dreds of people die each year in maritime accidents in Bangla-desh, a low-lying country that has extensive inland waterways and lax safety standards. AGENCIES

Oli requires at least 136 votes in 275-member House of Representatives, the Lower House of Parliament , to win

French high schools

reopen, travel ban eased

PARIS: France's second-ary and high schools have reopened and a ban on domes-tic travel has been lifted as part of the government's plan to gradually reopen the country.

The French are now allowed to go further than the 10-kilometer (six-mile) from home limit that has been applied for four weeks in efforts to slow down the spreading of the virus. A cur-few from 7 pm until 6 am is still in place.

Last week, President Emmanuel Macron has pre-sented the key dates of the plan to move out of the coun-try's partial lockdown, as numbers of infections and hospitalisations have started decreasing.

Restaurants and cafes will be able to serve customers outdoors at tables seating a maximum of six people start-ing May 19, when the nightly curfew will be pushed back to 9 pm. AGENCIES

Bangladesh extends lockdown till May 16DHAKA: Bangladesh on Mon-day extended ongoing nation-wide lockdown till May 16 to contain the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bangladesh clamped a week-long nationwide lock-down on April 5, suspending public transport and shutting markets to combat the surge in Coronavirus cases in the coun-try. The restrictions were later extended till April 28, then till May 5.

"The Cabinet has decided to further extend the lockdown till May 16," Cabinet Secretary Khandker Anwarul Islam told a media briefing here.

Islam said inter-district bus, train and ferry services would remain suspended until that timeline but public transports would be allowed to operate within cities maintaining health guidelines after May 5, when the latest round of the lockdown was scheduled to end.

At the same time, the gov-ernment will also monitor shopping centres and malls for strict compliance to health safety guidelines, put in place to contain COVID-19 spread, he said. If a shopping place is found to be failing to strictly enforce the safety rules, it will be shut down if needed, Islam said.

In face of growing demands, the government had granted permission for reopening shops and malls across the country from April 25, amid lockdown.

On April 26, Bangladesh closed its border with India

for two weeks in view of the sharp increase in the Corona-virus cases in the neighbour-ing country.

On Monday, Health Minis-ter Zahid Maleque said that the borders would remain closed until further order.

Health officials on Monday reported 65 COVID-19 deaths in the past 24 hours, taking the country's toll to 11,644. At least 1,739 new cases were recorded in the last 24 hours, taking the total number of people infected with the virus to 7,63,682.

A health ministry spokes-man said that both the statistics suggested the infection rate to have come down slightly in the past few days but "we fear the situation could be worse again if the health guidelines are not strictly maintained ahead and during the Eid festival".

Last week, Bangladesh recorded the lowest single-day death toll since April 6.

"There is no room for com-placency...the bad situation can return anytime coinciding with the Eid festival later this month," Directorate of Health Services (DGHS) spokesman Dr Nazmul Islam told the media. According to the latest count, the COVID-19 infection rate stood at 8.95 per cent on Monday while the figure shot up to 23.40 per cent on April 5.

The health minister said Bangladesh was expecting the arrival of 0.5 million doses of Chinese COVID-19 vaccines by May 10. AGENCIES

Australian PM defends ban on citizens returning from India

MELBOURNE: Australia's Prime Minister Scott Morri-son on Monday defended his government's decision to ban and impose a jail term and a penalty for Australians trying to return from India, saying it is in the country's best interests and to prevent a third wave of infections.

The Australian govern-ment, for the first time in his-tory, recently imposed a ban on its citizens from returning home, if they have spent time in India up to 14 days before flying back.

The government threatened to prosecute them with a possi-bility of five years of jail term or a penalty of 66,000 Australian dollars (USD 50,899).

Morrison said this is a tem-porary arrangement and a very difficult decision.

It has been put in place to ensure that we do not get a third wave here in Australia and that our quarantine sys-tem can remain strong, he said, adding that it is in the country's best interests.

He said that he feels terri-bly for the Indian community.

''We've seen a seven-fold increase in the rate of infec-tion of those in our Howard Springs facility coming back from India.

It's important that we ensure that we have a tempo-rary pause here to strengthen those arrangements in those quarantine facilities, get stron-ger testing arrangements, both when leaving India but also on people coming from third countries, Morrison said.

He said that he wants to get those repatriation flights run-ning safely again.

These are the things we have to do to ensure I can do that, so I can. We've already brought

home some 20,000 people from India through supported flights and facilitated flights, and they were just those who are regis-tered. And so that has been a big effort to get people home,'' the Prime Minister told 2GB radio channel.

We've had the Biosecurity Act in place now for over a year and no one's gone to jail there hasn't been any irresponsible use of those powers, he said.

Morrison said that there was clear advice from the chief medical officer that it was a decision that was supported and should be taken.

The Prime Minister was criticised by Opposition leader Anthony Albanese for aban-doning Australians in India and threatening the travellers with a penalty and a jail term.

Australia has obligations to our citizens, to people who are Australians not just to aban-don them overseas but then to threaten them is quite an extraordinary action, Albanese was quoted by media reports here on Sunday. AGENCIES

Russia lags behind others in COVID-19 vaccination drive

MOSCOW: While at the Park House shopping mall in northern Moscow, Vladimir Makarov saw it was offering the Coronavirus vaccine to cus-tomers, so he asked how long it would take.

It turned out it's simple here 10 minutes, he said of his expe-rience last month.

But Makarov, like many Muscovites, still decided to put off getting the Sputnik V shot.

Russia boasted last year of being first in the world to authorize a Coronavirus vac-cine, but it now finds itself lag-ging in getting its population immunized.

That has cast doubt on whether authorities will reach their ambitious goal of vacci-nating more than 30 million of country's 146 million people by mid-June and nearly 69 million by August. The vaccine reluc-tance comes as shots are readily available in the capital to any-one 18 or older at more than 200 state and private clinics, shopping malls, food courts, hospitals even a theater.

As of mid-April, over 1 mil-lion of Moscow's 12.7 million residents, or about 8 per cent, have received at least one shot, even though the campaign began in December.

That percentage is similar for Russia as a whole. Through April 27, only 12.1 million people have gotten at least one shot and only 7.7 million, or 5 per cent, have been fully vac-cinated. That puts Russia far behind the US, where 43 per cent have gotten at least one

shot, and the European Union with nearly 27per cent. Data analyst Alexander Dragan, who tracks vaccinations across Rus-sia, said last week the country was giving shots to 200,000-205,000 people a day.

In order to hit the mid-June target, it needs to be nearly double that.

We need to start vacci-nating 370,000 people a day, like, beginning tomorrow, Dragan told The Associated Press. AGENCIES

Spain nears 5 mn fully vaccinated

peopleMADRID: Spain's health minister said Monday that authorities expect to reach within 24 hours the mile-stone of 5 million peo-ple fully inoculated against COVID-19.

Health Minister Caro-lina Darias told reporters that Spain is on track for its goal of vaccinating before the sum-mer 70 per cent of the adult population, or around 33 mil-lion people.

Vaccination centers are working seven days a week, Darias, said, and by the first week of June some 10 million people will be fully inoculated.

Darias urged continuing caution.

She said Spain's COVID-19 incidence rate per 100,000 people over 14 days an impor-tant measure of the pandem-ic's spread is 229 but varies widely between regions, with some lower than 70 and others in the range of 400-500. AGENCIES

Germany's tourist Uwe Keim, center, wearing a face mask to protect against Coronavirus gets the first shot of Russia's Sputnik V Coronavirus vaccine in Moscow, Russia, Friday PTI

The boat, driven by an inexperienced driver, overturned in the Padma River in central Bangladesh while heading for Madaripur district from Munshiganj district

Scott Morrison PTI

K P Sharma Oli PTI

US denies Iran claims of prisoner deal; UK plays it down

WASHINGTON DC: The United States and Iran are in active talks over the release of prisoners, a person famil-iar with the discussions said Sunday as Washington denied a report by Iranian state-run television that deals had been struck.

Prisoner swaps between the US and Iran are not uncom-mon and both countries in recent years have routinely sought the release of detainees.

But any movement between the two countries is partic-ularly sensitive as the Biden administration looks to restart nuclear talks. A 2015 atomic accord between the nations included prisoner exchanges.

The issue burst into public view with a report in Iran of a deal for the Islamic Republic to release US and British pris-oners in exchange for Tehran receiving billions of dollars.

US officials immediately denied the report, though a person with knowledge of the discussions who was not authorised to discuss them publicly said talks are active, with messages passed between intermediaries.

It wasn't immediately clear if the report represented a move by the hard-liners run-ning the Iranian broadcaster to

disrupt negotiations with the West amid talks in Vienna on Tehran's tattered nuclear deal.

Even after an initial Amer-ican denial, an anchorwoman on Iranian state TV still repeated the announcement.

Some sources say four Iranian prisoners are to be released and USD 7 billion are to be received by Iran in exchange for releasing four American spies," the anchor-woman said.

She described the claimed deal as coming due to congres-sional pressure on President Joe Biden and his urgent need to show progress made in the Iran case.

But Iran's ambassador to the United Nations, Majid Takht-e Ravanchi, later denied the report of the prisoner swap, saying that it's not confirmed, according to the Telegram channel of state-run IRNA news agency.

Iran has always emphasized the comprehensive exchange of prisoners between the two countries," he said, without elaborating. State TV did not identify the Iranians that Teh-ran sought to be freed.

State Department spokes-man Ned Price immediately denied the Iranian state TV report. AGENCIES

9millenniumpost Business mpNEW DELHI | TUESDAY, 4 MAY, 2021

‘NO ROOM FOR VACCINE NATIONALISM’

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: Cautioning the global community against vac-cine nationalism at this hour of the COVID pandemic, India on Monday asked the devel-oped nations to share technol-ogy and allow free movement of critical components and raw material needed for production of vaccines.

Speaking at the annual meet of the Asian Develop-ment Bank (ADB), Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also underlined the need for a re-look at the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement in the context of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Countries will have to be open about sharing vac-cine-based technologies. The TRIPS agreement will have to be looked at in the context of the pandemic. There cannot be any more vaccine nationalism, countries will have to be flexible about it,” she said.

The TRIPS agreement is a legal pact between all the mem-ber nations of the World Trade Organization (WTO). It estab-lishes minimum standards for regulation by national govern-ments of different forms of intel-lectual property as applied to

nationals of other WTO mem-ber nations. The agreement has been in force from January 1995.

Participating in a virtual Governors’ seminar, Sithara-man said there is a need to have a global multilateral approach to deal with the COVID pandemic. One critical point in ramping up the production (of COVID vaccine) capacity is access to critical raw materials, she said.

“Although we speak about global value chain and the need for countries to open up trade and also facilitate free move-ment of raw materials, critical components, critical APIs and so on, we find that the move-ment of critical raw materials for production of vaccines is find-

ing certain hiccups. We would love that to be sorted out at the earliest so that India can pro-duce,” she said.

It is important that critical raw materials are available and made to flow freely, she said, adding, two more vaccines, including a nasal spray are in the offing to treat COVID.

Indian vaccine manufactur-ers, including Serum Institute of India (SII), faced problems in production last month as Europe and the US banned export of critical raw materials.

Tagging the Twitter handle of the President of the United States, SII CEO Adar Poon-awalla had tweeted, “Respected @POTUS, if we are to truly unite

in beating this virus, on behalf of the vaccine industry outside the U.S., I humbly request you to lift the embargo of raw mate-rial exports out of the U.S. so that vaccine production can ramp up. Your administration has the details.”

Ban was lifted post Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the US President Joe Biden dis-cussions on issues related to COVID crisis in India last week.

Modi had also discussed India’s initiative at the WTO for a relaxation in the norms of the agreement on TRIPS to ensure quick and affordable access to vaccines and medi-cines for developing countries.

Noting that India being a pharmaceutical hub, Sithara-man on Monday said, “we have readily and generously extended help for the global community earlier this year and we can see that gesture being returned as a favour now.”

She thanked the global com-munity for expressing solidar-ity with India at this time, when the country is in the grip of the second COVID wave.

Praising the efforts of two vaccine manufacturers includ-ing Bharat Biotech, she said they have definitely worked together with the government and kept their profit considerations aside.

They have given vaccines at an affordable price for the gov-ernment to distribute it freely for all citizens, she added.

Post pandemic, she said, “the future as I said, will have to be based on principles of openness, transparency, fairness, sustain-ability and inclusiveness”.

If you’re actually aiming at resilient and sustainable growth particularly coming out of the pandemic, she said, “I think, regional cooperation we have to focus on and multilateral institutions working towards building digital assets, creation of digital assets, and above all, giving education and health digitisation for all.”

As regards global climate action, she said, India is com-mitted to all the Paris agree-ment-based commitments and it is well on a course to fulfill all those commitments.

About efforts of the gov-ernment to keep the wheels of economy running during the pandemic, Sitharaman said the government extended financial assistance to various sectors.

Observing that MSMEs are the backbone of the economy, she said the government has extended financial assistance in terms of Rs 3 lakh crore loan guarantee to help them amid the pandemic.

NEW DELHI: The country’s sugar production has reached 29.91 million tonnes till April of the ongoing 2020-21 mar-keting season, industry body ISMA said on Monday.

With regard to sugar exports, mills have contracted for ship-ments of 5.4 to 5.5 million tonne so far. Out of which, 3.5 mil-lion tonne has been exported, while another 1 million tonne is expected to be done by this month, it said. On ethanol, Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) said mills have sup-plied 117.72 crore litres of etha-nol to oil marketing companies till April 19 of this year against the total contracted quantity of 302.53 crore litres, it added.

Releasing updated produc-tion figures, ISMA said mills across the country have pro-duced 29.91 million tonne of sugar during the October-April period of the 2020-21 marketing season (October-September).

ISMA has estimated sugar production to be 30.2 million tonne in the 2020-21 marketing season, higher than 27.42 mil-lion tonne achieved in the pre-vious season. As per the ISMA data, Sugar production in Uttar Pradesh, the country’s largest sugar-producing state, remained slightly lower at 10.56 million tonne till April of this year, as against 11.65 million tonne in the year-ago period.

Whereas the output in Maharashtra, the country’s sec-ond-largest sugar producer, rose substantially to 10.56 million tonne from 6.09 million tonne in the said period.Similarly, out-put in Karnataka, the country’s third-largest sugar-producing state, rose to 4.16 million tonne till April of this year as against

3.38 million tonne in the year-ago period.

Most mills in these key pro-ducing states are expected to close their operations in the next fortnight or so. In Karnataka, few mills might operate in the special season commencing July.

Bihar, Punjab, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Rajasthan and Odi-sha have already closed crushing operations, while one mill each is operating in Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Uttara-khand. On sugar exports, ISMA said there has been a positive response to the government’s

decision to swap the quota of sugar allocated for mandatory exports and for domestic sales during this year.

The government has already reallocated 1.05 million tonne of sugar and an additional 1,00,000 tonne has been real-located as per mill-wise export performance, it said. On etha-nol, about 7.36 per cent etha-nol blending with petrol has been achieved on an average in the country, while 11 states like Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka have done higher blending up to 10 per cent. PTI

MUMBAI: Seeking the resto-ration of their pre-COVID-19 monthly pay, Air India’s pilot body ICPA has said its mem-bers continue to be “punished with the harshest and longest-standing pay cuts in the domes-tic market”.

In yet another letter to Min-ister of State for Civil Aviation Hadreep Singh Puri, the Indian Commercial Pilots’ Associa-tion (ICPA) said the assur-ances given by the minister in the past acted like a bulwark against the alleged apathetic behaviour of the Air India man-agement towards the pilots dur-ing these trying times.

“However, more than 12 months into the COVID-19 pandemic, we find it quite

demoralising that even your office has not addressed any of our grievances,” the ICPA said in the letter on Monday.

Last April, disinvestment-bound Air India had cut its pilots salaries by a massive 55 per cent to deal with the liquid-ity crunch in the wake of the pandemic. It, however, restored 5 per cent wages from the total reduction last December, still leaving their salaries 50 per cent lower compared to the pre-pan-

demic times.“The second wave of the

COVID-19 pandemic is ravag-ing the country without mercy.

“We have painstakingly apprised you of our plight under the vicious and illegal pay cut instituted by the Air India man-agement (more than a year old now) through numerous rep-resentations and meetings,” the pilots’ union said.

It said the pay cut continues despite its members undertak-ing the longest, most challeng-ing and most diverse missions under the Vande Bharat scheme. “Now, to compound our woes, this deadlier second wave has gripped the country requiring travel restrictions on Indians worldwide due to the elevated

risks of infection.”“The number of passengers

and crew testing positive for COVID-19 has increased four-fold, and consequently, the rate of infections has shot up drasti-cally for the Air India pilots and also for our family members.

“It was already an uphill task to arrange timely medical sup-port like hospital beds and oxy-gen cylinders for our increasing numbers and now, the situation is becoming chaotic,” it said.

Stating that the pilots have not even been categorised as front line workers despite hav-ing been at the frontline from Day 1, the letter said: “Ironically, we were the first to get a pay cut but are the last to be considered for vaccination.” PTI

NEW DELHI: A court here has rejected the interim bail plea filed by former Fortis Healthcare promoter Malvin-der Mohan Singh in a money laundering case.

The accused had expressed apprehension that he may con-tract COVID-19 infection in the Tihar jail.

Additional Sessions Judge Sandeep Yadav declined the plea of Singh, who is in jail in a case related to alleged misap-propriation of funds at Religare Finvest Limited (RFL).

He approached the court praying to be released on an interim bail for two months, on the ground he was down with high fever from April 25 with

NEW DELHI: Industry body CII on Monday asked compa-nies to cut all non-essential eco-nomic activities that require the physical presence of employees at the workplace for the next two weeks to control the rising coronavirus cases.

CII President Uday Kotak said the industry should review operations and minimise the use of in-person manpower, limiting it to only critical oper-ations or activities required by the law.

All responsible corporates should strive to protect their

employees and ensure that their employee balance sheet remains healthy, he said in a statement.

He urged industry to cur-tail all non-essential economic activity requiring the physi-cal presence of employees at the workplace, for the next two week,” the chamber said, adding “this is necessary to break the chain of transmis-sion”. Many auto majors, such as Maruti Suzuki, Hero Moto-Corp, JCB India, MG Motor, Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India, have taken the lead in halting production temporar-

ily or advancing maintenance schedules in the interest of the safety of their employees, it added.

Several service sector organ-isations like Kotak Mahindra Bank, TCS, and Infosys have also adopted work from home.

Further, CII suggested voluntary measures for the industry which include the availability of testing for employees, making quaran-tining facilities available for infected employees, awareness drives, and ramping up of vac-cination of employees. PTI

BHUBANESWAR: Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, Odisha has recorded the highest ever OGST (Odisha Good and Ser-vices Tax) collection since the inception of GST during April of the current financial year, an official said on Monday.

The state has collected OGST of Rs 1,126.67 crore dur-ing April this year, the Finance department official said.

The state had collected Rs 927.60 crore OGST during April 2019 and Rs 360.36 crore during last April 2020 (affected by COVID), he said.

The previous highest OGST collection was Rs 954.62 crore

collected in March 2021. The sharp rise in OGST collection during April this year is a result of better compliance, increased collection from the iron and steel sector as well as collection from matured GST demand made by tax officers after return scrutiny, he said.

The Odisha government has also collected Rs 952.43 crore CGST, Rs 1157.05 crore IGST and Rs 613.33 crore cess dur-ing the first month of this fis-cal year.

The total GST collection during April 2021 is also the highest ever with Rs 3,849.48 crore against Rs 2,955.60 crore

collected during April 2019 and Rs 774.29 crore collected dur-ing April 2020.

Since all VAT paying dealers (petrol and liquor) had paid tax till March 25 during the month of March itself, the balance col-lection of remaining five days i.e. Rs 218.95 crore was col-lected during April 2021 with a growth rate of 68.28 per cent, he said.

Out of the above, collec-tion from petroleum prod-ucts registered a growth of 175.31 per cent with collec-tion of Rs 166.87 crore in April 2021 against Rs 60.61 crore in April 2020. PTI

Developed countries need to share technology: SitharamanFinance Minister says one critical point in ramping up the production

(of Coronavirus vaccine) capacity is access to critical raw materials

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman

Sugar output rises to 29.91 mn tonnes till April: ISMA

Sugar Production

Source: ISMA

'11-'12

'01-'02

'03-'04

'05-'06

'07-'08

'09-'10

(Sugar Season: October-September)

In Lakh Tonnes

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Apr 30

On ethanol, ISMA said mills have supplied 117.72 crore litres of ethanol to oil marketing companies till April 19 of this year against the total contracted quantity of 302.53 crore litres, it added

severe body ache.The accused submitted that

since several persons had tested positive for COVID-19 at jail number 8-9 in Tihar, where he was lodged, the pos-sibility of him catching with Covid-19 was very huge as he was 49-years-old and suf-fering from high blood sugar ailments which had signifi-cantly reduced his immunity.

Singh sought interim bail to go to a hospital or a clinic where he could get himself examined for his ailments.

He further submitted that there was a history of heart attack in the accused’s family and therefore, a serious risk existed to his health and life

Court junks interim bail plea of ex-Fortis promoter Malvinder Singh

in the current situation due to COVID-19 second wave. PTI

AI pilots seek restoration of pre-Covid payOdisha records highest ever OGST collection in April

NEW DELHI: State-owned miner National Mineral Development Corporation on Monday posted a 74 per cent jump in its iron ore output at 3.13 million tonne (MT) in April 2021.

The company had produced 1.80 MT iron ore in April 2020, NMDC said in a BSE filing.

During the said month, NMDC has recorded a growth in its sales as well.

In April 2021, its sales was at 3.09 MT, higher from 1.38 MT in same month last year.

National Mineral Develop-ment Corporation (NMDC), under the Ministry of Steel, is India’s single largest iron ore producer, presently producing about 35 MT iron ore annually from its three fully mechanized mines located in Chhattisgarh and Karnataka.

Besides, the company is also involved in the explo-ration of other minerals like copper, rock phosphate, lime stone, dolomite and gypsum. PTI

NMDC output

jumps 3.13 MT in April

NEW DELHI: Markets regu-lator Sebi on Monday said it will auction a property Kerala Housing Finance at a reserve price of Rs 55 lakh on June 4, to recover dues.

The property to be put on sale is a fully furnished flat sit-uated at Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) said in a notice. The move is part of Sebi’s effort to recover inves-tors’ money.

Kerala Housing Finance had garnered funds from investors through issuance of securities without complying with the reg-ulatory norms.

The regulator has engaged Quikr Realty Ltd to assist it for sale of the property, through e-auction platform, C1 India.

In the notice, Sebi has invited bids by June 2, from the intending bidders along with an amount equivalent to 10 per cent of the reserve price as ear-nest money deposit (EMD) for the sale of the property.

The online auction will take

place on June 4, between 11 am and 12 pm. The intending bid-ders should make their own independent enquiries regard-ing the encumbrances, litiga-tions, attachments, acquisition liabilities of the asset in respect of the property put on auction, prior to submitting their bid, as per the notice.

“The successful bidder shall have to deposit 25 per cent of the successful bid amount (inclusive of EMD amount), immediately after the close of the auction and the balance amount along with 1 per cent of highest bid amount as poundage fee within 15 days from close of auction,” it added.

According to a Sebi order, Kerala Housing Finance had issued six series of secured redeemable Non-Convertible Debentures (NCDs) labelled A to F to 23,538 allottees and mobilised funds to the tune of Rs 158 crore during 1999-2014.

In addition, the company had allotted preference shares to a total of 1,071 investors and garnered Rs 19 crore during 2014-15 and 2015-16, as per the order. In August 2017, Sebi had directed Kerala Housing Finance and its promoters as well as directors to refund inves-tors’ money, along with interest, within 180 days. PTI

Kerala Housing Finance case: Sebi to auction property on June 4

CII urges firms to cut work requiring physical presence

CII president Uday Kotak says industry should review operations and minimise use of in-person manpower

NEW DELHI: The food pro-cessing ministry on Mon-day said it has issued detailed guidelines of Rs 10,900 crore production linked incentive scheme that has recently been announced for the growth of the sector. Agriculture and Food Processing Minister Narendra Singh Tomar launched an online portal for Production Linked Incentive Scheme for Food Pro-cessing Industry.

The government has approved a new central sector scheme for implementation dur-ing 2021-22 to 2026-27 with an outlay of Rs 10,900 crore to support creation of global food manufacturing champions and support Indian brands of food products in the international

markets. The ministry is inviting applications for availing sales-based incentives and grants for undertaking branding and mar-keting activities abroad under the scheme from three catego-ries of applicants.

The last date for submission of application is June 17. Under the first category, the appli-cants are large entities which can apply for incentive based on sales and investment crite-ria. Applicants under this cate-gory could undertake branding and marketing activities abroad also and apply for grant under the scheme with a common application.

Under the Category-II, SMEs applicants manufactur-ing innovative/ organic prod-

ucts can apply for PLI Incentive based on Sales. In the third category, applicants can apply solely for grant for undertaking branding and marketing activi-ties abroad. The sales based incentive under the scheme would be paid for six years from 2021-22 to 2026-27 on incremental sales over the base year.

The base year for calcula-tion of incremental sales would be 2019-20 for the first four years. For 5th and 6th years, the base year would be 2021-22 and 2022-23, respectively. Sales should include sales of eligible food products manu-factured by the applicants as well its subsidiaries and con-tract manufactures. PTI

Govt issues norms for `10,900 cr PLI scheme for food processing

ICA- T5296(3)/2021 ICA- T5298(3)/2021

ICA- T5300(3)/2021

GOVERNMENT OF WEST BENGALe-N.IT. No. 29(a) of G.M.(E) – I of 2021-2022 (2nd Call)Tender is invited for above NIT having experience in simi-lar nature of works from any Govt. Organization. Last date of submitting application 17.05.2021 up to 10.00 am. Detailed may be seen in the websites at www.wbhid-coltd.com or https://eauction.gov.in

Sd/-General Manager (Engg.) - I

IMPORT OF COVID-RELIEF MATERIAL

AMID SECOND CORONAVIRUS WAVE

SBI LIFE MARCH QUARTER NET PROFIT NEARLY FLAT AT `532 CRORE NEW DELHI: SBI Life Insurance Company on Mon-day reported a flat net profit at Rs 532 crore for the March 2021 quarter. The life insurer had posted a net profit of Rs 531 crore in the corresponding quarter of the previous financial year 2019-20. Total income in January-March 2021 jumped multi-fold to Rs 20,897 crore, compared with Rs 5,675 crore in year-ago period, SBI Life said in a regulatory filing. Net premium income jumped to Rs 15,556 crore, from Rs 11,863 crore a year ago. For full year, the com-pany’s net profit rose 2 per cent to Rs 1,456 crore in 2020-21, against Rs 1,422 crore in 2019-20.

JSW ENERGY ARM INKS PPA FOR SUPPLY OF 540 MW WIND ENERGYNEW DELHI: JSW Energy on Monday said its arm JSW Renew Energy has inked a power purchase agreement for supply of 540 MW from a total blended wind capacity of 810 MW, which was bagged through a competitive bidding process. JSW Renew Energy Ltd -- a wholly-owned subsidiary of JSW Future Energy Ltd -- has signed a Power Pur-chase Agreement (PPA) with Solar Energy Corpora-tion of India Ltd (SECI) for the contracted capacity of 540 MW out of the total awarded capacity of 810 MW, as per a BSE filing said.

SPICEXPRESS AIRLIFTS 700 OXYGEN CON-CENTRATORS FROM GUANGZHOU TO DELHIMUMBAI: SpiceXpress, the air cargo arm of Spice-Jet, on Monday transported 700 oxygen concentra-tors from Guangzhou (China) to New Delhi amid acute shortage of medical oxygen in the country in the wake of massive spike in the number of Coronavi-rus infection cases pan-India. The airline has airlifted more than 4,400 oxygen concentrators from the USA, Hong Kong, Singapore and China in the last two weeks, SpiceJet said in a release. The B737 freighter aircraft, carrying 700 oxygen concentrators, landed in Delhi at 10 am on Monday, it said.

Business Briefs

10 millenniumpostBusinessmp TUESDAY, 4 MAY, 2021 | NEW DELHI

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: The government on Monday waived Integrated GST (IGST) till June 30 on the import of COVID-related relief material donated or received free of cost from outside India for free distribution.

The Finance Ministry in a statement said the government had received a number of rep-resentations from charitable organisations, corporate enti-ties, and other Associations/ entities outside India seeking exemption from IGST on the import of Covid-19 relief mate-rial, donated/received free of cost from outside India for free distribution.

“Accordingly, the Central Government has ... granted exemption from IGST on import of such goods received free of cost for free distribution for covid relief,” it said, adding the exemption would be appli-cable till June 30.

This exemption would also cover goods already imported but lying uncleared at the Cus-toms ports.

The Government has already exempted from cus-toms duty import of a host of COVID-related relief materi-

als, including Remdesivir injec-tion and its APIs, Inflammatory diagnostic (markers) kits, med-ical grade oxygen, oxygen ther-apy related equipment such as oxygen concentrators, cryo-genic transport tanks, etc, and Covid vaccines.

The IGST exemption given on Monday would be subject to nodal authorities, appointed by the state governments, authorising any entity, relief agency or statutory body, for free distribution of such relief material.

The said goods can be imported free of cost by a state government or, any entity/ relief agency/ statutory body,

authorized in this regard for free distribution anywhere in India.

The importer shall before clearance of goods from Cus-toms produce a certificate from the said nodal authorities that goods are meant for free distri-bution for Covid relief.

After imports, the importer shall produce, to the Deputy or Assistant Commissioner of Customs at the port within a period of six months from the date of importation or within such extended period not exceeding nine months, a statement containing details of goods imported and distrib-uted free of cost.

This statement shall be cer-tified by the said nodal author-ity of the state government.

“This exemption shall thus enable import of the Covid relief supply imported free of cost for free distribution with-out payment of IGST (up to the 30th June, 2021). As cus-toms duty is already exempt , these imports will not attract any customs duty or IGST,” the ministry added.

India’s single day COVID infections had crossed a record

4 lakh mark last week. On Monday, 3.68 lakh new infec-tions and 3,417 deaths were reported.

Last week, the government slashed IGST rate on import of oxygen concentrators for per-sonal use to 12 per cent, from 28 per cent, for two months till June 30.

Under Goods and Services Tax (GST), the tax levied on consumption of goods or ren-dering of service is split 50:50 between the Centre and the state. Such tax is known as Cen-tral-GST or CGST and State-GST or SGST.

On inter-state movement of goods as well as imports, an Integrated-GST or IGST is lev-ied, which accrues to the Cen-tre. The amount paid as IGST can be utilised by businesses for claiming credit while mak-ing CGST or SGST payments at the time of actual sale.

AMRG & Associates Senior Partner Rajat Mohan said, “Government has rightly come up with full IGST relief on import of covid related relief material including oxygen con-centrators, generators, cylin-ders and covid medicines by state government and its autho-rised agencies.”

OUR CORRESPONDENT

NEW DELHI: India’s manu-facturing sector activity was largely flat in April, as rates of growth for new orders and output eased to eight-month lows amid the inten-sification of the COVID-19 crisis, a monthly survey said on Monday.

The seasonally adjusted IHS Markit India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) was at 55.5 in April, lit-tle changed from March’s read-ing of 55.4.

In PMI parlance, a print above 50 means expansion while a score below 50 denotes contraction.

“The PMI results for April showed a further slowdown in rates of growth for new orders and output, both of which eased to eight-month lows amid the intensification of the COVID-19 crisis,” said Pollyanna De Lima, Econom-ics Associate Director at IHS Markit.

Lima also noted that “the surge in COVID-19 cases could dampen demand further when firms’ financials are already susceptible to the hurdle of ris-ing global prices.”

The daily COVID-19 cases in India showed a slight dip with 3,68,147 new coronavi-rus infections being reported in a day, taking the total tally of cases to 1,99,25,604, according to the Union Health Ministry data updated on Monday.

“The headwinds fac-ing manufacturers cannot be

ignored, however. The surge in COVID-19 cases could dampen demand further when firms’ financials are already susceptible to the hurdle of ris-ing global prices,” Pollyanna De Lima said.

On the prices front, sur-vey participants also signalled a steep increase in input costs, the quickest since July 2014, and upward revisions to sell-ing prices.

“April saw the steepest increase in input costs for nearly seven years drive the sharpest upturn in output charges since October 2013. Data for the coming months will be important at verify-ing whether client demand is resilient to these challenges or if producers will have to fur-ther absorb cost burdens them-selves to secure new work,”

Lima said.The survey, however, noted

that while output and sales increased at the slowest rates since last August due to an intensification of the COVID-19 crisis, there was a faster upturn in international orders.

New export orders increased for the eighth con-secutive month in April and at the fastest rate since Octo-ber 2020.

The rise was associated with a pick-up in international demand for Indian goods, the survey said.

On the job front, although manufacturing employment continued to fall, the rate of contraction recorded in April was marginal and the weak-est in the current 13-month sequence of job shedding, it noted.

MUMBAI: Equity benchmark Sensex staged a smart recovery from the day’s low to end with marginal losses on Monday, propped up by robust buying in FMCG and telecom counters.

Reliance Industries and banking stocks accounted for most of the losses, while a rebounding rupee also pro-vided support, traders said.

After plunging over 750 points in early trade, the 30-share BSE index made a U-turn to finish 63.84 points or 0.13 per cent lower at 48,718.52.

In similar movement, the broader NSE Nifty closed 3.05 points or 0.02 per cent higher at 14,634.15.

Titan was the top laggard in the Sensex pack, shedding 4.58 per cent, followed by IndusInd

Bank, Reliance Industries, Axis Bank, Kotak Bank, ITC, SBI,

ONGC and ICICI Bank.On the other hand, Bharti

Airtel, HUL, Maruti, Bajaj Finance, Asian Paints, NTPC and Nestle India were among the gainers, climbing up to 3.98 per cent.

Sectorally, BSE consumer durables, energy, bankex, oil and gas, realty and finance indices fell up to 1.99 per cent, while telecom, metal, FMCG, industrials and basic materials closed in the green.

Broader BSE midcap and smallcap indices outperformed the benchmark, spurting as much as 1.57 per cent.

Meanwhile, international oil benchmark Brent crude was trading 0.63 per cent lower at $66.34 per barrel. PTI

MUMBAI: The newly-appointed Deputy Governor T Rabi Sankar will look after eight departments, including currency management, infor-mation technology, and foreign exchange, the Reserve Bank of India said on Monday.

Earlier in the day, Sankar took over as the fourth Deputy Governor of Reserve Bank of India for a period of three years. He was Executive Director of the Reserve Bank before being elevated to the post of Deputy Governor.

Consequent on appointment of Sankar as Deputy Governor, the central bank rejigged the portfolios of deputy governors.

The key monetary policy department remains with M D Patra.

Sankar will also look after, departments of external invest-ments and operations, gov-ernment and bank accounts, payment and settlement sys-tems, and internal debt man-agement, besides Right to Information (RIA) Division.

There are nine departments under deputy governor M K Jain. They include, departments of co-ordination, central secu-rity cell, consumer education

and protection, supervision, human resource management, and rajbhasha.

Patra will look after corpo-rate strategy and budget depart-ment, department of economic and policy research, depart-ment of statistics and infor-mation management, Deposit Insurance and Credit Guaran-tee Corporation, financial mar-kets operations department, and financial stability unit, among others.

There are six departments under deputy governor M Rajeshwar Rao. He has been assigned with department of regulation, department of communication, enforcement department, inspection depart-ment, legal department and risk monitoring department. PTI

MUMBAI: With the second wave of the pandemic disrupt-ing supply chains for most industries, India Ratings has projected an overall 6 per cent median revenue growth for cor-porates this fiscal over FY20.

However, this will be a high 21.2 per cent over FY21, the year of the pandemic when half of the year was almost lost in lock-dwons; and the forecast is more than its own earlier assumption of 4.4 per cent, though. The ser-vice-oriented sector is the worst

hit so far when it comes to sup-ply-side disruption from the second wave of the pandemic, the report said on Monday, add-ing this has pushed back their recovery beyond FY22.

While FY22 is likely to be better than FY20 for most of the sectors due to an improvement in revenue benefitting largely from elevated prices and pent-up demand resulting in higher volume growth, volatile com-modity prices along with inter-est rates reversal and the rupee

fall are likely to cap profitability, the report added. “Given these, we expect an overall median revenue growth of 6 per cent for corporates in FY22 over FY20 and 21.2 per cent over FY21,” India Ratings said, and pointed out this is an increase from its earlier estimate of a median growth of 4.4 per cent.

The gains in FY22 is pri-marily a result of some level of consolidation resulting in bipolarisation, meaning larger companies growing faster than

smaller ones, it said. Moreover, excess cash used for deleverag-ing across sectors will result in higher operating leverage sup-porting the overall credit profile of corporates, the agency noted.

But sectors like pharma, chemicals, cement and steel may witness some capex on account of higher liquidity cushion with them, it added. Lower revenue growth is likely to test the credit profile in FY23 due to the mod-eration in consumption and investment demand outlook

and smoothening out of sup-ply chain issues, and the con-sequent possible moderation in prices, Ind-Ra said. Noting that discretionary bucket is the worst hit, the report says within the essential bucket, telecom is likely to benefit from consoli-dation while improvement in fertilisers is likely to be driven by expected subsidies, thereby reducing working capital needs.

Within the non-discretion-ary bucket logistics and ports are likely to see growth on account

of expectation of strong GDP growth, the oil and gas sector is likely to witness contraction due to higher commodity prices, and IT and paper sectors are likely to witness an improvement on the back of higher demand, the report said. Industrials, goods and services, and cycli-cal sectors like steel, logistics, cement, construction, commer-cial realty are likely to be mar-ginally better off and may see a recovery in the first half from FY20 levels. PTI

Govt waives IGST on material donated for free distributionThe said goods can be imported free of cost by a state govt or, any

entity/ relief agency/ statutory body, authorised in this regard

Highlights » This exemption would also cover goods already imported but lying uncleared at the Customs ports » This exemption shall thus enable import of the Covid relief supply imported free of cost for free distribution without payment of IGST (up to the 30th June, 2021). » As customs duty is already exempt , these imports will not attract any customs duty or IGST

‘Mfg activity rise at slowest rate in 8 months in April’

India Manufacturing PMI

KBK graphicsInfoSources: Nikkei, IHS Markit

50 = No change on previous month (Seasonally adjusted)

Increasing

rate of

growth

2020

Increasing

rate of

contraction

PMI: Purchasing

Managers' Index

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2021

27

.4 30

.8

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.2

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.0

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.0 53

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.9

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.3

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.4

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.5

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.4

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MayApr Jun Jul Aug OctSep Nov Dec FebJan Mar Apr

Markets recoup initial losses to end flat as Sensex falls 64 points, Nifty tops 14,600

MUMBAI: The rupee rose by 14 paise to close a nearly one-month high of 73.95 against the US dollar on Monday following losses in the American currency in the global markets.

A fall in crude oil prices and positive economic data helped the local unit pare early losses.

The rupee had opened lower at 74.25 and hit the day’s low of 74.33 later in line with early losses in the domestic equities.

The local unit, however, pared its losses in afternoon trade on the back of dollar sale by exporters, positive manu-facturing data and a recovery in stock indices.

The rupee touched a high of 73.90 before closing at 73.95, the highest closing level since

April 6.“Rupee started the month

on positive note amid lower dollar and recovery in domes-tic equities,” said Dilip Par-mar, Research Analyst, HDFC Securities.

The rupee became the best-performing unit among Asian currencies on Monday. Senti-ment turned positive for rupee and equity markets after better-than-expected April manufac-turing PMI activities, Parmar said.

According to Sriram Iyer, Senior Research Analyst at Reliance Securities, the rupee appreciated against the US cur-rency on Monday, as exporters’ dollar sales as well as inflows outweighed the impact of weak Asian cues.

The unit had fallen to an intra-day low of 74.33 earlier in the session on rising COVID-19 cases in the country that could hamper the country’s growth outlook. PTI

Rupee rises by 14 paise to close at nearly 1 month high against $US

NEW DELHI: The country’s largest lender SBI on Monday announced allocating Rs 71 crore towards the fight against COVID-19, a part of which will be used to set up a makeshift 1,000-bed hospital for the treat-ment of patients in some of the worst-affected states.

State Bank of India (SBI) has allocated Rs 71 crore to under-take various support initiatives to combat the second wave of COVID-19, SBI said in a release.

The state-owned lender has allocated Rs 30 crore for a makeshift hospital while Rs 21 crore will be used to sup-port initiatives such as procure-ment of life-saving healthcare equipment, oxygen supply to hospitals, Covid-care centres, ambulances, PPE kits, masks as well as food relief efforts.

Besides, Rs 10 crore will be used to supplement gov-ernment’s effort in genome sequencing, and Rs 10 crore will be earmarked to collabo-rate with on-ground NGOs to address the community needs, SBI said. The bank will con-tinue to serve citizens through its extensive network of over 22,000 branches.

The facilities would be set up in collaboration with gov-ernment hospitals and munic-ipal corporations of the needy cities. SBI is in talks with vari-ous designated authorities to explore partnerships for setting up makeshift hospitals. PTI

SBI allocates `71 cr to

fight Covid

Reserve Bank allocates portfolios to its four deputy governors

NEW DELHI: The Centre on Monday said wheat procure-ment rose over 70 per cent to 292.52 lakh tonnes so far in the ongoing 2021-22 rabi market-ing season, benefitting about 28.80 lakh farmers.

State-owned Food Corpo-ration of India (FCI) and state agencies are undertaking pro-curement operations at a mini-mum support price (MSP).

In the year-ago period, wheat procurement stood at 171.53 lakh tonnes.

This year, Haryana and Punjab switched from indi-rect payment of MSP to direct online transfers to farmers’ bank accounts following a cen-tral government direction.

“Wheat procurement is going on at a brisk pace in the procuring states/UTs of Pun-

jab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Chandigarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and other states with purchase of over 292.52 lakh tonne up to May 2, 2021,” the food ministry said in a statement.

Punjab, Haryana and Mad-hya Pradesh are three states that have contributed in a big way to the wheat procurement so far.

Wheat procurement in Punjab has reached 114.76 lakh tonnes, Haryana 80.55 lakh tonnes, and Madhya Pradesh 73.76 lakh tonnes up to May 2 of this marketing season, it said.

About 28.80 lakh wheat farmers have already been benefited from the ongoing procurement operations, it added. PTI

‘Wheat procurement up 70% to 292.52L tonnes’

‘Corporate revenue seen growing 6% in FY22’Service-oriented sector is the worst hit so far when it comes to supply-side disruption

11millenniumpost Sport mpNEW DELHI | TUESDAY, 4 MAY, 2021

SA WIN MEN’S 4X100 METRES AT WORLD RELAYS C’SHIPS

South Africa’s Akani Simbine, second from left, reacts after winning the Men’s 4x100 Metres Relay final in the Athletics World Relays Championships - Silesia21 in Chorzow, Poland PTI

COVID-19 bursts IPL bubble: KKR-RCB match postponed

CSK NON-PLAYING STAFF ALSO INFECTED

NEW DELHI: A COVID-19 outbreak left the star-sprinkled IPL on tenterhooks as Kolkata Knight Riders' Varun Chakra-varthy and Sandeep Warrier tested positive for the dreaded virus, forcing postponement of their game against Royal Chal-lengers Bangalore, while cases also came to light in the Chen-nai Super Kings camp.

The match, which was to be held in Ahmedabad this eve-ning, will be rescheduled some time later during the tourna-ment, which will conclude on May 30.

"Varun Chakravarthy and Sandeep Warrier were found to be positive in the third round of testing in the last four days. All other team members have tested negative for COVID-19," the league, which features the biggest names in international cricket, said in a press release.

Apart from this, Chennai Super Kings CEO Kasi Viswa-nathan, bowling coach L Bal-aji and a bus cleaner with the contingent tested positive on Sunday. A top BCCI official, after declaring all three cases to be "false positives", later clari-fied that Balaji along with the unnamed cleaner had come out

positive even in the repeat test."Three members of CSK

contingent, CEO Kasi, bowl-ing coach L Balaji and a bus driver had tested positive in the morning followed by negative Rapid Antigen test report," the source said.

"However second RT-PCR report found Balaji and bus driver positive again. The oth-ers in the team especially playing members have tested negative,"

he added.CSK, currently based in

Delhi, suspended their train-ing for the day and are sched-uled to face Rajasthan Royals on May 5. The team had been hit by COVID cases even in the 2020 edition which was held in the UAE.

There was cause of concern in Delhi too as a few grounds-men at the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium, which is due to host

Mumbai Indians vs SunRisers Hyderabad on Tuesday, have also tested positive for the virus.

However, Delhi and Districts Cricket Association (DDCA) chief Rohan Jaitley asserted that "none of the groundsmen on duty" are among them.

The BCCI continued to insist that the league will go on but Monday's developments have definitely cast a shadow on how the COVD-19 threat

would be managed for an event being staged across six venues -- two at one time.

Leg-spinner Chakravarthy and pacer Warrier, both 30, have been isolated and the rest of the KKR contingent has returned negative reports for now. Of the two, Warrier has not yet made the playing XI in any of the seven matches KKR have played.

"The Medical Team is in continuous touch with the duo and are monitoring their health. Meanwhile, the Kolkata Knight Riders have now moved towards a daily testing routine to iden-tify any other possible cases and treat them at the earliest," the IPL stated.

"The Medical Team is also determining the close and casual contacts of the two pos-itive cases during the 48 hours prior to collection of the sample that returned the positive test results," it added.

KKR last played on April 29 against Delhi Capitals in Ahmedabad and the develop-ment is bound to trigger anxiety in the league, which had been going along smoothly so far in a bio-secure bubble in front of empty stands. AGENCIES

KKR's Varun Chakravarthy and Sandeep Warrier tested positive for the dreaded virus, forcing postponement of their game against RCB

India 2nd in ICC T20 rankings, drop to third in ODI chart

DUBAI: India retained the sec-ond place in the ICC Twenty20 team rankings but dropped a rung to third in the ODI chart following the annual update carried out on Monday.

India are trailing top-ranked England (277) by five rating points in the T20 team rankings.

During this period, Eng-land drew a three-match series against Pakistan 1-1, defeated Australia 2-1 and South Africa 3-0 before losing an away series to India by a 2-3 margin.

New Zealand have also gained in the annual T20I update, moving up from fifth to third after series wins over the West Indies, Pakistan, Aus-tralia and Bangladesh. Austra-lia have moved the other way, down from third to fifth.

In other movements at the top of the T20I rankings table, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have gained one place each to reach eighth and ninth posi-tions, respectively, while the West Indies have dropped two places to 10th.

According to the ICC, these updates eliminate results from 2017-18 and halve the weight-ing of matches played in 2019-20, which includes the 2019 World Cup.

In the annual update of the ODI Team rankings, India dropped a place to third behind Australia and new table toppers New Zealand.

The Kiwis have replaced reigning world champions Eng-land as the number one ranked side in the ODI rankings.

New Zealand, who defeated

Bangladesh 3-0 in their only ODI series during the past year, have advanced two slots after gaining three rating points to reach an aggregate of 121. Australia are second with 118 points while India and England are both on 115, with the for-mer ahead on decimal points.

England's slip down to fourth position comes in the second annual update since they won the ICC Men''s Cricket World Cup at Lord's in the summer of 2019.

In the past 12 months, Eng-land have suffered 1-2 series losses to Australia and India, as well as an ODI lost to Ireland.

The latest update, that rates all matches played since May 2020 at 100 per cent and those of the previous two years at 50 per cent, sees Australia move up two places from fourth to second and India drop one place to third. The West Indies have overtaken Sri Lanka to ninth position.

The Netherlands have been

allowed to retain their rank-ing despite only having played four ODIs during the new rat-ing period, since their sched-uled fixtures were postponed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

There has been no change of places in either format for Afghanistan, Pakistan or South Africa. Afghanistan are 10th in ODIs and seventh in T20Is, Pakistan are sixth in ODIs and fourth in T20Is while South Africa are fifth in ODIs and sixth in T20Is.

Despite the pandemic, 80 countries have played the req-uisite six T20Is over the past three years to remain in the rankings. Five countries have lost their ranking after the update -- Gambia, Ghana, Hungary, Sierra Leone and Sweden.

The annual update to the Test rankings will be carried out following the conclusion of the ongoing Pakistan-Zim-babwe series. AGENCIES

There is no going back now: Teams after Covid breaches IPL's water-tight bubble

NEW DELHI: Players, espe-cially overseas recruits, are feeling edgier following the emergence of two COVID-19 cases in the Kolkata Knight Riders camp on Monday but teams feel "there is no going back" and the IPL should continue despite the ever-increasing threat of the raging pandemic.

Questions are being raised on how a strict bio-bubble created for the world's big-gest T20 league was breached after KKR's Varun Chakravar-thy and Sandeep Warrier got infected with the deadly virus.

Foreign players, who were already anxious about getting home with travel restricted from India, are a more wor-ried lot.

"There is no going back now with half of the tournament done. The news (positive cases in KKR) makes the BCCI's job more challenging," a franchise official said.

"We have been hearing that a player got infected because

he was taken outside the bub-ble for scans. So, it could have happened outside the bubble. As far as I know, everyone is strictly following the protocols laid out by the BCCI and there was no breach there," he added.

Another team official said the tournament should con-tinue as long as more teams are not affected by the virus.

"Even if you have to pause the tournament, how long can you hold back? The only way is to keep isolating the posi-tive cases and keep playing. The players are naturally more anxious now but it is mainly because they are not sure about how they would get back home," said the official.

UK, Australia and New Zealand have banned travel-

lers from India and a sizable number of players competing in the IPL are from the these countries.

Some foreign players like Australia's Adam Zampa, Kane Richardson and Andrew Tye left in the nick of time before travel bans came into effect but most of them have chosen to stay back and see out the event ending May 30.

"We should let the BCCI decide what is best for all of us. Flooding them with too many opinions on what should be done following the cases at KKR would only lead to more confusion," said another top official of a team.

Five-time winners Mumbai Indians were already testing their players on a daily basis

and other teams are likely to follow that in the wake of cases at KKR.

KKR players have been told to isolate in the room and even teams like Delhi Capitals have told its players and support staff to stay in their rooms after the development on Monday.

The two sides played each other four days ago.

"Following the news, we have been told to stay in our rooms and strictly follow the protocols. The players are fully aware that the situation outside is grim and the IPL bio bubble is a much safer environment at this point in time," said a sup-port staff member of a leading franchise.

A former India player com-peting in the league summed it up aptly.

"There is a lot of anxiety among players. Obviously we are being tested every second day but looking at the situation in the country, you are always scared what next in case you test positive," he said. AGENCIES

Sri Lanka all-rounder

Perera retires from int’l cricket

COLOMBO: Sri Lanka all-rounder and former captain Thisara Perera on Monday announced his retirement from international cricket with immediate effect.

Perera, in his letter submit-ted to Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC), said that he feels the time is right for him to step aside and pave the way for the younger crop.

The 32-year-old, who repre-sented Sri Lanka in six Tests, 166 ODIs and 84 T20s, is expected to keep playing franchise cricket around the world.

"I take pride in the fact that I was able to represent Sri Lanka in seven cricket World Cups and be a contributing member of the 2014 T20 World Cup win against India in Bangladesh. Easily the highlight of My Life," Perera mentioned in his letter to SLC.

SLC acknowledged Perera's contribution to the success of the national team.

"Thisara was a brilliant all-rounder, who has contributed immensely as a player to Sri Lanka Cricket and played a part in some of the glorious cricket-ing moments of the country," said SLC CEO Ashley De Silva in a statement. AGENCIES

Valencia fires coach Javi

Gracia with team 14th in

La LigaVALENCIA: Valencia fired coach Javi Gracia on Monday with the club placed 14th in Spain's La Liga though safer from the relegation threat it faced in mid-season.

Valencia thanked Gracia, who previously coached Wat-ford in the English Premier League, for his "work and ded-ication during these months" since he was appointed in July.

After a 3-2 loss Sunday at home to Barcelona, Valencia is set for its worst league finish in more than 30 years. The club sold forwards Ferran Torres and Rodrigo in the offseason to Manchester City and Leeds, respectively.

Valencia has parted with seven full-time coaches hired since owner Peter Lim took over the club in 2014. AGENCIES

Messi strikes twice in 2nd half to keep Barcelona near topMADRID: Lionel Messi came through for Barcelona again, keeping the Spanish league's title race wide open.

Messi scored two second-half goals on Sunday -- includ-ing his 50th from a free kick -- as Barcelona came from behind to beat Valencia 3-2 and get within two points of leader Atl tico Madrid ahead of their key match at the Camp Nou Stadium next weekend.

A win will give Ronald Koe-man's team the league lead for the first time this season.

Antoine Griezmann also scored for Barcelona, which

is tied on points with second-place Madrid with four rounds to go. Madrid has a better head-to-head tiebreaker against both rivals at the top. Sevilla also remains in the title race. It can move within three points of the lead if it beats Athletic Bilbao at home on Monday. Sevilla visits Madrid next weekend.

Barcelona made the trip to Valencia under pressure after both Atl tico and Madrid won their matches on Saturday Atl tico edged Elche 1-0 and Madrid defeated Osasuna 2-0. The Catalan club was coming off a shock 2-1 home loss to

Granada on Thursday, when it could have grabbed sole pos-session of the lead.

"It was an important win to keep us in the fight after that unexpected loss," Barcelona

captain Gerard Piqu said."We'll try to win next week-

end and take the lead. It's in our hands."

The pressure increased Sun-day after Valencia opened the scoring at the Mestalla Stadium with Gabriel Paulista's goal in the 50th minute. The mid-fielder beat Barcelona defender Cl ment Lenglet to the ball for an easy header by the far post. Video review was used to check on a possible foul away from the ball but the goal stood.

Messi led Barcelona's recovery.

The Argentina star equal-

ized in the 57th in the fallout of his own penalty kick after his poor shot from the spot was saved by Valencia goalkeeper Jasper Cillessen. Barcelona midfielders Sergio Busquets and Pedri Gonz lez both had attempts before Messi got to the loose ball and scored from close range.

Griezmann netted the go-ahead goal six minutes later off another save from Cillessen. The former Barcelona goal-keeper stopped a header from Frenkie De Jong but Griez-mann came in unmarked to score easily.

Messi's second goal came with a beautifully struck free kick that curled over the wall and hit the post before going into the net in the 69th. His milestone 50th goal from a free kick increased his tally at the top of the league's scoring charts, leaving him on 28 goals.

It was Messi's ninth double in the league this season, and third in his last five matches in all competitions.

Valencia pulled one closer with a long-range strike by Carlos Soler in the 83rd but it couldn't find the equalizer. AGENCIES

Griezmann also scored for Barca, which is tied on points with 2nd-place Madrid with 4 rounds to go

CA to donate AUD 50K to

support IndiaMELBOURNE: Cricket Aus-tralia on Monday pledged 50,000 Australian dollars to support India's fight against the devastating second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and will also raise more funds in partnership with its players' association and UNICEF.

India's daily cases have been upwards of 3 lakh on most days for the past couple of weeks and have also breached the 4 lakh mark. The death toll has been rising by over 3,000 everyday, according to official figures.

"Australian Cricket will throw its support behind India's COVID-19 Crisis Appeal, with Cricket Austra-lia, the Australian Cricketers; Association and UNICEF Aus-tralia partnering to raise much needed funds," CA said in a statement.

"Australian Cricket has been deeply saddened by the devastation caused by this sec-ond Coronavirus wave to hit India, a country with which Australians share a strong friendship and connection.

"Cricket Australia will make an initial donation of AUD 50,000 and encour-age Australians everywhere to give generously at this cru-cial time in India's COVID-19 response." AGENCIES

Sri Lanka clinch series with 2nd Test win over BangladeshPALLEKELE: Praveen Jaya-wickrama took a match haul of 11 wickets on debut to help Sri Lanka clinch a series win over Bangladesh on Monday with a 209-run victory in the second test.

Sri Lanka needed five wick-ets for victory on the final day and Jayawickrama accounted for three of them to finish with combined figures of 11-178.

It was the 10th-best return by a test bowler on debut and the best by a Sri Lankan, improving on Akila Danan-

jaya's 8-44 against Bangladesh three years ago. He was voted player of the match.

After trapping Liton Das for 17 in his second over of the morning with an arm ball, the 22-year-old left-arm spinner claimed the last two Bangla-deshi wickets in the space of three deliveries to finish with 5-85 in the second innings to back up his first-innings effort of 6-92.

Sri Lanka captain Dimuth Karunaratne, who was voted player of the series after scor-

ing 428 runs including a dou-ble-century, century and a half-century in three innings, described the performance of inexperienced spinners Jayaw-ickrama and Ramesh Mendis as fantastic.

At a time when we didn't have anyone experienced, they came and bowled like experi-enced players, and performed their roles as they should," he said.

"Praveen did his job per-fectly well. He played like a bowler who had more than his

10 first-class matches."It's a great sign for the

future of our test cricket. The seniors just gave them confi-dence. Some players can panic at times when they come into the test arena (but) Praveen absorbed pressure really well.

Bangladesh lost its last three wickets within eight balls with the total on 227.

Off-spinner Ramesh Men-dis finished with four wickets, complementing the orthodox spin of Jayawickrama, who flighted the ball, found drift

and lot of assistance from a crumbling wicket.

The two front-line spinners shared the bulk of the bowl-ing, sending down 60 overs in the second innings and claim-ing nine wickets between them.

Jayawickrama said the test call up came as a surprise.

It was childhood dream to play for Sri Lanka one day. Playing the test match was a dream come true and to get 11 wickets in the game is simply unbelievable, he said.

There was a bit of pressure

leading into the game but there was lot of support from the skipper and the senior players."

Bangladesh's batters strug-gled, with nobody scoring a half-century. Mushfiqur Rahim top scored with 40.

Bangladesh had been bowled out for 251 in its first innings in reply to Sri Lanka's 493-7. Despite a first-innings lead of 242, Sri Lanka did not enforce the follow-on, instead batting again and declaring on 194-9 to set Bangladesh a target of 437. AGENCIES

UK, Australia and New Zealand have banned travellers from India and a sizable number of players competing in the IPL are from the these countries

Pat Cummins of Kolkata Knight Riders during a match of the Indian Premier League 2021 PTI

12 millenniumpostEntertainmentmpTUESDAY, 4 MAY, 2021 | NEW DELHI

LOS ANGELES: ‘Dunkirk’ star Aneurin Barnard and ‘Game of Thrones’ actor Anton Lesser are part of an ensemble cast for Netflix’s upcoming European series ‘1899’.

The multi-lingual project is a new series from ‘Dark’ cre-ators Jantje Friese and Baran bo Odar, reported ‘Deadline’.

The two actors join Eng-lish-American star Emily Bee-cham, who had joined the cast in December 2020.

German actor Andreas Pietschmann, who played one of the

lead roles in ‘Dark’, which con-cluded with its third season in 2020, will also feature in the new show.

Miguel Bernardeau, Maciej Musial,

Lucas Lynggaard Tonnesen, Rosa-

lie Craig, Clara Rosager, Maria Erwolter, Yann Gael, Mathilde Ollivier, Jose Pimentao, Isabella Wei, Gabby Wong, Jonas Bloquet, Fflyn Edwards and Alexandre Willaume round out the cast.

‘1899’, which is the first project under Friese and Odar’s overall deal with ‘Net-flix’, is a period-horror about European migrants on a fright-filled journey to the US.

The story will follow the lives of the boat’s passengers, a mixed bag of European origins who are united by their hopes and dreams for the new cen-tury and their future abroad.

When they discover another migrant ship adrift on the open sea, their jour-ney takes an unexpected turn. What they find on board will turn their passage to the prom-ised land into a nightmare. PTI

Raveena Tandon talked about ‘negative people’ in the film industry. The

Bollywood actor shared her experience about dealing with social media trolls when she noted that there are some nega-tive people in the industry as well. She also pointed out that some of them became produc-ers who make actors ‘dance to their tunes’.

“I like the reach that we have with social media. I think it is a boon and yes it can be a bane sometimes with these negativi-ties and trolls. But we have been dealing with them forever, as far as we actors are concerned. We have been dealing with them through various publications as well. There is a bunch of nega-

tive people, some of who have become producers and are mak-ing actors dance to their tunes. Although such people are still around, I kept away from them then and continue to do so even now,” she shared.

Tandon added, “I do not respond to trolls. I just cut them away from my life. I think that is the best thing that one can

do. One should stay around positive people who think and mean well for you and are good themselves.”

Raveena further revealed that she managed to wrap her work commitments ahead of the restrictions imposed in Maha-rashtra. She said that there was some dubbing work left which she completed.

“At the moment, it is so risky. We should try and help our frontline warriors, the medical facilities and infrastructure. The chief minister is requesting to try and break the chain of cases. That is the most important duty to do so,” she concluded.

On the work front, Raveena Tandon will be seen next in ‘KGF: Chapter 2’. AGENCIES

LOS ANGELES: Oscar-win-ner Lupita Nyong’o said that the upcoming sequel to super-hero blockbuster ‘Black Pan-ther’ will honour the legacy of lead star Chadwick Boseman, whose untimely death in 2020 still feels ‘extremely raw’ to her.

Boseman, who played the titular superhero in Marvel Stu-dios’ 2018 smash hit movie as well as two ‘Avengers’ films died at the age of 43 in August 2020 after a secretive four-year-long battle with colon cancer.

The studio and the film’s director Ryan Coogler

had started work-ing on the much-

awaited sequel, which will not be recast-ing Bose-man’s role of T’Challa, that is, super-hero Black

Panther.Nyong’o, who

played the role of Nakia in the movie, said

that it is still difficult for her to process Boseman’s death.

“People will ask me, ‘Are you excited to go back?’ Excite-ment is not the word. I feel like

I’m in a very pensive and med-itative state when it comes to ‘Black Panther 2’. His passing is still extremely raw for me. I cannot even begin to imagine what it will be like to step on set and not have him there,” said the 38-year-old actor.

Nyong’o asserted that direc-tor Coogler is trying his best to honour Boseman and his leg-acy with the new movie.

“At the same time, we have a leader in Ryan, who feels very much like we do, who feels the

loss in a real way as well. And his idea, the way which he has reshaped the second movie is so respectful of the loss we have all experienced as a cast and as a world. So it feels spiritually and emotionally correct to do this,” she mentioned.

Lupita further said, “And hopefully, what I do look for-ward to, is getting back together and honouring what he started with us and holding his light through it as he left a light that we are still going to bathe in.” PTI

Hollywood star Eddie Murphy said that he is very grounded and

spiritual and that these traits reveal his connection with god.

“I am very grounded and spiritual and that is just my connection with God. Being a young person in this business is like you have to navigate through a minefield. There are so many ways you could destroy yourself. A lot of people I have seen destroy themselves,” said Murphy on ‘The Drew Barry-more Show’.

The actor’s assertion came when Barrymore asked him if he had ‘avoided some of the pitfalls in life because of spirituality’.

Eddie Murphy further said that his contemporaries such as Michael Jackson, Prince and Whitney Houston had a self-destructive thing.

“The people who came on the scene the same age as I am, they had a self-destructive thing

going on. That is my biggest blessing that I got started early and I knew what I wanted to do and I was young and I

learned to love myself and never hated myself or beat up myself. I have always been my biggest fan,” Murphy

shared. AGENCIES

‘I just cut trolls away from my life’Raveena stays away from negative people who have become producers and make actors dance to their tunes

The actor says one should stay around positive people who think and mean well for you and are good themselves

I am very grounded: Eddie

The Oscar-

winner said that Boseman’s untimely

death still feels ‘extremely raw’

to her

Lupita feels pained to process Chadwick’s death

Gottileb is all about posing in a funky mode with purple goggles

LaurenAneurin, Anton come on board for ‘1899’The upcoming ‘Netflix’ series is a period horror about European migrants on a fright-filled journey to the US

Hrithik donates `11 lakh to ‘Help India Breathe’

Many B’wood actors dedicated their social media accounts to amplify resources

Hrithik Roshan came forward to help India fight against the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. The ‘War’

star contributed 15,000 dollars (approximately Rs 11.10 lakh) towards a fundraiser started by international author

and podcaster Jay Shetty.Jay started the fundraiser ‘Help India

Breathe’ to raise one million to help India pro-cure resources to fight against the Corona-virus. Taking to his ‘Instagram’ handle, Jay revealed that Hrithik joined international stars

Will and Jada Smith, Ellen DeGe-neres, Brendon Burchard, Camila Cabello and others to contribute towards the fund. The Smith fam-ily donated 50,000 dollars; Ellen

contributed 59,000 dollars and Shawn and Camila individu-ally donated 50,000 dollars and

6000 dollars.Several Bollywood stars

had also come forward to dedi-cate their social media account to amplify resources, including finding hospital beds and oxy-gen supplies. These include Taap-see Pannu, Bhumi Pednekar and Alia Bhatt. Sonu Sood had been involved in relief efforts since the beginning of the pandemic. AGENCIES

To raise COVID-19 relief funds, H’wood celebrities also contributed towards the fundraiser started by author and podcaster Jay Shetty

Murphy shared that the reason him being spiritual is because of his connection with god